Merry Christmas

After unpacking from vacation, working a couple of days and doing some last minute shopping, we repacked our suitcase and the car and headed to Mitchell, SD for Christmas. We had a great visit. It was a special Christmas because all of Cory's siblings were able to be home for the holildays.

Curtis was able to return home after 9 years and it was wonderful to see him.

Chloe is doing well and it gets more difficult to keep her from running around. She thinks she can use her knee fully and although it appears healed, she still has 4 weeks before she gets an xray. At that time she will either get the go ahead to run freely or will have another 4 weeks of recovery. We are keeping our fingers crossed that she will be able to return to her normal routine sooner than later.

Cabo San Lucas

Somewhat last minute, we decided to take a vacation to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico for a little bit of sunshine and R & R. Everyone had a wonderful time and we could not keep Vivian out of the pool. Both girls did not love the beach...however, mom and dad loved the walks (great exercise). We stayed close to the marina so we were able to walk into town each evening for dinner. The whales were migrating so we were fortunate to have a couple sitings, quite amazing! Cory also celebrated his 40th birthday on a pirates ship with some shots of tequila and a few margaritas!

Chloe Day 14

It's been two weeks since Chloe has had her surgery and is doing great! Cory cut out the remaining 2-3 sutures on Sunday and the incision is healing and is closed up (thank goodness). We can thank the E-collar for that.
As you can see, the collar doesn't bother her and she tolerates it well. She also sleeps downstairs by herself with her collar on and Christmas music playing in the background. With us leaving on vacation Saturday, I feel a lot better that she seems to be on her way to recovery. Amber, a co-worker of Steph's, will be staying at the house to watch Chloe for us.

Vivi is getting excited for vacation. She kept asking "when are we going to the pool?" She has all her swimming stuff ready to go!

Decorating the Tree

Today we decorated the house and put up our trees. We put up our small one in the front entry way and the "Hallmark" tree in the basement. We decided we'd pass on our real tree this year because we would be gone on vacation and traveling to South Dakota this year for Christmas. Vivian was up from her nap early so she helped mom trim the tree with the ornaments. It was amazing how long it kept her attention and stuck with it till the end. Surprisingly, Alaina doesn't really take any interest in it.

Santa & St. Nicholas

This morning the girls had their picture taken with Santa. Vivian did great and was not frightened at all. Alaina did not cry, but definitely did not want to sit on his lap. It took a little bribing with fruit snacks.
Later that evening we had the St. Nicholas Party at the Parish School. This is an annual event sponsored by the Knights of Columbus. Again Vivi did well sitting on his lap but Alaina was terrified! The girls had a lot of fun running around with all the other kids. I guess I would say Alaina ran around and Vivi chased after her.

Chloe Day 7

Chloe's sutures were looking better by Monday morning so we chose not to bring her in. However, while we were upstairs eating dinner, she was back licking on them again and removed some more sutures. Stephanie took her into the vet in St. Michael this morning to make sure they looked ok. The vet said that there was no gapping and that that the incision is swollen and slightly red. He expects it to be swollen, but does not want to see the redness around the incision. The important part is to prevent her from getting an infection. She is already on antibiotics from the surgery, but will now have to wear an E-collar (lampshade) at all times when we are not present. The remaining stitches will be removed Friday or Monday.

Alaina's appointment at Children's Hospital Feeding Clinic went well. The reason we were there is that she has now fallen in the 3% category for her height and weight. We are already mostly doing everything correctly, but have to try to help her eat more high calorie foods and push the Pediasure more with monitoring her snacks between meals. They want her to be very hungry when it is mealtime. What they observed was that she seems to have a difficult time chewing her food therefore spitting a lot of items back out. I guess it is just too much work for her so we have to work on strengthening her jaw. She will then have a weight check in a couple of weeks and another at her 2 year check up. Her doctor also mentioned that we may have to see an endocrinologist if we are not seeing results.

Chloe Day 5

Chloe has been licking at her incision a lot. It appears that she has removed some of the sutures and the incision has a bit of gapping which they told us to watch for. The vet is closed today (Sunday) so rather than taking her to the ER and paying a fortune, Cory will take her in tomorrow morning. All we can is watch her closely so she leaves the incision alone.

Chloe Day 4 - Celebrating Vivi's Gotcha Day

Chloe had a good day today. She rested well and seems to be leaving her sutures alone. The incision looks about the same. We have been doing her physical therapy once a day which consists of flexing and extending her leg slowly, repeating 10 times. She then gets a pack of frozen peas to help with her swelling.

While the girls were napping, we took advantage of the mild weather. Steph put up the garland and some more Christmas lights while Cory cleaned out the garage. We are trying to get in the Christmas spirit, but it doesn't help that there is no snow on the ground.

We went to the Holdsworth's for pizza, ice cream cake and to celebrate Vivi and Charlie's Gotcha Day. All the kids played so well together and we had a wonderful time.

Chloe Day 3 - Bandages Removed

Cory took Chloe into our vet to get her bandages removed today. Unfortunately, there was some miscommunication and they removed the bandage AND her sutures. They had to sedate her again and put back in new sutures. We were both very upset not knowing how this would set her back. Her sutures were not suppose to be removed for 10-14 days! We called Dr. Levine who did her surgery and he said she should be fine and not to worry. There is another set of sutures beneath the surface ones. She is sleeping better and not winning throughout the night.

This is a photo after her bandage was removed. She is starting to have a little bit of bruising but overall the incision looks pretty good.

Chloe Day 2 - Thanksgiving Day

Happy Thanksgiving!

Chloe rested well today. She was more independent, not winning and needing as much as attention as she did last night. She finally went to the bathroom last night around midnight without any problems so we removed the plastic bag from her bandage. The bag was to prevent her bandage from getting wet not to cause an infection.

The girls napped and then we went to Grandma Ruth and Grandpa Charlie's for dinner.

Alaina has started to try to walk up the stairs rather than crawl. She attempts to hold on to the side of the wall. She also is babbling a lot, carrying on a conversation with herself. She is growing up so fast and we can no longer characterize her as a baby, she definitely is a toddler.

Chloe Returns Home from Surgery - Day 1

Chloe's surgery went very well. She returned home early afternoon and has been a trooper. We set up her new home in the basement where she will be spending all of her time for the next few weeks: no stairs, easy access outside and carpeting so she will not slip and reinjure her leg. It is so important to limit her activity so she benefits from a full recovery.

Her leg is wrapped for the first 3 days so the incision can heal a bit without her irritating the stitches. She also has a fetanol patch on her front leg to slowly release pain medication for her. The bandages should be removed on Friday so we will then actually see her incision.

I don't know who got the most sleep; Chloe or Steph. It was a long night with quite a bit of winning and not a lot of sleep, more like rest. Overall Chloe did well and we made it through the night. We are hoping each night gets easier for her.

Today was Vivian's "Gotcha Day," celebrating 3 years! Unfortunately we did not do anything special. It was a hectic day with Chloe's first day home post surgery.

We're Back!!!

It has recently been brought to my attention that it has been about 1 year since I've updated our site, amazing how fast time has gone by. In less than 2 months, we will be celebrating Alaina's 2nd birthday.

Chloe injured her right rear leg hunting this October in South Dakota. After 3 weeks of appointments with the vet, we had an orthopedic specialist look at her. The diagnosis was that she had a complete tear of her cranial cruciate ligament (equivalent to our ACL). She had surgery to repair this and will have a long recovery ahead of her, minimum of 8 weeks. We will track her progress on our blog, please keep her in your thoughts.

Halloween

Vivian and Alaina before we went out trick or treating. Vivi was a bumble bee and Alaina was a ladybug. It was fun for all!!!

Alaina's First Birthday

Alaina celebrated her first birthday quietly at home. Grandma Ruth and Grandpa Charlie came over for dinner and cake to help us celebrate. Her "birthday party" was the following weekend.

Mommy and Daddy spent a great deal of time decorating the birthday cake, but it was very yummy and turned out great! We met with friends and family for swimming at LifeTime and pizza at Chuck E. Cheese. Unfortunately, Alaina got the stomach flu and was not feeling well.

Dress Up

Auntie Dawn gave Vivian a Disney, Princess Dress-Up for Christmas. Here are my favorites; Belle from Beauty and the Beast, Cinderella, and Aurora.

New Years Eve

We rang in the New Year with our dear friends. The connection we all have is...Guatemala and the friendships we have will be cherished forever.