Busy Bees!

We have been quite the busy bees lately! A week and a half before Everest's 3rd birthday party, Daddy decided to build a new deck. Our old deck was the "builder deck" 10X10 and pretty ragidy. If you know my husband, you know that he doesn't do things small, or "half assed". So he tore out the old deck, all the shrubbery/trees from the back of the house and had a clean slate.

We had a great team of guys helping out to build it. Thank you Uncle Tim, Steve, Calvin, and Gager.

Everest and Irelyn both wanted to help. They were not aloud out there for the majority of the work because it was dangerous. After they were aloud out, they were working away!

The deck was (almost) complete for his Party(Jason wants to add a rail, we didn't think we were going to want one, but its a bit higher than we thought). Everest LOVED having everyone over for his day, and was running around enjoying everyone.

We had lunch with Mormor and he wanted to share his lemon.

Here is is awesome cake that Grandma got. It had Mickey AND nemo and was so cute- and delicious!

We made sidewalk paint which was a huge hit. We used a recipe that was 1 part corn starch, 1 part water. I did 1/2 cup of each which filled 1/2 of our ice cube tray. We used 2 drops of food coloring in each ice cube section. We probably could have gotten away with just 1 drop.

We drew with sidewalk chalk, and filled in with the paint. Irelyn was in heaven. She loves to paint. She even tried it out on her toes!

We decided it was time for Everest to have a hair cut. He hasn't had one (except for the shaved sections from his surgeries) in his 3 years here ;-) So Daddy got out the clippers and away we went! He did amazingly well we thought he was going to cry/squirm/fight. But he held the mirror, and bag, and sat still.

Holy Hair!

Everest got a chance to hold the clippers.

and here is the BIG boy, using 2 hands to hit a ball! Huge accomplishment E!

Like I said, we have been busy bees lately!

Perfect Park Weather

Daddy has plans to build us our own "park" in the back yard. Until then, we visit our local park, Rapho Township Park, frequently! It is AWESOME. Our PT told us about it when Everest was still learning to keep his balance. It has the "soft" rubber ground, rather than tan bark. It is easier for him to climb, and there is a toddler side,and older kid side. VERY HELPFUL. Saturday mornings my mom(Mormor) comes over and we take the kiddos to the park. This past weekend we played, and then took a walk to see the ducks in the pond. Everest walked the WHOLE way. HUGE accomplishment for him! Since hes got low muscle tone, and mild CP he gets very tired from walking especially if there are hills/uneven surfaces.
Irelyn LOVES the park too. That girl would stay outside all day every day if she could. She loves rocks and dirt. They play so well together now. It is so wonderful to see them interact.

Everest Almighty

With Everest's third birthday fast approaching, I decided to reflect on his life. Everest Patrick entered this world on May 31st 2009 at 2:02AM after a rough 32 hours of labor. He had respiratory distress, and pulmonary interstitial emphysema and was on an oscillating ventilator, conventional ventilator, Sipap, Cpap, and nasal canula. He had a patent ductus arteriosis, and ventricular septal defect(2 holes in the heart). He had a PDA ligation. He had a grade III and IV intraventricular hemorrhage which resulted in hydrocephalus and a VP shunt. He had staph infection, and was septic. He had Necrotising enterocolitis. Everest had 3 brain surgeries while in the NICU, and several "small" procedures. Everest struggled a lot while in the NICU, and even after he came home.
He started Early Childhood Intervetion once he came home. He received Physical Therapy and Occupational therapy. He had hypotonia and was very "weak". He army crawled around a year, sat at 14 months, and walked at 21 months. Everest was such a trooper with therapy, while there were stretches, and exercises that were not the most plesant he rarely complained. At 9 months he was back in Penn State Children's Hospital with a shunt infection. He had brain surgery #4 and #5- after 10 days, he came home. Less than 2 weeks later we were back in with shunt infection # 2. He had brain surgery #6 and 2 minor procedures (due to being so extremely sick). After 10 days of antibiotics, he had brain surgery #7. During that hospital stay, we discovered he had an abnormality in his spinal cord. He got an MRI of his spine, and discovered he had a tethered spinal cord. At 14 months (his actual 1 year homecoming date from the NICU), he had a tethered cord release (by his AMAZING neurosurgeon Dr. Iantosca- neurosurgery #8).
Everest never ceases to amaze me. He rarly complained. He has overcome so many hurdles. He is still "behind" his peers, but we could not be more proud of him.
At ALMOST 3, he is speaking in complete sentances, climbing the couch, and can sit up the WHOLE WAY down a slide. He still crawls up the stairs, and slides down them, holds his breath to walk up hills, and has some minor sensory issues. But he is progressing everyday.
Sometimes, i get sad, and think about his birth, and wish i could have just kept him cooking a little bit longer. I hear people talk about their "normal" kids, and feel a little bad. But then Everest wouldn't be who he is today. We wouldn't be who we are today.
We will never have a "normal" life with Everest, we still see numerous specialists, he still gets therapy, and everytime he gets sick we have to rule out a shunt issue. Everest will need to have more surgeries in the future. But he IS here, he IS happy, and I couldn't be more grateful for that.

Easter 2012

We had a nice Easter. Everest and Irelyn are pro's at egg hunts now! They did 3 local egg hunts, and then 2 more "family" egg hunts. Did you know they have egg hunts with money in the eggs now-a-days?! I remember hunting for colored hard boiled eggs, and plastic eggs with like 2 jelly beans in them. Times have changed ;-) We came home from an egg hunt Saturday morning with 19 bucks! Although I know Everest would have been more happy with candy.
I got ZERO pictures from Easter. But i know family did, so I will hopefully get some pictures sent to me. So I will settle to show you some pictures from our family vacation 2 weeks ago.

Third times a charm

My friend Devany has inspired me to blog again. I want to be able to express my thoughts and feelings, keep track of our crazy family life, and be able to look back on this and remember what we have done. I also want to keep friends and family up to date on Everest and Irelyn. Tomorrow is a big day! It is the zumba fundraiser in memory of sweet Violet Marie. She has made such an impact on so many people in her short life. I think about you every day Vi, and am so proud to have met you. Go over to Devany's blog, and check out the info for the fundraiser! We just returned from a family getaway to Virginia. We relaxed, hiked and just enjoyed each other! Irelyn is such an outdoorsy girl. She loves to dig in the dirt, and have the wind blow in her hair. Everest got in the baby pool all on his own, and didn't scream! He loves to "swim" now! Huge relief. I am looking into getting him a puddle jumper, does anyone have any experience with them?