If you ever have the time ...

It is amazing how just by word of mouth (or in this case, computer) things travel. On my friends blog, they have a link to The Lawrensons blog. This blog is written by a husband to a wife with cystic fibrosis who just had a premature baby girl. Their story is UNBELIEVABLE. If you have time, you should check out their blog ... it is truly touching. People from all over the world watch this blog religiously. I put their link under my friends and family.

Surgery Day Success

Our surgery day went very well. Riley was such the trooper, getting up at 5:30am and not eating a thing. She was so happy, smiling, laughing, and talking all morning long. Even when the nurse came to take her to the operating room, she smiled and continued being her happy little self.

The surgery took just over an hour and Dr. Underdahl successfully removed the entire cyst. The cyst itself was wrapped around a nerve, but the nerve was saved and she is going to heal just fine. She was in the recovery room for about an hour and then we went home. Once we got home, she took a bottle right away (and kept it down!) and played with her toys. She was happy to get down and crawl around.

She has quite the little incision on her eye ... POOR THING!
She likes to rub her eyes, so it has posed a challenge to keep her little hands away from her eye, but we are managing so far. She has been so wonderful today ... lets just hope that she is this great for the rest of her recovery.

She has nine stitches in her eye, which will dissolve on their own in about a week. We are expecting some major swelling over the next few days, but nothing to be too alarmed about. We go for a post-op appointment on Feb. 5th.

I tried to get some pictures of her incision, but she was not staying still very long to get some decent shots. But, here she is day of surgery. I will keep you posted throughout her recovery.

Surgery Update ...

Riley's surgery got pushed up to this Thursday, January 24th. We have one day to prepare and then it's time! We are a little nervous about the surgery, but we are confident it will go just fine.

More to come soon!

Reagan's Birthday Party!!!!!

Happy Birthday Reagan!

What a birthday party! Not only did Reagan have a "Spotted Dog" party (as she calls it) but they also got to go to BounceU, an indoor playarea full of inflatables. Everyone had a great time. Mom was so proud of her work she did to make this a successful "Spotted Dog" party. Mom handmade the gift bags and cupcake decorations.
Good Job Mom on being CRAFTY!
Reagan was well coordinated with the party theme, wearing her spotted clothes.

Reagan's Spotted Outfit

BounceU!

Dad at the top of the spiderwebs!

Reagan, the Jumping Bean

Mom and our friend, Rylee Crum, on the big slide

Grandma & Riley

Reagan, Brielle, & Aubrey on the spiderweb

Mom & Reagan on top of another slide (the only slide Reagan went down the entire time)

Brielle doing the tug of war

Cupcakes, YUMMY!

Our Spotted Dog Cupcake Toppers!! Good job Mom!

Reagan giving out the gift bags to her friends

Thanks for all the great presents! We had a great party!

Riley's progress ...

Riley is learning to stand now. She has mastered crawling (it is about time, she is 9 1/2 months) and now she is trying to pull up on everything. She gets so proud of herself. We thought she would never become mobile, but now she is, and into everything. It sure has been challenging keeping everything clean enough for her to crawl around!

So happy to have a different view of life!

Styling Soccer Girl

Saturday was Reagan's first soccer game, ever. She looked so cute in her soccer uniform and her hair bows that we made.

She was a styling soccer girl!

Poor little Reagan is so much shorter than the other kids, she had a hard time keeping up with everyone. She was a trooper, even though she was exhausted from running back and forth. She complained her legs were tired, but she never cried!

She has soccer practice every Tuesday and a soccer game every Saturday, for the next eight weeks. She is very excited to now be a soccer player. Lets see how much she improves over the next few weeks.

How cute is she!!!

Reagan & her friend, Brielle

Warming up by kicking the ball into the goal ...
she does a good job kicking it while no one is trying to take it from her!

Our short little girl (the one in the middle, #5).
She is the shortest on the team.

Welcome 2008

Happy New Year to you.

We started off our new year with a bang. All four of us were sick with a very bad cold. Mom, Dad, & Reagan had the horrible cold, and Riley had the cold plus a double ear infection. The cold virus also hit Riley with a terrible rash, almost head to toe. She is feeling much better now ... Thank You for ANTIBIOTICS!

We also found out that Riley is going to have to have surgery on her left eye. She has a "dermoid cyst" on her eyebrow, next to her nose. The eye doctor said that it is important to remove this type of cyst because the more mobile Riley becomes, she risks falling and rupturing the cyst, which can cause infection and other problems we don't want to have to deal with. We felt that the surgery will be handled much better by Riley if we get it over with while she is still so young and not so mobile. So, she is having surgery on January 31. It is a 45 minute to and hour long procedure where they will carefully cut open her eyebrow and remove the cyst. She will be under anesthesia and it is an outpatient procedure. We are positive that this is going to go smoothly and she will heal just fine. We will keep you posted on her outcome!

A close up of Riley's face, you cannot see the cyst. It is only about the size of a pea right now. But it is right above her left eye, on the side close to her nose.
Doesn't she look just so sad.

Here is the much HAPPIER Riley, that we all know so well!

You can't forget about Reagan, who is so excited to be celebrating her 4th birthday next week!

And Irbe. We don't say too much about him these days, but he does keep us laughing and playing. Here he is playing with Reagan's new roller skating puppy. Everytime the puppy would start skating, Irbe would run up to it and pick it up by it's tail. We were all having a great time watching him, even Reagan who thought Irbe was attacking her new puppy!