Happy Halloween!

Our surfer boy

Sioux Falls ZOO

Huge steps toward Tubelessness :)

Sorry for the cheezy video.... but we are so excited Mr. Boy is eating!!! The doctors just said he may just have trouble eating and swallowing till school age since he's been vomiting continually for so long, but October came and all of the sudden Mr. Boy decided to swallow and eat! And on top of all that, his 7 month streak of vomiting about 8 times a day, ended at the same time!  Thank you Lord! The vomiting is unrelated to his actual condition, which only added to the frustrations, confusion and questions of "why is this happening??" The feeding tube sends food directly to his intestines so he couldn't throw it up and the plan was to keep it in until the vomiting subsided. Well we are finally making a plan with the doctors to get this tube out!!! They said we will take it slowly by decreasing the amount of food from the tube while increasing his oral feedings to see how much he will take, but I am ready to rip it out today! :) Now I don't have to worry about what will happen when Mr. Boy begins to roll, crawl, or walk with a long cord coming from his face attached to a pole... as much as I wanted him to be mobile, I wasn't ready to start that chapter. We'll keep you posted on the progress. Thank you all for your prayers, the Lord is listening! 


Psalm 28:7
The LORD is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in him, and he helps me. My heart leaps for joy, and with my song I praise him.
Psalm 30:11
¹¹ You turned my wailing into dancing;
   you removed my sackcloth and clothed me with joy,
¹² that my heart may sing your praises and not be silent.
   LORD my God, I will praise you forever.

Florida Vacation!

Mr. Boy and I spent 8 days in Jacksonville, Florida... my hometown, visiting my parents. Poor David had to stay home and work, and while we were gone Mr. Boy grew up! He is a little man now.
He can wave, he reaches for things that are out of reach, he is more tolerant when people come near to him, he can eat baby food in larger quantities, he can hold on super tight when you hold him... as I write these I can see how they could seem lame to the onlooker, but its seriously so crazy to behold all the tiny changes, and so many all at once. We should go on vacations more often! We had 26 visitors total during the trip, so needless to say, we were quite busy. Lots of family, friends, church members, and prayer warriors in the bunch, all wanting to see the little boy they'd been praying for for so long. I just couldn't express the depth of my gratitude. I was overwhelmed by how many people have been praying for Mr. Boy's complete healing and overwhelmed by how the Lord has used a silly little boy who's favorite thing to do is chew on my kitchen spatula, to touch so many.

Hi Grandaddy! 

He let his granddad hold him front ways! 

spoiled with new toys

church friends over for lunch

a duet

Man-to-man talk 

I apologize for the lack of pictures with grandma... she was behind the camera!

A Visit from Brooke

My friend Brooke came to visit us this weekend all the way from Bartlesville, Oklahoma!  She is always such a delight and so encouraging to have in our home. On Saturday I explained to her how Mr. Boy won't eat baby food, despite months of daily attempts and how he doesn't like for anyone other than us to even touch him (like I talked about in our previous post). As I finished explaining all this, I began trying to feed Mr. Boy for the first time that day and that little stinker made me out to be a liar! :) He happily opened his mouth like a little bird awaiting a juicy worm and swallowed several spoonfuls of green beans! Perhaps it was because it was my birthday and he was cutting me some slack? Then he did it again today and afterwards he let Brooke hold him front ways where he could see her face, and smiled the whole time (first time with anyone ever!). We are ecstatic today and so encouraged. We have a ways to go, but today's victories were monumental.

Brooke and me at the Sioux Falls 

The boys watching some football

10 Months old

Mr. Boy is 10 months old today! It's unbelievable really. It is amazing to think about how far he's come in that time. Just two weeks ago Mr. Boy was able to sit up by himself for the first time. He has made no attempts to roll or crawl yet, but he has been enjoying sitting up immensely. He no longer has to sit in his car seat in the back of the cart while grocery shopping. This is also great for mommy since carrying him in the car seat is getting to be HEAVY.  I consider myself to have great arm strength, but even my beastly arms have their limits. :) Observe Mr. Boy's new freedom:

He's in shock that his mom let him sit in the kiddy seat

kick'n it at Goodwill

Mr. Boy is so silly these days, it is a joy to stay home with him everyday. He has 3 bottom teeth now and working on his 4th, no signs of any top teeth. Feeding has been a bit of a challenge... we've been trying to feed him baby food for 2 months now without any progress. He doesn't seem to be interested and either spits it out or gags it up. Our speech therapist is helping us out, but the GI specialist says that because of all his vomiting and medical history, he may just have issues eating probably till school-age, with taking longer to eat and gaging a lot and not eating much. But I have decided that this will not happen. This baby will eat properly, enjoy it, keep it down and get this tube out of his nose (they could surgically insert the tube in his side and we feed him with a tube there, but that brings a host of other issues I am not prepared to deal with, so let's just be done with tubes all-together shall we?)!!! That's just what I've decided anyway. :)

not wanting to eat his bananas

So currently we have a physical therapist visiting to help him become mobile, a speech therapist to help with eating, and on average one Doctor visit each week. We are truly enjoying these days as Mr. Boy grows and plays, creates new sounds and quirks.

Grandparents!!!!

Recently my mother visited (from Jacksonville, Florida) during Mr. Boy's spine surgery to help out during that time. Mr. Boy doesn't let people other than myself or David hold him at all... ever. Even our therapist attest that this isn't your typical baby phase... it's just Mr. Boy.  Everywhere we go outside of church, he gets shots, poked, examined, etc so you can imagine he is wary of just about anyone who approaches to touch him. At church he just scowls at everyone with a deeply concerned expression. So my mother was here a week and on her last day she finally attempted to hold him after building rapport with him from a distance:

David's parents visited (from Denver, Colorado) over Memorial weekend and also were able to hold our little man. Yay! No frontal holds, but a backwards hold will do for now!

Family photo! My parents took a trip last week to visit my sister and her husband in LA, and so we all skyped while they were there. My brother-in-law Daric, took the pic of my parents and sister behind their computer where they are skyping us, and you can even see Daric in the photo too in the little box in the bottom left corner of their computer screen.