We miss you, Great Pawpaw

My Grandpa passed away Thursday afternoon. Of course we are all so sad, but we are glad to know that he isn't suffering anymore. Please continue to pray for my family, especially my Grandma, my Dad, my Uncle John, and my Aunt Lu.

After my Dad called to tell me the news, I sat down on the kitchen floor and cried. Wesley stood peering at me from around the island, but he didn't come over until I stopped crying so hard (I realized later that he has probably never seen me cry that hard and had no idea what was going on with me). When he came over, I had him sit on my lap and told him that Great Pawpaw had died and that he wouldn't get to see him again until he went to heaven. Wes said "it okay, Mommy. Great Pawpaw and Jesus in an airplane in the sky." Of course that made me cry even harder! Damon and I have been talking to him about death and heaven more lately, but I really didn't think he was even listening. (I just want to note for the record that an airplane was never mentioned in our talks. I guess when you're three, there is no way to get up in the sky without an airplane.)

We love you and miss you, Great Pawpaw

"How it going" as Wesley would say

I haven't written much, but that is because our lives are pretty boring and I don't have anything exciting to say (even now as I type). So we'll see what I can come up with...

Wesley is continuing to eat better. We actually haven't given him anything in his g-tube in a few weeks. We went to the surgeon the other day, so we got to talk about taking it out!! Now I've said this before but taking it out does scare me. Not so much for the actual repair being done, but after the repair our "safety net" is gone! He will HAVE to eat enough in his mouth to maintain his weight. This is happening now, but it's comforting to know that if we had to, we could use the g-tube. It looks like it might be removed in July as long as he continues to maintain and gain weight appropriately.

Work is going okay for me right now. The stress is just weighing on me. Some good news though is that the doctor cleared me to work out again :) Back to getting up for those crazy-early 5am workouts!

Please pray for my Grandpa. The cancer is really wearing down his body, so please pray for strength. Tomorrow is Grandpa's birthday...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, GREAT PAWPAW!!

Please also pray for baby Mya. Our friends daughter was born four weeks ago with hypoplastic right ventricle syndrome. What this means is that one side of her heart didn't form correctly. The surgeons were unable to repair the heart six days after birth, so now she is in cardiac intensive care and waiting for a transplant. I spent the afternoon with her today, and it was so hard to leave her there. Mya has a brother Logan who is close in age to Wes, so the parents are trying to split their time between the two. Please keep them in your prayers as well because I can only imagine how emotionally and physically draining this whole thing is on them.

Here are a few Easter pictures.
(Notice how difficult it is to get a decent picture of Wesley)

If one pair of glasses is good, then three must be better!

I think he may have learned his self-assertiveness (aka bossiness) from his Mom...

glasses on his head (just like Mommy does)

a family picture

(Wes doesn't have sunglasses on, but they were in my left hand)

and another

Wesley with Doda and Pawpaw

and another

blowing bubbles (and eating the wand too) 

another picture with the glasses on

loving the warm weather

The temperature here in Ohio reached 65 degrees yesterday!!! YAHOO! Now if it only lasts until the weekend so I can get some things done outside, I would appreciate it. Today it rained, which was a bit of a downer since I was off work.

My knee is hardly swollen anymore. The skin on my kneecap has scared up and gotten kind of crusty and gross.  Don't worry - I'm not going to post a picture that you cannot help but look at even if it's gross. (I wasn't going to post a picture, but I am going to below since it looks better than when I typed most of this post out) I am pretty sure the bleeding under my kneecap has stopped, and our friend who has a doctorate in physical therapy looked at my knee and said that it was healing well. After working all day, it get stiff at night, but otherwise I'm good as new. I cannot work out yet, and that is quite bothersome to me. I haven't gained weight (thankfully), but it's amazing how fast those muscles turn to jiggle! My stomach and upper arms seem so much flabbier than they were before the surgery. I think I'm going to have to get back into a little weightlifting and crunches because I'll be a hot mess by the time I'm allowed to work out in almost three weeks.

Please pray for me because work is rough for me right now. It looks like I could be laid off this summer because there might not be money to pay me, which I really do need to show up for work every day. I'm not going to lie, it's difficult to "psych yourself up" to go to a place where you feel like you are putting in a ton of effort all for naught. It's just difficult for me to keep a positive attitude, and we all know how important a positive attitude is :)

I'm not concerned about me and Damon financially if I lose my job because I'll receive 5 months severance and my vacation time paid out. We also save a significant portion of my salary as it is, so that severance could carry us through a year without us making changes into our current lifestyle. I'm also not going to lie - the thought of having a summer off is exciting to me. I have worked constantly since turning sixteen, so to have a little time off in the summer would be great. You'll be able to find Wes and I at the pool or the park pretty much every day.

Or maybe you'll find Wesley at home cleaning the floor with a wipe as he lies on the stairs with one of his socks on his hand. We'll see.

As I swiftly change subjects...we went to the Newport Aquarium last weekend. Here are a few pictures.

the outside of the aquarium

the excitement is written all over his face

Can you tell that getting a decent picture of Wesley is getting impossible?

beautiful jellyfish

more jellyfish

I cut Wesley out of this picture because his face was all blurry and it was a decent picture of Damon and me.

I just think this picture is funny because none of us have our eyes open.

We ate lunch here and Damon LOVED it!! Me...not so much. It's all sauerkraut and various pork sausages. I did have a good Kentucky hot brown though.

It takes a lot of concentration to color.

"Wicked," Staci's knee, adoption tax credit and some rambling

This last week has been fairly uneventful, but I have to post because my Grandma sent me a nice email about how much she and my Grandpa like to read the blog :) Saturday night Damon and I went to dinner and then to see "Wicked" the Broadway musical. Growing up I loved "Wizard of Oz," so it was exciting to see what happened between the two witches before Dorothy came into the picture. I also enjoyed going out to eat at a restaurant where there aren't a lot of small children running around and I was able to eat my meal when it was warm!

When Damon and I went out Saturday, my mother-in-law stayed at our house with Wesley. She hasn't watched Wes for more than a few hours and has never had to feed him a meal. Now this could have disaster written all over it, but I figured that one night would be fine. I explained to her that Wes was going to say he wasn't hungry, cough and generally try to avoid getting food in his mouth through creating distractions. Damon called his mother at intermission of the show to see how it was going. She told Damon that "Wes has never tried me like he did tonight when I was trying to feed him." I had to laugh because my first thought was "then you've never fed him before." I would go out on a limb and say that it is IMPOSSIBLE to feed Wesley without him at least throwing out a few distractions, even if it is food that he generally likes.

I went back to the orthopedic doctor on Friday. The doctor said that I still have some bleeding under my kneecap; I have to watch that and call if it looks like its getting worse or not getting better. The doctor said that the bleeding isn't "normal" and that has caused the most of the swelling, but he wasn't overly concerned about it. I think it sounds like a big deal, but I got a degree in Financial Services, not Medicine, so I'm probably not the one to make the call. Apparently if I had taken it easy for longer than a few days some of the swelling might not be so bad, but it hasn't caused any additional damage to my knee.

I wondered what the weird red mark at the bottom of my kneecap was - now I know! Here's a picture of my knee taken Saturday. (I've been working on getting off the tape marks. Who would have thought they'd be so hard to get off?! I've used rubbing alcohol)

And here's what it looks like today (no improvement as far as I can see)

I finished our tax return this week. Really I should say that I started and finished our taxes this week because it only took an hour or so. We still had a lot of adoption tax credit carryover from last year, so it was actually fun to do them. I cannot tell you how great it is to not pay any federal tax all last year and only a couple thousand this year!! If Congress gets rid of the adoption tax credit, then I think it would really hurt families because after you put out so much money, it's nice to get some of it back (even if it's 18 months after the finalization of the adoption). Guess we better get started on #2 so we keep being able to use that credit...

I don't really have anything more to add, so thanks for reading!
Staci

Wesley's 3rd birthday party, first basketball game and my knee surgery

As you can tell by the title, we've had a busy week. Last Saturday was Wesley's third birthday party. Later that evening, Damon and I took Wes to the Wright State University basketball game. Sometime during all that, Wes got a cold, which is actually the first time he has ever gotten sick (other than the surgery for his esophagus). I don't know how people handle it when their children get sick often because I was worn out getting up every two hours to settle Wes back down from his coughing. Thankfully he doesn't get sick!! We like our sleep around this house :)

 

Wesley opening his DVD "Up"

still opening it the gift several minutes later...

a firetruck bank

an airport play set from Grandma (Pawpaw spent at least 20 minutes getting the whole thing apart)

giving Doda a hug

playing with his elephant with Grandma

Pawpaw finally got part of the airplane and airport apart

Mom and Dad finally got Wes a firetruck that makes noise (like Santa didn't get for Christmas)

blowing out the birthday candles and spitting on the cake I'm sure

having just a bit of cake (Wes preferred the chocolate cupcake the night before to the white cake at the party)

Who doesn't play baseball in the living room? We do at our house! At least until Wes can actually hit the ball and break things.

Wesley and Daddy at the game

Wes enjoyed cheering for both Wright State and their opponent (I already forgot who WSU played. I love sports, but basketball isn't my thing)

Damon tried to explain the game to Wes

hanging out with Mommy becauses it's not like Mom was watching the game (This is where I'd like to note that I am sure Wesley watched more of the game than I did)

here is where the game turned "scary"...Wesley saw the Raider (mascot) and was terrified that the Raider was coming to get him.

Wesley couldn't keep his eyes off the Raider as he walked through the stands.  

Damon doing a little snow-blowin' trying to dig us out of the house

Wesley wasn't feeling well, but he didn't want to go to bed. So instead he decided to take a little rest on the stairs. And why not? I'm sure the stairs are much more comfortable than his bed.

here's a photo of my right knee pre-surgery (my meniscus was torn on the lower inside part - lower right side of picture). The swelling was getting worse, but it's hard to see in this picture.

here's a photo post-surgery Wednesday (the gauze and wrap makes my knee look a lot more swollen than it actually is)

and the bandages come off...the two bandages are from the incisions, while I think the redness is from where cartilage was cut out that was scraping bone - and that's why I was in so much pain!!

I haven't been out of the house since Wednesday afternoon, so I plan on going somewhere tomorrow. I am not sure where we'll go, but I to bed.

Wesley's 3rd birthday!

Today is Wesley's third birthday!! I have always made fun of people who talked about how time flies, but IT REALLY DOES!! I realized that in two months, Wesley will have been with us longer than he was in the orphanage in Ukraine. I think we might have a party for that day too!

Here the fun cake from The Cakery. Several of our friends suggested it (in particular - thanks, Lisa), and man, it is delicious!! Let me explain the blue fire truck...Wesley LOVES anything related to the rescue services (police, fire, ambulance), and a township near us has blue fire trucks, which Wes never fails to notice. When I talked with him before ordering his cake, he asked for a blue fire truck. Then he added that he also wanted a barn, a tractor, an ambulance, and a cat, but I pretended like I didn't hear the rest of his list.

We got Wes a birthday cupcake to eat on his birthday since the cake is for the party tomorrow (see pictures below)

Wes acted at first like he had no idea what to do with the cupcake.

Why get your hands messy when you don't have to? I mean - the dogs eat like this.

He figured out how to eat it!! (What excited me even more though is that HE ACTUALLY ENJOYED IT!!!)

How sweet is that smile?

and another picture of the enjoyment

And just a little more...until he told me right after this picture that he was tired of eating and needed to go to bed. (How can I blame him? Who doesn't want to go to bed after a wonderful dessert?) 

Happy Birthday, Wesley!!!!

Mommy and Daddy love you so much and we love sharing our lives with you!!