Our life recently

Here's a quick update on what we've been doing recently, and some new cute pictures.  

My sister Katie had her baby on Sunday.  His name is Lucas and he is just so adorable. 

Dallin looks so big to me now that there's a newborn around.  Although, he's kinda scrunched in this picture so they look about the same size.

And some cute pictures of Dallin.  He really likes his face freedom.

He pretty much hates baths, but he likes getting out of the water and getting dried off and warm.

Laugh of the Day

When I went out to my car yesterday morning, this is what I found...

If I were more insecure, I might be offended and hurt by this, but I just think it's funny.  Some kids probably thought they'd have a good laugh by writing mean things on peoples cars.  Even though our car is old, I don't think it's the butt ugliest car in the parking lot. Two other cars had writing on them.  One said "Gay" and the other said "Elmo."  We're still trying to figure out how Elmo is an insult.  The writing came off with a little windex.  I went out this morning almost excited to see what would be written on the car today.  Nothing.

We're free!!!

before...

AFTER!!!!!

We escaped from the hospital!  Today has been a day of really good news and it feels really great to be back home with our healthy son.  We took Dallin to Children's Hospital this morning at 6:00am for a heart catheterization.  Because they needed to sedate him for the procedure, he wasn't allowed to eat anything past 3:30am.  For a hungry boy that eats every 2 hours, this was hard!  He did really well and slept until we got to the hospital, but with all the nurses checking his vitals and everything, he was wide awake and very aware of his empty stomach.  We talked to the cardiologist that would be performing the procedure and he told us all about what would be happening, what they expected to do, and what could go wrong.  The plan was to do another echo to see what they were dealing with and then to go ahead with the cath.  The Anethesiologist also talked to us and told us what could go wrong.  All the talk of what could go wrong sure makes you feel good before turning your son over to strangers and leaving him!  But we did it.  We took Dallin into this huge room full of millions of dollars worth of machines with a huge table in the middle; all for one tiny person.  They gave us a pager that would beep when they were all finished with him.  And then we waited.  Mckay's brother Evan was in Wyoming only a few hours away for a job, so he came to Salt Lake to be with us.  It was so great having him there, to help calm Dallin down, and to talk with and entertain us while we waited.

A few hours later the pager beeped and we went to talk to the doctor.  He said that after doing the echo with him sedated and totally calm, they got a really good look at his heart and he said that the valve looked fine.  It is narrower than normal, but it's nothing that will be a problem, and his heart will grow and fix itself in a matter of months.  So they didn't even do the cath and we could see him as soon and he was awake.  He wouldn't need the oxygen anymore and we just need to come back for a follow up appt. in 6 months.  The doctor said that as soon as we got him eating and looking good, we could leave and take him home with nothing more than a little prick from his IV.  I think at that moment I felt so relieved and incredibly happy.  After all the stuff we had to go through with other doctors, all the waiting, the worrying, the oxygen, our son is just fine.  We got to go see him and feed him (yay food!).  Other than seeing him for the first time when he was born, this was the happiest I'd ever been to see him and hold him again.  They took his IV out and we walked out of the hospital by 10:30am, with a happy baby, 2 relieved parents, and a wonderful supportive uncle.

We feel so blessed to have him back home and perfectly fine.  Even though we were only gone for the morning, it feels like he's been a different person for the past 4 weeks with the oxygen on.  He was cranky, gassy, he didn't sleep as well, and he just didn't like having a "face leash."  Now we have our son back and we can go back to life as normal.  As much as I hated having him on oxygen, I really think that it helped, along with an additional 4 weeks of life, to strengthen his valve and let his body heal itself.  And I know that all our family and friends who prayed for him helped as well.  We're looking forward to getting rid of the oxygen tanks and not worrying about him anymore, so we can think about other things.  Like my sister Katie having her baby really soon!

Dallin's procedure

We are going to Primary children's hospital in Salt Lake tomorrow (Tuesday) for Dallin's heart catheterization.  We have to get there at 6:00 am!  As you can probably guess, we're super excited about that.  We don't really have any new information or anything about Dallin's condition since we were in the hospital with him a month ago.  He's been on oxygen this whole time and the doctors are hoping that the oxygen will have widened his narrow heart valve somewhat on its own, without the need for a surgical intervention.  I think that the plan for tomorrow is to do another echocardiogram first to see if anything has changed or gotten better.  Then, depending on what they see, they will do the heart cath.  But we're thinking the doctors are gonna do the heart cath anyway "just to be safe."  After doing the cath, they should be able to tell what they will need to do about the valve, if they can just leave it alone, or if they'll need to put a balloon in or even do surgery. Because they will have to sedate him for the procedure, Dallin will most likely have to stay overnight in the hospital so they can monitor him and make sure he's recovering well and eating well.  We're hoping that after tomorrow he won't have to be on oxygen anymore, and we'll be able to go back to a pretty normal life.  We're grateful for the prayers on Dallin's behalf, and we're pretty optimistic that all will go well tomorrow.  Wish us luck!  

For Mothers Day, I got...

...a baby in a basket!

I wanted to take some really cute pictures of Dallin, ones worthy of framing and giving to people, but I wanted to wait until he had his oxygen off so he wouldn't have the stupid looking thing on his face.  It turns out he won't be getting it off until May 19th at the very earliest (That's when we finally got an appointment for to see the cardiologist in Salt Lake.  Who know if she'll let us take it off after that.  Here's hoping...), so I was getting frustrated because I wanted some cute pictures for Mothers Day.  My genius sister had a great idea: take the oxygen off and then take the pictures.  So here he is.  All cute and breathing on his own.  Don't tell his doctor.  She might make him wear it longer.  Or send us to the emergency room in an ambulance again.

The grass may have been a little too cold and itchy for him.

And of course, Dallin with his mother.

Pictures of the Day

He doesn't like baths very much.

Our Trip to Colorado!

This past weekend, we made a trip to Colorado.  Mckay's brother, Evan, and his wife recently had a new baby, just a few weeks before Dallin was born.  They decided to bless little Porter on Sunday, so we drove out for the blessing and to spend the weekend with Mckay's family.  This was Dallin's first road trip!  He did pretty well, for the most part.  He really likes riding in the car, especially with the radio on, so he slept really well for the first 3 hours of the drive to Denver.  After that, he kept getting fussy.  I think he realized that he was alone in a car seat and he wanted people to pay attention to him.  And the elevation changes as we drove through the mountains were probably bothering his little ears.  The 8 hour trip turned into a 10 hour trip, but we did make it there safely.

This is what Dallin did while we drove.

Here he is with Grandpa Easton

And with Grandma Easton.

And here is the man of the hour!  Porter!

They're oxygen buddies!  Keep in mind that Porter is about 2 weeks older than Dallin.  Somebody really likes to eat...

Dallin and I with cousins Porter and Alex.

Aunt Annie and cousin Graham.  This picture was actually taken a few weeks ago when they came to visit us in Utah, but this looked like a good place to put it in.

Here he is all dressed up for church and ready for the blessing.  He's yawning there, not crying.

Mckay had this Beanie Baby moose in his room, and Dallin liked holding onto it.

We had a lot of fun on this trip.  It was good to have a little break after the long winter semester to take off from work and from stress to spend some time with family.  Dallin has a lot of people that love him.  And he has a really great cousin his age that he gets to grow up with and play with.  Porter is so sweet and cute and he's gonna be an awesome little guy as he continues to grow up.  We can't wait to get to know him better.