Happy Easter!

We had a fun action-packed Easter, going to church and then brunch with our friends Chris, Jeff, Carole and Tom. The girls helped set up a little rattling egg hunt and it was a hit! I can't say attention spans are very long yet, but it was great fun while it lasted!

Here's some of our other news from the past few months:

Audrey's been doing very well. She's enjoying eating a bit more and making progress all the time ... slow but steady. She loves to sing now, humming several tunes we can recognize. Music is definitely her thing. She was doing some good walking, but had a couple of falls; one sprained her left foot and put her out for weeks. More recently, she landed funny on her right foot and is not ready to put much weight back on it! Poor little thing. But she loves to crawl around and will walk with us holding her hand. We are happy to say we had a positive heart/lung echo session with our cardiologist. He said there's still some tiny leaks in Audrey's heart but he's not concerned about them and everything is working normal! We're excited we don't need any medication and don't need to check in for a whole year!

Austin got his first haircut and looks very handsome. He got to sit in Daddy's lap and it was very sweet. Our big one-year-old is walking everywhere now and getting into everything! He really learns from observing and tries to copy us all the time. He loves to interact with his sister and is very patient when she pulls his hair or grabs his toys. Of course, he reciprocates. They're very entertaining together!

Happy Spring, Friends!

Happy Birthday, Audrey!

We are so happy to celebrate Audrey's 2nd birthday today! Audrey has had a busy and courageous life in such a short time!

Audrey is doing really well since the heart surgery in August! She loves crawling all around and standing up to just about anything. She takes time to laugh at her brother (when he's not pulling her hair) and continues to say 'brubba'. She loves music, hats, lights, bouncing, and spinning. She still LOVES her Johnny jump up, where she dances and spins to music from the iPod. She'll let us know if she approves of a song or not. Lately her favorites are Alabama (daddy's influence), ABBA (I don't know how she got into this!), and Chipmunks Christmas music.

Austin adores his sister and watches her, follows her, attacks her, at every opportunity. We've seen her learn from him too: she now gets into cupboards and drawers. She also seems to eat a bit better since they eat side by side.

We look forard to seeing them interact more and more this next year!

Audrey enjoyed great visits with both grandparents this fall. We were able to go to California for a nice long visit. Audrey loved playing and pouring water into the ocean with her cousins and Aunt Holly. Austin liked eating sand. In Denver, we had an early birthday celebration with the Strasser Grandparents.

Medically, Audrey is doing quite well. Her heart is ticking away happily. Her lungs were not 100% after the surgery because they'd had so much 'blood overload' before the surgery. We have her on a special medication that helps this problem and we may be able to discontinue it after 6 months; we hope so, as it's side effects are irritability and insomnia!!! We've been advised to get fitted for some special foot supports that will fit in her shoes. These should help Audrey balance better so that she can walk sooner. We also got new eyeglasses this last month. Audrey looks so grown up and smart in her new glasses! We think it helps her see better. When we put them on her for the first time, she looked around at us and at the room and started smiling and laughing. It's neat to see her seeing a little better.

Thank you for all of your interest and support!

Home Sweet Home!

Hurray.... We are home! Audrey is amazing! In four days, she went from being hooked up to heart, lung, and breathing machines......... to spinning and jumping in her Johnny Jump-Up, petting her brother's head and saying 'Brubber'. It felt like a very long stay while we were at the hospital, but now that we're home we are amazed that it was only four and a half days.

Audrey is in her own crib tonight, so happy to be home. And we're so thankful to have our little girl's 'ticker fixed up,' and back to her old self.

Thank you to every one of you for all you did for us! Your prayers, good thoughts and deeds helped us all through! We feel very loved.

Surgery Complete!!

We are very happy to report that the surgery was completed successfully! The hole was larger than they had thought, more like a curve/flap. In addition, they found another hole they didn't know about. The surgeon patched it all up with a gortex-like material. Audrey's off of the ventilator and recovering well. We will get to go comfort her as she wakes up in about an hour. Now we begin the long journey of recovery!

We feel so thankful that we are in a place where we are able to get a procedure like this done by the best doctors and nurses.

Thank you so much for all of your love and prayers sent our way. We felt them, each and every one.

ps. These pictures of Audrey were taken this morning pre-surgery :) We hope Audrey is this happy again soon!

Prayer Request!

Please send your prayers our way at 7:30AM this Friday! Audrey is scheduled for open heart surgery on August 5th. Dr. Jaggers -- a highly recommended surgeon at Children's hospital -- will be patching up a medium sized hole in her heart.

We will plan on staying at the hospital for 5 to 7 days in recovery. I will send another quick e-mail once the surgery is complete.

Harry's parents are coming from Bend to take care of Austin 24/7 while we're at the hospital .... so they could use your prayers too! :)

Christenings and Heart Caths

What a busy few months it's been since the last Chronicle! We have enjoyed many sweet moments as a family of four as well as visits with wonderful friends and family like you.

We recently celebrated Austin's baptism. What a special day it was! He's a very smiley little guy; easy going and in love with his sister. I always prayed for an easy baby while I was pregnant with him and wow, is he ever! Audrey is quite interested in Austin, sometimes petting his head -- but still has moments of screeching and turning her head away to show him (and us) that she's the one in charge! Audrey has been growing great and exploring her environment like crazy. She loves to crawl around and climb up the furniture and our legs.

We've been to the cardiologist quite a bit recently and it's been determined that Audrey needs open heart surgery. The VSD in her heart has grown and she's pumping twice the amount of blood into her lungs as she should be. The Heart Catheter she had this last week required one night's stay at Children's Hospital. It was a big challenge to keep her laying flat on her back for 4 hours after the surgical procedure (see picture of her daddy holding her). The heart surgery will require five nights at the hospital and about two months of recovery at home. I'm not sure how we're going to keep our ACTIVE bouncy toddler from moving too much, so this will be quite interesting... While we are feeling anxious about this procedure, we are also thankful for the good healthcare we are blessed with and the strong potential that this will 'fix' Audrey's heart for good.

We're also so grateful for the family and friends (all of you) that are going to help us through this with moral support! I don't know what we'd do without both sets of grandparents, who will be traveling here to help with baby-care and meals.

We'll send out a quick update when we get our surgery date, and afterwards to share the progress.

Thank you all for your prayers and love!

Brother and Sister

I believe the Audrey Chronicle will become a quarterly entry...if we're lucky! We thought life parenting Audrey was busy, but adding in Austin has brought a whole new meaning to busy!

Austin is a very healthy big boy. He loves to eat (every couple of hours!) and to be held. He is very good natured and laid back. Audrey is such a great big sister! Whenever Austin makes a peep, she stops and looks up, listening carefully. She likes to gently touch him and look right into his face. If he touches her with his little hands, she's a little taken aback. It will be fun to see how they respond to each other as he gets more active and grabby himself!

Audrey has also become very active. She crawls everywhere, and is climbing up on everything...walls, windows, couches, ect. It's exciting to see her improving in balance and strength all the time! Her next step will be standing and walking without support. Audrey loves to play with her toys, laugh, explore, listen to music, and say 'good girl'. She continues to work on eating, taking a few bites of soup, pudding, or yogurt at each meal. She still depends upon g-tube feedings for all of her calories, but we see hope for her eating independently the future.

It is really busy and Harry and I are both sleep deprived, but we are really enjoying both of our beautiful babies.

We've had a TON of support from friends and family since I went on bed rest and Austin was born. We had wonderful visits from both sets of grandparents and Aunt Holly with cousins Ilah and Ian. We feel so grateful for all of the support and love we've had from everyone!

Please check out Audrey's debut in the WAGR/WINGS newsletter! I was asked to write about our experience with Audrey's diagnosis. Just click on the link below and then click on the link that says "WINGS Spring/Summer 2011"

http://www.wagr.org/newslettersmailinglist.html