May 2015

Silas turned 2!!!  We celebrated with a thank you party for everyone who supported us through Silas' open heart surgery and recovery. The party was a time of thanking God for all He has done this past year in Silas' life.  

We had a caked gifted to us. 

My sweet children!! 

Mark's mom Connie did all the flowers for the party. 

 Silas and Grammie-goo

 Silas and Mema

 A sweet friend of ours put together a video showing the memories of Silas' time in the hospital and recovery.  

                           Then we had a wonderful time of worship and giving thanks to God for the mighty deeds He has done in Silas' little life. 

We are really good friends with Silas' pediatric cardiologist and his wife.  They go to church with us and gave him a doctors kit....so thoughtful and cute!! 

 One year apart!!  Same suite. 

The girls got haircuts.....and bangs.  

 Lulu and I had a violin recital and played a duet. 

Isla May turned 4!!!  She got a pretty doll and matching dress......she was thrilled. 

 Four years old!!!  Such a fun age.

 Levi's been helping me in the kitchen a lot.  He loves to help.

 And our house is all dried out, now we are planing the repair/remodel.  

 First we need to remove the red wallpaper.  I had some amazing helpers.  

 Mark and I celebrated our 10th anniversary!!!  We celebrated the actual day by attending one of our required classes to become a certified foster family.  It was very sweet and in a way symbolic of our marriage and what God has done in the past 10 years.  

Big Boy!

Silas is walking!  He took his first steps months ago and would try walking here and there with our encouragement and help.  But these past two weeks he's been walking on his own and choosing to walk instead of crawl.  Walking at 21 months old!!  

 Here is Silas walking down the hall!

Silas is growing so fast I can't seem to keep up with him and his clothes.  We are down to just a couple tops and the other day they were all dirty.  So I grabbed his custom made hospital gown for his top.  LOL

Six Months Post Op

Six months ago today Silas had open heart surgery to correct his VSD (hole in his heart), remove a sub-aortic membrane (a ridge attached to his aortic valve blocking blood flow).  He also had double chamber right ventricle.  When they got in and actually saw his heart they saw that his tricuspid valve was blocking half of the hole they needed to patch so they ended up flapping back his tricuspid valve and then reattaching it in order to patch the hole correctly. 

Silas was 12 months old at the time of his open heart surgery.  For the first year of his life he was in heart failure.   He's a miracle because we didn't find out about his heart condition until he was 10.5 months old when he got pneumonia and was in the hospital for 6 days.  After healing for 6 weeks we were off to Seattle for his open heart surgery.  

You can watch a video of his time in Seattle HERE. 

Click on the links below to read about his surgery.

Diagnosis  Preparing for Surgery  Day of Surgery  CICU  Hospital Stay  Post Op Visit     

Silas Update

This first picture of Silas with the blue shirt in the swing is him on his first birthday (5/2/14) five days before open heart surgery.  The second picture of Silas in the swing is him at 15months (8/5/14) just 3 months after open heart surgery.  

 This first picture is Silas two weeks before open heart surgery weighing 12.6 lbs at almost 12 months old.  And the second one is of Silas today (8/15/14) at 15 months old weighing 18 lbs.  

 This first picture is of Silas two weeks before open heart surgery.  He was recovering from pneumonia and at his smallest.  His body was using all it's energy to pump blood and oxygen and the rest of his body was shutting down.  We praise God for sustaining Silas' little body during his first year of life.  It's truly a miracle!

Happy 1st Birthday Silas!

Happy Birthday Silas!!!

BIRTH STORY

 May 2nd 2014 was Silas' 1st birthday.  That was the day before we left to drive to WA state for his open heart surgery.  We had a fun morning celebrating.  Everyone got him a card and we had coffee cake for breakfast. 

 He loved the cake!