At Home in the Mountains

Sitting on the couch like a big girl. She sat like this for probably ten or fifteen minutes just watching the dogs and feeling special. Last time we tried this (awhile back) she couldn't hold herself up and would just slide right over to the side and land on her face. Yes, I know it's crazy, but I made her a 1/2 birthday cake. The girls been through a lot and, let's face it--Mom needs some chocolate. Looking studious for Papa. Notice that her highlighter matches her outfit. I hope this isn't an omen of later on. Why is this picture on here? Maddy is actually tilting her head the OTHER way. Hamming it up for the camera. This outfit came out of the 3-6 month drawer. The first one she's worn from there. It didn't have a size on it so it might not technically be 3-6 months but I am still excited! More hamming for the camera. I went to see my friend Beckie and her kids last week. Richard really, really wanted to hold Maddy. I don't think it was as exciting as he ...

First, let me announce that the family texas state fair day is October 10th and that Aaron can get you fair tickets through DBU's student affairs office for $12. So let us know if you want us to pick one up for you. Maddy's appointment with the ENT was at 9:15 this morning. We waited and waited and he did not come in til  10:30 . Aaron was pretty irritated because he is going to be late for his class. Bad. Anyway, he explained the ABR results and what they could mean and also looked in her ears with a microscope to check for fluid. Her left ear he is 90% sure has fluid. He said it is hard to tell because her ear canals are so small but it doesn't look transparent. The right ear does not have fluid. So the first step is to get a tube put in the left ear and drain the fluid. From the ABR results one of the possibilities is that she could have normal or close to normal hearing in her left ear without the fluid. The right ear definitely has hearing impairment. If her left ear i...

Some of you may remember me talking about going to dinner at the very nice home of one of Aaron's students last year. Well he and his wife have been trying to get pregnant for a while and they found out they were pregnant shortly after Maddy was born. Things had been going fine until last week when she noticed the baby wasn't moving as much as he should be. They went in for an ultrasound and had just about decided that everything looked okay when they saw an area in the brain that the tech suspected could be water. They are going in for an ultrasound with a specialist tomorrow so I wanted to ask everyone to please say a prayer for TJ and Billie and their baby. We've been through this so my heart just hurts for this couple and I pray that everything is okay with their baby.

Maddy was cracking us up last night. This is a new level of excitement over the dogs than we've seen before. Funny, funny baby!

Well today didn't go exactly how we had planned. Last night we gave Maddy her pre-op bath with the soap that the hospital gave us on Friday in preparation for her surgery. We put her to bed, then woke her at 1:30 to feed her for the last time. We got up at 5 a.m. this morning and gave Maddy some pedialyte and then packed up and headed to Cook's Children's in Ft. Worth for Maddy's MRI and tethered cord surgery. We got to the hospital right at 7:30 as we'd been requested to do and checked in for the MRI. Then we waited for 2 hours and they finally came and got the poor very hungry and tired baby to sedate her for the procedure. Only one of us could go into the sedation room with her so I went. They give gas through a mask and then put in the breathing tube and iv. The parent only stays until the baby goes under. It was really sad. I've seen her go under for an MRI one other time and it tears me up every time. Their eyes kind of roll back but the eyes don't clo...

A couple random pics from Farwell. ********* We just got back from the ABR. This time Maddy had to be sedated. The sedation was an oral medicine. She did really well with that. So far it seems that it has not upset her tummy and she was coming out of it during the middle of the test so they kind of had to fight to keep her asleep.  The test results were moderate hearing loss. It seems that the hearing loss has something to do with how the sound is being conducted through the middle ear. They will check for fluid again but at this point it seems that hearing aids are on the horizon. Apparently there are also some surgeries that they can do for this type of hearing loss but I think we would probably not do that right away and I think she will need to be hearing at full capacity for her speech development before we could get surgery etc. arranged and at this point we don't know for sure that is an option or if we'd want to do it. Anyhow, we'll go back to Dr. Gamble soon and th...

Somehow, having a grandkid and great-grandkid to take to visit the grandparents gives family time a whole new meaning. We went out to Farwell this weekend. My cousin, Rachel, drove with us. It made the trip seem much shorter to have three drivers. We got to Farwell about 2 in the morning on Saturday. When we got to my grandparents house, Maddy was wide awake and ready to play. She laid in her playpen for the longest time turning and tossing around and thumping her heels on the mat in the bottom. FINALLY she settled down and went to sleep.  Saturday was the family meal day. All the Embry clan came over to Mema and Papa's and ate supper. Brandon and Amanda still have their foster kids so we got to see them again. Between the three kids the party was pretty lively. After supper the guys went out and shot clay pigeons. I went out at Aaron's request and embarrassed myself with a few shots that came no where close to the target.  Sunday was church and potluck day. The potluck was rea...