Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Family Photos!

We went to a great place called Portrait Innovations to have family photos taken last Friday. All together we had 88 pictures snapped! We ordered quite a few and were given a CD of all 88 shots. I asked if it was legal to post them on the blog and they said yes!!! So here's a sampling of how they turned out!




Monday, August 11, 2008

Lots and Lots and Lots and Lots of Photos

Wearing her cool sunglasses holding her cell phone at Ty's baseball game.
Jill played her very first 'board game', Cootie, with Ty, Jake, and Mommy, and SHE WON!
The winner gets hugs and kisses!
Jake and Ty both love to spin her around until she's dizzy. She falls down, gets back up and wants to do it again, and again, and again, and again!!!
Story time in the laundry basket. Good thing Jake was willing to read because Mommy doesn't fit in the laundry basket very well.
All of her Band-aids from her shots and blood work. At least they matched her dress!
We don't have a baby stroller, so she uses her shopping cart. She loads up every baby doll she has and then walks around and around the house.

This was her first day playing in the yard. She ran, chased bubbles, and played on the swings and the slide!
Her first swimming experience in our friends' in-ground pool! She loved it! She called it a 'patsa' which is the word for bath in Russian.
She also loved the Drumstick our friends gave her after swimming!

No More Snoring!

Well, what a week. Two Tuesdays ago Jill had her CT scan. It went well. They were hoping to not have to give her anesthesia to do it by just giving her something "like drinking two margaritas" to make her relaxed enough to lay still for it, but they said she kept moving at the last second, so they ended up giving her the anesthesia. Luckily she came to quickly and felt fine, eating Cheerios and drinking apple juice right away, so they let us go home more quickly than we expected.
The CT scan showed that the hemangioma is not anything to be concerned about!
Then last Thursday she had her tonsils and adenoids taken out and her ears cleaned out. There was so much wax and dried blood in her ears that the doctor couldn't see her eardrum! It's amazing to hear (or should I say not hear) her breathe now! She can close her mouth and breathe through her nose!!! She doesn't snore any more-at all!!! She does have to be reminded to close her mouth because it's such a habit. She's breathed through her mouth her whole life! She has her ups and downs recuperating. She's cranky, then we give her pain medicine, then she's great, then she's tired and either cranky again or falls asleep, then wakes up cranky again, then we give her pain medicine, etc.... The biggest problem is getting her to drink water! They told us she should drink a liter a day to keep the packing stuff in her throat from drying out, but bare minimum she must drink 500 ml. This really didn't look like much, but it's almost impossible to get her to drink it! At first I thought it was because it hurts, but now I think she's just being stubborn because she eats fine, but won't drink! The first day home (Friday, because we spent the night in the hospital eating only broth and orange jello)she ate oatmeal and yogurt, then Saturday she ate oatmeal, yogurt, applesauce and banana, Sunday she ate oatmeal, yogurt, banana, flaked salmon, canned peas, and macaroni and cheese. Yet, she screamed, whined, cried, etc. when we wanted her to take a drink. Today (Monday) she was to the point where she would spit it out at me when I made her drink! The other reason I think she's just being stubborn is because when my mom tells her to drink, she does! My dad was over and I was trying to get her to drink and she wouldn't, but when I gave it to my dad and said, "Here, tell her to drink this." she did! Wade had a little better luck than I do in making her drink, but it's still not easy. So, that's our biggest frustration right now.
We don't have any new English words to report because her speech is tons worse now from the surgery. I do think this is temporary, her mouth and cheeks are kind of swollen and she's got a big excess saliva problem (and doesn't want to swallow it) so she sounds really funny when she talks. She also kind of holds her head down a little all the time now and all this makes her voice sound different. So, hopefully a week from Thursday we'll move forward with words and language some more as we were told this surgery had a two week recovery period.
Hey, the school secretary told me this week that a new girl just enrolled in Jill's preschool class and she was also adopted from Russia! they're only a month apart in age, but the new girl was adopted at about a year and a half. Still, I can't wait to meet them!
Bye for now!