Happy Thanksgiving

We had a fun Thanksgiving here at the condo. It was so nice to have Addie at home. She is SOOO happy to be home....

We're Finally Out of the Hospital!

We finally made it out of the hospital yesterday. We are all here and everyone is doing great! We are looking forward to a nice and uneventful Thanksgiving...

In her car seat, just home from the hospital! She's not quite sure where she is or why all af her "family" just said "good-bye to her...



Hanging out at "home". Not quite our real home yet, but it is SOOO nice to be out of the hospital for a bit...




Playing with her "keys" and loving laying on the couch...





Happy Girl in her bouncy seat...



Taking a walk in the park and loving the fresh air and the outdoors...




Floor time....Playing with some toys before bedtime....




"Catching up on the evening news" We had to pull her away from the TV...

And Some of Drew.. of course!

Drew hanging out after bathtime and drawing "Elmo" on a piece of paper....





"Ffinging" (as he says it) at the park...



More drawing...



Playing Thomas at the hospital....




Eating and "dipping" some bread at Macaroni Grill...

Happy Belated Halloween

So, here's the story:
On Halloween, Addie was still intubated and we couldn't get her dressed up. I'm not a big Halloween person, but it is her first one and she had this really adorable cat onsie. I was talking with her nurse and we decided that she could dress up anytime. After all, she doesn't really know Halloween from Christmas at this point! So, we decided to get her dressed up on Thursday. So, here are the pictures of Addie's Halloween:

Posing for the Camera

There is a huge rock downstairs from our condo. Drew loves to run and sit on it. Today her let me do a photo shoot. He was SO cute!

Off CPAP

Here are a couple of pictures of Addie today after the CPAP was off. They're from my phone, so they aren't the best quality. She looks so good! She's alot less swollen than when she was right after they extubated.



Matt put on a Baby Einstein for her to watch and she actually got into it. It was pretty cute! Some of the creatures in the video made some strange noises which everyone kept thinking was Addie. Very strange since her vocal chords are still pretty compromised from intubation!

New Pictures of Addie

Wow! What a week. They all seem to be eventful! It's been awhile since I posted pictures, I know. So some of you may still have the immediate post op pictures in your mind. She has improved dramatically in the last week. We finally got the breathing tube out yesterday morning and so far she's held her own, with just a little help and a few bumps!

Pictures of Addie last weekend. I thought she looked GREAT! She was finally pink instead of blue and her swelling was way down.





They finally let her wake up a bit. Or should I say, she was able to wake up without turning black! She is stoned out of her mind here, but at least you can see the eyes:



She LOVES to hold these pink mouth swabs in her hand. I think they are her "magic wands" It keeps her from pulling out her lines and tubes if nothing else!



Here are some pictures from Saturday, the day before extubation! She's wide awake and looks great. It thought she looked good the week before, but her color had gotten even better! She was even smiling through the tube, if you can imagine that!




On Sunday morning she was extubated! I guess that made all of her drugs kick in, or something, because she crashed right away. Not a great plan when your lungs are a little on the weak side anyway. Here is a picture of her just after extubation. She looks a little more swollen and it always shows up in her eyes first.




Since she wasn't breathing deep enough, they moved her to C-pap. This is MUCH less evasive than the ventilator, but looks far worse too me. She hasn't minded it too much and, as the day went on, she got much stronger! She gets a little irritated because she can't eat while she's on it. Hopefully we will get this off today or tomorrow and she'll just be on a high flow nasal canula. Here are a couple pictures. We can't decide whether she looks like an elephant or a pig?

Dr. Drew

Drew was a doctor for Halloween this year! Seemed very appropriate given the circumstances. I have a ton of pictures from the several Halloween events he went to this year. The first pictures are from the "Boo Bash" at one of the elementary schools here. One of the nurses invited us to go to it and Drew had a great time. There were jumpers and tons of games. Unfortunately, Drew didn't go very far from the playground

Here is Drew in one of the jumpers:



The next are of Drew doing his two new favorite things, swinging and sliding:




We had my parents bring the trike Drew got for Christmas last year up (before he outgrows it). He can finally reach the pedals and was having a great time sitting on it:




On Halloween, they had a little carnival downstairs. All the departments had tables set up. Doug Davis, a pitcher from the Diamondbacks, and Baxter the Bear were there. Drew stoled the show and just wanted to dance with Baxter. It was hilarious!

Drew dancing with Baxter:





A photo op with D'backs pitcher, Doug Davis:



We did take Drew out trick-or-treating with some friends we've met here. It was a really nice time. Drew got into it a little bit, but he kinda just did his own thing! He loved the pumpkins and had to take the "lid" off each one and look inside. The first house we went to had a giant Tigger in their front yard. Drew was totally fixated on that for the rest of the night. Here is a picture of him carrying his hat after a hard days work:

Pumpkin Patch

We took Drew to the Pumpkin Patch here in Phoenix last weekend. This place was huge with a ton of stuff to do! He rode the ponies, played on the playground, rode the train and, of course, picked a pumpkin! He had a BLAST! Here are a few pictures of him riding the ponies:





... and trying to find the perfect pumpkin!