My Baby is 3!!!

Our little man is 3! I can't believe that my baby is 3, the time has gone so fast. We had a party for him this weekend with family and a few friends. He had a blast. Here are a few pictures of the fun, and I mean a few, we really didn't take great pictures.

This is the cake that I slaved over for days. It is the first birthday cake that I have made for my children that didn't end with Kevin running to the store last minute to pick up a new cake. I spent weeks researching cake recipes, frosting recipes, fondant recipes, and cake designs. I think all of my hard work payed off. This first picture is before I put the toys on it to make it a Toy Story cake. The second is at the party all finished.

Here is my sweet birthday boy. He couldn't wait to get his hands on those toys.

Here is one of the few pictures of other children at his party. He had his best buddy Truman at the party and Grant, Carter, Jack, Xander, Hunter, Jackson, and of course his big brother Kaden.

We had so much fun celebrating his birthday.

Oliver we love you so much and are so thankful that God in trusted you to us. We are truly thankful to be your mommy and papa. Love you Moe-Moe!!

Crazy Times!

These last couple of weeks since receiving our referral for our sweet boy have been crazy. Not just a little crazy, a lot crazy. Let me start from the beginning.... The day after we received our referral we went to the hospital to see our friend Brian and his wife Karen. Brian had been admitted into the hospital the day before for chest pains and when we saw him he looked tired and you could tell that he didn't feel good. We sat and talked to them for a few minutes and showed them a picture of our new son, and then all of a sudden Brian looked like he was going to throw up and then he looked like he was having a seizure and then he just stopped, literally his heart stopped. It is the scariest thing I have ever seen. My friend Karen began screaming and nurses and doctors came running in and began preforming CPR on Brian, and at this time they kicked us out of the room. We were just standing in the hall crying and wondering if they were going to be able to save him. I am not sure how long it was until the nurse came out to tell us that they were able to get his heart beating and he was breathing on his own, but it felt like forever. They then told us that they were taking him to the ICU and we would know more later. We found out later that his aortic valve had torn and that he needed surgery immediately. They also told us that if this had happened outside of the hospital there is a 99.9% death rate (miracle). They then took him into surgery and about an hour into surgery they came out to tell us that his aorta had burst and there was a 50/50 chance that he would make it out of surgery alive... he did (miracle). They told us that they weren't going to wake him up until the next day to let him recover so we went home to get some rest.

We spent the next week at the hospital everyday waiting for them to wake up Brian but everyday they decided that his lungs weren't strong enough. One day I was in the room when they were waking him up and it was so hard to watch, he would just gag on the breathing tube that they had put in. He would gag until he threw up, it was awful.

That week was hard, we spent most of our time at the hospital and the rest packing and doing laundry. We had to take a few trips to our new house to clean and to bring some stuff up. It was such a difficult week, we were overjoyed with the news of our referral and overcome with grief over our friend in the hospital and his wife that was struggling.

We moved on Saturday, which was so hard. Moving is just hard. It is really hard work physically and really hard emotionally to leave all of our friends and family behind. Then right after we had moved we found out that Brian had had two stokes, one during surgery and one sometime after. They weren't sure if he would ever wake up and if he did if he would have any brain function. We were all devastated.

I tell you all of this because today I saw a miracle. Karen called a couple of nights ago to tell us that Brian had woken up and that he smiled at her...smiled!!!! He then kissed her! Kevin and I could hardly believe it. The next day they called us to tell us that he had high-fived his daughter and given a lot of smiles. He is unable to speak at this time because they gave him a tracheotomy to make sure his oxygen levels are safe, but he has been responding. So today Kevin and I had to see it to believe it and we were blown away. We walked into his room and he was sitting in a chair and he saw us and smiled. Kevin and I were so happy we couldn't stop smiling and hugging him. We asked him some questions and he answered by nodding. Kevin kept cracking jokes and he would smile. It was so amazing to see him today after we felt like we had lost him. It was also great to see Karen smiling and laughing again. It was an amazing day. Kevin and drove home talking about miracles we have seen in our lives. Brian is a miracle. I know that he has a rough road ahead, but all of the odds were against him surviving all that he had gone through, and a miracle is the only way he could have survived. Tonight I am so thankful!