18 Months

How is our sweet little guy growing so FAST?  Gosh, six months have gone by in the blink of an eye.  He has changed so much in the last few months.  I see his one-year pictures and think he looks like such a baby!  It makes your head spin to realize how much happens in just a year and a half of life!

At 18 months, we pinch ourselves to believe that this tender-hearted, funny, loving, thumb-sucking boy is ours.  It is an honor to be able to watch him grow, change and emerge as the precious little guy that he is.  There's no way I could ever say that and truly mean it, if we were in a different situation.  It is such a blessing to be able to have an appreciation for that.  One that most parents take for granted.

I'm finding it hard to describe how much fun Cal brings to our family.  Sure, he can be whiny, impatient and throw a heck of a tantrum if you take away his (SISTER'S) Ipad.  But, overall he is joy.  Not a joy, but joy.  It is true what they say, you love your children the same, but appreciate them for the different little people they are.  Calvin keeps us all laughing.  Elena adores him.  And he adores her.  His first word in the morning is "sissy".  And he loves giving Elena kisses before bed time.  Watching them together literally makes my heart burst.  I hold so much hope in their relationship and it's beautiful to see it unfold.

Currently, Cal is loving apples, airplanes, golf, words (of all kinds...yikes!), Mickey Mouse and peekaboo, just to name a few.  About a month ago, it was animals and their sounds all. day. long.  He really does have quite a vocabulary, saying more words than I can count right now.  We talk a lot at our house.  I'm thinking he picks it up because we are always describing things to Elena, talking about things we hear, asking Elena questions and reading lots of books.  When you have one visually impaired, non-verbal child, you reallllly talk things out!  I think Cal picks up on all that.  I won't lie though, every single time he says "Mommy" or "Daddy" I tear up a little.  You have no idea how sweet those words truly are.  Our favorites right now are hearing him say "Mickey Mouse" and "Peekaboo, I see you!".  The way he says it is simply adorable.  Even though he says them 100 times a day, it still makes me smile.

To Chad's delight, Cal has really been working on his golf swing.  He received a little Fisher Price set for his birthday back in April.  It's pretty cute to watch him line up the ball and "tee off"!  Chad shows him how to do it, and he mimics him.  That being said, he mimics everything.  Everything!
He "helps" put lotion on Elena after her bath.
Or sweeps when I'm running the vacuum.
Or cooks when I cook.
Or cleans when I clean.
Or helps put Elena's boots on in the morning before school.
Or "mows" when Daddy is mowing.
Or "waters the flowers" when we do.

The list goes on and on.  And he repeats everything we say.  Everything.  (no more potty mouth at the Hinton house, we quickly learned our lesson!)  He loves getting Sis on the bus with me in the morning and is quick to say "AMEN!" after prayers at night.  He is such a precious little thing who fills our day with lots of smiles.  We love you sweet Calvin Merrick!

Florida & Fall

The days and months are flying by and I'm struggling to keep up!  I've been meaning to post a blog for weeks!

We enjoyed several days in the Florida sun last week.  We flew down with my family for a final hurrah before my parents took off for Arizona for the winter (rough life they have!).  It was great to spend some quality time with our family, not to mention spend every day on the beach!  It was Cal's first time to enjoy the beach, you may remember us taking a trip last August with Chad's family.  But he LOVED it.  He was completely fearless.  He loved shoveling in the sand, but more so, the water.  Gramma Frey showed him how to stomp his feet in the waves, splashing around.  Grampa Frey showed him to "jump" the waves as they rolled in.  It was so fun to see him enjoy it so.

Elena loves the beach too.  She loves feeling the ocean breeze and standing in the waves as they crash against her.  It's an exhausting job for whomever is holding her, but it's fun to watch her squeal in excitement when she gets splashed.  We had so much fun and are already looking forward to going back next year.  But first, I'm hoping for a mid-winter, when it's bitterly cold and snowy praying for spring, trip to Arizona to thaw out and see Gramma & Grampa!  Hint, hint Chaddy!

This past weekend, we made our annual trip to the Country Market Pumpkinfest here in Zionsville.  Evan & Sam joined us, braving the unusually chilly temps to have a little fun.  The boys loved going down the giant hill-slide, riding the "tractor", seeing the animals and of course, picking out "punkins".  It's so fun spending time with "Sahhhhhhm" as Cal says it, and watching them play together.  They're both just so cute!  Elena had fun too.  She got to go down the slide again this year with Mommy, which produced big smiles!

The leaves around here are beautiful.  Another season flying by.  We're in such a good place right now.  Cal keeps us all entertained and laughing with his spirit and Elena is loving staying busy.  Hard to believe the holidays are creeping up on us.  They'll be sure to bring along more wonderful times and memories with everyone we love!  So much to be thankful for, even on our tough days.

Here's a boat load of pictures from the last few weeks!

Our only family picture :(

First steps on the beach!

Riding waves with Grampa

My favorite picture of the week...Gramma & Laney watching the sunset.

Even got to catch up with more family, Aunt Rene & cousin Megan and her new husband Brian!

Changing gears (and weather!) to Pumpkinfest

Cuzzies Sam & Cal

Follow Up Photos

As promised, I wanted to share with you Elena's pictures from Grape Escape.

This one is her "Cowgirl" picture.  They had a western theme this year, so Elena rocked some cute cowboy boots!  I just love the expression on her face in this.  It's so her.  Laid back, sweet and innocent.  Gosh, she's cute! :)

This picture is her artwork.  Purple has been a theme in our life this year...purple wheelchair, purple AFOs, purple gait trainer, purple everything...so seeing that she chose to paint with purple isn't surprising!

Thanks for the awesome feedback on the video.  I know it was good to show you all what Elena does in therapy each week.  That was just a snippet of how hard our girl works.  She puts in 9-10 hours of therapy a week, not including at home or at school, so that just gives you an idea of the tasks we work on.  We're so proud of what she has accomplished at the Jackson Center and love our family there.  I'm so glad we were able to share that with you all.  

Thank you for all your continued love and support.  I've been feeling so many of your prayers lately and I can't express to you how much encouragement that brings me.  We are so appreciative of the love you give our family!

Grape Escape 2015

You may remember previous posts about us attending the Jackson Center's annual fundraiser in 2014 & 2013, Grape Escape.  It is an awesome night celebrating our kids and raising money to keep the Jackson Center serving our families.  This year, there was a western theme and it was a beautiful night (so I heard!)

I actually couldn't attend this year, as I had already committed to be the social chair (ha!) for a weekend with my college girlfriends.  BUT, Elena had plenty of support this year in our friends and family.  Over $125,000 was raised, which goes directly to help serve our kids and keep this wonderful place in operation.

Unfortunately, Chad can never be trusted to take ANY pictures EVER, so there are no photos of the evening.  But, we were happy to be involved in making this year's video.  I'm always excited to share our love of this place and what it's given our family.

I'll let the video do the talking.  But, I promise I'll share a picture of Elena's painting in a later post.  The kids paint pictures to be auctioned off each year...Jackson (yes, he's the namesake) had a painting this year that sold for $7,000!  While Elena's didn't go for that much, it's still a "Picasso" to us!

**Excuse my man-voice in the video-I had a horrrrrrrible cold when we filmed!

 

Answered Prayers at Cracker Barrel

The other day I overheard someone say in response to a tragic story that it was "hard to believe that's God's will in a situation like that".  I immediately found myself offended.  Later as I was relaying the story to Chad I explained that there is NO WAY that it is "God's will" for ANYTHING terrible to happen to ANYONE.  You could never convince me that it was God's plan for Elena to be injured and suffer the way she has.  Never.  Rather, I fully believe that when terrible, inexplicable things happen, God weaves that tragedy into something really beautiful.  It doesn't necessarily mean easy, but beautiful nonetheless.  I have prayed so often the last few months for God to continue to use me and use our sweet Elena to continue to be a light for Him.  I want so badly for people to see that my strength doesn't come from some internal powerhouse that was genetically bestowed upon me, but my strength comes from my faith.  And without it, this story wouldn't exist.  I would have never survived the last four years the way that I have.

I'm going to be honest with you.  In the last couple months, I've been struggling with the fate of my blog.  It's been such a part of our family for the last four years.  These days I have much less time to devote to real, meaningful posts.  Most are done on the fly and out of guilt because I haven't blogged in awhile.  I've wondered who actually reads anymore, what kind of light, if any, are we shining?  I've wondered if I share too much.  I've thought about devoting my time to compiling our entire story, start to finish, about all of what we've experienced.  I've felt as though it's time for something else.  It's been on my mind so often lately that I've really been praying about it.

Why am I telling you all this, you ask?  Because, last night at Cracker Barrel, God answered my prayer.

Before you go thinking I've lost it and officially a cuckoo Christian, let me explain!  Chad and I took the kids to Cracker Barrel for dinner last night (yes, we live a very fancy, exciting life).  Soon after we sat down a sweet woman came up to our table and said this:

Hi, you don't know me.  But my name is

Judy Russell.  I live in Lafayette and I read

your blog.  My Bible Study and I have been

praying for Elena and your family for years.

You have a sweet family and we will

continue to pray for you.

It was all Chad and I could do to keep from bursting into sobs.  No, I didn't know Judy and I don't know how she found my blog but that was the answer that I have been praying for.  It came from the sweetest woman at Cracker Barrel over meatloaf and chicken n' dumplings.  I mean, how awesome is God?  

Elena's story, our story IS still shining a light.  God isn't done with us.  There's more to share.  I don't want to let my self-doubt and insecurity interrupt the continuation of our story and the glory that it will bring to Him.  So bear with me folks.  I'm a busy Mom these days and have little time for anything other than feeding, transporting and cleaning children, but don't forget about us.  We are STILL humbled by your love and prayers.  And we most definitely want to keep shining a light.  

"Be still, and know that I am God;

I will be exalted among the nations,

I will be exalted in the earth.

The Lord Almighty is with us;

God is our fortress."

Psalm 46:10-11

Quick Update

I have about five minutes for a quick update.  Seeing that it's 10 days after Elena's GI appointment, I need to give you the rundown.  So, appointment went as expected.  Her GI doc is great, but there's only so much she can do.  She did run several tests to rule out things like something with her G-tube, constipation and a more severe issue (ie gallbladder, liver, stomach, etc.)  Elena had a endoscopy several months ago, so we knew there wasn't anything terribly wrong with her esophagus.  So, we're trying an old med that we've done before to see if that helps.  But no real answers.

Elena also saw her longtime speech therapist this week, who thinks, for whatever reason, Elena's gag reflex has been heightened.  So, anything that may have not made her gag in the past, is making her gag now, hence her throwing up and gagging ALL THE TIME.  This definitely makes the most sense to us, as Elena has been realllllly gaggy for quite some time.  And she usually starts as a cough or a weird gag before throwing/spitting up.  So, there's that...which isn't necessarily the easiest problem to treat.

Elena had been doing a little better since her appointment, only having spit ups and mostly around her feeding times.  Then Tuesday at the JC, I got a call saying she had thrown up everything and more during therapy.  So, I guess the silver lining was that for once I didn't have to clean it up?  Yay?

For now it's just something we will be dealing with until it's better.  That's a tough one to swallow (pun intended) but such is life with child who has feeding/swallowing issues.  We'll just keep praying for her gag reflex to settle back down (such an odd prayer request!) and hope that between God and medicine, she'll get some relief.

I'll leave you at least with a cute video of Elena with one of her faves, Miss Lisa (her OT).  Miss Lisa has been with Elena since she was 6 months old and Elena LOVES her.  Each week, we start her session with B-I-N-G-O (one of her favorite songs) and bouncing (another fave) to get Elena to look at Miss Lisa in the eyes, on her left....a really tough task for Elena.  She knows this game, but is always such a stinker!  I took a video of it because every week, I love watching Elena's face during this exercise.  It just makes me happy.

Prayer Request

Guys, I haven't asked specifically for a prayer request in a long time.  I know so many of you keep Elena and our family on your prayer list regularly and we are sooooo grateful for that.  If you can over the next week, pray specifically for Elena's GI issues.  Chad and I are so incredibly frustrated and feel like the only thing left is to bombard God with prayers for this.

Most of you know Elena has struggled constantly with severe acid reflux and vomiting since her injury.  Literally for three and a half years we endured daily projectile vomiting.  We've been from doctor to doctor and everyone tries the same thing, then throws up their hands in surrender.  Finally in March, we switched Elena to a new formula that was actually real food blended up.  We were praising God, because for about three months we had NO vomiting.  It was a life changer.  For once we didn't fear the threat of a major vomit in public, in the car or at home.

Out of nowhere, a couple weeks ago,  Elena started vomiting at some point pretty much every single day.  I can't keep her bedding or our "puke towels" clean.  The gagging is incessant.  She's puked at the doctor, the dentist, the Jackson Center, the car, other people's cars, in bed, on the couch, on the babysitter, in the bathtub, in her feeding chair, on me, on Chad....everywhere.  She's pretty miserable around feeding times.  The worst is when she wakes up either from a nap or in the morning.  It's a guaranteed throw up.

We see her GI on Monday.  So in the meantime, please pray for both Elena and the doctor.  We need resolve both for our sanity and for our sweet little girl, who has to endure this.  We're all miserable.