Ella Kate's surgery

Ella Kate is sleeping right now and the surgery went well. The Dr. was able to re-route all 4 ureters into the bladder. He did have to place stints in that will be removed in 6-8 weeks. She is not wanting to keep her clear liquids down so that is a concern right now. I'll update later after the Dr. comes in tonight. Thank you for all your prayers and wonderful messages!

The Night Before Surgery

Look at this sweet happy baby! Well, tonight is the night before her surgery. Tomorrow morning we have to be at Vanderbilt Children's Hospital at 6:30 AM for Ella Kate to have the duplicated ureters (the tube that goes from the kidney to the bladder) that she was born with corrected. The Dr. hopes to be able to re-route the ureters into the bladder and make only one on each side. We are praying that this is all that will have to be done. You would never know by looking at her that she has this problem. She has been on antibiotics since the day she was born to help prevent infections. We are spending the night tonight in Nashville because we have to be at the hospital so early and Ella Kate can't eat anything after midnight. We thought just driving a few miles to the hospital with a hungry baby would be better than driving an hour! :) We did some shopping at Opry Mills tonight and ate at the food court. Ella Kate loves to shop!!

Here she is loving on her Ella the elephant. She sleeps with Ella every night and we hear Ella the elephant sing sometimes during the night, but she never wakes up Ella Kate.

Ella Kate loves books! She would rather sit and turn pages in a book than play with her other toys. This has started Allison calling her a nerd, but it hasn't stopped her from reading to Ella Kate.

Now, this is one thing that I would never let Ella Kate do at home and that is play with the remote control, but since we are in a hotel room the rules do not apply. Ha,ha!

I leave with you with this picture of Ella Kate. I love this picture! She loves mirrors and "talks" to herself in them.
Please remember us tomorrow morning and I plan on updating my blog to let everyone know how the surgery went. Until tomorrow, good night!

Where did December go and look what Ella Kate can do!!!

I totally missed posting any Christmas information or pictures! I was so busy and when I did get to sit down at the computer it was spent reading other blogs and getting on facebook (a new addiction!). I apologize for that and I hope to do better this year. That is actually one of my new year's resolutions (which a complete list of resolutions is coming in a future blog). I hope to blog at least once a week. My goal is to blog every other day, but that may be stretching it. This is just a quick blog, but I wanted to wish everyone reading a VERY HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

I also wanted to post these pictures of Ella Kate to show all of you what she can do. She just completely surprised Scott and myself. She just took off across the living room so I had to grab the camera and video camera. I actually tried to upload a video but for some reason I couldn't get it to work. She got this stroller for Christmas and she loves to pull the doll out and try to climb in. Now that she's doing this I'm afraid walking is not to far off! OH MY!
The doll she is pushing has on an orange cheerleading outfit with a paw print on the front! GO TIGERS!!




Well, until next post! Goodnight!

An Update on Ella Kate

I posted earlier that we were taking Ella Kate back to Vanderbilt last Monday and had planned on spending the night on Sunday and doing all kinds of things. Well, our plans got changed when Ella Kate woke up Sunday morning and sounded congested. We decided not to drag her all over Nashville and make the trip on Monday morning. We got up Monday and she still sounded congested, but was running no fever and didn't really act like she felt bad so off we went to Vanderbilt. The Dr. set her surgery for Feb. 26th. She'll be in the hospital for 2 or more nights and then out of commission for about 2-4 weeks. He will have to make an incision and reroute tubes from her kidneys to her bladder. Here is a picture of her before we left that morning.
After we left Vanderbilt we decided that she didn't sound too bad so we took her to Cool Springs to have her picture made with Santa. They requested you use no personal photography equipment so I have no pictures of her with Santa except for the $30.00 package I bought!!! So here are some of her after the picture. By the way, she LOVED Santa!
By the time we started home I got a little concerned with her breathing so I called her pediatrician and we took her right in. They gave her a breathing treatment and thought it was just a chest cold. Fast forward to Wednesday. I got her up Wednesday morning and got her ready for daycare. I thought she sounded a little worse, but still no fever and she still acted fine. I went on and took her to daycare. At 12:45 they called me and said she had been asleep since 9AM and had just gotten up and sounded terrible. I called the pediatrician again and took her right in. This time they tested her for RSV and guess what? She tested positive! Bless her heart, I felt terrible. So in the house is where we've been since last Wednesday and where we'll stay until this Wednesday when she can go back to daycare. She had really bad days Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. Yesterday was pretty good and so far today has been ok. I think she is on the mend now. There is nothing worse than a sick baby (except for maybe a sick husband-HA,HA!).
Well, she just woke up from a nap so until next blog, see ya! Love, Amy

A Special Prayer for a Dear Friend

One of my closest and dearest friends lost her son this week. Cathy and I worked together for 11 years before she left me and retired. We were with each other more than we were our families. I love her and I am hurting so much for her. Please take time to say a special prayer for her and her family. I know she needs them in her time of sorrow. I love you Cathy and I know that one day you will see your precious Josh again.

Another Post So Soon?

Ok, so I'm posting this on my lunch hour. I wanted to share a a couple of pictures from my adventure in shopping on Black Friday. Every year my sister, Jennifer, and I get up and leave town before 4AM. Why, you ask? Because we're CRAZY! No, really we do it for the excitement and the deals. This year I wasn't going for anything in particular just to go and buy whatever. I am almost finished with my Christmas shopping and just have a few things left to get. The first picture is one of Jennifer holding up a vacuum that I just knew we needed at home so I took the picture of with my cell phone and texted it to Scott to see if he agreed. Of course, he did since he does all the vacuuming and cooking (but that's a different story). Isn't Jennifer doing a great job at modeling? The next picture is of a couple of girls (that I do not know) that were shopping next to us. I just had to take their picture because of the one sitting in the kid seat on the buggy. Apparently she had had enough and it was only 7:45 AM!! I asked her if she minded me taking her picture and she no, just as long as I didn't show it to anyone she knew. I just told her I wouldn't, but that it would probably end up on my blog! :) I did get some great deals and I'm ready for next year.



I have also added a picture of my boss, Gary with his new Christmas CD that I got him. He LOVES Mannheim Steamroller and they have a new Christmas CD out this year titled "Christmasville". I bought it at Target on Friday and gave it to him on Monday so he could enjoy it before Christmas. Gary loves to have his picture taken! I wonder how he'll feel about seeing himself on here?

Well, until next post! Love, Amy

I'm FINALLY back to the blog world!!

Ok, so I've haven't blogged in over a month. I promise I am going to try to be so much better from now on. I have so much to blog about! We've had Halloween, an election, a scope at Vanderbilt, Veteran's Day, and Thanksgiving since my last blog. Where do I begin? First here's a picture of Ella Kate from Halloween since she's the only one who dresses up.
Next is a picture of Kyle from election day. He got to vote for the first time this year. I still can't believe he's 18!
Ella Kate went to Vanderbilt and had a scope of her kidneys done on Nov. 5th. Everything went great and the Dr. thinks he'll be doing surgery in January. We go back to see the Dr. next Monday the 8th. We are going to take Ella Kate on Sunday and see Santa and spend the night in Nashville. We hope to go to Opryland Hotel and see the Christmas lights. I hope to take tons of pictures to post. Here's a sweet picture of Ella Kate after her scope. Can you believe she's this happy after being poked and prodded?
We had a wonderful Thanksgiving! We celebrated with both sides of our families. The only ones missing were Allison, Scott's mom and grandma. They decided to spend Thanksgiving in a condo in Panama City Beach. They had a great time, but I missed Allison! I love Thanksgiving also because my birthday usually falls on it or right around it, I don't ever have to cook anything, and it's great to spend time with our families. This year we were especially thankful for our baby girl and her health. I'll leave you with some pictures of Thanksgiving. I've gotten the Thanksgiving decorations down and the Christmas decorations are going up. I'll be posting those pics in the next few days. Have a wonderful Sunday night! Love, Amy

Here is Ella Kate in her Thanksgiving turkey dress.

Here I am with Scott, Kyle, and Ella Kate. My niece and nephew read Thanksgiving prayers before lunch.Here is Ella Kate helping me pick out the best deals for Black Friday.
And I think this picture says it all. Good Night until the next blog!