Home & More Professional Pictures

In an effort to keep your interest during this long update blog post, I am putting some of our professional pictures here and there. These are some from literally the very beginning of the CD that we were given. I have 186 pictures and these are some I chose from maybe the first 50 so I will post tons more as the week goes on but all I have to say is that I love them!! I love having these awesome pics and so many of them are candid or all funky-- things I would never do with a camera. Anyway, enjoy and I will put more up soon.

Kevin made it home from the hospital yesterday at about 5pm. He is in a lot of pain but we are keeping on top of it and making sure he takes his pain meds. He has done really well with moving and walked quite a bit today. He is able to navigate up and down the stairs on crutches as he became a pro on those 4 years ago when he broke his hip (the reason he had to have the replacement) and was on crutches for 5 months. Shoot, Kev walked the Great Wall of China on crutches, so going up and down the stairs post hip replacement is on crutches is nothing to this pro:) He will start physical therapy in the home within the next few days and he will slowly be able to move more and more in time. This is a slow recovery but he is strong and will be back to normal in a bit.

We are so thankful for all your love and support and our Sunday School Class started bringing meals to us tonight which is such a tremendous blessing to not have to think about making food in the midst of trying to so everything else. Tonight our good pals The Murphy's (who will be leaving to adopt their son from Russia in about 6 weeks) brought us some true good southern cooking-- Chicken Fried Steak, mash potatoes, green beans, corn bread and a home made pie!! It was AMAZING as Charity is from the south and knows how to do it up proper!!! The boys got home from hockey starving and I swear they ate everything that was left besides one steak--- YUM!!! Thanks so much Murphy's-- your amazing!!!

The kids are doing well. This whole Kev being out of the picture a bit has given Finley and I a chance to bond better. We were doing fine but she still HAD TO HAVE Kev put her to bed and really still went to him for the love and nurturing unless he was gone and I was a second. BUT, with him in the hospital and even now kind of out of commission, she seems to really be attaching to me well. She is actually happily letting me put her to bed and is choosing to hang with me instead of Kevin. I know that sounds lame when I type it, but choosing me over Kev for her is HUGE and I feel like we have made some strides.

I'm not sure if I mentioned it but they found my car all crashed up. I had to look at it today at the repair shop and I think they are at about $8000 in repair costs and if the engine has any issues, there will be more. I am so very thankful that they found the car and while I hold no hope they will ever catch these guys or get any of my stuff back, the car being found was big. We are now on the security band wagon and we now have window tract things that prevent the windows from being opened even if they are open (they forced open our kitchen window to break in). We now have motion lights on the front, side and back of our house which makes me feel so much more secure. And best of all, we now have an awesome alarm system that is monitored with every window and door alarmed upstairs and down. That really gives me peace of mind and I am happy to announce I have not yet set it off by accident :)

On the Finley front, we had our neurosurgeon talk with the other pediatric neurosurgeon at Loma Linda and they discussed Finley's situation and MRI results and now we are getting mixed messages about surgery now or later. I'm not sure what they are thinking but we are going to go in on Friday to have a final discussion about the timing. The problem is we are saying that Finley has no symptoms of losing function. While that seems true to us, we really don't know how accurate that is. She has somethings she does that we don't think much of but maybe they are symptoms. The problem is if Finley is totally symptom free then maybe we should wait to do the surgery (I don't really agree with that but that is their line of thinking). The problem with that statement is do we really know if she IS REALLY SYMPTOM FREE??? We have only been with Finley for 3 months. We don't really know what she was like a year ago and if things have changed since then. Finley runs kind of flat footed and she is clumsy. She also seems to tire easily when she runs or climbs stairs which could indicate lower leg deterioration. The problem is we really don't know if she has always been like this or are these symptoms that we need to address. So, we are going to meet with them hopefully Friday and give them all these "symptoms" that we may or may not be seeing and let them make the decision if they think we should wait or move on surgery now. I tend to be the kind of person that likes to get things done and the thought of Finley losing function because we waited on surgery freaks me out, so of course I am more inclined to do surgery now, but we want to go with what the Doctors recommend so we will see.

Anyway, that is what is up with us. I hope you enjoyed some of the pro pics.