Thanksgiving

We had a great Thanksgiving weekend at my parent's house.  Lots of food, family, games, our traditional Black Friday shopping.  Lots and lots to be thankful for.  I ended our stay earlier today with a nice visit to see my grandma in the nursing home.  Oh, and a Buckeye win was a plus as well :)  Enjoy some of my favorite photos from the holiday!

We got the girls up and got them ready to go early Thursday morning.  I made these turkey shirts for each of them from an idea from Pinterest.  I love how they turned out!  I'll post the instructions sometime later this week.

Love that Ella and hugging Hannah in this photo!  Hailee's face is pretty funny too :)

Leah and I made this turkey veggie tray.  This was another idea I got from Pinterest.  I have no idea when I became so crafty and domesticated but I kind of like it!  I'm hoping my craftiness continues on through Christmas as well!

Little Miss Ella

Ella and I made these turkey cupcakes on Wednesday evening to bring to my parent's.  Ella LOVED making these and talked about them for a week until it was finally time to make them.  I was happy with how they turned out too!

Me, mom, and my girls :)

Paul was proud of himself for helping with dinner by mashing the potatoes :)

Uncle Ryan photo bombing mine and Hannah's picture.  At least it's laughable :)

Everyone looking at the ads, preparing for the next day of shopping!

Hails loves Uncle Ryan

This is hilarious.  Ryan has a roll in his hand and the babies and dogs are all surrounding him, all wanting the roll.  I'm curious as to whom won...

We helped decorate the Denomme family tree yesterday.

H&H loved it!  I can't wait to do ours!

Ella hung all of the ornaments next to others that they "matched".  In other words, she hung all of the same ones next to each other.  Ha!

Me and the babes.

Now the Clark family goes in to full Christmas mode for the next month!  I am so excited for the holidays this year!  Yay for more fun times ahead!

Close Call..

Well, yesterday was not the exact day-before-Thanksgiving that I had planned.  Our little Hannah was coughing a lot on Tuesday.  She was up all night long (literally like 10 times) Tuesday night going in to Wednesday.  We decided at about 3:00am that Paul would take her to the walk in hours at 8:00am.  When I got Hannah up and started getting her dressed, I noticed her struggling to breath a bit, retractions in her stomach and neck from breathing, and some wheezing.  Respiratory distress.  Lovely.

Paul got to the Pediatrician's office.  They asked Hannah's symptoms.  They asked to see her belly and immediately pushed him up before the other 8 families already sitting in the waiting room.  The Dr. came back to see them and was concerned at how much Hannah was working to breathe.  They took her pulse oxygen level and it was 91.  Not good.  They did a breathing treatment, pulse ox still at 91, did another and it actually went down to 89.  Yep, Paul said he knew it was time.  They came in, took Paul and Hannah on the stretcher and off to Children's Hospital they went in the ambulance. 

On the other end of town, I'm sitting at home, with Ella and Hailee, about to lose my mind.  The wait to find out what was going on was bad enough.  Ella and I were in the middle of making some turkey cupcakes (Pinterest inspired, super cute, photos later) which I obviously had to put an end to.  I had to explain that someone had to come stay with them while mommy went and saw Hannah at the doctor with daddy.  That did not go well.  Ella started crying, screaming.  Then Hailee started crying.  The poor girls.  Help came to watch the girls and I was off.  I called a friend on the way to the hospital and thinking back on it now, she probably couldn't even understand me.  I was hysterical.

When I got to the hospital, Hannah was sitting there on Paul's lap.  Ok, this was not so bad.  If it were bad enough, she would be on oxygen (I guess she was on oxygen all the way in the ambulance).  She looked sleepy, and sick.  We went through meeting with the resident doctor, then another breathing treatment, then checking her levels more, then another treatment, then meeting with the attending doctor.  He said that she was looking much better, at this time she was playing on the bed, being her happy, silly self.  Her oxygen level was up to between 92 and 93 (still not great, they want it over 95) and her breathing was much slower with barely any retraction.  He agreed to let us go home after one more treatment.  YAY!  He said we seem to have a handle on things and what to look for in reasons to bring her back.  I sure didn't think once I got to the hosiptal we would be leaving so soon.  I didn't think it would be a two week stay like last time, but at least a shorter stay, maybe a few days or so like Hailee had last time.  The breathing treatments obviously helped.  We have an inhaler at home and are required to do them here once every four hours.  Hannah is also on some liquid breathing medication for the next four days.  Both doctors did say this is related to asthma.  She most likely already has it and these breathing problems are something we will have to deal with for the next few years with her.  The problems can come on fast, like they did yesterday, and can be mild or severe.  The thought of this happening over and over again makes my stomach turn.  *If you are wondering what I am meaning when I say "last time this happened", read this post from less than a year ago.

I just kept thinking to myself "Hannah cannot go through this again, I cannot go through this again, my family cannot go through this again".  I am thankful we are home.  It's been a rough week for other reasons as well and all I feel now is thankful.  Something somewhat major happens, and once again things are put into perspective. 

Today is Thanksgiving.  I hope everyone reading this is thankful for the love and family in their lives.  Life is way to precious to take for granted.  Give your kid an extra hug today, tell a family member you love them, and your spouse how much they mean to you.  I know I sound all wishy-washy right now, but hey, it's 5:30am and after yesterday's events all I can feel is thankful.  The Lord puts us in these situations for whatever reason, to make us stronger, to test us, to help us depend on Him.  Have a Happy Thanksgiving today.  I will post photos later of my girls in their ribbon turkey shirts I made them and some of my other Pinterest inspired crafts and food I've been working on.  *I have no idea where all of this creativity came from either.  But we've sure had a fun week or so preparing for this glorious day!



Our sweet girl in her hospital bed yesterday.

Thankful

I woke up this morning feeling thankful.  I am thankful that my little girl is doing so much better now.  I am thankful that she had the opportunity to fight for her health.  I am thankful that she is the feisty little fighter that she is.  I'm sure you hear all the time about tragedies that happen where little babies or kids don't get the chance to fight.  Their lives are taken much too young for reasons that we on earth will never understand.  I know story after story of things like this happening, including my sweet 9 year old cousin who's life was taken a few years back because of a tragic accident.  My heart breaks more for my aunt and uncle now than it did when the accident happened.  Now that I have my own children, it puts things in a different perspective.  I just cannot imagine what they still go through on a daily basis.  The most recent story told to me that I just can't stop thinking about was a high school age kid got a ride home from a friend from school or practice.  The friend hit and ran over the kid's 2 year old little sister in the driveway and killed her.  I can not even imagine.  Even though we have been through what seems like hell in the past two weeks, I am extremely thankful that my daughter is one of the praise stories and not one of the tragedy ones.  I am just so thankful that she had the chance to fight.

Even when Hannah was at her worst, I thanked God every day for my two healthy kids at home and for the progress Hannah had already made.  I tell myself about many instances, it could always be worse.  Spending the past two weeks at Children's Hospital makes you realize this.  I walked out of the elevator on the intensive care floor the other morning and saw a young mom weeping outside of the NICU.  Her parents and husband were gathered weeping as well, trying to consoled her.  My heart broke for this mom.  I have been that mom, crying uncontrollably, not caring who was around to witness.  Another instance Paul and I saw was an entire family sitting in the ICU waiting room with their pastor, crying.all.night.long.  I'm talking maybe 9:00pm until 4:00am.  This poor family.  We knew something was about to happen or already had.  It was just so sad.  I still pray for both of these families daily even though I don't know their stories or their kid's outcomes.  I'm sure there are people out there that pray for us because of things they have seen us go through too.  I am thankful for these prayer angels. 

Last night I spent at home while Paul stayed at the hospital.  I sat down and made a list of all of the people I need to write thank-yous to for the nice things that have been done for us during the past few weeks.  The meals, gift cards, little gifts for the girls, etc have all been so appreciated.  I got a card the other day that read "When going through a hard time, it's the little things that count".  What a true statement.  More than anything, we are thankful for the prayers from so many people.  I am a believer in the power of prayer.  Hannah's outcome is a true testament to that!  Thank you also for the overwhelming amount of care cards, phone calls, FB messages, and texts.  Not one message went unnoticed.  We are so incredibly blessed with such caring and loving family and friends. 

I am hoping this my last "sad" post for a long time.  Hopefully next time I post it will be photos of Hannah's homecoming.  Hannah is not on oxygen anymore and hasn't been for about 24 hours now.  I don't want to speculate when I think she will come home because I don't want to be disappointed if she gets delayed.  I will share the happy news as soon as she is here!  The first thing I am going to do when she gets home is dunk her right in the tub!  She is so yucky from the hospital...stuff stuck to her and everything.  I just cannot wait for my three girls to be together again!  Not to mention, I can't wait to be back on a normal schedule again!

Below are some photos of Hannah's progress.  I don't have any of her off of oxygen completely.  So, she even looks different than the last one right now.

Hannah, looking worse than awful.  This was one day early last week or maybe even the week before. 
I believe she was still on the paralytic here.

Still on the ventilator, but not on the paralytic anymore. 

This was the day Hannah got extubated.  Finally got some toys to play with!

Hannah, yesterday.  All she had here was the nasal cannula and her PICC line. 
The cannula is now gone.  The PICC line is coming out today.