Update on Lissie

We had our appointment on Christmas Eve day after having a patch on Lissie's eye for 24 hours. She showed significant improvement and the doctor is fairly certain that she does not have any nerve or brain issues and won't need the MRI. It looks like her eye problems are more muscular than anything else. As it stands right now, she will have to get bifocals (bifocals on a 16 month old!) and wear them for about a month until we see the doctor again. If those don't correct the problem she will have to start patch therapy where we'll put a patch on the good eye to force the other one to work harder. If that doesn't work, she may have to have surgery on her eye muscle to reposition the eye. While none of this is what we want for our little baby we praise God that it wasn't so much worse. Thank you all for your prayers. All my love,Shannon

As you can see the patch didn't dampen Lissie's spirits too much. Here she is with Daddy at the mall eating a ton of ketchup!

Lissie Gets Glasses

Yesterday, we took Lissie to a children's eye physician because her eyes frequently cross when she is eating or looking at something close up. We were expecting to have a quick appointment with a final result of "don't worry about it, she'll outgrow it." That is far from what happened. First, they had to dilate her eyes and we had to wait over half an hour for it to take full effect. After that, we got to see the doctor and the news, quite frankly wasn't good. The doctor was very intelligent but not very family friendly. She used lots of medical terms with very little explanation. The only thing that I took from it was MRI!!! My baby might need an MRI?!?!? This of course, freaked me out so I let the doctor know how concerned I was and she explained a little better that Lissie might have a condition called 6th Nerve Palsy because her left eye won't move outward. More than likely though its from a tightened muscle so they put a patch on Lissie's right eye to force the left to work. She wore it for two hours and afterwards she did show improvement. This still didn't rule out the Palsy though so now she has to have glasses and also do a 24hour patch test before going in again on the 24th. This 6th Nerve Palsy is a very scary diagnosis as the nerve is attached to her brain. The MRI would be necessary to determine a cause and also to see if other nerves might be involved. We are desperately praying that this is not what Lissie has. The other option is called Esotropia which basically means that she goes cross eyed in an attempt to focus better. This would be fixed by glasses and possibly surgery. In the beginning my worst case scenario was that my baby would have to wear glasses, now that is my best case scenario! Please pray for my little Lissie that God would heal her quickly and that all she needs is glasses.

Here we are waiting to get Lissie's first pair of glasses. Poor baby isn't even 16 months old yet!

She is definitely the most adorable little angel in glasses I've ever seen!!!

Gingerbread House

As we were getting all of our decorations put up, Abby found a three year old gingerbread house kit and asked to make it. Being the fabulous mother that I am I said of course:) She had a blast and I was very good at keeping my hands off of her project.

Here she is getting all of her candy sorted.

Look at the concentration as she puts each tiny candy in the perfect location.

She got a little tired after a while and ended up laying on the table. Too cute!

A very proud Abby and her masterpiece. OK, so I broke down and "helped" with the candy around the center peppermint.

A Few of My Favorite Christmas Things....

Two little girls dressed in jammies begging to go for a drive in the car to look at Christmases (lights). Don't forget the cookies and chips.

Singing lullabies to Abby each night under the Christmas tree.

Lissie's screams of excitement when we open another door on the advent calendar and she gets another piece of chocolate.

Searching for Santa and Baby Jesus everytime we leave the house.

Playing with the "Little People Nativity"

and my all time favorite was hearing Abby the other night praying for her sister. "Dear God, thank you for today, make sure you watch over Lissie, make sure Lissie sleeps and thank you for Jesus, Amen." Too cute!!!

Some Cute Moments

Here is my favorite Christmas decoration, little Abby under the tree.

Ever the helpful big sister, Abby decided that Lissie couldn't hold her own bottle and helped her out.
We invited friends over to make some Christmas crafts the other day. Abby had a blast putting together her little foam snowmen. I'd show you the finished product but they're going to be presents!
Abby would like to be a baby again, I think.

One morning I made the fatal mistake of not shutting Lissie's door all the way and after Abby got bored with me and I was on the phone, I hear Lissie giggle and Abby screaming through the monitor, "Mommy, Lissie's awake now!" I'll never know how long she would have slept if I had only shut the door.

Lissie positioned herself underneath Mac's paw. I'm still not sure why:)

Abby and Mac watching TV together.

Decorating the Tree!

No matter how hard I try, we never seem to decorate the tree when I want to, the day after Thanksgiving. This year though we got it done before the 15th so I'm proud of our progress!

Here is our budding pianist. She loves the piano although the other day I was told, "Mom, this piano is driving me nuts!" When I asked why she replied, "it won't play Twinkle Twinkle!"

Here is Lissie with her water waiting patiently for Mom to get going on the decorating already!

Daddy and his girls admiring Daddy's train collection.

The finished tree. Please note that there are absolutely no decorations in the lower third of the tree!!!

Sledding

We had just enough snow to go sledding the other day. Both girls and Mac had an absolute blast! Mommy and Daddy enjoyed themselves too:)

Build-A-Bear

As a very special Christmas present, Aunt Cindy, Aunt Stacy and Lillian took the girls to Build-A-Bear to make their very own teddy bears. Gigi and Aunt Shellie came as well and we all had a wonderful time. Lillian, a seasoned pro, took very little time to find her perfect puppy. It took Lissie a long time to pick out the perfect bear and you can tell, Mommy had no say in what she chose. Any of you who have met Mac know that Mommy never allows anything black in the house:) Lissie just loved her black Teddy. She was a tad overwhelmed though as you can see in most of the shots!

Abby wasted no time in picking out her toffee colored teddy. All she wanted to do was go over to the computers though to name her:)
After picking out their bear forms, the girls all got to pick a sound to go into their bear or puppy. Since there were over 15 to choose from it took a long time to get this done.
After they picked out their sounds, it was time to stuff the cuddly friends. Lillian went first and then Lissie. After adding a little stuffing the girls were asked to cuddle their new baby to determine if it had the right cuddle factor. Lissie almost had a meltdown though when the lady wanted to take the bear back to finish sewing it up.

The noise from the fluffer made Abby very nervous. Here she is in her usual pose, hands over ears.

Lillian's favorite part of the experience was giving the new babies a bath.

Getting the bears dressed was lots of fun too although it took forever!!!

Here are the girls with their new creations. Lillian and Sparky the firedog, Abby and Princess, Lissie and Teddy (she pronounces it Deddy). Too cute!

Here is Lissie and Teddy.

After building, we all went to Noodles for lunch. As you can see the girls very much enjoyed themselves.

Thank you so much Aunt Stacy, Lillian and Aunt Cindy. We had a blast and the girls rarely go anywhere without their babies!!!

Thanksgiving in Estes Park or Laundry, Laundry, Laundry!

This Thanksgiving we were very fortunate to be able to spend the holiday in Estes Park with Mike's family. The house was amazing. We had a huge room with a two way fireplace and a jetted soaker tub. The downstairs was perfect as well. They had decorated the whole place for Christmas including a tree where the kids loved playing. Of course, the stuffed bear they could sit on didn't hurt!

Here we see the difference between girls and boys. Lissie and Abby loved to cuddle the bear. Sam and Joey had the bear attack them! Sam even went so far as to pour ketchup on his neck and play dead. It was very funny. Unfortunately, the picture was really blurry.

There was a giant table that was able to seat all 12 of us comfortably.

and also a nice sitting area with a flat screen tv above the huge fireplace. It was perfect.

I even got a chance to just relax and read a book by the fireplace!!! I forgot how wonderful that is.

Of course, Lissie's favorite place was on the kitchen counter.

Here we all are after dinner, watching the traditional "Christmas Vacation" movie. It was like Cheri was just seeing it for the very first time. We love you "Bethany!"

After the movie though is when all you know what broke loose. Abby had a rough day to start with her potty training as the bathroom was upstairs and over a baby gate. There were also many fun distractions like Uno with the cousins and lots of treats so we had MANY accidents. The worst though started at midnight after a lovely Thanksgiving dinner. Abby got a terrible stomach flu.

She was sick all weekend and at least 30 times that first night. Poor baby was so tired and dehydrated that we called the doctor twice out of concern that she might need to go to the emergency room. Here she is eating a popsicle that Aunt Cindy and Uncle Tom brought her from a trip into town. They also brought me lots of laundry detergent. I spent the rest of the weekend doing laundry for Abby first and then Lissie who caught the bug on our last night.

Abby was such a sweet little girl though and tried very hard not to let her sickness spoil her fun. She enjoyed opening her traditional Thanksgiving presents from Gigi and Grandpa Mike.

Lissie enjoyed the presents too. Please note the little bow in her almost non-exsistant hair!

We had to empty all of the lower cabinets as this was one of Lissie's favorite places to play and she had emptied all of the dish detergent in Breck forcing me to call poison control just two days earlier!

Another of Lissie's favorite play places was in our huge tub. Notice the baby in her jammies with the water running. Daddy thought the tub would be safe and contained. I think he forgot how smart she is and how much she loves to turn on faucets!

Here is my big girl resting downstairs in her nest. You can't see it in the picture but her ever faithful companion the trash can is just below her chair. Also there is a blanket covering the chair as I already washed the couch seat covers the night before. Oh how I love laundry! Sadly, this is a picture of her when she was feeling a little better:(

In an effort to keep Lissie entertained we went out once to look for elk. We found some beautiful ones in a clearing just off the road. Lissie loved looking at them. I think she also loved being dressed and out of the house!

We also were able to see some coyotes!

On our last night we had two more fall to the stomach flu. Poor Aunt Cindy and Lissie both got sick that night. In the days following our return everyone but myself would get some form of it. It was a horrible horrible bug. Despite all the sickness and laundry though, we really had a wonderful time. Abby needing to rest and stay home, forced us to relax and find ways to have fun indoors. We read, played games (including pick up sticks), watched movies and just enjoyed each others company. It really was very nice. Oh and we'll have to have our Nerts rematch at Christmas!