The Girls Are Back!!!

Our friends Madison and Norah are back!! We enjoyed a normal week with them coming over on Wednesday. We all had so much fun. Although Norah is not able to do many of the things the girls enjoy doing, because of doctor restrictions, fun was still had by both of the girls. We did alot of swinging and blowing bubbles.
We give God the glory that she is able to be here with us again only 3 weeks after surgery! He is so amazing! I can't fully comprehend all that this little one has gone thru and honestly if you didn't know you wouldn't be able to tell!
She smiled the whole time she was here and was such a joy. We enjoy both of these girls who have become great friends to us.

To God be the glory great things he has done!!!

Going Green (A Little)

Well all this "talk" on Allison's blog has made me think. Sooooo......today I needed to go to the bank and to the store for a few things. Now we only live about 4 blocks from both so I put Natalie on the back of my bike and Courtney and Alex hopped on their bikes and away we went. We left the car in the garage:) It was a fun thing to do too! I also remembered to grab my reusable shopping bag for the items:) Well I guess it's a start we'll see what this leads to:)

Quick update

I don't know if anyone has checked out the link about our friend Norah on the previous post about her surgery, but I wanted to let you all know that she is home and during as well as can be expected. We can't wait to play with her soon although it will be a tamer form of playing for a while:) Natalie can't wait to see her and to be honest we all are looking forward to seeing her and the family. Thanks for all the prayers and please keep her on your prayer list there will be more surgery's to come.

Happy Birthday Courtney!

Courtney is 9!!

We celebrated with a dinner at Chili's with 2 friends from school and they also spent the night. They had a great time swimming and giggling:) It was a fun evening with some family too! One more year 'till we hit double digits!

Norah's surgery

I just wanted to let you know that our friend Norah will be having her surgery today. It will start @ 7:00 am with pre-op and will last at least 3-4 hours. Please continue to pray with us for this sweet little girl and her family.

So far so good. At about 11:45 the doctors are still working to get through scar tissue and then they will be able to start repairs. She did very well with the anesthesiologist and waved good bye to her parents when carried into surgery. I'll update as I hear. Thanks for your prayers and concerns.

Another update from the family: The docotors have started the repairs to Norah's heart she is now on bypass according to the recent update. The doctors found a hole in her heart that has gone undetected until now. It is something that everybody has before birth and usually closes after the baby is born. Norah's did not. She has high blood pressure so the doctors are not sure if they will close the whole during this surgery. This little one went into surgery @ 9:00 and this update was done @ 2:30. She's such a trooper!!

As of 6:30 the doctors took Norah off bypass but found some bleeding that needed to be controlled. they put her back on bypass and sutured around an old stent. They then took her off bypass again and she was doing well. They now have a sponge with clotting medication neatly packed next to her heart and hopefully soon they will be able to close her chest. Keep praying!

After 4 hours the doctors were finally able to control bleeding for Norah. the last update came around 11:30 last night and her parents were waiting to see her in the PICU. they left her chest open a little bit to monitor her more and hopefully they will be able to close it up today. Her heart is functioning well. the Lord has seen them through this phase of this trial and we all know he will continue to be there every step.

I hope that this works I'm giving you the link to visit norah's caringbridge page so if you want you can read the updates and see pictures of her and her family. www.caringbridge.org/visit/norahkruschel

Prayers for our friend Norah

This is a special post for our dear friends. Our Pastor and his wife Nikky are great friends of ours. As you can see their daughter Norah is a great friend of Natalie's. They are with each other many times during a week. I watch Norah 1 morning a week and Nikky watches my kids 1 morning a week also. Amazingly enough these two girls saw each other everyday during the school year. What you would never be able to tell about Norah by just looking at her is that she was born with a heart condition. Not just any heart condition but one that was when she was only 5 days old she had her first open heart surgery. She has undergone numerous angioplasties and also had a stroke when she was 9 months old during one of these procedures. Norah is 3 now and will be undergoing her second open heart surgery on July 9th. Please keep her and her family and the surgeons in your prayers for these weeks leading up to her surgery and the weeks that follow her recovery. I know that Natalie will miss seeing Norah. She will have her surgery in Milwaukee at the Children's hospital and will be recovering for 2 weeks for sure. We will miss her at our house playing. Everyday Natalie asks if she gets to see Norah. It is such a neat thing to witness these two girls who are only 3 years old have such a great friendship!

School's out for summer!!!

Summer has officially started at our house. The kids are done with school, the pool is up, and finally it's hot enough to swim. I really enjoy not having a set schedule now. It's just a time to relax and enjoy! This summer is definitely going to be different from previous summers. Now that the kids are older I don't feel like it is such a daunting task to take them places. We have already been to the mall for pictures and searching for sandals for Alex, grocery shopping with all of them, and going to garage sales too! I'm ready for summer and so far we are two weeks into it and so far so good:)

Just a side note....Well school's not only out for summer, for myself, but I finished my program and received my diploma for dental assisting. Also I did take the Registered Dental Assisting boards on May 14th. I will find out the results sometime in July.