6 months Old!

Rachel's surgery

As I mentioned in an previous post, Rachel did great with her surgery last Wednesday. After we registered at the hospital, we headed back to the pediatric waiting area. There she had her own "cubicle" with her own tv, a play area near by and a little computer and a library of books! She would have stayed there all day if she could have. here are a few pictures from the day.

Eager Beaver

We recently gave Anna some rice cereal and she is such an eager little eater! She sits there like a little bird and opens wide for the next bite. If she likes to eat as much as she likes to nurse, I think we are in trouble! I hope her eagerness continues when we introduce other foods. I loved introducing food to Rachel...I don't know why. Maybe it is my love of trying new foods but it is so much fun to prepare fresh baby foods and just see how they respond to each new thing. I just ordered a baby mill so I can take it with me and grind up food when I need to - we'll see how it works. I also love to make "super Porridge" (doesn't it sound yummy??) and will start making that for Anna soon (it is bascially homemade baby cereal but it so good for you!) - especially when I can add all of the lentils and beans that are so good for you!

Rachel and Mommy!

I love this picture of me and Rachel. She is so busy and even though she loves to pose for pictures this one is her true smile (and not a fake "cheese" - for those of you who have preschoolers - why do they turn on the fake smiles for the camera??). Anyway, I love my sweet Rachel.

Then...

This is Sam Dewar and Rachel. He was Rachel's first little friend and here they are now 2 1/2 years later.

And Now

Anna and Daddy

This sweet picture was taken at the hospital a few weeks ago. Anna had to go for an ultrasound of her hip (and then an x-ray) to make sure nothing unusual was going on. Thankfully, she is fine!

That morning before we went Vimal was telling Rachel that we had to take Anna to hospital that day. Rachel said to him really sweetly, "I'm going to miss her". I think she thought that we taking Anna back to the hospital to leave her since that is where we got her. It was so precious and made me realize how much Rachel loves her sister (even though she doesn't like sharing the attention!).

Snuggle buddies

My cousin, Gretchen and her husband Chris visited a few weeks ago and even though Rachel hadn't seen them in over a year it take long for her to become tight buddies. I thought this was a sweet picture of them snuggling.

Walk with Daddy

Ever since Rachel was little we have taken "family" walks. At one time, it was daily but now it isn't quite that often but we love to get out and go for walks when we can. We have a Fresh Market really close to our house so we usually do weekend walks over to The Fresh Market (in fact, we took a walk today and Rachel was in tears because we didn't go to The Fresh Market). The funny thing is that sometimes we go to CharGrill afterwards because it is in the same shopping center and we can't figure out if she thinks The Fresh Market is Chargrill. Here we are heading out one cold day. This was Anna's first time riding in the back of the stroller. Normally she is in her infact carrier in the front but Rachel wanted to ride in front. We really like our double stroller. We got it at Onestep Ahead and it is a tandem stroller now but will convert to a "sit and stand" stroller when we are ready for that. Rachel doesn't know that yet, but I think she'll be excited about that option.

Just relaxing

Happy Valentine's Day!

With love from our home to yours!!!!

Rachel is doing well!

Thanks so much for your prayers for Rachel. She did great. She wasn't afraid at all and was such a big as they were preparing her for surgery. Over all, the surgery itself went well. Afterwards, though she was a bit hysterical for about an hour - so that was difficult but she survived and returned to normal on the ride home.
Unfortunately, because she still had some infection in her cyst at the time of surgery they were not able to close the wound and so we are having to gradually remove some of the packing 2x a day. She is handling it well, but it takes some coaxing and special treats (and at least two people to get the job done)to get her to cooperate!

Please continue to pray for us over the next week that there would be no further infection and that her scar would heal beautifully! Thank you! I'll post some pictures of her surgery day as soon as I can upload them.

Surgery scheduled for tomorrow, February 13th at 8:15 am

We appreciate your prayers for us tomorrow morning. Please pray that everything goes smoothly with the surgery and the recovery.

It is 10:50 (and I need to be in bed) and I am still waiting on Vimal to get home. He had a one day business trip today to Ohio and got stuck there. But, thankfully, his flight is inroute to Charlotte and he has a rental car reservation there if he arrives in time. if you see this tonight - please pray he gets here. We do have back up plans, but the first option is always best.

Thank you and I'll send an update soon.