Friday, December 25, 2015

Merry Christmas

From our family to yours...Merry Christmas!

The Little Things blog: Beach Christmas Card


The Little Things blog: Beach Christmas Card

Blessings,
Angela

Saturday, December 19, 2015

Pictures with Santa

I know my opportunities to get pictures with Santa and my kids are almost over.  The boys were so sweet and humored me this year, so we made a night of it!


First stop was the mall.  A few days before our adventure, a friend reminded me that you can now get Santa Fast Passes.  We went online and purchased our Fast Passes to avoid the long line.  It was the greatest thing ever!  It took us a total of 5 minutes to see the Man in Red versus waiting in line for well over an hour.  Best $10 I've spent in a long time!

After pics with Santa, we headed to dinner and then drove around looking at Christmas lights.  


One of the houses we drove by had Santa there for a visit.  Seeing him twice in one night was pretty awesome!


Of course we made a stop at Starbucks for hot chocolate!


There were some pretty impressive displays.

It was such a fun way to spend time together during this super busy time of the year.  This is definitely a new family tradition for us!

Merry Christmas!
Angela

Friday, December 18, 2015

Christmas Home Tour

I love our house, but I love our house most at Christmas time.

Welcome to our home!





















The Porch













Merry Christmas!
Angela


Saturday, December 12, 2015

Appendicitis

It all started on Wednesday with him coming home from school with a tummy ache.  Nothing new, really.  He gets them often.  He seemed to feel well enough to play with his friends and shoot a few hoops with Dad that afternoon.  He didn't eat much dinner.  But again, nothing out of the ordinary.  He's a picky eater.  By bedtime, he was moaning and complaining that his stomach was still hurting, but he seemed to settle down enough to go to sleep - or so we thought.  About 10:30 that night, Hayden came downstairs to tell us Kyle was sobbing in his bed.  We went to check on him and as soon as we heard him and saw him, we knew it was time to go to the hospital.  He was in pure agony.

Once he arrived at the hospital and saw the doctor, they were able to give him pain meds.  He felt much better!  This was taken right after the meds kicked in...



After an ultrasound showed nothing wrong, he had a CT scan that confirmed what the doctor had suspected all along - appendicitis.  We had caught it in the early stages and thankfully, it had not ruptured.  We had taken him to our local hospital, which had recently opened  a new children's wing on it's premises.  Unfortunately, though, there was not a pediatric surgeon on staff.   Though I am confident that the regular surgeon could have taken excellent care of our baby boy, we opted to have him transferred to Vanderbilt Children's Hospital in Nashville.  So, at 2:30 am that same night/next morning, Kyle and I had our first ambulance ride, with Dad following behind us in the car.

After a very long night in the children's ER, surgery was scheduled for later in the morning.  After waiting for several hours for his turn in the OR, he was finally wheeled back about 3:45 pm.  For me, that was the worst part of the whole experience.  Seeing your 10 year old baby taken away from you for surgery was heart wrenching.  His well-being was completely out of our care.  We placed our faith in God to guide the hands of his surgeon and medical team.  Appendectomies are very routine surgeries that happen everyday at this hospital, but it's not so routine when it's your child!  The next hour was filled with lots of prayer and lots of texts to/from family and friends.  A little over an hour later, the surgeon came out to inform us he came through with flying colors!  Thanks be to God!



It was a little slow going the remainder of the evening, but by the next morning he was up walking around and was able to go home before lunchtime.  



Back at home, it was so good to see this sweet smile!  It was an eventful 48 hours, no doubt.  So thankful to God for his healing hand and for the wonderful doctors and nurses that took care of our little boy during his latest adventure.  He always keeps us on our toes!

Take care,
Angela