Finishing Up Summer

    We were able to take the boys miniature golfing. They now think that we need to get a golf cart. "What for?" " Because it would be fun to drive around" Sorry boys not going to happen!

  We celebrate Gabe turning 5 years old. We are so amazed at how time flies by and how big he has gotten. We sure love him and are so glad that he is apart of our family. The last 5 years have been very life changing for our family. It hasn't been easy but we have felt the Lord in our life through the people he has sent to us to help us get through the hard times. We can't tell you how blessed we feel.

 We also celebrated all the Aug birthdays on my side of the family. Gabe and Eric are almost exactly 1 year apart and I have about 30 years on them. ;-)

We went to our first Saturday of football games. 3 little league games in one day! 7am -4pm It was a long day but it was so fun to see the boys work hard and have fun.

The Dr said we could start feeding Cole rice cereal. It was so funny to see the faces that he pulled. He isn't a real fan of baby food but we will keep trying!

Look Who's 6 Months

      Cole is 6 month old! The Dr said at his check up that he is looking great. He said with him holding his head up so well we can start feeding him some baby food. It sure is crazy how time flies!

August Fun!

    We've been enjoying a lot of football. 

    My mom and I were able to go to the parade of homes. It was fun to see the beautiful homes and get some great decorating ideas.

   We were able to have a friend get together with some of Mark's childhood friend. Dan was in town from Virginia. It also doubled as Mark's 20 year High School Reunion. We didn't make it to Mark's so it was fun to at least be able to kind of celebrate with some friends. Here to the Class of 94'.

 It was so fun to get all our kids together and share old stories.

 We were also able to go to my Mom's side of the family reunion. The JENSEN reunion. It was so fun to see everyone. Here are just a couple of the pictures that I took.

He is still working on tummy time!

Cole got a new toy. He was WAY excited!

Neurosurgeon Appointment

    We just got home and are happy to let you know that the appointment went well.  The plan is still to watch his head.  We have an appointment to go back in a month. We are still watching for symptoms and will head right in to get check out, if we notice any. We did feel like the Drs are more on the same page as we are. We are grateful for all the prayers that have been given on our behalf. We have felt the Lord comfort over the last couple days.

Appointment on Monday

    The SB coordinator called and set up an appointment for us to meet with the Neurosurgeon this coming Monday. I'll keep you posted after the appointment.

Update on Cole

   Sorry about not updating sooner. It's been busy around here.  Friday at clinic we were feeling really good the Dr's all seem to be pleased with how well Cole is doing. Then the last 5 minutes the SB coordinator came in and said that we needed to meet with the neurosurgeon in two weeks,( I was thinking it was to measure his head to keep a close eye on it) because he would be able to set up the surgery. We were surprised to say the least and VERY frustrated. Here we just had a good visit with Dr.s telling us things are looking good and then to hear this I was very confused to what they saying to what they were planning. Mark and I both feel VERY strongly that we will not do a surgery unless it is needed, especially brain surgery. 

The talk lately is that Cole looks a lot like Gabe when he was a baby. So we got out the baby books and started comparing. What do you think?

   

   Aunt Shanna and Uncle Zac are in town this week. Cole was very excited to meet them for the first time.

Sunday we got together with Mark's side of the family. We had a great time telling the kids stories of when Mark and his siblings were younger.

  Cole has began to really enjoy his toys. He loves to sit in his swing and hit and grab the rings.

At SB Clinic on Friday the PT told us that it would be good for Cole, in helping him sit up and hold his head, if we got him a Bumbo chair. It is a work out for him, so we only put him in for 5-10 minutes at a time. But we can already see an improvement in his head control.

Today we went and got a ultrasound on Cole's bladder and kidneys. When we were at SB Clinic they noticed that we hadn't had one yet. Which they normally get to have a baseline to go off of. Everything looked good, minus a couple of light spots on his kidneys. Which the Dr said that it could be a sign of kidney stones or just fat. He thought because Cole has shown no other signs of bladder problems that is was most likely fat. But it was good to know and watch for future ultrasounds.

Summer Fun!

We have been having as much summer fun as you can possible squeeze into three weeks. The medium boys went back to school this week.

      We were able to go to Seven Peaks for the Horsley Orthodontist summer party. Luke was the winner of the grand prize! We were all so excited for him!

   

I had to have my Mom and Sister come help me do something with all the apricots that I had, so we made apricot jam. It turned out so yummy!

     The first thing Miles said when he got home from Scout Camp was "Did you make any fruit leathers with the apricots?" A family that Mark Home teaches happens to make fruit leathers with their apricots. They offered to share their apricots and teach us how to make fruit leathers.

   Cole is now 5 months old. He is doing very well. He acts like a 3 month old, which is to be expected. He is hitting all the milestones for a 3 month old so we are very excited about that. We went in at his two week post MRI and everything was looking good to the Dr. We will be going to the Spina Bifida Clinic this Friday. So I will update about it on Friday evening. 

We were able to go to my Mom's cabin over the 24th. The kids had a blast! We were able to see wild life up close.

We had a great time at Lagoon. Cole was such a good baby.

Gabe was so excited to take Cole on his first ever train ride. He held him the whole ride. Can't wait for Cole to get a little bigger. I know he is going to love trying to keep up with his big brother Gabe.

We were finally able to get family pictures done. 

The boys enjoyed the guns and I don't think Tay minded the money!