Heartbroken

Our best friends little girl, Addi went to be with Jesus yesterday morning.

Please pray for Susie and Darrell.

Please pray for their families.

Please pray for the people that are surrounding them during this time.

Please pray for God's comfort, peace, love, and mercy to wrap around their hearts.

Please pray for them to feel the Lord's embrace. 

NICU

Three weeks ago I brought Brooklyn into her pediatrician because she was beginning to get a cough and cold.  We were told to let it run its course since Brooklyn had just had this same sickness at two weeks old and she got better.  After a week of her cold symptoms going away, we noticed her cough was still lingering.  After another trip to her pediatrician, we started giving her breathing treatments at home to help keep as much sand and dust out of her system so her body could fight the cough.  Another week went by, three major sand storms hit, myself, Gavin, and Miles all had our turns at colds, and Brooklyn was still coughing.  At this point, she was sleeping more, having coughing episodes that would last minutes at a time and now she was beginning to chock on the fluid/secretions that was in her chest that she couldn't get up.    After several sleepless, restless nights and a rattle in her chest that sounded worse and worse by the hour we brought her back to her doctor.  At this point, her cough has lasted almost 3 weeks so we started taking her to the hospital twice a day for breathing treatments with oxygen and also gave her breathing treatments at home with medication in the saline.  This semi helped, but didn't make her cough go away.  I truly feel that the way sandstorms are here and our weather that this was causing her cough to not be able to go away.  She just never got a break from the air that's around us.   Nights were starting to get rougher, too.  Brooklyn was struggling to relax and her breathing became bothersome.  We brought her back to the doctor and this time I'm pleading with them that we have to take another route and by now I'm thinking this just isn't a cough/cold.   However,  I wasn't ready for or expecting their form of treatment.  They diagnosed Brooklyn with acute bronchitis, but was worried she had pneumonia.

Before I knew it we were signing papers on Sunday to have Brooklyn admitted into the hospital.  Because she was under 60 days old they admitted her into the NICU instead of P-ICU (pediatric ICU).  This meant that I was not allowed to stay with her and could only see her for 15-20 minutes at a time.  YIKES.  I can only imagine how hard it is to leave your child at a hospital when they're really sick and need serious medical care, but to leave your child in a foreign country.... I had an extremely hard time with that.  Plus, on top of the anxiety of it all, the way Saudi culture is, the nurses were floored by me coming up to the hospital every 2-3 hours to check on my baby and see her and touch her.  At first, they were very taken back by my presence and kept persuading me to stay home, "that they were taking care of her now."  I think after the 5th time I visited her on day one (which I sat in a waiting room for 5 hours because I couldn't bring myself to physically leave the hospital) they started accepting and expecting my presence.  Eventually, they got over it since I could have cared less that me being there affected them.  By day 3, the same nurses had been rotating between day and night shifts, we all got to know each other, and our time together was pleasant. 

So, every morning I took Gavin to school then stopped by the hospital and saw Brooklyn for my allotted 20 minutes.  I'd go home, wait 1 1/2 hours then head back up to the hospital and see her.  I repeated this cycle until late evening.  Brooks and I would put the boys down for bed and have a friend come sit at our house, then we'd go to the hospital together.  Nights were the hardest time for me to leave her so it was a good thing Brooks was with me.  

It took Brooklyn's body the first 24 hours to start responding to treatments until she started looking and sounding better.  The breathing treatments were breaking up the secretions in her lungs so they began having to suction it out.  After several rounds of that, the rattle in her chest began going away.  Her color looked normal and she wasn't sleeping all the time anymore.  Brooklyn's cough started subsiding and by 48 hours only coughed off and on.  We asked to take her home in the early morning of day 3, but they were still waiting for respiratory infection tests, blood work, and urine samples.  We figured more time getting oxygen, antibiotics, and clean air would help ensure her to stay healthy when she did come home.  Wednesday morning Brooks and I went to the hospital and were told all the paper work had been completed, and Brooklyn was being discharged.  Thank you Jesus.  

She's doing really well.  She slept through the night last night, is eating well, and is hardly coughing.  We're so glad to have our baby home with us.  

She's a Fighter

PLEASE Pray for this special little girl, Addi.

She is the daughter of our friends, Susie and Darrell Carpenter.

You can read about her story here and see what's been taking place in their lives the past few days here.

She is a fighter!!

We have fun around here

Creativity.

It's one of the things you have to have living over here. In order to have fun, we have to create our fun.  With three kids under the age of 3 we've had to get creative and keep things fresh and not boring.  

So here's how we've been creative in having fun!

Gavin's school held a literacy week and one of the days was dress up like a character from a fairy tale book.  Here he's dressed as Prince Charming.  We used what we had at home since there's not a costume store around here and we didn't have time to order and ship something.  Instead, we turned his superhero cape inside out, pinned up his cowboy hat and I borrowed a feather from a neighbor's table decoration and voila!  He even took a small plastic knife with him that the blade slides into the handle when it's pushed down.  He loved his outfit and kept telling us he was superhero on the bottom and prince charming on top!  I tried teaching him how to bow and talk with an accent, but that didn't work.  I also showed him how to wave his cape around. which he did a few times.  It was precious!  

Another way we have fun is letting the kids run through our sprinklers.  Gavin's friend, Devin was playing at our house one day after school and the boys were outside when all of a sudden the sprinklers started spraying.  They asked me if they could run through them, we hurried and took their shoes off, then it took the boys about 5 minutes to decide that they really wanted to run through them then they took off.  Miles had no reservations or hesitations about running through the sprinklers until he felt how cold they were and he took off running to Delia.  

I baked a cake the other day and quickly found myself surrounded by all three kids so I decided to get the two boys involved.  They stirred bowls with their own spatulas and helped shake sugar bags and mixed cake mix while it was still in its box.  They were such big helpers I put some cake batter on their spatulas and let them lick it clean!  Now, every time the mixer comes out Miles finds the stool and stays by my side waiting for something to taste.  

Last Friday we hosted our "Weekly Meeting" and everyone stayed for lunch.  It was a beautiful day outside so a majority of the kids migrated to our back yard to play with the little ones. Before we knew it, Brooks and all his buddies started a game of dodge ball.  Then they got involved and it became kids versus all the older guys.  It was hilarious and so fun to watch everyone dodging balls and chasing after one another.  This lasted a good 30 minutes!  

Miles got to play with his buddy, Aden, our friends little boy who was born a week after Miles here in Saudi.  They laughed with each other, chased each other, played together, and had a lot of fun. They have very similar personalities so they get a long great!  

Okay, so Miles probably didn't think this was fun, but I needed 10 minutes to finish cooking breakfast and he was all over the place so I put him in the walker (we took it out of a closet the night before for our friends little girl to use while she was at our house).  He was so confused on why he was being contained that he didn't even try walking.

Gavin likes building things and found some time when Miles wasn't around to actually make something without it getting knocked over.  He was pretty proud of himself for getting them to stand up!

After dinner we had some hang out time. The boys just wanted to chill together.  What one does, the other does! Always!

Brooks Birthday

My wonderful husband turned 28 earlier this month and we celebrated him and his special day all day long!  His morning started by having the day off (a BIG treat for a weekend),  getting to sleep in, then enjoying a huge breakfast- homemade waffles, eggs, and (beef) bacon.  Next, Brooks got to open presents, which were all surprises for him.  Brooks hates the tortillas here... like hates them so I thought it'd be clever to get him a tortilla maker so we can make our own homemade tortillas.  He laughed when he opened the box.  

 

 

We spent the morning playing with the boys, took a walk on the compound, relaxing, then got ready for a joint birthday party for Brooks and our friend Micah.  We had all our close friends over for chili, cake, and games! It was a fun night!  Our group hasn't gotten together in a long time and just hung out.. we tend to eat and run with all our kiddos around and husbands working long hours and usually not having a day off during the week.  So this night was a special treat.  We played Cranium, girls versus boys, which the girls WON- woo hoo!  We laughed and joked around and had a really fun time!  

I pulled out my cake stuff and made Brooks and Micah a birthday cake as an extra special treat.  We sang happy birthday to them and the little ones got to help blow out birthday candles.  Miles had fun dancing to the HB song.

 

Happy 28th Birthday to the man I LOVE!!

Brooklyn Turned One Month

Brooklyn turned one month old on February 28th.  We can't believe our baby girl is already a month old.   It seems like it was just yesterday that she was born.   We've been having a lot of fun having her around and really feel like our lives are getting a new normal.  

At Brooklyns doctors appointment she weighed 8lbs 6oz so she gained 1 pound since her birth.  

She was 21 1/2 inches long so she grew 1 inch since birth.  She's doing really good.  The red spot on her tummy is growing and we can now feel some texture to it, but it's still flat.  Gavin asked me what it was one day and got very worried.  It old him that Jesus gave her a kiss before he sent her to us and it made a mark. He then preceeded to kiss her arm and said, "Mommy, I kissed her and there's no mark!"  I just stared at him, not real sure what to say to that-- so he answered himself and said, "Only Jesus can leave a mark!"  Perfect!  Yes he can!

Brooklyn sleeps great during the day and even at night.  We've been doing Baby Wise for the sleeping and so at two weeks old we started the pattern of eating, wake time, sleep.  She picked up on it real quick and has done awesome!  She's even sleeping THROUGH THE NIGHT making it from 9/10pm and wakes up at 6am... HALLELUJAH.  It's really, really nice!! 

It's been fun dressing Brooklyn up in girly clothes and we don't ever leave the house without a bow!  Brooklyn has a very sweet spirit.  She's always looking around and squeals.  Her brothers love her and are always checking on her.  Miles gives her kisses all the time and Gavin loves feeding her and putting her paci back in her mouth.  

It just so happened that Brooklyn's USA passport and her US Consulate Report of Birth Abroad Certificate (birth certificate) came in on the day she turned one month old.  Yay for being a US Citizen!

Before my mom left we finished B's nursery, which I will post pics of soon, just haven't gotten around to it.  We're planning on moving her into her room in the next 2 weeks or so since she sleeps through the night.  There's just something about her leaving my room that hurts my heart so I'm gradually preparing myself.

I finally ordered her birth announcements and love them. I also just finished and ordered a photo book from Shutterfly that's going to semi be part of Brooklyn's baby book collection.  I put pics from my pregnancy with her, her birth, and newborn pictures.  I scrapbooked Gavin's pregnancy and entire first year of life (including his birth), but living over here, it's just a 1000X times easier to do things digitally.  I never worked on Miles when I should have so now I feel completely overwhelmed and have no idea where to even begin so I figured I better start early on hers while everything's still fresh in my mind and I will either make photo books in pieces OR just create it in groups then compile it all into one!  Who knows.  I'm just really excited about it and can't wait to open the package once it arrives!

 

 Her first dress.                                                                            Cuddle time with mommy.

A HUGE deal around here is that Brooklyn smiled for the first time!  Woo hoo!  I'm pretty sure it's safe to say she has the Williams smile.  Check out this blog post from last year-- she has the same smile as Miles.

The First Month

We made it through the first month with our sweet baby girl and are loving life having her here.  She has made us so happy and brought some extra joy into our lives. 

Brooklyn got sick with a really bad cough and cold just two weeks after she was born so we gave her a lot of breathing treatments daily.  She has the same eye issues that the boys had (most likely clogged tear duct), but her's isn't near as bad.  She started getting baby acne on her cheeks, again, something both the boys had.  Brooklyn has gorgeous blue eyes-- I'm really hoping they stay blue- and she has blonde hair.  It's getting long and sticking up! 

Below are a few pictures from things I've already posted about but didn't have on my computer.  Enjoy!

Newborn Pictures

Two weeks after Brooklyn was born our friend, Che, came over and took newborn pictures of her.  Che has taken up photography and offered to do this for us and we were thrilled.   I can't put into words how grateful I am for these shots or how much I LOVE THEM!!!