Christmas Letter 2009

For those of you that didn't receive our annual Christmas Letter (if there is anyone that didn't receive one), here it is.

Dear Family and Friends:

2009 was a year full of stuff,

That we’re happy to leave behind,

Here’s a recap with more than enough,

To make us lose our minds.

Corbin is in a real preschool now,

He’s learning to socialize,

When it comes to smarts, the teacher says “wow!”

But he’s still painfully shy.

He’s a great kid, he’s now five years old,

And what a helpful age,

He cleans the bathroom to lighten mom’s load,

She’s really enjoying this stage.

Dex is a wild and crazy boy,

He’s got energy to spare,

Anything fragile, he will destroy,

But he’s still our sweet Dexy-bear.

He’s talking now, which thrills us all,

Just started a little late,

If we don’t understand, we know who to call,

Corbin can always translate.

Ivy is a fighter, a real superstar,

She amazes us everyday,

She makes us realize how blessed we are,

We wouldn’t have it any other way.

She can say four words, like thank you and uh-oh,

She’s small and happy too,

And with surgery behind her, she’s starting to grow,

She’s got some catching up to do.

Scott’s a great guy, husband, and dad,

The kids think he’s so fun,

He has a lot to do, but he’s not mad,

He still manages to get it all done.

Rochelle has been stressed this year,

But the stress is going down,

She’s writing a book to keep her mind clear,

And can’t find a reason to frown.

We really are blessed, we know it’s true,

We have a lot to be thankful for,

We look forward to a better year or two,

And the challenges we have in store.

Merry Christmas!

Love:

Scott, Rochelle, Corbin, Dexter, and Ivy Brunson

Growing Growing Growing

Ivy had her 1 yr old well baby check today. We had to wait 6 weeks after surgery for her to get her immunizations. She is coming along great. She weighed in at 15 lbs 2 oz (still under 3rd percentile) and is just under 27 inches tall (a little less than the 10th percentile).

She is still the most pleasant girl on earth and is an absolute joy in our lives. She still isn't quite crawling (getting close though), and loves to scoot around in circles on her bottom. She recently decided that she loves to stand. She can cruise a little bit on the furniture, but gets nervous if we aren't right there holding onto her, and she can't stand up without us helping her get her feet placed under her correctly. She continues to work with a physical therapist twice a month, and actually really enjoys it.

She is doing pretty well with eating too. She is up to 3 feedings of baby food a day, and hardly ever throws up (unless I try to secretly throw in some kind of baby food meat). Her pediatrician also gave the go ahead to try out a toddler formula in place of her regular baby formula. Since she has such a sensitive stomach we have to be careful and take it slow, but we look forward to moving on from the super expensive pregestimil that is only sold in one or two stores in the whole valley.

Later this month Scott and I are looking forward to our first experience of leaving Ivy to be tended by someone that is unrelated (they'll be watching the boys too, but the boys are veterans now). This is quite nerve-wracking for me, but I really need to learn to trust others. Our Bishop, Bishop Fenn, and his wife, Nicole (one of my visiting teachers), are going to take on the job so that we can attend the Dotcomsecrets Christmas Party. The kids probably couldn't be in better hands! Wish me luck to not die from worry, or call 50 times while we're gone.

Birthday Party

We had a combined birthday party for Ivy and Corbin. Ivy turned 1, Corbin is turning 5 on the 16th. Thanks to everyone that came to the party. We had a lot of fun!

Ivy's ladybug cake

The mother-load

Corbin has been asking for a remote-control car for weeks!

Yay! Food!

Ivy enjoyed a plastic spoon ALMOST more than her toys!

A collection of Curious George books. Corbin is in heaven!

Ellie breaking in the doll stroller

A new doll

Checking out the ladybug cake

Goin' for the antennae

yummy

playing with her new dolls

Chasing the hummer while daddy drives

Ivy's First Birthday!

Can you believe its been a year? I can't! Well Ivy turns one year old on saturday, so in honor of our miracle girl, Scott made this FANTASTIC video. Enjoy it, it really shows how amazing and adorable she truly is. Happy Birthday Ivy! We are so proud of you, and love you so much. I hope there will be a million more happy memories with you.

Click HERE if the video below isn't working

Happy at Home

We're home! We spent exactly 2 weeks in Salt Lake for Ivy's surgery. Everything (as I'm sure you know) went much better than last time. We are so happy to be back home, and back to our regular life. Corbin is back in school, they are back to riding their bikes everyday (even though its cold). We're taking walks, and looking at neighbors halloween decorations. Ivy is her same adorable self, making us giggle with the cute things she does. She's healing like a champ, and hasn't needed any pain medication in 4 or 5 days, and no longer needs oxygen. She's just my little hero! It will probably be a while before we are able to go to church or anywhere else again, which makes us sad, but we have to avoid crowds because of swine flu and rsv. Ivy can't get the regular swine flu mist vaccine because she received blood transfusions during surgery, so we have to wait til they get the shot kind in our area. And since we all live together, we all have to get the shot version too, which could be a while! Anyway, here are some pics from the last few days. Enjoy.

Sunset from the drive home, I just thought it was pretty.

Ivy enjoying the outdoors.

Now we have two wiggle bikes, and the boys are loving them.

More wiggle bike fun.

Getting some use out of their mario/luigi hats before halloween.

Isn't that the cutest thing you've ever seen!

And more cuteness....

Corbin really missed his bike!

Ivy is Home

Ivy has proven over her last 8 days in the hospital that she is still wolverine baby. After a rough day yesterday, waiting for a sedated echo, and not being allowed to eat because of it, we were ready to be done with the hospital. So imagine our excitement of being let out today!! Scott and I walked off the elevator into the Surgical unit, and they informed us we could leave even before we walked in Ivy's room. So exciting. We were home (well, Marde's home in Sandy) before 1:00pm. Ivy is doing well, although she is going to have to be on oxygen for a while again, and she got one new medication. We have to be careful picking her up and putting her down for about six weeks, but other than that, we can play and be normal again. We are so happy with her, she amazes us everyday. We are going to stay here until the weekend to give her chest a little more time to heal before she's strapped into the carseat for such a long drive, but at least we don't have to go to the hospital anymore, or leave her there crying and broken hearted at our walking away. 8 days is WAY better than 7 weeks, we'll take it!

Last night, after she was finally allowed to eat again.

After we arrived this morning. She was so happy to see daddy, who she hadn't seen since Sunday.

Getting ready to go.

Bye, bye Drs, and nurses, I won't miss you!

Eating and playing with her shoes right before we left. Life is good again!

Still Doing Great

So when we arrived at the hospital this morning Ivy had all her tubes and wires already out! All she has left is one IV in her foot, and her oxygen. We moved from the picu to the surgical unit because she is doing so great! We gave her a sponge bath, and were able to hold her again. Another awesome day!

Better Than Expected

Ivy is amazing! She is pulling through this procedure almost like it didn't even happen. For example, its like she doesn't notice tubes are coming out all over her torso, or that she has a huge healing incision, and those headaches I mentioned yesterday, well either she isn't having them, or she's one tough cookie cause she isn't acting like she's in any pain at all. I even got her to smile playing peek-a-boo, and Scott got her to make her silly stinker face! She is back to her adorable self just 24 hours after open heart surgery. Amazing.

Anyway, it was a good day for other reason's as well. The docs took out her atrial line (this tube thing that was going in her body near her sternum and went into her heart), and the IV going in her neck (I don't think they call it an IV when its in her neck, maybe IJ, but I don't know, not really the point). She also got to sit up a little bit today, and I was able to feed her a few bottles, which she ate very well. We should be able to hold her again tomorrow, she will maybe move from the picu to the surgical unit, which would be great, and hopefully they will remove her drainage tubes also!

We had a nurse that we remembered (and loved) from Ivy's 7 week hospital stay after she was born. She remembered us too, and it was fun to catch up, not to mention she was willing to let us pretty much run the show all day (like decide when Ivy needed a bottle or needed to sit up, etc). I don't think that we have ever had such a good day a primary children's! I hope there will be a few more to come.

Finally untied and able to sleep on her side.

I painted her nails and put a bow in her hair. Who says you can't look pretty while in the hospital?!

Sitting up and giving her back a rest!

sitting up again, but I thought it was a good view of all the wires and tubes she has coming out of her body.

Surgery is Over, Recovery Begins

Ivy had surgery bright and early this morning. The docs took her from us at about 7:30am and the surgeon didn't come talk to us again until it was over at 1:45pm (although, we received updates every hour from a nurse). She did really great during the whole procedure, they told us that everything went smoothly with no surprises. We were finally able to see her at about 2:45pm, and she was still pretty sedated and had a breathing tube in. By 4:05pm the tube was out, and she seems a little less grumpy now, and she's slowly waking up. Her oxygen saturation levels look great, and her skin and lips look a little pinker now. The saddest part is that she is strapped down to the bed so that she wont pull anything out, and they told us that a major side effect of the procedure is headaches. Now begins recovery, please pray that she makes it through without any surprises.

Here's Ives last night when she started feeling better after her cath.

Here's what Ivy's scar looked like this morning before surgery (I hope it still looks that good when it heals).

Once again she was super cuddly before they took her away.

Here she is right after surgery. She's once again sportin' her gauze tuxedo and brown mustache.

Just a shot of all her meds!

Here she is after they removed the breathing tube (bye, bye brown mustache), now she sounds like a squeaky toy! Have a nice nap, sweet girl, you deserve it!

Cath and Surgery update

The cath is over and done with, and Ivy is doing great. We got started pretty early this morning, and things went really well. Scott and I had a 3 hour wait while she was having the cath before we heard the verdict on whether or not surgery would get the go ahead, and once it was over we only got good news. The surgery will occur as scheduled, bright and early tomorrow morning. It will be a pretty long procedure, but they don't anticipate any problems, and should be done sometime in the afternoon. Of course we will post as often as possible, but you know how it is.......so be patient. In the meantime, here are a few pictures from today.....Thank goodness the hospital has free wi-fi!

Here she is playing in her hospital jammies before we really got started

waiting, waiting, waiting for things to get going

This was right before we handed her off, she was tired, hungry, and didn't want to go with those people!

They had A LOT of trouble getting an IV in, here are the tries on her hand, her foot looks the same way, full of holes!

Here she is relaxing after a long hard day, getting ready for an even longer, and way harder day tomorrow. We love you baby girl, be strong!

Surgery is on....

......So far......Ivy has a cath tomorrow to prepare her for surgery. Due to much complaining and question asking on my part, Dr. Cowley is permanently out of the picture. (you may remember him from previous posts, referred to as Dr. Jerkface). We got two different, much more pleasant, cardiologists to work with this time around, who were nice enough to talk with us and answer our questions without accusing us of being uncooperative. Heres hoping this experience will be a better one! Anyway, Cath tomorrow, surgery on thursday. Pray for Ives!

ps...If the cath doesn't go well, surgery may be put off again, so especially pray for that cath to go well!

BIG NEWS

Ivy is scheduled to have her 2nd stage heart reconstruction surgery next thursday (oct 15). On our way to SLC this weekend. Pray for my baby girl! (And cross your fingers that they don't cancel on us this time)

Ivy Firsts

Ivy is growing up right before our very eyes! In the last few weeks she has had a couple firsts that we wanted to share.

We are so excited that she finally has a tooth! It only took 10 1/2 months to grow! It's a little strange for her to get teeth so late since her big brothers got theirs at 5 and 6 months, but we are told its a side effect of her heart condition. Whatever you say, doc!

A little more exciting news....she can talk!!! Okay.....not really....but sorta. She says four words, mama, dada, uh oh, and thank you (which is technically more than one word, but she uses it as if it were one, so thats how we're gonna count it). Thank you is by far her favorite, she says it about 20 times more often than the others combined. It's so adorable. Enjoy the video and listen closely for the "thank you"s. Sorry if its too long for you, but doesn't she just have the cutest little personality you've ever seen? I love how funny she is!

What Happened to Life Getting Easier.....Its Crazy!

Do you ever look at your calendar and think, "How can I possibly fit more stuff on here?" Those were my thoughts today as I left the back specialists office. I spoke with her about Ivy's super sensitive gag reflex, and how she doesn't mouth things like other babies, and she told me that we would have to start working with a speech therapist.

When you think of babies, you think of slobber, and everything they touch being covered in it, right? Thats because they put EVERYTHING in their mouths. Not Ivy, she has never done that. When she picks up the worlds smallest crumb from the carpet, I don't instantly worry that its going straight to her mouth. I don't EVER worry that its going in her mouth, because it never does! Well, this sounds nice, but its actually a bad thing, and we need to fix it. She has what the specialist called an oral defensiveness (as opposed to oral aversion, since she takes a bottle and pacifier), and will now start working with a speech therapist (they work with everything having to do with the mouth, not just speech) to get used to having different textures and flavors in her mouth. Hopefully this will save me from getting puked on everyday, as well as help her gain some much needed weight.

But as I contemplate having yet another person coming by to work with her on things, I can't help but wonder if its ever going to ease up! We now have a huge number of people who want to see her on a regular basis, including: Nurse, physical therapist, back specialist, dietition, social worker, pediatrician, cardiologist, and now speech therapist. It makes for a pretty full schedule, not to mention that Corbin starts preschool next week, needs new glasses, and both boys still need occasional doctors appointments also. I feel like there is never any time for anything else. I can't help but feel a little overwhelmed. I just have to look to the future and think of her as a teenager, holding her head up straight, eating a sandwich (without throwing it up), and getting around as any normal teenager would, and it makes it worth it. And if I think of the alternative of if she hadn't lived in the first place, I am grateful for every appointment, frustration, and even every puke stained shirt there is, because I can't imagine life without her.

Las Vegas/Pirates Cove

Here are a few pics from our trip so far (in no particular order). On our second day here I put our camera in my pocket and then forgot about it and then climbed into the hot tub. We managed to save our SD card even though the camera was ruined. So at least we got some good pics for the first 2 days. Yesterday we went to wal-mart and picked up a new one, so now we can have some pictures from our last two days. I can't stand not being able to take pictures!

Here are two super short videos of some fun stuff!