So it's been a little bit crazy around here it seems....ok it is a lot crazy around here. First a quick Pax update: I took him back to the cardiologist a few weeks ago. His pressures were at 67, up 17 points from his check up in September. At 80 is when St. Louis would want to do surgery. St. Louis and his doctors here had hoped to get him to March or April before he would need intervention, but his cardiologist is thinking it's very possible that when I take him back in January that he could already be at 80. We weren't expecting at all that his pressures would jump so much in such a short time, but they did. I was pretty bummed by that news, but I know God has not fallen off His throne and I still stand on His promise of healing. Period.

For the whole month of October wr were without insurance for the kids due to some stupidness on Soonercare's part, but thankfully we got it back just in time for Pax's cardiology appointment. That would have been about $1600 out of our pocket! Thank you Lord for Soonercare so we never have to pay anything for our kids' coverage! Kaiden is now back on schedule with his Occupational & Speech therapies and starting next week he will get to strt his physical therapy. I'm so thankful for these services because they have so greatly helped him.

Another thing I'm grateful for are free clinics! I had gone to the free clinic for what I assumed was thyroid problems back in March. They didn't do anything then, but my symptoms have gotten so much worse. I'm absolutely exhausted...all...the...time!! I vacuum and mop and I'm done! My hair is falling out too...like crazy and I don't even have a lot of hair to begin with. I've always have fine hair so losing any is a big deal. Josh tries to make me feel better about it, but I know it's noticible. Anyways, I finally got up the guts to go back this past Tuesday and after being there about 4 hours I left with a prescription for Levothyroxine and an appointment for a follow up in a month. Supposedly it takes 8ish weeks to kick in and start feeling better, but I'm hoping with all my might that they kick in much sooner!

Today we took the kids to Toys R Us to look around and get some ideas for Christmas. SUCH a bad idea! It was absolute sensory overload for Kaiden and it was insanely busy. Duh Cari! It's 2 weeks before Christmas...of course it's busy! I ended up having to carry Kaiden out after an all out meltdown. Still, I'm looking forward to goin Christmas shopping next week for the kids. Christmas is going to be so wonderful this year. Tim and Teresa are probably coming to town for Christmas. They are such a blast to have around. I love love love my family!

Well I hear the kids making a lot of noise so I better interven before our neighbors call the cops! Ha!

I thought I'd post some recent pictures of the kids for you. :)

There's some of them in their costumes. Dakotah was a ninja, as Ninjago (a tv show) is his current obsession. Kaiden was an Angry Bird and Pax was Elmo. It took a lot to get him to wear that costume. We finally forced it on him and immediately put him in his carseat so he couldn't wiggle out of it before Superhero Fest at church. Don't worry I don't think he was emotionally scarred. Haha

Theres also a picture of Kaiden at his Thanksgiving Feast at school. Pizza and sprite, the perfect Thanksgiving meal. :)

And the other picture is of Josh and the boys having "music time". They are so adorable when they do that. :)

Sorry the pictures may be out of order and I can't put my text with the pictures. The lovely Blogger app on my phone won't let me. Nonetheless I hope you get some smiles out of the pictures.

The last 6ish weeks have been absolute craziness...a test of my sanity for sure! Have you ever been in prayer and it was just one of those prayer times that was especially "powerful" and you could just sense that there was a breakthrough? Well I had one of those times of prayer about 6-8 weeks ago where I had just had enough of the devil attacking us financially especially, but really in several areas. I just let the devil have it during that prayer time. It was such an amazing time of breakthrough for me. Around the same time there were some meetings at our church that just really hit home spiritually and inspired me. When Jesus talked in the Bible about how the enemy will immediately come to uproot the seed (God's Word) that's been planted in your heart, He wasn't kidding. Shorty after that time of prayer and breakthrough our family was attacked big time by sickness. Straight sickness for the last 6ish weeks. I felt like the devil was saying "oh I couldn't knock you down by attacking your finances so I'll just attack your health and sanity." As you know, getting healthy and fit is hugely important to me and for those 6-8 weeks I couldn't workout. Last week I was finally able to hop back on the wagon, so to speak, but it has been so hard and somewhat disappointing not being able to just pick up where I left off. BUT the important thing is that I DID start again and I refuse to give up. So what now devil? Your brilliant plan didn't work. Ha!

The last several weeks have been hard, but it has given me a new perspective on things. It's given me the chance to re-evaluate my goals and what's important so for that I'm thankful.

Hello! I just wanted to give a quick update. Pax had his cardiology appointment yesterday and it went fabulous. I have never seen him so compliant before. Usually he freaks out if anyone other than close family comes near him, but yesterday he didn't fuss at all during his echo, EKG or his blood pressure and oxygen sat check. In fact when Lisa, (the nurse) walked in the door to do his pulse ox and blood pressure he immediately sat down and took his shoes off for her. Such a sweet boy! It made yesterday so much more peaceful.

Okay so his pressures are unchanged from after the cath in St. Louis, which is great news. Everyone was really pleased with how well he handled the procedure there and feel like they were able to give him some time before surgery. His pressures are about 50 right now. When they get to about 80 they'll want to do the surgery. The Ross-Konno is what they are looking at doing. They all think surgery will probably happen in March or April, but I'm doubting that. I think he'll go much much longer and I'm still expecting a miracle. I know wht God has already started in him He will complete. I can't remember if I shared this or not before, but a couple months ago when Josh was praying about Pax God spoke to him saying He would give him a new heart. A couple Sundays after that we were being prayed over and that was prophecies over Pax again and then it happened a 3rd time from someone else. I think God's trying to say something here. Haha! We have a few scriptures that we have been standing on that I'll have to share another time. I'm typing this on my phone an don't have the references on hand. So that's what we have been praying and speaking over him. Pax has a new heart praise God! 

Thankfully our St. Louis trip was covered by donations from people, but we have been having "fun" trying to stay afloat from Josh missing that week of work. Please be praying and believing with us that extra money would come in somehow to help get us back to where we need to be. God is so faithful and has brought us so far. I know He'll keep providing for us. 

Pleas ignore the typos...my phone isn't compatible with my fat fingers! Haha

St. Louis!!

What a tiring, fun, crazy, fast week this has been so far! We have been in St. Louis since Tuesday night for Pax's tests at St. Louis Children's Hospital. Our drive up here was the most quiet easy trip we have ever had...that's probably because we only had one kid with us though. ha! On the way up here we stopped in Springfield for our favorite coffee at Mud House downtown and then we spent some time at the mall letting Pax run off some energy.

Here he is introducing himself to the mannequin at Old Navy. He tried to ask for her number, but she didn't respond...

We successfully wore him out enough for him to sleep almost til we stopped for dinner in Rolla, MO. He wasn't very happy with our choice of Panera for dinner. He didn't eat a thing. We ended up making it to our hotel around 8:30pm. We were very happy with our hotel choice although we weren't happy to find out that we have to pay a ridiculous amount for parking. We are right in the heart of downtown St. Louis. The Ram's Stadium is literally right across the street from us. The St. Louis Arch is also just down the street as well as the Cardinals Stadium. After "exploring" the downtown area this week we have found it to be a really neat area full of really cool shops, restaurants and coffee shops. It's like downtown's that you would see in the movies where everyone walks everywhere and they live in buildings that have stores below them. There's a grocery market down the street that has apartments above it. You literally take the elevator down into the market. Pretty nifty. We also found the BEST COFFEE IN THE WORLD! It's called Park Avenue Coffee. They are also known for their "Gooey Butter Cake", which is a.m.a.z.i.n.g. We also found a little Italian restaurant called "Stefano's", which had the best veggie pizza I have ever had in my life. If you ever make it to St. Louis you have to try it. 

Okay so on to what this week has entailed other than the food...

So Wednesday our appointment was at 11am for an echo, EKG, chest xray and general assessment. We left our hotel an hour early thinking we could get breakfast on the way and maybe stop at the store for some hairspray and deodorant. (Our hotel also didn't have breakfast provided...geez!) Unfortunately we ended up getting lost and had to go to the hospital with frizzy hair, smelly armpits and extremely empty stomachs. Thankfully we were able to take a break between appointments to grab lunch in the cafeteria. Anyways, everything went very slow, but very well. We got out about 3pm and decided to go check out the Arch. It was the 1st time either of us has ever been to the Arch so it was pretty cool. After we went to the top and did some other exploring we took a walk down by the river where Pax fell flat on his face into the rocks and ended up with a black eye. Great, now everyone at the hospital is going to think we punched our kid! Anyways, here are some pictures. 

This is at the hospital on Wednesday. I guess Pax was trying to make Daddy play peek a boo.

This is the view of the Cardinals Stadium from the top of the Arch.

The big round dome looking thing is the Ram's Stadium. Our hotel is right behind it...you can't see it though.

This is a picture of the Arch from just below it looking up. It's HUGE so I couldn't get the whole thing.

 Us in the little...and I mean little "elevator" riding to the top of the Arch. 

Thursday our appointment was at 11:30 for Pax's heart MRI. It lasted about 1 1/2 hours or so. Unfortunately we had to hold him down so they could place his iv, but when it came time to go back I was able to carry him back to the room where they gave him some sleepy meds in his iv. He basically passed out in my arms and then I handed him over. It was nice cause it wasn't traumatizing at all. We were released about 3:30pm so we decided to make a very fast trip to the zoo, which is just up the street from the hospital. We basically made a little circle to see the hippos, elephants, cheetahs and a couple other animals I don't remember. They closed at 5 so we only ended up being there for about 30-45 minutes, which was fine with me because I was a hot mess and I was exhausted. Something about hospitals makes you tiiiired! After that we made it to our hotel just before downtown became crazy. (There was a Ram's game last night.) We had a nice relaxing evening last night. 

Today was Pax's heart cath. It was scheduled for 10:30am, but we ended up having to wait until 1:30pm! Poor kid hadn't eaten since dinner last night and hadn't had anything to drink since 8am. He was not a very happy camper, but we successfully distracted him for most of the morning. They have an amazing rooftop garden. There are swings and lounging chairs as well as regular benches so you can take in the beauty. There are also a couple of telescope's to use if you want to spy on the rest of St. Louis. Here are a couple pictures that I took of the garden.

On the same level as the rooftop garden there is also a big playroom for the kids. It was full of absolutely everything that a kid could want. There was also a teen room, but we didn't go in there. There were video games (wii and nintendo ds), board games, puzzles, crafts, kitchen play area, musical instruments, blocks (I started a block house. :) and sooo much more! There was a huge dinosaur collection too that I'm sure Dakotah would have been so jealous of. Pax had a blast playing in there! Here are a couple pictures of him playing.

He also got to go for a ride in a car while we were waiting...

Okay so he finally got to go back for his cath about 1:30pm. He got done around 4:30 or so. He did great during the cath. They were able to balloon the aortic arch as well as the subaortic area that was of the most pressing concern. They originally didn't think they would be able to balloon that area, but they were. Unfortunately the ballooning didn't help much and actually caused his mitral valve to be leaky now and caused the leaking that was already in the aorta to go from mild to moderate. So basically it helped a little, but not much. So for now the plan is to communicate the new information with his cardiologists back home and come up with a plan. For tonight we are staying in the Cardiac Intensive Care Unit (CICU) so they can monitor him overnight. He has to stay laying flat for 5 hours so they are keeping him sedated until about midnight. Every once in a while he wakes up and cries out, but he konks right back out. At midnight they'll take him off sedation and let him fully wake up and then he'll be able to eat and drink. As long as he's doing good then we will get released sometime tomorrow. It's probably going to be a long night, but hopefully Pax will want to sleep even though he's been sleeping the entire day. Are we that lucky?? We'll see. 

We have been very very impressed with the hospital so far. The staff has been absolutely amazing! I thought that the Children's hospital back home was amazing, but it doesn't even compare to this place. Everything about this place was made with kids in mind. The only thing that Tulsa does better is that it's more accomodating to the parents. The rooms here are small, there's no bathroom in the room and no couch/bed except for a recliner. Oh well...I'd rather have excellent care for my kid than be able to sleep and pee in the same room as him. 

Tomorrow, we get to go to Branson and spend the night with my brother and sister-in-law and get to spend time with my Dad and step mom. And then Sunday we finally get to go home! I can't wait to sleep in my own bed and get back to normal routine! 

Okay, I think that's it for now. If you made it this far hooray for you! You have a great attention span. haha 

Thank you for praying for us and standing with us in faith for Pax's healing.

I've had this song burning in me all week and then the worship team this morning sang it and it's really blessed me so I thought I'd share it with you. It'sa song called "Healer". You can find it by Hillsong or Kari Job, which is my favorite.

You hold my very moment
You calm my raging seas
You walk with me through fire
And heal all my disease
I trust in You, I trust in You

I believe You're my healer
I believe You are all I need
I believe

And I believe You're my portion
I believe You're more than enough for me
Jesus You're all I need

You hold my very moment
You calm my raging seas
You walk with me through fire
And heal all my disease
I trust in You, Lord I trust in You

I believe You're my healer
I believe You are all I need
Oh, I believe

I believe You're my portion
I believe You're more than enough for me
Jesus You're all I need

Nothing is impossible for You
Nothing is impossible
Nothing is impossible for You
You hold my world in Your hands

Nothing is impossible for You
Nothing is impossible
Nothing is impossible for You
You hold my world in Your hands

I believe You're my healer
I believe You are all I need
Oh, yes You are, yes You are

And I believe You're my portion
Lord I believe You're more than enough for me
Jesus You're all I need
More than enough for me
Jesus You're all I need

You're my healer

I wanted to share an update about Paxy with you all. I waited so long because we just wanted to process the information and we wanted to wait until we received some extra news, which we got yesterday. So basically, our surgeons here in Tulsa have decided there's nothing more they can do for Pax and thought that a transplant was the best option for him. So they sent his records off to Dr. Canter in St. Louis to be reviewed for transplant. Yesterday Dr. Canter contacted Pax's cardiologist who then relayed the info to us. They don't think Pax is a good candidate for transplant right now because all of his numbers are so good and he's doing so well. However, they do think they might be able to do a surgery to help him out. They want us to go up to St. Louis to have some tests done to check his heart for fibrosis/scarring. If there isn't scarring then they can probably do the procedure. If there is too much scarring then they'll evaluate him for transplant. So right now I'm just waiting on a call from St. Louis to schedule everything.

In other news I'm soo excited today because my weight finally entered a new "decade"!! I haven't been in this decade since probably 2006. I've lost 15 pounds so far and believe me I have worked hard for those pounds! Now just... A whole lot more to go! Haha