We are just a few days away from our 2nd family trip, Colin’s first airplane ride, and his first time out of state. We took Katherine to Phoenix when she was 9 months old, the same as Colin! We have a long list of stuff to bring with us for a three yr old, and a 9 month old heart baby. We are starting to pack tonight!
Last Friday, Colin had an appointment with Occupational Therapy about eating more baby food. He tolerates baby food, but has never been too excited about it. The good news is that he has the skills to do it. Bad news is due to the tube feedings, forced feedings to gain weight, serve reflux, and a gag reflex.. he is pretty guarded about his mouth and the things that go in it. She gave us some tips on getting him more used to things going in his mouth. So far seems to be working, last night he ate 3 oz of baby food without having to push him into it. He was opening his mouth ready for the food, hope this trend continues.

This weekend we were pretty low key – getting ready for our big trip. We took the kids to Bass Pro Shop… it’s an outdoors/fishing store that is really like an amusement park for Katherine. She was “driving” boats and 4 wheelers. “Camping” in the tents. We got to sample fudge, which she liked of course.

At home we had a dance party led by Katherine and Matt!

Colin is now cruising down the furniture, when he holds onto the stairs, he will walk from one end to the next, same with the couch. I don’t think it will be too long before he is walking.
Katherine is really enjoying Colin at this stage, she loves to play with him. She is on a retro cartoon kick at the moment. Though she still loves Dora and Diego, she is into Scooby Doo, The Flintstones, The Snorks, and Smurfs! Her vocabulary and thought process has really skyrocketed lately. She is such a little girl now and not a toddler anymore! She is one tough negotiator, I think she has a great future in sales!

Relaxing Weekend

We had a nice quite relaxing weekend. We spent time with both sides of our families.
We leave for Phoenix, AZ in a week and a half to go see my grandparents and aunts & uncles, so taking it easy for right now!
Colin is now pulling himself UP on EVERYTHING, the window seal, the stairs, his crib, and Katherine’s little chairs. Man are we in trouble now!
Katherine has such a vivid imagination and love for drama lately! I guess we hit the “testy threes” right now. She is spunky to say the least! But I wouldn’t have her any other way. She has such a spark in her.
We took them to the park yesterday and Katherine just jumped right in with a group and kids she never met and started talking and playing with them. I think sometimes her friendliness scares away shy children! I hope she keeps her self confidence as she gets older.
It's My Heart CHD Heart Walk - 4th Annual Awareness Run/Walk - Noah's Legacy on February 20, 2010, so far we have raised the 2nd most amount of money , $2,000. Let’s keep it up! If anyone is interested in walking with Team Colin or donating towards our fundraising goal, Follow This Link to visit my personal web page and help me in my efforts to support Its My Heart.

Matt's mom got Colin the cutest shirt.. "My mom is blogging this".

Team Colin - CHD Heart Walk

Our family is participating in the It's My Heart CHD Heart Walk - 4th Annual Awareness Run/Walk - Noah's Legacy on February 20, 2010 at Sam Houston Park in Downtown Houston.

If anyone is interested in walking with Team Colin or donating towards our fundraising goal, Follow This Link to visit my personal web page and help me in my efforts to support Its My Heart.
If you want to join us in walking, from the link provided click on the "My Team Page" above Colin's picture, then from the team page you can click on "Join our Team".

One of my goals for myself this year is to become more involved in the heart community. I think it is important for Colin to grow up and feel a sense of community with kids just like him. There will be some limitations in Colin’s life and I feel it would be easier if he knew other kids who are or have gone through similar situations. Also as a parent, I think it would help me out a lot. The friendships I have made with other heart moms so far have helped when I needed to talk about things that other parents have no clue about.

So join us for an amazing cause. GO TEAM COLIN!

Here are some interesting CHD facts:
- Congenital Heart Defects are the #1 birth defect.
- Congenital Heart Defects are the #1 cause of birth defect related deaths.
- About 1 out of every 100 babies are born each year with some type of Congenital Heart Defect. (approx. 40,000/year)
- Nearly twice as many children die from Congenital Heart Defects in the United States each year as from all forms of childhood cancers combined, yet funding for pediatric cancer research is five times higher than funding for CHD.
- This year approximately 4,000 babies will not live to see their first birthday because of Congenital Heart Defects.
- The cost for inpatient surgery to repair Congenital Heart Defects exceeds $2.2 billion a year.
- 4-8% born with CHD have Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome - Colin has a variation of this!

What a COLD weekend we had! Friday it stayed in the 30’s all day, Saturday up to the 40’s, and then yesterday we got in the low 50’s.

Colin playing with the "other" baby

Saturday was Matt’s 35th birthday. It didn’t start off too great, one of our pipes froze and we had no water. Luckily it didn’t bust and Matt and my dad were out in the 20 degree weather fixing it. Matt, me, and the kids went out and had lunch, it’s nice now being able to take Colin out on small trips. Then everyone came over that afternoon to watch football and have some cake and ice cream. Matt could care less about the cake, but there is something about not having cake and ice cream on your birthday that bugs me! So I always order one for him. Matt and I met when I had just turned 20 and he was 24, 10 ½ years later and here we are. My how we have changed in those ten years, but I love him more than ever now.

Sunday we ran errands and had a nice relaxing day at home. I am so ready for winter to be over! I need the warm weather and sun and so do the kids!

Colin really is crawling now! He now goes from room to room. The grandpas have to be on their toes now. He is also now using a chair to pull himself on his knees, soon he will be able to pull all the way up on his feet.

Katherine of course was the life of Matt’s birthday party. She wanted to have everyone limbo, she and Matt acted out a circus for us, and she was the driving force for when it was time to have ice cream and cake.

Chicks REALLY do dig scars

Colin tied for the Houston Chronicle’s Cutest Kid 2009!

He tied with Josh, who was pictured at the Houston Astro’s game. I am glad they tied with us. When we entered the contest for fun, we had no idea what we were in store for. People were writing in negative comments on Colin’s page accusing us of cheating, using his heart condition to gain votes, and saying that we have entered Colin in other contests under other names. We almost removed him from the contest.

Josh’s family was real nice and left a nice message on Colin’s page wishing us luck and telling us not to read into those negative comments.

So the big prize that got people in such a hissy to be mean to a 9 month old cardiac baby??? … Colin wins a book and his picture will be featured in the mom’s section in next Tuesday’s printed Houston Chronicle.

They emailed and asked his age and what he is interested in so they can send him a book. I told them one with bright colors to slobber on.

Thank you to all that voted and helped Colin be a star!

http://blogs.chron.com/momhouston/2010/01/momhouston_presents_my_kid_gal_7.html

Colin turned 9 months old & Cardology Visit

Yesterday Colin turned 9 months old, wow! Can’t believe how time flies!
He has really grown up a lot this past month!
- HE IS CRAWLING. Colin can crawl forwards, but mainly still goes backwards most of the time. He moves all around the room in the blink of an eye!
- Likes to open drawers and empty his diaper basket!
- Has said Mama a few times
- Now weighs 17lbs 4 ounces on our scale. Not too bad considering he was sick and didn’t eat well for about a week.
- We are still struggling on baby food. He tolerates it, we are going to have occupational therapy work with us on getting him to increase his amount.
- Has his TWO bottom front teeth
- Constantly pulling himself up in a standing position. He thinks he has balance and has let go a couple of times, to find out he lands on his butt!

Colin had a check up with his cardiologist on Dec. 31. Colin’s chest x-ray looked great! His doctor felt Colin was doing really well and we don’t have to go back to see him until April! He is very happy with Colin’s progression! He is most likely going to be taken off one of his medicines when we go back! Yeah, so it would just leave us with Reflux medicine, ½ tablet of baby aspirin, and Enalapril for blood pressure. That would be nice!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

The last two weeks have flown by in a blur! We had a great Christmas and New Years!
Christmas Eve, Katherine and I baked Christmas Cookies and a cake, watched Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer, and then we went to Matt’s parent’s house to celebrate. Katherine was very anxious to open presents! She got a lot of fun toys, so did Colin, but he was more impressed by the wrapping paper.
Christmas morning we got up and Katherine was so excited that Santa came and brought presents and ate all her cookies and drank all the milk we left for him. Colin was excited about that too!
We had a nice time opening presents and watching It’s a Wonderful Life, which is my favorite Christmas movie. Then we headed to Russell’s house for the afternoon. His house was filled with EVEN more presents and toys! The kids did not know what to do with themselves.
The day after Christmas, Matt was the only one that got dressed! We played with ALL their new toys and organized the playroom to make room for all their new stuff.
Katherine stayed home from school for the next week while I was off. Matt had to work most of the time, so it was me & the kids. I would love to stay home with them if I could.
I took Katherine to the indoor moonwalk place one afternoon; we went to see The Princess and the Frog and had a girl’s lunch one day. I got a cook book for Christmas, so everyday we tried a new recipe. Katherine LOVES to help out in the kitchen, she was really good when we made the lasagna! And she REALLY helped eating it!!!!
New Years Eve we stayed home and my parents, Russell & Lara, and Russell’s friend Dave came over. Russell brought over sparklers that were bigger than Katherine, she had tons of fun with them. Mom made homemade pizzas.. yummy! Katherine stayed awake the whole time, but was about 11:45 she was getting a little cranky. Colin woke up right about midnight from all the noise of firecrackers. So Matt and I rang in the New Year with two cranky little ones.. got to love it!
We had New Years dinner at Matt’s parent’s house with yummy steaks! Katherine had fun acting out a circus act in front of everyone, she had such a vivid imagination! We had a great time off and it was wonderful to spend time with our family