Friday, October 31, 2008

Activities

One of my favorite parts of the whole homeschooling experience is all of the extracurricular activities my kids get to participate in. Not being tied up in school for 8 hours a day loosens our schedule so that they can do lots more and we are not pushed as a family. We are able to schedule our activities around meal times and family time and anything else important. We also group our activities so that we are only away from home a couple of days a week and to save time and money in gas.

Here everyone is ready for dance classes on Tuesdays. Below The Monkey Man and the Tater are visiting the state veterans home for a scouting activity.



The Monkey and the Screecher also take gymnastics. Our three oldest co-op on Fridays with our friends at Trinity Chapel and the oldest two take piano lessons. It all makes for a busy week but we love it!

Homeschooling 24/7

Finally, we are all home and healthy. Praise the Lord! Lily Grace is doing well and our little Joshua is 7 lbs 3 oz as of Tuesday. We have been home from the hospital for almost three weeks now and is seems that we are settling back into our new old routines :)

I admit that homeschooling with a new baby has been my biggest challenge. There have been many days when all I felt like teaching was a hands-on unit study on sleep! Even though I could use a lot more of that, the kids didn't seem so excited about the possibility.


Anyway, Dad is being helpful as always. I am terrified of bugs and those creepy crawly things that are so interesting to the little ones. Thus, Dad is always in charge of the hands-on science. Here are the latest pictures of the Science visitor/Entertainment that crawled through our garage. When I stepped into the garage to pick up the laptop case that I was listing on ebay. This little fellow ran across my hand. I screamed, the children laughed and Stacy commenced with the science lesson at 10pm!

Saturday, October 18, 2008

Little Man Update


Through all of the chaos in the Langford house of late, the Little Man is still growing. His next weight check is not until this Monday but we are confident that he is now past the 6 pound mark. He is more alert every day (even in the middle of the night!) and he loves to watch and listen to his brother and sisters.

The Screecher's Surgery

Our little Screecher's surgery went better than expected. She spent only one night in the ICU and was discharged on Sunday. These are pictures just two days post op. If all goes as expected this will be the last of her surgeries! Praise the Lord!


She is back at home now with her brothers and sister and back to her usual self. She still moves a bit slowly but, that has not kept her from playing and dressing up. Below is a picture of her latest costume creation. According to her, she is Thumbelina's Mommy.




Wednesday, October 8, 2008

Please Pray for Lily Grace

Our precious Lily Grace is a miracle that runs around our house in front of us every day. She is a constant reminder of what an awesome God we serve.

When I was 20 weeks pregnant with Lily Grace, we found out that she had significant cardiac defects. I still remember the look on my doctor's face when he said "we'll just take this one day at a time". When she was born in April of 2005 things looked even worse than we had thought. Along with the cardiac issues she had numerous other problems. She had 5 surgical procedures before she was ever discharged from the NICU. At three months old, she finally made it home from the hospital with more equipment that I have ever seen with a baby. She was completely tube fed, she had a central line placed that we used to give her IV antibiotics and she was on a monitor. Three weeks later she was back in the pediatric intensive care and two weeks after that, she was at Vanderbilt Hospital having open heart surgery.


I will never forget the Friday before her surgery. My mom and I had driven to Vanderbilt for Lily's pre-op work and we were told that the surgery to fix her heart might not be possible. According to the ultrasound done that day, her heart muscle had thickened to the point that it might prevent the surgery. We drove home with a mix of silence and tears. We were absolutely devastated. We prayed all weekend. We were not supposed to have Lily out in crowds but we took her to church on Sunday morning anyway. When we had prayer for her, the entire church was on the altar. On Monday morning when the doctor called out from the surgical suite, he told us that her heart was nothing like what the ultrasound had shown. The muscle was thinned and the procedure was done. Is anything to hard for God?


After that stay we had several other surgical procedures to remove her gallbladder, and fix various other problems with Lily. According to the doctors, nothing was quite right in her little body. I praise God that she is fearfully and wonderfully made.



It has been quite a while now that we have been home and well. Unfortunately tonight we are packing for the hospital again. Lily Grace has congenital scoliosis and other issues with her spine. The most serious issue is that her spinal cord is tethered to her tail bone. Tomorrow, she will have surgery to release that tethering. It didn't sound very serious at first until I realized all that the procedure entailed.


The procedure aside, this time Lily Grace knows what is happening. She knows that she is going to the hospital and they are going to "ouchie" her. I always thought when she was a baby that it would be better if she were older. I was wrong. This is much worse.


Please pray that God in his infinite mercy would spare my baby from pain. Pray that the Great Physician would guide the hands of the surgeon that operates on my precious angel. I pray that she would be healed. I pray that this procedure goes better than we could even dream because we serve a God who is more than able.

Tuesday, October 7, 2008

Sleep Deprived Update

Yes yes, it has been a couple of weeks since I posted anything new. I plead sleep deprivation as my only defense :) As evidence, I submit that I am posting this at 4:45 am. Joshua just finished his middle of the night feeding and I could not get back to sleep.

Things are finally getting back to normal in the Langford house. Well, the new normal anyway. At least we have finally found a new rhythm. Joshua seems to sleep through the morning school time and wake up just when the other children are having a snack.

Someone asked me recently how we do all that we do with 4 children. I must say that I have wonderful parents. Nana and Poppy live just down the hill from us and are always eager to get their hands on the grandchildren. I am a blessed woman to be able to call my mom and have her watch the children long enough for me to take a shower or run to the store. Plus, my children love them to pieces! They get quite upset if they go a day without seeing Nana and Poppy. At any given time in the day my children are ready to run down the hill to Nana and Poppy's house. It is quite cute actually. It looks like the intro to Little House on the Prairie complete with Lily Grace falling down to roll in the grass midway just like Carrie.

For those of you waiting for the new Joshua pics, please visit our photographer and good friend LaDonna's blog at www.covertscorner.blogspot.com to see the most recent pictures. We hope to have a slideshow of these on our blog in the near future.