Preschool Activities

Being in preschool this year has been such a wonderful thing for Caden. He is really growing and thriving in this environment! We are so blessed to have such a wonderful preschool just down the road from us, literally two minutes from our house.

One day, to celebrate Dr. Seuss' 100^th birthday, the kids all made t-shirts. They got to choose from a couple different designs and then ironed them onto a white t-shirt. Caden chose one with fish on it, from “One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish.” It is very cute and he wants to wear it every day! Here is a picture of all the kids showing off their shirts.

Another day, the kids got to go outside and do pendulum painting with different colored paint. Check out the pictures below to get a better idea of what that means. It was very cool to see how it worked. The kids loved it!

And, over a period of several days, all the kids made mini covered wagons. They are studying about the Oregon Trail right now as part of their curriculum. The wagons are made out of small cereal boxes for the wagon, paper for the cover, and cardboard for the wheels and are stinking cute! Their teacher also uses puppets as a way to teach them more about this time period.

 This is Caden's wagon

It is truly amazing to me how much their teacher does with them. She is wonderful and has so many fun ways to help them learn. Like I said before, we are truly blessed to have this incredible school right by us!

2nd Opinion

After much prayer, Greg and I felt we needed to get a 2^nd opinion on Caden's condition. According to the research we have done, the person who has done the most repairs of Scimitar Syndrome in the US is Dr. Spray at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP). Even though we are short on time, due to surgery being scheduled for April 9 at Lucile Packard Children's Hospital at Stanford (LPCH), we decided it was what we needed to do.

I called Dr. Spray's office at CHOP and talked to a referral nurse there. She was very helpful in letting me know what he needed in order to do a review of Caden's case. I got right to work getting the appropriate medical records sent to her via fax or mail. She told me it could often take a couple weeks after getting all the records before Dr. Spray has time to review the case but she would see what she could do to help speed it along due to our surgery date.

On March 13, I got a call from the nurse telling me she had gotten almost everything and went ahead and had Dr. Spray do a preliminary review because he was going to be out of town the whole next week. Unfortunately they still hadn't received Caden's echo and MRI from LPCH. They had received the echo from his cardiology office in Spokane and used that. The nurse told me based on his preliminary review, he agreed Caden definitely needed surgery soon. And the second thing he said was he thought we were in very good hands at LPCH and he wouldn't change that.

We felt this was a direct answer to prayer because we hadn't specifically asked him whether he thought we should have surgery at CHOP instead of LPCH. But we had been praying to have a clear answer to the question because LPCH has only done a handful of Scimitar cases in the last few years. And, Dr. Spray has done over 75 in his career. However, since he answered a question we hadn't even asked him, we felt it was the answer God was providing to us.

In addition, once he receives the echo and MRI from LPCH, he will do a more thorough review of the case and will likely make a recommendation as to the type of repair he would do. There are a couple different methods used and I would like to know his opinion on which method he would use. That might influence the surgeons at LPCH one way or the other and could be very beneficial.

At this point, we are continuing forward with surgery on April 9 at LPCH. This date is getting very close very fast! It seems like just yesterday we were being told about the potential for something additional being wrong with Caden's heart. But that was the first week of October last year... Time has flown by since then!

Please continue to pray for Caden and our whole family as we prepare for this major surgery. It will affect all of us and I worry about how it will impact both Caden and Kyler.

Special Shoes!

In January I received an email from a friend of mine offering to make custom-painted shoes as a gift for my boys in honor of February being Heart Awareness Month. I was so honored by her offer! She told me to ask the kids what color shoes they wanted and what they would like painted on them. I did that and boy, did they have opinions!

Caden requested yellow shoes with the tools from Handy Manny. Except he did not want “Flicker” the flashlight tool because he is not in all the episodes! He also wanted his special “duck” blanket he's had since he was born, and his name.

Kyler didn't want as many things on his shoes. He has a favorite stuffed lion named rusty that he wanted painted on. And he wanted his name. Other than that, he didn't want anything else. But he definitely wanted white shoes!

In addition to what the kids wanted, I asked my friend to put hearts with bandaids on them to symbolize the kids' mended hearts. I talked to the boys about it ahead of time and they were both okay with this. I emailed pictures of Caden's duck blanket and Kyler's stuffed lion so she could see what they looked like. And she got started looking for shoes in the color they wanted.

On March 11 we received a package in the mail with the special shoes. Each of the boys opened their shoes and was so excited! Both of them are in love with their shoes and for the first couple days they did NOT want to take them off! It was pretty cute! My friend even told both the kids to not worry about getting them dirty but to play in them as they would any other shoes. Caden has taken this to heart and will wear his shoes anywhere. Kyler, on the other hand, only wants to wear his shoes in the house because he doesn't want to ruin them. I keep telling him he needs to wear them and show them off before he outgrows them. 

The shoes are absolutely amazing and I am so grateful for the incredible gift give to us by our friend. She is so talented to be able to paint such amazing things on the shoes. We are very blessed indeed!

Another Piano Recital

On March 5 we attended another piano recital for Kyler. This was his 2^nd one this school year. The song he chose to play was “Ode to Joy.” As he went up to play his song, I missed recording the first part of the song because I think he actually started to play before he sat down! I think he was in a hurry to get it over with! :) Funny boy! He did a good job and I am proud of how he is progressing on the piano.

Teaching About Malawi

I found out Kyler's class was learning about the country of Malawi and I was so excited. It just so happens I was born in Malawi while my parents were missionaries there. In addition, I also went back as a student missionary while I was in college and worked in an orphanage for babies. I mentioned this to his teacher, and of course she asked me to come talk to the class about my experience. I really do not like getting up in front of people, but I figured I could handle a group of 1^st and 2^nd graders! So I agreed.

February 27 was the day! I brought in a few carvings I brought back with me, along with some pictures of my time there. And I brought a chief chair for the kids to take turns sitting in. At the end I let them take turns trying on a caftan (formal dress). I think they enjoyed that part more than anything else. But it was fun to be able to share my experience with the kids. I love Malawi and it was neat to be able to share that with them. 

 Kyler and I wearing caftans

 Caden had to try it on too!

 Mrs. Wessman and me