A Flower Girl in North Carolina

Throwing sand...a favorite activity from the weekend

We spent the long Memorial day weekend (plus some!) in the Outer Banks of North Carolina.  What a great trip!  Jason's nephew was getting married and Lucy got to be the Flower Girl!

She did great on the plane rides out there.  We flew into Norfolk, Virginia and then drove the 90 minutes to our beach house, which we shared with Jason's dad, sisters, brother-in-law and 5 kids, the youngest of who is just 9 month older than Lucy, so they had a blast!  Brody (the 2-year old) was the ring bearer, so Lucy had a few days to get to know him before they had to walk down the aisle! :)

The wedding was on Saturday night, at a nearby Marina.  The ceremony was outside and I was VERY surprised when Lucy and Brody walked down the aisle perfectly, like they had been practicing it for months!   It was really so, so cute!  We were so wrapped up in enjoying the wedding, the beautiful scenery and enjoying the food that we barely got any pictures of Lucy in her dress!

The dress...so cute!  (and she kept those shoes on ALL NIGHT!)

"Dancing" with the ringbearer - cousin Brody

The rest of the trip was spent catching up with family, hanging out at the beach and eating some amazing seafood.  Lucy is a total beach babe and loved every minute of getting her feet (and most of the rest of her) wet in the ocean.  She was covered head to toe in sand (as were Jason and I) pretty much every time we went.  Thank goodness our house was just a short walk from the beach and had an outdoor shower that we could use to rinse off!


All in all, it was a wonderful vacation and we can't wait to go back!!

Contemplating the meaning of life?

This is Lucy's "excited" stance - big grin on her face and fists clenched with excitement! :)

Running away from the rising tide.

Warming up in mommy's sweater...that ocean water is still COLD!

 Lucy has her next dilatation tomorrow - this time at Minneapolis Children's instead of St. Paul, so we are hoping that it goes as smoothly there as we have become accustomed to it going in St. Paul.  Due to scheduling conflicts, it was the best appointment we could get.  Prayers are welcome!  We will update you on the results.

Oh, and a HUGE praise God from the weekend - we didn't use Lucy's feeding tube once!  We were very diligent about getting her 3 meals and 2 snacks every day and encouraged lots of water, milk and juice drinking to stay hydrated.  She ate like a champ with just a few "spit up" episodes (mostly because we were at restaurants and didn't have her typical food available).  As always, we are so, so proud of her progress and thankful that God is healing her so fully.  Today is a day we focus on being joyful in hope..."Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. (Romans 12:12)"

One less doctor on the list!

Getting in on daddy's selfie!

We met with Lucy's (former!) urologist last week and got the wonderful news that her RNC test from the previous week looked completely normal and her kidney function looked good as well.  That means that we no longer have to visit the urologist unless she has any issues in the future.  Yay!!  What great news!

She is doing really well.  At her most recent weight check, she was up over 23 pounds.  As long as she continues to gain weight, we have our pediatrician's agreement that we can continue to wean her off of her feeding tube calories.  We are down to one feeding a day through her tube, at less than 60 calories - Woo Hoo!  She continues to eat ground up food or easily dissolved foods.  We often tell her to SLOW DOWN and chew her food better to avoid a "spit up" episode.

Jason and I left her with my parents overnight last weekend and while we stayed downtown to celebrate our anniversary.  I was a little teary to leave her for so long - since I've been with her EVERY night since she came home from the hospital, but she did great for my parents and it was a rare treat for Jason and I to have 24 uninterrupted hours of together time, just the two of us. 

Anniversary dinner - so good!

I cannot believe how much she is growing up. She is such a little chatterbox and often will repeat things we say that we had no idea she knew how to say!

Hhmmm...book or iPad?

We are very excited to be heading to the Outer Banks of North Carolina over Memorial weekend to celebrate the wedding of our nephew.  Lucy is going to be the flower girl, so we've been practicing wearing the dress and shoes...fingers crossed she cooperates on the big day!!

Other than that, Lucy and Jason have been spending a lot of quality time together lately, as we take a few weeks off from having a nanny.

Can you find Lucy?  (She's hiding in the cabinet - a new, favorite place to hang out!  If you look closely, you can see her little fingers, hahaha!)

RNC Test and our Little Ray of Sunshine!

We've had a busy week!

On Friday, Lucy had her RNC (nuclear cystogram) to look at her bladder to kidney reflux.  It's the test that requires a catheter and for her to get her bladder filled up a couple of times so they could take continuous pictures of the anatomy.  She also had to lay still for about 20 minutes while the test was being done - she did great (all things considered).  We'll get the results when we meet with her urologist next week.  Since she has always had only a very mild case of this type of reflux, we are anticipating no major concerns.

Lucy is truly a ray of sunshine to everyone she meets.  She is a pretty friendly kid and loves to say "Hi!" to people that come across our path in public - grocery store, hospital waiting rooms, at the park - anywhere!  While we were in the radiology waiting area for this particular test (for over an hour - don't get me started!)  Jason and I watched her walk around the room, greeting everyone and waiting for them to say "hi" back to her and were so proud of the smile that she could bring to all of their faces - to her, it doesn't matter if they are old or young or well-dressed or in sweatpants or black or white or Indian or Asian - she treats them all equally.  What a great reminder from an almost 2-year old.

She made a friend while we were waiting and they helped each other pass the time:

Last weekend, we took Lucy to the mall for the first time.  I know, I can't believe she's never been to the mall, but it was just never a place we ventured as a family!  I had no idea there were so many entertaining things to do at the mall for kids!

Riding in the rent-a-car and sneaking sips of daddy's cherry Icee

Six Lucy's?  I don't know what we would do!!

Riding the carousel with daddy - big hit!

And finally, we are officially a 3-car family!  Lucy's new wheels are courtesy of our next door neighbor, whose kids have outgrown this car (although interestingly enough, now that it lives in our garage instead of theirs, they come over all the time to ride in it!!)

Posin' and Cruisin'