The Crew

The Crew
Christina, Matthew, Joshua and Katie Grace XiHua

Friday, November 18, 2011

PSALMS 147:3 He heals the broken hearted and binds up their wounds. - Our little girl's heart is in need of a miracle.


Those amazing words are written by the psalmist believed to be King David speaking of the Lord's ability to heal us body, mind and soul. I understand that the words, "He heals the broken hearted.." are meant to express the feelings of the abandoned, the forlorn, the outcast but in this case, I have taken hold of the this promise for our Katie Grace who literally needs a healing in her physical "broken heart".

Our sweet little Katie Grace has had her broken in her life on more than one occasion. Having been abandoned at 9 months, living in an institutional setting where longtime friends and caretakers may come and go, and then leaving the place she knew to come to a new family. These are huge life changes that cause a broken heart and I thank God for giving her a smiling face and a joyful disposition everyday!

We knew when we looked at Hua Hua's medical file (we still call her that at home, it's her Chinese nick name :) hwa hwa) that she had 2 "minor/correctable" defects. We had our Dr review her file an he said that 1 of the defects, a PFO is so common that many people have it and don't know it, it is most likely a non- issue, which we found to be true in her case. He said the other defect, a VSD may need correction at some point in her childhood, but is a very common correction for a cardiologist to perform successfully. This is true, but at her cardiologist appointment, there is a major problem. The VSD hole in her heart is very big. It has caused her heart to labor, which has caused her lungs to labor for too long. The heart needs the surgery soon, but the cardiologist believes her lungs have developed too much damage to be able to handle the correction of the heart.

On December 14th, Katie Grace will go into Arnold Palmer Hospital here in Orlando and they will catheterize her lungs to check the the capacity of her lungs and determine if she can have the life saving heart surgery she will need. If she does not, there is nothing they can do to improve the lung function, she will not be able to have the surgery ever. Please pray that she has that strength! We believe in hearts that she does. If you saw her, you would believe that she does. She did not have many of the signs on the checklist they asked about. She does not tire easily, she does not breath hard, she does not get blue lips or fingers or toes. She is active and healthy!

Her lung oxygen saturation levels were low, but she was also sick with a bad cough at the time and I know that can cause low levels, her cough is totally gone now.

Thanks for your prayers and I will keep better updates!


Friday, November 4, 2011

HAPPY HALLOWEEN

Hua Hua LOVES her Minnie Mouse! She takes her everywhere and sleeps with her too. So I thought, what better choice for a costume than Minnie?? She looked SO cute!


She was so excited to put on her Minnie dress and she loved her ponytails, ears and nose! She squealed for joy! She really smiles a lot, I promise, LOL! I just can't seem to get her to smile a real smile for a picture yet. This is her photo smile. :)


Joshua wanted to be Spider Man AGAIN this year. He insisted. So I thought, great, just re-use your old costume if that is what you want. Then the night before Halloween he cried because he decided he wanted to be Mario. Well, I said, "it's a little too late to make a change now". Then that day I was shopping and saw this Mario costume, the last one left, happened to be in his size, marked at 1/2 price. Well of course I knew I had to get it and boy was he excited!



I have no idea why they both posed at the same time looking away from me off into the distance, but it made me laugh! These two are two peas in a pod. Always together.



Here's all 4 of the kiddos. Christina decided if Katie Grace was Minnie, she would be too. So we just got her that tutu and she did the rest. That turned out adorable. Jacob did Matthew's horror make-up, finished his hair later, and bloodied the shirt. A bit gory for my taste, but oh well, boys just like to go the extra mile!


Early in the evening on Halloween, we have a tradition of going over to visit our long time babysitter Jean at her community club house and their celebration. She likes to show of the kids to all her old folks friends. They are really like grand kids to her.


What could be cuter than these two sisters???



There the kids are with Jean. She is dressed as a Japanese Lady. She always wins her clubhouse costume contest.



The first of many tastes of candy for that evening!


One sweet little Mario taking a break from his mustache to eat some candy. Giving me the "don't even think of taking my candy" look.


Time for the children's costume parade! They all had some really fun costumes!



Katie Grace is shy sometimes, but only for a moment. She loved the costume parade and won 2nd place! She lost to a cute chubby baby lion. :)


Back home and ready for Trick-Or-Treating. Joshua, our neighbor Amber and Hua Hua ready to go. Hua doesn't even know what she is in for with this candy collecting that is about to occur! All of the neighbors were so happy to see her and ooohed and ahhhhed!


Matthew always sticking close by to make sure she is safe and sound. He is a great big brother.



Matthew with his best buddies, Elijah and Hunter.

Many hungry children near the boarder of Myanmar and Thailand-click on photo