Salutations https://bit.ly/2B3qAUH Bw_rigby

It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas

 

We were invited to ride on the Sozo Group float in the Monroeville Christmas parade this year.  The weather was perfect, and Sophie had a blast!

 

After the parade, we went to have breakfast with Santa.  Sophie was still not too sure about the "Big Guy" (hence the family photo), but she stood in front of him and told him what she wanted for Christmas. 

 

 Sophie was so excited the Nick, Anna Kay, and Mack joined us for the big event!

The Many Faces of Our Little Turkey

For Thanksgiving, Sophie and her K4 class dressed as Pilgrims for their Thanksgiving party and made Indian (do I have to say Native American?) head dresses.  They are both so cute that we decided to do a two-in-one picture.  So feast your eyes on the many faces of our little turkey.

 

We hope everyone has a very Happy Thanksgiving!  We have so much to be thankful for!



Trick or Treat!

 

This year we had the opportunity to trick or treat, not once, but twice, which means we have twice the candy to eat!  That's the whole point, though, right?

 

Sophie wanted to dress up as Izzy for Halloween this year.  At first I had no clue who Izzy was.  I know, chalk up one to the bad Mama who doesn't watch Disney Jr all of the time.  I quickly found out that Izzy is one of the main characters on Jake and the Neverland Pirates, or as Sophie calls it, Jake and Levermet Pirate.  And in case you didn't know, the reason that Izzy is so cool is that litte pouch of pixie dust that she so proudly wears around her neck and pulls out whenever there is trouble, and she and her friends need to quickly make a flying escape.  Sometimes I wish I had a little pouch of pixie dust.  Sophie keeps hers handy...you know, just in case.

 

Happy Halloween!  And Yo Ho Ho!



Happy Birthday, Sophie!

Happy Birthday to the sweetest 4 year old we know!

 

We love you, Sophie!

First Day of K4

 

Our little girl is growing up WAY too fast!  She started K4 in the Fall!

 

I was afraid that she was going to be hesitant to go back to school,

 

but she really missed her friends so much over the summer,

 

 

and was VERY happy to see them at school!

 

Sophie's teacher is Mrs. Amber Chastain, and we love her and Ms. Renae Daniels very much!

 



Summer

During the time that Sophie has expanders, we try to do normal things.  As you probably know, this last round emcompassed our entire summer, but we tried to let Sophie do all of the things that Sophie would normally do during the summer, regardless of expanders. 

The first week of June, Sophie took swimming lessons for the first time.  She loves the water and did great with lessons.  Her teacher, Mrs. Chris, says that she just needs more time in the pool.  Hmmm...... I wonder if I could use that as an excuse for us to build a pool here at home.  I digress.

After swimming lessons, we had a week of Vacation Bible School.  Sophie had a blast!

 

 

 

 

We Are Still Here!

Wow, it's been a while, but we are still here.  Life has been going 90 miles an hour, and we are hanging on tight.  I realized that I never posted any updates from Sophie's last round of expansion. This was a round like no other, and we hope we never have one like it again!

Things started out pretty normal, and we went through our usual routine of drain removal and then the fill process.  The fill process.  Well, this time the fills were much different.  In the past, Bo and I have done them at home with the help of EMLA cream.  Now that Sophie is older and very aware of all that we are doing, she was having no part of us doing the fills at home.  Thankfully, we met Dr. Beals and his group at USA Children's and Women's hospital after Sophie's last surgery, so they assisted us with the fills.  It was pretty intense during that 30 minutes of fills, but as soon as we were done, we would go do something fun, like play at the Splash Pad.  This was a great distraction for Sophie and the moving around really helped Sophie get comfortable quickly. 

 

A few weeks into our fills, Sophie started complaining that her side was hurting.  We watched closely, shared pictures with Dr. Bauer, stayed in contact with the pediatrician in case we needed to make a mad dash to the doctors office.  Well, we soon found ourselves in the ER of USA Children's and Women's hospital with a case of cellulitis on the left expander and port.  It doesn't look too bad in the pictures, but there was a lot of swelling and fever, and it was very painful for Sophie.

 

 

Thankfully, they were able to get Sophie on IV antibiotics right away, and we were able to save the expander.  Our hospital stay lasted around 4 days, but being in the hospital that my sister works in made the stay a whole lot easier as did the visits from family!

Fast forward to the July, and we are ready for the expanders to be removed.  We had an uneventful trip to Chicago.  My sister, Brenda, went with us this time.  We did some sightseeing in the city, and rode the train.  The weather was great! 

 

Sophie's surgery went well, and Dr. Bauer was able to remove a good portion of the nevus.  Below is a collage of the before and after photos of Sophie's back and a single picture of the front.  I don't have a good before pic of the front, but trust me, a lot of progress was made.

 

After we got home, Sophie developed an infection in the incision.  With the help of Dr. Bauer and Dr. Beals and his group, we were able to get it under control pretty quickly.  Whew!  This was a tough round, and we are very thankful that we made the decision early on that we would not do more surgeries this year.  We all needed a good break!

Ding Ding! Round 3!!

Yesterday, Sophie had surgery inserting her 3rd round of expanders.

We originally thought she was going to get 4 expanders this time,

but much to our surprise, Dr. Bauer opted for 3 instead. 

We are so thankful!

 Sophie was such a brave, big girl during pre-op.

She colored and played with the walkie-talkies that the great

nursing staff at Highland Park Hospital gave to her.

We also played a few computer games and took some silly

pictures with Daddy's iPad.

After Sophie received her dose of Happy Juice,

we headed to the holding area to wait to talk to

Dr. Bauer before Sophie and her babies headed off to surgery.

(Sophie's babies got some expanders too!)



Seeing smiles like this before each surgery is so reassuring.



Everyone had to wear the Smiley Face hat

including Daddy.  He's so silly!

After a couple of hours, the surgery was done, and

the great Dr. Bauer came out tell us how well Sophie

had done. Soon after, we were able to go

sit with her in post-op until she was awake and

ready to go to a room.

This is what we found we went to see her!  She was

sleeping so peacefully with her babies along side her.

We made it back to the hotel around 6:30 and quickly got settled

back in for the night.  Sophie was in good spirits and even

gave us a few smiles, which was very encouraging considering she

had just come out of surgery.  She ate a couple of bites of noodles

(one of her  faves), had some juice and quickly retired to the

bed to catch some cartoons before going to sleep.  We had an okay

night, but that is to be expected.  We anticipate much improvement

in the next few days.

She is one tough cookie and such a blessing to us!

Thank you all for your many prayers!



Hoppy Easter!

Easter 2012 was a blast!

We were able to participate in so much

more now that Sophie is 3!

We had an Easter egg hunt at church,

dyed Easter eggs with LouLou (a.k.a. Emily) and Amy,

and hunted Easter eggs that the Easter Bunny left

all over our house.  The weather was perfect, so we

were able to blow bubbles and play outside

the WHOLE afternoon!

There probably was WAY too much candy

consumption in one day, but hey, your only 3

once, right?  We made the most of it!

And it was a ton of fun for all of us!

The Greatest Show on Earth

As part of Sophie's Gotcha Day celebration, we

bought tickets to the Barnum & Bailey Circus.  We

had a great time, and the kids were AMAZED!
I even think Mack liked it a little too!

Guess Who Can Count to 100!

Our big girl can!  Yea, Sophie!!



Happy Gotcha Day, Sophie!

On March 29, we celebrated our 2 year Gotcha Day

anniversary with Sophie.  I don't know where the time has

gone, but in two very short years,

Sophie has gone from this very quiet and confused

little girl whose world was turned upside down

to this vibrant, smart, beautiful, big girl who is

so full of personality and imagination.

She is a ray of sunshine in our lives, and we can't

imagine our lives without her.

Happy Gotcha Day, Sophie!  We love you sooooo much!