Icecream and Parks

For some odd reason, we have a football in the car for and Addison loves to ask to hold the "mup mall".



We have been experiencing typical Texas spring weather right now--which means we have beautiful days combined with freezing days. The beautiful days remind me of summer in Michigan--not too hot during the day and requiring a light jacket in the evening. We took advantage of a couple of really nice days to get outside and enjoy ice cream and the parks.

Picture of Fistula

It's not the greatest quality, but in case you were wondering what her fistula looks like, here is my best attempt to capture it. I estimate that it is about 8mm long and 4 mm wide. You can only see the front part of it in this picture.

Sandbox and Daddy Time

I went to the gym while Addison napped. Henry got her when she woke up but she ended up falling asleep on Daddy again--not that I think he minded :)



In preparation for the quarantine I was going to impose on Addison prior to surgery, I tried to buy some new backyard toys to keep her occupied. A great friend gave us their sandbox so Addison helped to clean it out. The same weekend, a neighbor was selling the playhouse at their garage sale. The house is missing a door, but Addison does not seem to mind.

Finally and Update (or 7)

Thanks to encouragement from this blogs #1 Fan, Melissa, I found the motivation to update the blog. You'll have to keep scrolling to see everything we have done in the past couple of months.

Henry ran his first marathon last weekend, The White Rock Marathon! Yes, he finished the entire 26.2 miles on a day with less than ideal conditions (fierce wind and warmer than usual temperatures). I am so proud (and a little jealous because my knees would never ever let me run that far) of his accomplishment. He even thinks that he wants to do it again! Henry's parents came into town to support him and I found that watching a marathon is surprisingly fun and exhilarating. It was actually really intense to stand on the side of the road with your eyes trained on hundreds of runners while trying to find your runner. We also did a lot of walking and I found that I was kind of sore the next day too (yeah, pathetic but I did walk up and down a huge hill twice and run about a quarter of a mile with Henry).

We found Henry around the 14 mile mark and he was feeling so good that he asked to run with Addison for a while. You can get a feeling for how windy it is by looking that that blanket blowing in the wind.
The finish line!

Enjoying part of Henry's post race pizza
We got Henry some bananas after the race and Addison decided to try her first banana. She ate quite a bit of it but has shown no interested in eating any more of it since then--despite me opening at least 3 more bananas for her.
Addison has developed a "cheesy smile" that she likes to use when she thinks she is being cute.Yummy! My first doughnut hole!

Craniofacial Christmas Party

The party was held at the Southfork Ranch (about 5 miles from our house which was wonderful because it seems like very few things are close to our house) this year. Addison enjoyed making a bracelet with her grandma, sitting in a firetruck, petting a snake (grandma did not like), eating cake and cookies, coloring, and running around the dance floor like a mad woman (she would stop every 20 seconds to throw the stuffed bear they gave her on the floor and cover her mouth like she was saying "oops"). They had a raffle and about a quarter of the way through it, we realized that the ticket passer outer had given me the top half of the tickets and Grandpa the bottom half, which meant that there was NO WAY our numbers were ever going to be called. I still feel like they should have just given us a prize for their mess up!

This is Addison taking a picture with Dr. Salyer. He is not her surgeon but he is very famous in the craniofacial world and is obviously loved by his patients. He is pretty much retired now but works on some of the really big deal cases--like the ones that get you on the Discovery Channel.


Beep beep! She did not want to get down from the fire engine.
She actually touched the snake but my camera was too slow to get the shot.

Early Childhood Intervention Holiday Party

Addison gets speech and nutrition services from ECI due to her cleft. They have an annual Christmas party and aside from Santa, she had a great time. Without a doubt, her favorite thing to do at the party was to eat the sugar cookie.

They had a lot of crafts to do. Addison is modeling her elf ear hat in this picture.

Addison at Play

My mom sent Addison this cute fuzzy purple hat. I think that it is hilarious when she wants to wear it out in public but I tend to only get weird stares from others when we are out and about.
Look at all her teeth!

Before taking Addison for a ride in the bike trailer that I got for Christmas. Yes, she is wearing a pajama top with some non-matching pants. I felt kind of silly when she got out to play at the park.