Update on Joe

Thanks for everyone who prayed for Joesph. His surgery went really well, "as well as it could go," as the surgeon put it. The anesthesiologist took him from me right at 7:30 and in under an hour, we were back with him in the recovery room. He was fussy and pathetic sounding right at first, but he quickly fell asleep in my arms and stayed there sucking away on his paci for about 2 hours. The anesthesiologist wanted to keep him for 2 hours, "since he's so little," as she put it.

I thought it was interesting that they did the traditional anesthesia by putting the tube down his throat, and they also gave him a "baby epidural" as she called it for the pain. Apparently they don't like to give them too many opioids that put them deeply to sleep, so they do the epidural for the pain and the tube down the throat with some medications to keep him asleep so he doesn't wiggle.

It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. I only shed a few tears right when she took him. I knew that God was in control, and I know He gave me his peace as all of you prayed.

Thanks for your love an support!! We are so glad that is over!

Pray for Joe!!

Joseph's surgery is scheduled for tomorrow, Tuesday the 20th at 7:30 am. Please pray for his safety and quick recovery! And, pray for his parents to trust God and have peace!

Thanks! I'll let you know how it went tomorrow.

We need your help!

Many of you know that we are going to be joining a missionary organization called Mission Aviation Fellowship. Our first round of training will be in July for 5 weeks. One of the things we have to do before we go in July is collect 300-400 addresses of people who will want to receive updates on our ministry.

Please send me your address if you are interested in finding out what we'll be up to and finding out opportunities to be involved in what we're doing.

If you would like to read a little bit about the process with joining MAF is, please see our blog from August 2008.

If you send me your address, you won't be receiving any junk mail from MAF. You'll only be receiving information about us and our ministry.

If you have a family member or friend that you think would like to hear about us, please send us their address, too! We need as many as we can get! :)

Hopefully we'll be sending out an un-official news letter within the next couple months. Eventually, I'd like to switch to e-mail newsletters, so please include you're email address, as well.

You can either leave your address in the comments section if you feel comfortable, or email it to me at BeckyPez@sbcglobal.net.

Some people have voiced an interest in supporting us financially starting now. This is NOT what I'm asking of you now, but I just wanted to let those who have asked us about this that I'm going to contact MAF and make sure I know the policy on receiving gifts before we're officially members.

Thanks SOOOO much for your help and interest!!

Joseph's surgery is going to be Tuesday the 20th. Please pray for our precious boy!

Picture Tag

I was tagged by Michelle, which means I had to:

1. Go to the 4th folder in your computer where you store your pictures.
2. Pick the 4th picture in that folder.
3. Explain the picture.
4. Tag 4 people to do the same!

This picture was taken on a backpacking trip to Lake Texoma in Feb 2006. We bought these packs when I got my first real pay check after I graduated, but only got to use them a few times before we had kids. The morning we were supposed to leave for this trip, I decided to take a pregnancy test while Daniel was out running an errand. When he got home, I surprised him with a positive test! That meant that Reece was on her way! It was a fun trip because we got to think about an talk about having our first child. And, I got to sleep on the little blow-up mattress (we only have one) since I was the pregnant one! :)

This was fun!
Now I tag Amanda, Shanna, Lindsee and Sally

SMILES!!

I tried to turn these pics, but I couldn't figure it out...oh well. They're still CUTE!

Joe's surgery is January 6. Please pray for him!!

Snow Day and Bath Time times 2

It SNOWED in Houston!! I know it's not much, but think you can see it a little bit on my jacket, Reece wasn't too impressed. She wanted to go in and finish watching Veggie Tales. I think she was just really cold! We aren't used to that frigid weather!

Thanks to story time last Tuesday, Reece learned about snow and how to catch a snowflake on her tongue. That's the first thing she did when we went outside to check out the snow.

Bath time fun! I can't wait until they're splashing each other! After we took Joseph out, Daniel was standing in the tub with his pant legs rolled up splashing with Reece and singing "ring around the rosies" and then letting Reece fall down as he held her arms. It was the funniest sight, but I didn't want to post pictures of it since Reece was naked! :)

Update on Joe's surgery: We meet with the surgeon on Monday to see what the plan is, so I'll let you all know after our appointment. He's not in pain right now, but he does still have the holes in his muscles that need to be repaired. The intestine can still go in and out of the hole in the abdominal muscle, but they shouldn't get stuck again like they did last time. If they do, we'll be able to tell right away now since we know what it looks like and we'll just rush back down to the hospital and get the surgery done then. I don't want that to happen again, of course, since it caused Joseph so much pain, but I'm kinda glad we got to wait a little while for the surgery since he's still SO young!

Thanks for praying for him!!

One Month Update

Joseph's one month picture was taken today instead of on Joe's official one month birthday, which was Saturday. We had to take Joseph to the Texas Children's emergency room at 4am on Saturday morning because he had a inguinal hernia. Part of his intestine was stuck through the abdominal muscle. It was SO painful for him. He was screaming and screeching about every 30 minutes from 8pm until we finally noticed the swelling when I changed his diaper at 3am. He also hadn't nursed for over 12 hours during this whole ordeal. We called our pediatrician and she told us to take him straight to TCH ER because they were probably going to have to do surgery. We took him there, and they did an ultrasound to rule out some other issues he could have been having, and finally at about 10am we saw one of the surgeons and he "reduced" the hernia. This is basically where the doctor pushes the hernia back in, which was very painful for Joe. But, after he did that, Joseph was much happier! They had to start an IV with fluids since he wasn't eating, but after the hernia was reduced, Joseph was back to his old self of wanting to eat a lot! :)

We are going to have to get the surgery done in the next few weeks. The surgeon wanted to postpone the surgery a little bit because Joseph was still very swollen. We'll keep you updated on the surgery date.

One month picture-- not quite a smile yet.

Cuddle time with Daddy

All wrapped up with Mommy. This is how I get out with two kids. Joe in the Maya wrap and Reece holding my hand or in the shopping cart :)


Joe at Reece's 2nd birthday party

Joseph's first trip to the park! Reece was excited to show him. This is an amazing jogging stroller that Daniel surprised me with. Joseph doesn't much like it yet because it's not really made for a newborn. I mostly push Reece in it and put Joe in the baby carrier on me.

Joseph isn't doing much exciting. No smiles yet, but he is having more awake time where he lies on the floor and kicks his legs. This only lasts about 10 minutes at a time, and then he wants to be picked up again. He will sleep for about 4 hours at a time at night, but usually wakes to eat and then I put him right back in his cradle. But, he has his moments of fussiness!


Reece Update:

She is really adjusting to Joe well. When he cries, she thinks he needs either a toy or a blanket, so she's always "helping" me.
She has been sleeping in her big girl bed now for about 3 weeks and is loving it!


She fell out a few times at first, but now is doing really well (I don't know why this picture is upside down!)

Reece also had her 2nd birthday on November 12. She got a shiny new tricycle! She loved it, and the helmet which is still too big!



We went to the zoo on her birthday. Joe was only 2 weeks old, but he slept the entire time. We all really enjoyed our trip to the zoo.




She had a small party about a week later where she got many fun toys, including an easel. She loves to paint on it and use the dry/erase and magnetic board.


We got their Christmas pictures done which I will put up later. They are SO cute!!