Pictoral fly-by of the last month...

On July 4th, Carver turned 8:





Our last week in Indiana, we took a day and visited Conner Prairie. It was super fun.


Carver got to try out his tomahawk-throwing skills:








Rose turned 2 on the day moving chaos started (Friday):


Packing-up-the-truck day (Sunday afternoon and evening). We think we had over 30 people from church show up to help us pack the truck. Except for the circumstances, it was a blast, and I got one last (staged--can you tell?) picture of representatives from our small group, which we have had in our house on Sunday nights for the last 4 years:


Filling up the cul-de-sac with cars and trucks and things that go:

Little house on Fridley Ct, we will miss you!

Grandpa Talcott and Grandpa Bray (who flew out to surprise us with Grandma Bray!) discuss fitting all of my possessions in the moving truck:

As an aside, we are so, so thankful for all the help we had moving. We had no idea how much help we needed until it was too late and we were in the thick of things, up to our necks in mess, excitement, children, and stuff. Talcotts and Brays both came to help, and Grandma Bray spent most of the weekend holding Hope, which was such a huge help, freeing me up. We had people dear to us show up on Monday morning before the closing to help us clean, and to sit and chat with me one last time in our house. We love all of you, and miss you all terribly.

Hope hanging out with Dad:


Laura turned 4:


Rose reads to Hope:


Hope listening to Dad sing hymns, in the absence of our piano (which we believe is still sitting in storage in Bloomington, hopefully coming to us soon!):


Sisters.


Bob, Ben and Thomas came to visit us this week. In all fairness, they did the hosting, taking David and Carver into Mozart at the Met and feeding them dinner in the city. We had them over for dinner Friday night, and then went to church with them on Sunday morning. Before Hope was born, we were told that she had a very high chance of having cerebral palsy, which is what Bob has. Bob has been a huge encouragement to me as we have thought about what life with a handicapped child could look like.

Today, we drove down to Philadelphia to spend the day with the C's. What a fun day, and so refreshing to me to be able to spend the entire day talking with Delene. Thank you, Lord, for friends.


I know, I know--there are no pictures of our new house. But they will be coming, as I finish getting rooms set up. I can't wait to show you our house, in the hopes that you'll come visit!

Carver @ 8

Carver is turning 8 today! I can't believe how it has flown by. We started off the morning with presents after breakfast (because what fun is a birthday if you can't spend the day playing with your stuff??!) He got this cool skateboard-thingy, some water guns, a new sprinkler to run through, an addition to his snap circuits kit, and some books. Sadly, all of the books are taking an extreme backseat to all of the cool, hands-on stuff. He spent about a half-hour playing water guns with his sisters, and the rest of the day he has spent mastering the skateboard. He's already improved much more than I expected--he can make it all the way down to the end of the cul-de-sac without falling off. Very impressive.




We'll finish off the day with spaghetti & meatballs, banana bread, and taking chocolate cake to the church gathering to watch fireworks. Happy birthday, Carver!

Yes, we did make it home.

I am an awful blogger. I just don't enjoy it. So that is my excuse for never putting up a 'We Made It Home!' post.
We did, in fact, make it home on Thursday. Dr. Young came by in the morning and told us that we were free to go. He said the ultrasound they did of the ventricles in her brain came back showing the ventricles slightly large, but that he wanted to wait and see what they did. We would've been able to leave immediately, but I had contacted Hope's pediatric orthopedist and asked him to come and see Hope in the hospital so that I would not have to make a separate trip to Indy. He was very obliging, and came around noon to see her. And, praise God, he said that while there is a slight click in her left hip, he believed it to be cartilage. He ordered an ultrasound of her hip just to make sure, and his diagnosis was correct. Both her hips look great--they both have very deep sockets, and there is no indication of hip dysplasia. Thank you, Lord! By the time we finished all that up, it was mid-afternoon. I finished up final paperwork, pulled the car around, and the nurse brought her out to me. We drove home through Indy traffic and pouring rain, but I was so glad to be home!
Since then, things have been normal. She's still eating and sleeping great. She's been a little cranky the past few days, but even that has been a little better today. Her incision still has a little bit of swelling, but it goes down a little more each day, and is already growing peach fuzz. Here she is, trying out her new range of neck motion with Grandma:


It has been blazing hot here recently. We went straight from cold, rainy spring to hot and humid summer. The kids and I got out the sprinkler and kiddie pool for Rose today, and they've been having a blast:

(The girl in the pink suit is our neighbor, not Ellie. Ellie is missing from all the pics because she was throwing a temper tantrum about not being allowed to turn the water on and off at her pleasure.)



Since I wasn't about to let sopping wet Carver hold the camera to take a picture of Hope hanging out with me, this is the best I've got: