Happy School year 2008

I know it has been forever. Of course when you have overloaded with something it becomes hard to get yourself to go back. That would be the computer. I have been trying to avoid the computer for way to long. That includes emails as well as the blog. I am going to try and get back into the grove of life and technology.

We had a wonderful summer and traveled ALOT. We went camping, on long vacations and visiting family this summer. We are planning on keeping up the pace of being out of town as long as our mini home wants to keep moving. Ashley is competing in gymnastics this year so she has 1 competition a month Sept. through Dec. Ethan is joining the swim team this year and will have at least 1 meet a month from Oct. thru Apr. We will be busy which is what we love.

The kids started school last week and loved it. Ethan had a hard time adjusting and said "Mrs. Avery is the toughest teacher in the whole school but I like her." It was so cute. Ashley has Mrs. Oettel and loves her as well.

Jaden is doing very well. He was "home bound" last season which means we were not to take him around other children or large groups of people. We got the all clear in late April. At that time we took him out a lot and he was getting sick every single weekend. He even ended up in short stay for a day to get rehydrated. We have been giving him natural supplements to help make his immune system stronger. We were hoping that we would not have to endure another long season of no outside world but his Dr. and Cardiologist thinks it is critical to keep him healing and strong so they want him in again. They are hoping he will have his next surgery in the spring. He only weighs 25 pounds right now. We have 5 more to go for his surgery. Every time he gets sick he loses 1-3 pounds. So clearly that is why he needs to stay healthy. This is also another reason we are glad to be busy traveling because then we can all go have fun together but also stay away from large groups of people and kids. We do our own little family church service at home and sing praise and read the bible. For now that is "our" church. We could take turns taking the kids but that gets very stressful and we have decided to stay as a family and worship God together. This is better for us then to have one of us lonely and at home with Jaden while the rest is out at church. This works best for our family and will have to do until Jaden is past the hard stage of his life.

The one positive with being home bound is Jaden and the rest of our family only got sick ONE time each last season. That is amazing. It was so wonderful to only be sick one time through the flu season.

Jaden is still having OT, Speech and PT come to the house almost weekly and he is doing Food therapy and speech at the clinic 2x's a week. We now have PCA's to help with my work load. The nurse who evaluates for PCA took all of every thing that Jaden is supposed to have done daily from brushing his body every 2 hours to mouth stimulation multiple times a day to his therapies and she got a total of 63 hours of "stuff" he needs done a week. I did not realize how much time he required until we really broke it done and looked at everything we do for him. Having a PCA helps take the load off of me which is wonderful and it will be easier to blog. YEAH!!!

We will keep in touch now so keep checking back and signing in.

Love to you all and many heart hugs...