So way back when when Jaden needed the stent put in, his artery had narrowed to 2, they then ballooned it to 6. Today they saw that it had gotten down to about 5 1/2 which was OK but he had gotten soooo big that he needed it to be bigger. So they then ballooned it 8 1/2. The maximum is 12. Hopefully this will last for quite awhile and we won't need them to go in again to make it larger.

Because they had to do the ballooning, this is why he has to stay the night.

At 11am they called Sal and I to the back to where Jaden was waking up to be with him. He was noooootttttt happy at all. He was screaming, hitting, kicking and trying to pull his stuff all out. They needed him to lay flat for 4 hours. He wanted nothing to do with that. Sal and I wrestled him to try and keep him flat for over an hour. I'll tell you, he is one strong boy. They had to give him pain meds and morphin because he was way to wild. Jaden still faught through all of it for the hour. A tough cookie he is. It all finally kicked in and he was in lala land.

We then came up to the childrens floor where he will stay until tomorrow. Grandma came last night to sleep with us at the Ronald McDonald House and then she brought the kids over this morning. Grandpa & Mattie came as well as Tia Kelly & baby Whitney. Auntie Robyn and Lee are coming tonight to see the champ.

It has been a very hard day overall, but good outcomes. Thanks to everyone for sending your thoughts and prayers. We could not do this with out you. So now we wait to see what the surgery date is going to be.

Jaden went in at 8am this morning and daddy went with to help put him to sleep. Mommy is WAYYYY to emotional to do that. They called down to the waiting room around 9:30 to let us know everything was going well. They had said it took them quite a bit longer then expected to put the lines in. (We knew that would be the case). They then were going to start with the cath. They called again right now 10am to let us know that his heart looks good for surgery but he has outgrown his stent. So they are going to have to go in and fix that. This means longer time in surgery, more possible complications and Jaden will have to stay the night forsure for evaluation.

We will let you know when he is down and what the status is. Check below at the photos I posted.

Mommy and Jaden having some snuggle time before the surgery.



Daddy and Jaden watching a little cartoons.



Jaden testing out his bed with JoJo & Pengy & his Mater blankie.



Daddy taking Jaden in to help put him under.

Jaden will be having his heart cath. this Wednesday. We need to be to the hospital by 6am with a scheduled start time of 8am. We need heavy prayers for everything to go well and that there be no complications. We are supposed to be in and out the same day. This is a pretty serious procedure with possiblities of many different complications though. If there are any problems they will keep Jaden in the hospital to monitor over night.

Below is a link to describe what they do in the procedure. Many of you have asked me to explain and that is one thing I have a very hard time doing. You can also look up his condition "Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome" on this site as well if you are interested in the full details of Jaden's heart. There are also some really cool websites from different university's that have some very detailed pictures. Just do a google search if you are interested.

www.americanheart.org/presenter.jhtml?identifier=4491

Ethan got a fever yesterday and threw up this morning so please pray for our family to stay healthy and that we don't pass anything on to Jaden as it would postpone everything.

We'll keep you posted on Wednesday as we progress through the procedure...

Ashley, Ethan & Jaden sitting in a school session at Laura Ingalls Wilder Homestead.



Jaden driving Ash & Ethan in the covered wagon. The highlight of his trip.



Jaden didn't want to put the cat down.

We wanted to yell out a huge THANK YOU to everyone for all of the pop tabs that are pouring in. The kids are so excited to bring the pop tabs to the Ronald McDonald House. We have so many. So thank you to all. Keep them rolling in.

So now that it is a few days later...

I meant to say that Jaden had Croup not Whooping Cough. I was a wee bit on the tired side and could not quite think as clearly. I knew what I meant but didn't write it that way.

So Carrie ended up taking Jaden to the clinic on Friday and the Dr. said everything looked good so no concerns there. I then had Candise bring Jaden down to stay with us at the hotel. So Candise and Jaden got to go into the expo and play with all of the oils, have Ninja Red shots and have some yummy oil infused chocolate. Friday night we were expecting another bad night of coughing for Jaden as it always last 3 nights. But he coughed once which didn't even wake him up. We had put oils all over him that helped with respitory issues. I know as a fact this is what ended his Croup. It was really amazing to see the power of the oils.

Jaden and Candise went and hung out at the expo with the oils again on Saturday morning and then Candise brought him home. He now however has a cold. It is not yucky, just a lot of cough during the day but not too bad.

Because he has a oold we now have to postpone his heart Cath. It is now scheduled for the 30th. Hopefully the surgery will still be the week following. If Jaden has his cold even a tiny bit, he will not be able to have the Cath. done on the 30th and we would have to reschedule again. We will keep you posted on his health.

As always, Jaden wants to remind us we are not in control.

So I am away from home for a few days. Since Jaden was born, I have been to scared to be away from my kids. One night Jaden had a sleep over with his Gma and one night he had a sleepover with his Tia Kelly. Otherwise, I have been with him every night. Well I am at a Young Living Convention in MPLS Wed-Sat with my mom (They sell Essential Oils and other Purely naturally things). It was very hard for me to come. I cried a few times as it was so emotional for me to leave my kids.

Well last night at midnight Sal calls me and Jaden is screaming in the back ground. He got Whooping Cough. And just a few hours before I had told my mom since Ash got a cold I can guarantee Jaden will get sick. I could hear him sounding like a seal. He has had this many times before. Sal could not get him to stop crying and at one point on the phone Jaden got so bad that Sal was like, "Jaden just breath." I was so scared as was Sal. We talked through what to do and then Jaden finally settled down. He then called again at 2am with another episode. We talked through that again and Jaden settled down.

Of course when Jaden gets anything he likes to challenge us and go full out. There's that Gonzalez/Krueger blood of his ;-) And of course the one time I actually take some time for me and leave this happens. I will be calling his Dr. today to see what we should do as I know he will have episodes again tonight. Do I stay or do I go home. I have been brainstorming on options.

His heart cath is in one week and we need him strong not just getting over being sick. So of course loads of prayers.

The time has come for us to move forward with Jaden's surgery. We went to his Cardiologist a few weeks ago. Jaden needed to be 30 pounds which he is a pound or so short of that before they wanted to perform the surgery. He however has had much less energy, he has been more blue, his sats have been sitting in the low 70's which they are supposed to be in the low 80's. He is starting to slowly fail which is the biggest sign that it is time for him to have his surgery. His Cardiologist said it is definitly time. It has been a long wait and we just want to get this over with.

There are a few issues that are not sitting so well with us and we are asking for prayers. The first is for the surgeon and his team. This will be a new surgeon. The other one, Dr. Harrington, performed his first two surgeries. Her thumb prints are on Jadens heart. She moved to CA. The new surgeon has not performed this specific surgery at this hospital. We have not meet with him yet so I am not sure if he has ever done this surgery at all. Either way, he has not done many and he does not know Jadens heart.

The second is his cardiologist, Chip, said at Jaden's apt that his heart muscle, the one which does all of the major work in pumping the blood to the body is not as strong as he would like it to be. Jaden is taking the full amount of medication which helps in strenthening the muscle which he can for his size so we can not at this time do much to help strengthen his muscle. We will see at his heart cath if this will be a problem.

The third is he is not 30 pounds which is what they want to see him at so they are more certain he is strong enough for this surgery. However, being that he is half Gonzalez/half Krueger he is EXTREMELY strong willed & spunky and should be as strong as a 40 or 50 pound child would be ;-)

At this time, his heart cath is scheduled for next Friday the 25th. It should be in and out in the same day. However, if there are any complications then he would have to stay. His surgery will hopefully then be sometime in the first week of October. We do not have the date for this yet. I am not sure if we have to wait for his heart cath before we can schedule it. I will start updating much more often now as many of you have already been wondering and waiting for information. Your support on this blog has always been my biggest support. It helps me through each day and it helps me feel connected to those I love. So thank you in advance again for all of your endless support.

Love, Steph

Hello all,

It has been awhile. In my opinion, if there is no word then it must be good right?

Jaden is doing very well. We are working on potty training him. It is going pretty darn good. He has had a few days with only 1 accident and a few more with no accidents. He is 28.8-29 pounds. He varies day to day. So that means we have a pound left until his next surgery. Remember the goal is 30 pounds. We are doing everything we can to fatten him up but it has been a very very slow process. We will be meeting with his cardiologist the end of August. We were supposed to see him in July but he was full until the end of August. Good thing we did not have an emergency, we would have had to wait an extra month. We will decide when his surgery will be when we go in August. It was supposed to be September but now I am not sure since we don't have our appointment until the end of the month. I just don't want it to be too close to the holidays because that is so much harder.

We had to spend Thanksgiving 2 years ago in the hospital. My whole family came to the Ronald McDonald House for Thanksgiving Dinner. It was nice but not fun at all to be away from home.

Anyway, we will be going on our big vacation of the year in a few weeks. We are very excited and will be putting on a lot of miles. We are going to S. Dakota first with most of my family. We will then head on to Washington state. We will make lots of stops on the way there and back. It should be a lot of fun.

Take care all. Love, Steph

HAPPY 3RD BIRTHDAY BABY JADEN!

Today it is my little baby boy Jaden's 3rd birthday. Can you believe how time flies by. We have been so blessed with Jaden and the abundance of love he gives to us all. When you look at him you see the love pouring out of his body.

Jaden loves everyone he meets. He loves animals, playing trains, riding lawn mowers (which he demands to get unlimited rides every time he goes to grandmas house), race cars, old time cars (which when he sees one he reminds us all that grandpa Kurt & Mattie have one), Wall-E, vacuums, brooms, wiping the walls, motorhomes, and most of all cuddling. He has taught us so many lessons in life, love and happiness. He has brought our family closer together then I could have ever imagined being.

Jaden eats very little but loves CHOCOLATE, which he is quick to remind us is grandmas favorite thing. He loves french fries (only from McDonald's), noodles, bologna, chips, popcorn, regular corn, onion rings and tons of water. What a diet! We have to let him eat whatever he wants in hopes that he may gain the very needed weight. Ashley and Ethan don't understand why their little brother gets french fries when they can only have apple dippers. They don't complain though. They sure are troopers.

Jaden follows Ethan all over the house and copies everything Ethan does. If Ethan eats, Jaden eats, if Ethan sings, Jaden sings, if Ethan is wild (which is most of the time), Jaden is wild. He adores Ethan. With Ashley, he always wants her to get him from his naps and hold him. He loves to be held by Ashley, dance with Ashley and read books with Ashley. Ashley is his fill in mommy.

He is a true example from God of how we should go around in this crazy world of ours. He has been through so much in his short little 3 years, yet it has not held him back one little bit. It has only made him stronger and happier. We are forever grateful to God for bringing this little bundle of love to us.

WE LOVE YOU JADEN AND HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!

Love, Mom & Dad

So Kelly's wedding was wonderful. We had some stressful times as we were all trying to get everything done at the end but it turned out just perfect. Jaden had gotten Croup right before the wedding so he was miserable most of the time and wasn't scared to let everyone know about it, but he made it down the eisle in his sleigh with a smile on his face.

We had our cardiology appointment on Monday and Chip said everything looked very good. We are tenatively setting a surgery date for early September. We think Jaden should be 30 pounds by then. We are very nervous since his surgeon has moved to CA. and there is a new one there. Chip assures me he is wonderful. We will have to see how we feel once we meet him. I am very good at going with my gut instinct. That is one thing I have learned since finding out about Jadens condition. My instincts have been amazing.

So we will camp and travel this summer and try to get Jaden to 30 pounds. He now weighs 27.4 pounds. We had weighed him last Friday and our food therapist and I didn't believe the scale, being he had been sick for 2 weeks, so we re-tried his weight 4 times and sure enough that is what he weighed. He had been 26.7 the last time and we both assumed he would be less. Way to go Jaden!!!

Ethan has been in 2 swim meets and improved so much from the first to the second meet. He loves it. He has a meet Sat. in Sartell and then the 24th in W. St. Paul. Then on the 31 he debuts on stage at the Paramount for his Hip Hop. Ash of course will be on stage as well and dance four dances, Jazz, Hip Hop, Tap and Ballet.

Hope you are all staying warm in this extremely cold weather. Don't you just love MN?

Take care. Until next time.

Happy New Year!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas with family and friends. We had a very busy few weeks. We had our annual work/family Christmas party on the 21st. It is always nice to get everyone together to eat and play games. We had our family Christmas at my moms house Christmas eve.

We have been lazy the last few days to recover from all of our activities. During all of this Jaden was sick with a temp of 104 degrees Dec. 15-20. I had to take him into the clinic 3 days in a row. It was not fun. Of course I did not sleep at night because I would lay awake listening to make sure he was still breathing. He also would be waking up every hour or so to need something. It was very hard. We had taken him to the kids Christmas program at school two days before he got sick so we are not sure if that is where he got it from.

Now for the last 3 days I have had pink eye and a sore throat. Sal got it yesterday. So I went to the minute clinic yesterday to make sure it was not an ear infection. Hopefully this will pass soon. My throat hurts the worst today.

We are now counting the days down to Kelly's wedding. 5 days not counting today. So I am hoping we can all stay healthy and I can get healthy in time for this special day. We have been busy planning things for all of this as well as juggling Christmas, parties, presents and illness. We need hair cuts for the boys who are ring bearers, dress fittings for me and Ash, getting the boys suits & ties put together and cleaned and much more of course. When the wedding is done I am going to take a short at home vacation and not worry about a thing for a few days.

Have a great new year!

Love, Steph

Wow, time flew by this last month. I don't even know what happened to the month of November. It seems that every year goes by faster and faster. Also each year it seems like we all say wow Christmas arrived so much faster this year. I guess it is just our busy lives that make it go faster each year.

We went to the Christmas tree farm the weekend of Thanksgiving. I had meant to post the pictures but have not gotten that far yet. It was our sixth year going to Evergreen Christmas tree farm. This year we went with my mom and then brought her tree back to her house to help put it in the stand. She picked a beautiful tree. Our tree is perfect as well. The very tip needed to be cut off a little because it was a hair to tall.

The kids had their Christmas concert at school today. They were so wonderful. They have a second one tonight. They have been working so hard on learning the songs.

Hope you are all enjoying the holiday season and spending much quality time with your family and friends.

Much love to you all this year 2008.

So Good So Far!

I hope by saying this that it won't change our life, but so far we have stayed healthy. We continue to be very careful and limit Jaden to contact with people. He only gets to go into public places where he does not get close to people but this is very rare that he goes. I have his PCA here during times when I need to pick up the kids or take them places so I don't have to bring Jaden into that contact. For the most part our schedules work out really well.

He is doing wonderfully in horseback riding. He absolutely loves it. He listens very well and does whatever they ask of him. He is improving on his speaking as well. He is actually able to say quite a few words now and seems to learn a new one every couple of days. He is still not eating that well but has improved with his intake since the horseback riding has started.

Ash and Ethan are doing very well in school and seem to be soooooo smart. We are very proud of how well they are doing. We have conferences tomorrow so it will nice to see what their teachers say.

Ash has a gymnastics meet this Saturday. She still loves it very much and is nervous for Saturday. Ethan has been working very hard on his swimming and is getting ready for his first meet in December. He is also in boys tap and hip hop this year and will have his first dance show with Ash at the end of January. He just started learning his moves last night and it was soooooooooooooooooo cute.

Another VERY exciting piece of information I have, Kelly is getting married. That is right you read it correctly. She has been dating Will for almost a year now and they have decided to get married around their one year anniversary which is in January. That has not left a whole lot of time to plan but we all knew we could get it planned by then and it would be so nice. So hip hip hooray for Kelly and Will!!! News to come on the date and such...

That's it for now. Love and health to you all.

Jaden's 1st Theraputic Horseback Riding

Things are going well for our family. Sal's brother and little baby are visiting from California for a week or so. That has been nice for Sal to see his brother and catch up on life.

Today Jaden had food and speech therapy and he did very well (at least at speech). He is going to start his Hippotherapy on Wednesday. We are very excited for this. Jaden loves animals so much and I hope this will help him to thrive more and talk more. It should help in many areas.

He is still not gaining any weight so we really need some prayer that he can start to gain weight. He needs to gain 5 pounds in 5 months. That's a pound a month. He has not done that ever. We really need him to thrive and keep the calories up. If it goes too long without him gaining weight, I know there has been mention of a feeding tube which I am completely against. So prayer, prayer, prayer is what we need.

That's it from here. I hope you are all doing well and enjoying the pretty leaves on the trees and in our yards...

Ash's first gymnastics meet

We are very excited for this weekend. Ashley has her very first gymnastics meet in St. Paul. She is nervous and excited all at the same time. She has been working extremly hard and can't wait to put her work to the test. We don't know what to expect being we have never been to a meet before. Tonight she will get her team leo, back and warm up suit. It will be really fun.

Ethan is working hard in swimming and getting ready for his first meet next month. He loves it so much and gets so excited when ever he is around water. He will also be getting a team suit, swim cap and warm up outfit. How cute will that be?!

Jaden is doing well and we are anxious to start his "theraputic Horsebackriding." He will do that one time a week and we will start that next month sometime. It will be in Monticello in a heated facility. That will interesting to see.

I am off now to make lunch. Probably good old mac n cheese. tata...

A new member to the family

So Jose, Sal's dad, had found a Salamander at the shop under his tool box. Of course being that Ethan loves little creatures, Jose gave it to Ethan. We used one of Ethan's bug habitats to keep it in to see what would happen. Ethan found bugs & slugs for it daily in the back yard. So we went to the pet store to see about a cage for it and they highly recommended not keeping the one from the wild and to get one where we know the history. So after much thought, we agreed that we did not want to keep the one from the wild since we knew nothing about it.

Ethan got to pick a new little critter to buy and he picked a Crested Gecko. It is pretty cute and already gets a large amount of attention. Sal is a little scared of it still and I won't touch it yet. But it has been fun to have and learn about Gecko's.

Jaden says he wants to touch it but when we say fine and open the cage top he says no. It is pretty cute. Ashley will hold it today after school.

We are all pretty much better now just some of us have a little cough still. We got through this one ok.

Talk to you all later...