December

Sierra and her beloved baby named Hump.  No she does not know how funny that is.

The return of the rains brought Sierra great joy!

Daddy felt good enough to rake some leaves!  A reason to celebrate!

Sierra's new buddy.

Dance party!

Covering mommy with "bandaids"

Too many cooks in the kitchen!

A skinny but happy guy to be home.  Even if that means wearing pink bows.  I don't think he reads this blog very often, so hopefully he won't see this one:)

A swimming pool trip with daddy.

Daddies are much more fun than mommies sometimes!

Learning to play together......

Sierra being chased by a Christmas robe donned Jaxon!

An afternoon nap together:)

A new helper for mommy.  I am so grateful.

Pepsi Lights!

Mostly all she talked about was that she got to sit on my lap WHILE we drove around.  Don't call the cops!

In search of the perfect tree....

This one matched her pants.

This one was just her size

 

We found it!  But we're so big you can't really see it.

Griswold style!

 

ALL the decorations ended up in the same general area.  It was so cute, I left it just like this.

Jesse captured this perfect shot!

She enjoyed throwing snowballs a little too much.

In the spirit of the season, here's a little jingle for you from Sierra.

Christmas Eve with the Lee family

Christmas Morning!  So excited when she saw her new dollhouse!

Christmas evening with the Skaggs

Waiting to see the specialist at OHSU

December was a month of survival.  We did decorate for Christmas, go out to find a Christmas tree in Bellfountain, and look at Christmas lights.  We are holding it together for our children.  Most of the time.  Jesse still struggled with a mild fever and stomach upset through the first couple weeks of December.  I made him schedule an appointment with his Gastro just to see his thoughts on the mid December surgery, and get some more info on what was found during the scans (CT, barium testing, and colonoscopy) in the hospital.  The Dr actually ended up coming in during his vacation to see Jesse since we told him that he was scheduled for surgery the following week.  He agreed with the recommendation for surgery, mentioned that Crohn's wasn't off of the books yet, and said that he believed Jesse needed to be tested for a certain kind of infection before he had the surgery.  We saw him on a Thursday and Jesse's surgery was scheduled for the following Monday.  On Sunday night, after Jesse had spent the day prepping for surgery, the Gastro called at 9:00 at night to tell us that Jesse's test results came back positive for an infection and his surgery for the next day had been cancelled.  

I just about had a nervous breakdown.  Jesse handled the news much better than I did.  I spent the whole night awake with chest pain literally feeling like I was about to have a heart attack.  My husband, the man that this is all happening to, fell asleep within 2 minutes like normal, and slept the whole night.   Sometimes I really hate being a girl.  

After this news I got pretty adamant about us going to a different facility for testing/second opinions/specialists.  Jesse's primary Dr referred us to OHSU and we saw a colo-rectal surgeon on the 27th of December.  We went up there nervous and unsure of what she would say.  She came in and told us that Jesse's scans were "impressive" and that none of this added up to diverticulitis.  She said everything from the fever, infection, C diff, and even the blood clot all pointed a finger at Crohn's.  She said there is no doubt he needs surgery.  She said she is doubtful that it will be a laparoscopic surgery like the Surgeon down here assured us it could be, and she also said that she believes that he will need an ostomy for 6 weeks to 6 months afterwards and then another surgery to reverse that.  Heavy news.  We'd heard some of those things before down here, but then the very next Dr would say the opposite.  She said that none of this will be proven until surgery.  So he will go into surgery with only an idea of possible outcomes when he wakes up.  She said obviously without actually looking in there, she cannot be 100 percent certain.  We ended with her saying that she hopes she is proven wrong, and after getting in there she hopes she will be able to do a simple surgery and find that it is indeed just diverticular disease.  Surgery is scheduled for January 29th unless he comes up positive for the C diff infection again in the mean time.

Despite the @#$%^&; that is going on in our heads and in Jesse's body, we really did try to provide a fun Christmas experience for Sierra.  Jaxon is clueless as to what the tree and treats are all about, but Sierra soaked it all up.  Last year we tried to get Sierra to help decorate the tree, but after about 2 ornaments she got bored.  This year she put up every single ornament we had, and wanted to go buy more.  She had a ball going through the boxes of Christmas decorations we had.  She loved her advent calendar, the Christmas lights, stories of Santa, and the holiday cartoons on TV.  She asked most nights before bed if tomorrow was Christmas.  Last year when she sat on Santa's lap for the first time and he asked what she wanted for Christmas she said cookies.  We never made it to a place that had Santa this year, but when we asked her what she wanted most of all, she said a car.  Wow.  One year makes a heck of a difference!

Unfortunately the bills of the past 4 months caught up to us right about Christmas time.  Jesse and I decided not to buy gifts for each other this year although he did make me a beautiful bench out of wine barrel slats.  Jaxon is unaware of the concept of gifts and so he was happy to play with one or two new toys on Christmas morning.  I had saved up some giftcards I had earned over the year and paired them with some sales and I was able to score a new 4 ft dollhouse, and several other toys for Sierra for Sierra for under $50.  I was pretty proud of myself!  

I just have to brag about the people in our life right now.  Our family, friends, Jesse's coworkers, and our church have been amazing.  Jesse's received cards with hundreds of signatures from different departments at work as well as family and friends.  Some of his coworkers even went together and got us a grocery giftcard.  He was donated almost 500 hours of sick leave.  Unfortunately he won't  get to even use half of it because they will put him on disability after 90 days of missed work.  But the fact that people would donate him that much time was overwhelming!  It's also made me so proud as a wife to see how much his coworkers love him!  

We had family rake leaves, cut kindling, bring us groceries, call to ask what we needed and tell us that we were being lifted up in prayer.  I cannot tell you how grateful we are.  But the biggest surprise was a check in the mail a couple days before Christmas.  It came in a Christmas card without a return address.  The card had some lovely words of encouragement and a check fell out.  It was a cashiers check and the amount almost exactly covered a large bill that we received a few days after Christmas (of course I didn't realize how amazing that was yet).  I cried.  And I felt desperate to find out who sent it.  I felt the need to say thank you.  I called around trying to find out if anyone knew.  But my mom put it simply, if they had wanted or needed a thank you, they wouldn't have went out of their way to be anonymous.  AND after Jesse and I talked about it and we realized sometimes too, people give anonymously for the recipient.  To reduce awkwardness and feelings of constantly needing to show gratitude.   All I can say is that it was a Christmas miracle.  The Lord has provided for us in so many ways and I cannot believe that I spend so much time worrying.  Someday, I hope we have the ability to bless someone in the same way.  I know how it feels to be on the receiving end and I would LOVE to be able to make someone feel that blessed.

Speaking of blessings, our littles are starting to play together.  Jaxon watches Sierra and tries to do all of the things that she does.  He pretends to take bites of play food, pours tea into a cup and then sips it, loves to put things in and out of Sierra's play kitchen.  They dance together, chase each other, play the piano together.  It melts my heart.  There are also moments of toy taking, dress tugging, and recently when Sierra snatched something out of Jaxon's hands he went right for her belly with his head (she was on the floor on her knees) and took.her.down.  I probably shouldn't have laughed, but I was so shocked, and Sierra was too.  He's little enough it didn't hurt her it just started a wrestling game between the two of them.  They both ended up giggling like crazy.  Jaxon is definitely starting to get a bit of a temper and will sometimes throw a fit if I tell him no.  He will flail around on the ground or even bonk himself on the head.  It's one of those things that sometimes totally freaks me out and I don't know whether to run away in horror or laugh.

Despite the trials of this year, we are grateful.  Grateful for two healthy, beautiful, smart children.  Grateful for a warm, comfortable home, wonderful family, and friends.  2013 will hopefully be a year of renewed health for Jesse!  Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all of you!