Does this count...

...as crawling?

A couple other recent pictures:

Not only did she get the Broeckelman dimples, but she also has the lovely trait of sticking her tounge out when she's concentrating on something....

She loves her bath time (and when she lets us play with her hair, we do too!)Jake and Emelyn this morning before he left to play golf

Good news

We heard back from insurance/pharmacy/Mayo today! Insurance will pay all but $50 for Jake's shots (compared to $1000-$1500/shot!) Thank you Lord! This is for 1 year, but by then we should know if it's working. Phew. What a relief to finally know. The shots will be shipped to us soon.

While we were home, Emelyn had fun playing in Janessa's jumperoo (pictures in last post.) Poor Emelyn misses it. Here she is trying to jump in her exersaucer:

We then remembered that my cousin Kassie had bought us a Jenny Jump Up and put it together. I'm not sure if she likes it or not yet. She does like to spin around in it though!

As always, Emelyn loved returning home Monday night. I think she has since covered every square inch of our carpet by rolling.

And finally, yesterday I went grocery shopping. Emelyn and I decided to try some new fun fruit this week - peaches, kiwis and mangos. I made mangos last night for her and have to confess I've never bought mangos to eat at home. The smell made me a little curious as to whether she'd like them or not (they seem a little tart), but as always, she ate them up. I may have to throw some of the extra cubes in the blender for smoothies for Jake and I this week.

95 Years and Counting

This weekend we went home to celebrate with Jake's grandfather who turns 95 in a few days. Below are some fun pictures from our trip home:

Saturday we went to my sister's, here's my nephew and niece:

Emelyn and Janessa (2.5 months apart in age) playing "together"
Emelyn telling her other cousin, Emma, a secret (I think she's saying "Boy, do we have Grandma wrapped around our fingers!")

4 generations

Such a beautiful cake (and yummy!)

The birthday "boy" - when asked about his age he casually said he's looking forward to 100

Emelyn, Emma and their 3rd Cousin, Reagan

Jake had a little too much fun...

And all I could do was take pictures :)

On a different note, Emelyn has been on the move - I think she'll start crawling anyday! She has started scooting. Tonight as I was trying to get a picture of her scooting, she turned to me and posed. I couldn't help but share - She was glad to be home as we all were!

Also, we're still waiting to hear word from insurance and Mayo so that Jake can start injections. We're really hoping we hear something this week.

Weekend fun

I meant to post these pictures Monday, which turned into Tuesday, and here we are on Wednesday already. Oops. I feel like we've been super busy around here, although I can't remember anything that has kept us so busy - the weather has been nice so truthfully we've just been enjoying a lot of time playing together and the day flies by in the mean time.

Emelyn has been trying all kinds of new foods lately - still haven't found anything she doesn't like! She's also started taking one really long nap each day consistently. However, I never know when that long nap might be Yesterday it was her morning nap. The day before she slept from 11am - 2:30pm. It makes it hard to make plans to go anywhere, but helps me get caught up doing things around the house. I even had time to sit and read through a magazine in my stack that's about 6 inches high now.

Here are some fun recent pictures:

Friday night we went out to eat and Emelyn sat in a restaurant high chair for the first time. Thank goodness for the seat cover we have - the seat was so sticky and grimy I thought I couldn't let go of it! Emelyn was quick to decide what to order. :)
I think this look is hilarious and just had to share. She has so many funny little faces and quirks and new ones seem to pop up every day.

Ahh.. the sippy cup. She loves this thing. I even put some milk in it yesterday (cold!) and she drank every drop of it. We may not even need the bottle anymore. Speaking of which, Jake hasn't been giving her a bottle for the last month or so, and did last night for the first time in a while. Emelyn thought it was funny and seemed to just want to play with Jake.

Monday night, Nathan and Kenda visited us! Kenda and I worked together in college and they have since moved on to Savannah, Georgia. It was so nice to catch up with them. As always though, the time was far too short!

Emelyn LOVED Nathan's beard. She couldn't get over it. Hilarious.

7 months

Somehow I'm just now getting around to writing this. It does seem like I just wrote her 6 month post though. I'm not sure much has changed.

• She eats 5-6 times a day with a couple of servings of fruits and veggies in between
• She takes 3-4 naps/day. Lately though she's had 1 long one each day that's 2-3 hours and then 2-3 short 30 minute snoozes to accompany it
• She's quite independent and entertains herself very well with all of her toys
• She makes all kinds of noises and defined consonant sounds like "up, dada, mama, baba" and
• She also likes to mimic sounds we make like "mwah" sounds with her lips
• Lately, she's started doing this too:

• And this:

Not sure where these came from but we think they're hilarious!

• She also pretty much sits by herself and can almost get to a sitting up position from laying down
• She's a little mover - no crawling yet, but between rolling, scooting, rotating, and digging her heels into the ground she can get in some of the weirdest places.
• She also tends to favor mom at this point which is hard on both of us.
• She's so curious! She's constantly on the move to touch or grab something to chew on. :)
• She's so much fun - I can't wait to see what quirks next month brings!

Home

We arrived back in AR around 7:30 tonight and it feels so good to be home! Emelyn was the most excited I think... we put her on the floor and she kicked her legs back and forth as she squealed with delight. Then tonight when we put her to bed, instead of whining, she reached out and touched her bumper pad, rolled over so that she was next to it and closed her eyes. So sweet

A few other thoughts:

• Whoever put the gift card and M&M's on our doorstep - thank you!
• My favorite meal (sadly) is a really good hamburger. While we were in MN, Jake asked multiple people where the best place to get a burger was and received the same answer everytime... Newt's. He then surprised me on the last night by taking me out to eat at this place. Amazing. Jake is always so sweet.. yet another reason I love him!
• Thank you Kelsey for watching over our house while we were gone!

Here are a couple of pictures while we were in Minnesota.

View of downtown from the 4th floor
Jake brainstorming with the Mayo brothers - the story behind the Mayo Clinic is really neat

The Mayo building - one of many buildings on the Mayo campus

While out eating, we gave Emelyn her first cracker. She loved it and the one cracker entertained her the entire meal (and it looks like it went everywhere BUT in her mouth)

Melting our hearts with her smile while we were packing up to head home

News

After a day of waiting, we finally met with our Doctor to find the results of the tests Jake took yesterday. The last test Jake needed to take (bone mineral density test) can't be taken within 48 hours of the iodine radiation Jake was exposed to yesterday in his tests so we will end up checking his bones when we get home instead of waiting around until Thursday. The purpose of this test is to see how "bad" his bones are from the years of steroids. We will correspond with Dr. Faubian via email once the test is finished to see what Jake needs to do.

So that means we are leaving Minnesota tomorrow morning. We debated between staying around here and visiting friends vs. getting back home so that Jake can get to work and save vacation days. Based on what we now know, we think it's wise to save the vacation days just in case. The full body scan (which on a side note, was an AMAZING machine - basically we were able to see a 3D video of his entire body from every angle and zoom into each organ from every side as well as see the inside and outside of every inch of intestines - one of 5 machines in the world.) This scan showed an area in Jake's small intestine that was partially blocked - the intestinal walls were obviously very thick in this area and closing in on food passing through. The rest of his intestines looked really healthy except one other small spot near his stomach that had some minor inflamation. The bad news is that Jake has the kind of Crohn's Disease that is very aggressive and from the past we know that he doesn't respond well to the typical drugs used to decrease inflammation. If Jake had 20 feet of intestines left and was older, they would usually recommend going in surgically to remove and repair this blocked section of his intestines. However, since he only has 5 feet of small intestines remaining, is only 30 years old and also just had surgery less than 2 years ago removing 6 similar sections of his small intestines, the Doctor feels it's best to try a new therapy before going for surgery. Tomorrow morning we will go back to the clinic so that Jake can learn how to give himself the shots needed for the new medicine. He will do this every two weeks and after his 3rd treatment, we will know it's working if Jake has less stomach "gurgling" noises, less bloating after meals and if his hemoglobin is significantly higher (still at 8.9.) If he's not doing better in a month we will have to have surgery again. If he's feeling better, he will continue treatments for 6 months then come back for another scan to look to see if there is improvement in the blocked area. So that's, that! We are so thankful for answered prayers - the wisdom and discernment given to Dr Faubian, as well as the clarity of where Jake is right now. Now we're praying for healing - 8 of 10 patients with severe Crohns have improved with the medicine so we're praying for the same results! Thanks for your prayers everyone - we have an indescribable peace about everything and we know this kind of peace only comes from God!!!

Busy Day

• Today was packed with appointments one right after another. I can't believe how efficient this place is! Jake had his first appointment at 8:00am and he was called back to see the Dr before 8am. After 30-40 minutes of talking with the Doctor, and combing through Jake's medical records, the Doctor made a list of tests he wanted to complete - blood work, chest x-ray, body CT scan and a bone mineral density test. From there, the Doctor gave the list to a scheduler who went to work making an appointment schedule for the remainder of our time here taking into account what requirements each test had as well as the time it would take for each test. Jake had a 9:20, 10:30 and 1:00 test today and the last one didn't have an opening until Thursday. We meet back with Doctors tomorrow afternoon to discuss the results of today's tests and in the mean time, Jake will be on standby to get into his last test tomorrow morning. If he can get his last test in early tomorrow and if the test results are as expected, I think we may be done late tomorrow.
• If everything is like we suspect, the Dr said Jake will need to start aggressive IV treatments to hopefully prevent any future issues with his digestive tract. The tests today took a 3-D look at his entire intestinal tract - the inside, outside and thickness of everything remaining. This will show how serious the problems are and also where the problems are. Like we've mentioned on here in the past, Jake is feeling good for the most part so it's been hard to know if anything is wrong. The tests today will show if something is starting to cause problems so that we can be aggressively proactive.
• Jake has been taking Prednisone off and on for 15 years and while it often prevents problems from getting any worse, the side effects to the rest of the body aren't pretty. This was concerning to the Doctor as well, so some of the tests will be looking at the "damage" done by this medicine. The combination of Jake's age, the number of problems in the past as well as the problems he's having now (presumably) puts Jake in a critical place where it's imperative to work to prevent things from getting any worse (to stop them from getting to the point where he does feel bad and there's no return. )
• Thank you all for your prayers and emails. Despite our busy day we are enjoying our time here. The drive here was beautiful and the town is really neat too. Everyone has been super nice and we love our hotel as well as it's location (you just never know what you're going to get when you've never been somewhere!) We hope Jake can get his test over with early tomorrow so that we can spend some time looking around the town.

We made it!

We made it to Rochester around 5pm this afternoon and we're finally all settled in our hotel room. Emelyn did wonderful on the drive here and is talking and playing as I type this... I know I say this all the time, but she is such a joy!!

We really need to get to bed, but I just wanted to share a few things before we call it a night. Thursday night before we left, we had a group of friends surprise us at our house with a basket of goodies, notes, cards, money and most importantly a sweet time of prayer for our trip here... we have been so blessed by our Arkansan family... my eyes are "glistening" as I think of them... if any of you are reading this, please know what an encouragement you have been to us!

Below are some pictures of the weekend in Manhattan with our family. It was so good to see them before coming here - 6 of us 8 siblings were all there even though I somehow didn't get pictures of everyone:

Going to see Valerie at work and then ate lunch with her Friday...

Then Dana and her family arrived - here's Emelyn with her cousin Janessa...
Saturday morning we went to the Farmer's market

Then Melissa and David came and met us...

Emelyn really liked Uncle David!

Visiting Andrew's fraternity

K-State vs Texas Tech Baseball game.

It was great weather...

But a bad game... at first Emelyn watched for a little while...

then she got bored and frustrated that we were losing like all of the rest of us :(

I'll update in the days to come in between our appointments at Mayo. Good night!

Kisses

I just have to share the picture below. Emelyn loves to eat. We've been trying all kinds of new foods and they don't seem to phase her... she always wants more. Here she was this morning before her banana and cereal:

Another new thing she likes to do is give "kisses"

Blast from the past and looking ahead

It seems like we've had a lot going on lately, but I don't really have pictures to show for it. Over the weekend, Jake and I went to a 1985 Class Reunion Murder Mystery Party where we all had to dress as our assigned character. Emelyn stayed home with a babysitter (we chickened out on PNO at the last minute because I was afraid it'd be too late for her.) I didn't get any good pictures of us so here's one of our "class."

It rained most of the weekend (okay, ALL of it) so we didn't do much the rest of the weekend. I did go to a baby shower for William, who be here in about 7 weeks. (In the picture above, of the 7 couples, 5 are expecting and the one we had the shower for wasn't even in the picture!) Our little group of "newly married" couples is fastly growing and turning into a "Parents of Tots" group!

Emelyn has really started to love books. She likes to watch us read to her and then tries to move her lips like we do. She especially likes this book because of all the animal sounds the reader has to make. :) And she also just likes to eat the book, which she was doing in the above picture.

We are doing laundry and packing to go to Manhattan in a few days and then on to the Mayo Clinic from there. Words can't tell you how excited we are to see family! Jake even woke up in the middle of the night to tell me to call Valerie's fiance to see if he has anything he would like help with this weekend. If the weather's good we hope to go to a KSU baseball game, do a little shopping and just enjoy catching up.

As far as Minnesota goes, we've had fun looking at hotels and finding just the right one as well as searching for things close by to do. Before Emelyn I would never have spent so much time looking into the location of the hotel (which restaurants and shopping are close by - within walking preferably) as well as needing one that provides transportation to Mayo (so that I can take Emmy back to the hotel for naps if Jake has to wait for something) not to mention a full kitchen for Emelyn's foods. Quite the adventure!

Miss Emelyn just woke up so I better go... I think we have a small break in the rain so we better go outside for a walk while we can! I hope everyone has a great week.