What We've Been up to Lately!

This past month of May has been crazy busy filled with a lot of work, fun, play, and tired little kids. First, we moved at the beginning of the month. We are now down in Utah, but technically still have our residence in Idaho. Ty accepted a job down here and we will be here until we leave for Arizona in the fall. Tyler works for his sister Martha who works for the Ashton Family. Martha deals with and manages all of the outside work for all of their properties here in Utah. Tyler is really enjoying working with Martha and working outside again.

Here is Emma and Burke getting ready to make the trip to Utah. Burke is out already and Emma is holding the good-bye present from Molly her cousin. Molly- she loves the notebook and thank you so much for thinking of her, she uses it nearly everyday!

We have been playing with Aunt Martha a lot. We see her daily and the kids are loving spending time with her. This is a very classic picture and captures Emma to a T. She loves taking pictures especially with people's phones. She can figure out anyone's cameras on their phone.This is also another picture that depicts Emma in her true nature- she loves being the center of attention!! Front and center is the way it goes for her- okay, so she is a lot like the way her mom was when she was younger, and if she keeps that up, Tyler and I are in for it big time!!Here's the Burke telling Martha all about something that is fascinating him. I love it when he describes things that he can't exactly tell us everything in normal words. Thank you Martha for loving our kids and playing with them so much! We are so glad we are able to spend this summer with you and live so close to you! We love it!

I have so much more to post about the rest of the month, but there is a start. We are doing well and miss everyone back in Boise! We will back and forth throughout the summer so we will be sure and catch up with everyone while we are there! Until next time!

Red Bucket Photography

Anyone in need of family pictures? It is the perfect time of year to have your family pictures taken in this beautiful spring weather! My sister Liz is a photographer who owns her own company Red Bucket Photography and she is coming into town and will be available to take your families' pictures or any other photography needs. She does everything from newborns to toddlers to Senior Portraits, to families, weddings and all that goes along with that and much much more. She can take your companies pictures for your website. The possibilities are endless! She does everything. She is from Mesa, AZ but is coming up to Utah the second week in June. She is awesome and inexpensive and she would love to capture your memories from behind her lens. Please check her out, you won't be disappointed!! Here is her traveling ad, but if you contact her with other questions or wishes she would love to work out something with you!
She has taken our family pictures many times and let me be the first to tell you, our family is so incredibly hard to photo but she did awesome. You can check out her work HERE when she took my kids' photos back in March, and I absolutely LOVE them.

He Passed!

Burke passed his swallow study which means that he is not aspirating liquids any more!!!! YIPPEE!!! I could not have asked for a better gift and I know that Heavenly Father had a huge hand in seeing that that blessing came to pass. We are so thrilled. So, this means that Burke can finally drink from a normal cup, sippy cup, and through a straw again!! He has been drinking non stop since yesterday! We are so excited for Burke to feel like a normal kid again. The only bad thing is that he still has his feeding tube in. Yeah, I know!! The doctors wanted to make sure that he would still get enough liquid during the day, so until he can prove himself the tube stays. I just plan on not using it and feeding him like a regular kid, unless he doesn't eat or drink enough during the day. So, tube is in there for now-which I am okay with-for now!

We got home yesterday about 4:30pm and we were exhausted!! Burke went down at about 7pm and he only woke up once (which I guess he was up for awhile according to our neighbor who saw Tyler and Burke out on a walk at about 10:30pm). I was out at about 7:30pm so I never knew about this "midnight walk" that was taken. All I knew was that Burke ended up in our bed (I guess after the walk) and I woke up about 1:30 am to put him back in his crib. Ty has been out working in the yard all morning, so I guess I better get the whole scoop on what really went on last night. I am just glad I was asleep through it all (sorry Ty)! Anyways, we woke up this morning about 9am and Burke has been his regular active self since. I am so glad this recovery has gone so well- it was definitely a breeze compared with open heart surgery!

The doctors put together a plan as to what will happen in the next few months. They want to see Burke back in about two months to see if the left branches of his pulmonary artery have stayed open and have grown since yesterday. They will do non-evasive testing then such as an MRI, a CT scan and a profusion test for his lungs. They will then gather all the results from all the tests over the past few months and in conference with all the doctors put their heads together and come up with the best surgery plan they can. From there, if those arteries are big enough, then they will schedule his full repair surgery (The Rastelli procedure) a couple of weeks later. So, in short, if his LPA's grow, then in about 3 months Burke will have his full repair done on his heart and be a new man!!! Isn't that crazy. We have waited for this for a long time. It is obviously not a done deal yet, but we are so hopeful. Thanks for all your comments and prayers offered in Burke's behalf they are so greatly appreciated and we know they have helped a ton!

A Success!

I'm not very creative with titles these days, so I just put it out there- a success, the heart cath, overall was a success! They found that his right branches of his pulmonary artery have grown since the last heart cath in February which is a huge blessing. But the left side has many narrowings in the branches which is where they spent a lot of their time. They ballooned open many of the branches successfully. They also inserted a stent which is basically like chicken wire on a way smaller scale, to help reinforce the artery. Hopefully with that in place the left branches will start to grow because I believe the stent is what helped the right finally grow, but who knows exactly. They also successfully ballooned open his upper two chambers of his heart to allow for more blood flow. With where his arteries are placed, the wrong blood is going to the wrong place. With this opening, they are hoping to have the blood mix even more causing at least some of the correct blood to go to the correct place. Kind of confusing, I know- sorry.

Burke has done exceptionally well this time around post- heart cath. It was a breeze compared with the one in February, and Jan you could attest to that for sure. She was there helping after that heart cath and it was strenuous for sure. After the heart cath we have to keep his leg straight for 6 hours. Do you know how hard that is for a child who is so active and on top of just coming out of anesthesia? Well, let's just say incredibly hard for our little Burke who is also VERY independent! But this time around he slept really well after the procedure and basically slept all evening, woke up once for a couple of minutes, then went right back to sleep and slept until 6 am this morning!! What a stark difference from last go around. I slept in his room last night so I could be there with him.

He has already gotten the routine chest x-ray this morning, and will have an ECHO done sometime this morning also. We are hoping to get a swallow study done today which will determine if they can take out the feeding tube or not!! Wouldn't that just be the BEST Birthday present I could ask for?!! Seriously, that would be a huge blessing from the Lord if we could not have that tube any longer. So, we will be praying hard today and see what the test shows!

I have taken some pictures and will post those as soon as I can. Thanks for all your love and support. We will update more later and hopefully we will be out of here before too long.

Another Heart Catheter

Well, we are here at Primary's again for another heart catheter, the second one for this year. He has been in the cath lab for about an hour now and will be in there for about two more. They are going to balloon open his pulmonary arteries more and maybe put some stents in to help reinforce the artery. They are also going to balloon the wall between the upper two chambers of the heart. This was open, in other words, he had a whole in the heart in that place in his heart when he was first born. Over time it closed up and last June they ballooned it open to help with circulation and flow in his heart and to help release some pressure build up. They think that it has closed up again. They are planning on opening it again in hopes that doing that alone with help his oxygen levels and buy him more time to get his arteries to grow bigger in preparation for the full repair.

We will be here overnight and hopefully be able to go home tomorrow sometime. We are all doing well and so is Burke. He has been so happy and full of life lately. We are so grateful for him and all he teaches us on a daily basis. We will keep you posted.