3 Years

Three years ago right now, I was living in the PICU at Children's Mercy while my Violet continued to be sedated on the ventilator following her heart surgery.  Hands down, one of the best things that came out of that experience is our friendship with Violet's heart buddy and hospital roomie, Brycen, and his family.  To commemorate the 3rd anniversary of our meeting, we got together for dinner last night at our place.  Brycen's mom, Kara, spoiled us with some yummy desserts -- almost too pretty to eat!

 The kids had such a hard time deciding which one to try first!

 No, it wasn't Bryen's birthday, but he wanted candles, and we decided it was close enough as he just turned 3 on December 20.  

 I was looking back at my final post with Violet's heart surgery, when I asked everyone to pray for Brycen. . .it said, "Brycen was born on December 20.  His family is still waiting to open the gifts that remain under their Christmas tree because they haven't been home yet to celebrate.  Brycen has had not one, but two open-heart surgeries in his 6 weeks of life.  His family would desperately like to have their baby boy home.  Today's celebration for Violet was bitter-sweet because she was leaving Brycen there in room 24, and he REALLY wants to be reunited with his big sister and have his family together as well."  And here was his sweet picture I posted:

I just love looking back and seeing how far we've all come!  So back to yesterday, Calvin is never one to miss out on a celebration and he was quick to point out that HIS birthday was actually the closest, so we let him get in on the birthday song.  Brycen wasn't so sure about sharing the spotlight.

 Blowing out candles never gets old!

 Violet with Big Sis KayLeigh devouring their chocolate cupcakes.

 Brycen and KayLeigh LOVE Rocky Cat.  As soon as they walked in the door, KayLeigh was asking where the cat was!  I'm not sure the feelings were completely mutual, but Rocky was a pretty good sport about it, anyway.  She got more attention last night than she'd had in a month!

Isn't she gorgeous (the girl, not the cat)?!?  We've already arranged for her and Oliver to marry someday.  It's nice to have one child's future all planned out!

So here are Brycen and Violet 3 years ago, a couple of weeks after Brycen was discharged from the hospital. . .

 

. . . and here they are now, so big and healthy!

   I think Kara and I are more than just friends and fellow heart moms.  We are kindred spirits, and I'm so thankful she was there with me at CMH 3 years ago.  The late night talks and cries we had then and knowing that I can still call her anytime I need to vent is such a gift.  

Happy belated birthday and Heart Days to Brycen and and Violet!

Riding in Style

Last weekend, Jo 'redeemed' her big Christmas gift of a limo ride with the adults in the family. What a great time we had!  The limo picked us up and drove us to the Belvoir Winery in Liberty, Missouri.  The winery was fun, but the real fun was had in the limo itself!

We made it to the Winery!

This winery is in an old orphanage, built in 1900, and the history of the place is really cool.  The steps in this picture have worn paths where the children used to climb them time after time to go to their rooms upstairs.

Time for our tasting!  The original woodwork was just beautiful. 

Our group filled up the whole table!

 There were plenty of yummy wines to taste.

 After we'd tried them all, we explored some more of the historic building and grounds.

 Our beautiful limo waiting for us when we were done. . .

 Of course, we had another fun ride back home.

 What a wonderful day we had!  Merry Christmas, Jo, and thanks for sharing your Christmas gift with the rest of us!

JM&MB MLK Day

The boys were out of school today for Martin Luther King, Jr, Day which means we got to resume our Just Me & My Boys Days!  The boys had been begging to go to Cosmic Jump (a big trampoline park), so today was the day we went!

We were there when the doors opened, so there weren't too many jumpers there which was great.  The pictures are all a bit blurry -- the boys were just moving that fast!

 In addition to the big main trampolines, the boys loved the "Slam Dunk" court (no surprises there). . .

 . . . and played some serious dodgeball!  They could have played this all day if I'd have let them!

 There were also some fun inflatables to climb on and slide down.

 Lots of calories were burned and lots of fun was had at Cosmic Jump.  We will definitely be going back!

The boys worked up quite an appetite and Pizza Street was the answer to their grumbling tummies!

 The salad, breadsticks, and pizza were good, but the real treat came at the end. Have you ever seen a boy so in love with his ice cream??

 We ALL enjoyed our ice cream.

 We left Pizza Street and headed over to the Mahaffie Farmstead.  This has been on my bucket list for JM&MB Days, but we needed nice enough weather to be able to explore all of the property.  Today really delivered with lots of sunshine and temperatures in the 60s!

I had checked the website before leaving to make sure it was open (clearly stated it WAS), but when we got there, we were the only people to be found.  There was a 'closed' sign on the door to the visitors center next to the posted hours of 10-4 Monday-Friday.  Still not really sure what was going on, maybe closed for MLK Day?  Even though this was mentioned nowhere on the website or on site. . .

 After a moment of being disappointed, I realized that only the visitors center was technically 'closed' and the rest of the property was still open. (Or at least it wasn't closed off and we could access most everything.  The boys were convinced we were going to go to jail since there was no one else there.  I told them we were too nice to go to jail for learning about history.)  And we weren't the ONLY ones there, anyway.  There were chickens, and pigs, and horses.  And they were glad to see us!

 

We read all about the ice house and chop house and the oldest barn built with wooden pegs instead of nails.

 

Of course, we couldn't go in the house itself, but it looked nice and historic from the outside :)

 We came home and tried out some of the boys' Christmas/birthday gifts that we hadn't played with yet.  Calvin got this cool 'kinetic' sand that was so fun to play with.

 And we played a couple of hilarious rounds of Uno Dare!

 Then we went outside to enjoy some more of the gorgeous January weather. Just in case you didn't believe me, this was my phone this afternoon:

I set up an obstacle course and we took turns completing it to see who could get the best time.  The course included riding the plasma car across the concrete, running around the swingset in the back yard, making a lay-up, throwing a football through a target, bouncing on an exercise ball to the hula hoop and finishing with 10 spins of the hoop.

 At one point, Calvin made it a little unfair for Oliver by blocking the basketball goal with the exercise ball.

 We had so much fun with this, doing several rounds to determine our personal bests.  I was the grand champion with a time of 40.3 seconds.

 The boys did a great job with it as well!  I had a bit of an unfair advantage because of my mad hula-hooping skills.

 What a fantastic day spent with my boys.  I hope they let me continue doing these days for many years to come!!

As I was planning for today, I was thinking back to MLK day 2012.  I should have been in the hospital with Violet following her heart surgery, but since it was postponed I was able to spend the day with the boys.  So yesterday was the 3rd anniversary of that fateful day.  I'm so thankful that is behind us.  And after what happened with Violet's attempted surgery 10 days ago, we will hopefully never have the need to place her in the arms of a surgeon ever again.  So this is a bit off the subject of a JM&MB day post, but it was definitely on my mind today.  Oh and while I'm being random, Calvin had an assignment to write what his "dream" for Wellsville would be.  Here's his response:

In case you can't read it, it says, "My dream for my community is for Wellsville to get a Buffalo Wild Wings."  Way to dream big, Son.  Hope everyone had a fun MLK day today!