Play-doh Snowmen

 This was the first snowman

 Now we added a baby and a big brother

 Vince was holding the baby, very sweet!

 Finally the whole little snowman family!

Vince loves to build snowmen and this year we were only able to do it a couple of times, so the other day he wanted to play with play-doh and we decided to build a snowman with it.  This was pretty good idea as we had to do it the next two days as well.  We started with one snowman, then it was a snowman and a baby, and then it turned into a family of snowmen.  Vince is excited to show his little brother how to build a real one next winter, but play-doh is going to have to do for now.

Love,
Nick, Andrea, Vince and Baby Brother

Spring Time

Spring has been very nice so far.  In March the weather was fantastic, we had a week of 80's and we really enjoyed it.  Much to Vince's excitement and Nick's dismay (only because he is going to have to mow the lawn a lot more this year, with two extra months of mowing) it was time to mow.  Vince has been asking to do it for a long time now and was very helpful.  It is amazing how young kids want to drive!  We also went up north to Traverse for my dad's 60th birthday.  He did not want a big party, so we went to the Avery's house for dinner and stayed at a hotel.  The hotel was more for Vince because he loves water and we wanted him to be able to swim around a little.  I also decided to start some flowers and keep them in the basement until later in the spring when it is time to plant them outside.  Amazingly some of them have taken off.  I really do not know anything about planting or flowers, but we have had some good luck with it.  Once they get a little bigger, I will put the finished product on here.  Hopefully you are all enjoying it as well!

Love, 

Nick, Andrea, Vince, and Baby Brother  

Go Blue

Excited for the game!

He wanted to walk around after a while

Vince was a little unsure of the stranger taking the picture

Hail Hail

Marching to the band

I think the band was his favorite part!

The Spring game for U of M was this weekend and Vince has been waiting for this day for about four months now. He was very exited to be there and did a great job. At the end he did get a little antsy and wanted to walk around, but there were not too many people where we were at and he was able to do that.

Easter

The Easter Bunny Came

Thomas and Vince playing (Lisa, I borrowed this from you)

Jenn and Me, she is due in September (Lisa, I borrowed this one too)

Nick and JoJo

Vince and JoJo playing, I was very impressed with how well Vince handled me playing with another little boy!

We had a wonderful Easter this year. We were able to celebrate it twice. My cousin Lisa and her family invited us over to their house in Kalamazoo for dinner Saturday night, and my Dad's cousin Lisa Jackson and her family invited us over for brunch on Sunday. We know a lot of Lisa's so Vince gets a little confused, we always have to reference them as who their kids or grand kids are. The first Lisa has two boys, Thomas and Jo Jo. Vince loves to play with them and watch videos of them from their blog. My Aunt and Uncle, Lindy and Jeff were there as well as my other cousin Jenn and her husband Pat. They are expecting as well! It had been about 5 years since I had seen them last. It was very nice to catch up. The boys had fun playing and dinner was great. We were bad with the pictures at both events, but got a couple from Saturday. The second Lisa lives very close to us and since we have moved to Charlotte their house has been one of the places we spend holidays. We are very grateful to them for always inviting us over. Our holidays at the Jackson's have changed a lot in the three years since we moved to Charlotte. Our first Easter over there I was pregnant with Vince and there were no other little ones. By the next holiday, there will be 6 little ones! We hope you enjoyed your Easter too!

Love,

Nick. Andrea, Vince, and Baby Brother

Big Boy Room

Vince was a good painter

A work in progress

Vince has a new big boy bedroom. He is very excited about it and even got to help put it all together. The intention was to get it ready in time for his birthday in May, but he was just to excited about it, so he moved into it during spring break. We left the mattress from his old bedroom in there just in case he wanted to go back in his baby room, but so far he loves the new one too much. We will see what happens when the baby gets here, I hope he does not decide at that point in time it is a good idea to sleep in the old room. :)

Vince is Walking part 2

Vince has been working so hard at walking lately and is now really getting it! He is very excited about it and so are we! He loves to do it and we have taken many laps around the house. Vince also really loves to walk in the gym at "Kelly's House" as he calls it and play basket ball. Kelly's house is the Alive Center where we do physical therapy.

Vince is Walking!

Urology and some other appointments

I know he looks sad here, but he is actually being silly. :) He has the cutest little sad face, and he knows it.
Vince loves to be outside

After the last post I think we need a positive one and this one really is! Back in October we posted about a Urologist appointment and that the doctor wanted to have some tests done at the next appointment in March. Well on March 7th we went to Devos Children's Hospital and Vince had a VCUG, Urodynamics test, and X-ray of his bladder. The tests are to check for reflux into the kidney's and volume and pressure in the bladder. Last summer Vince had a urinary track infection with a fever which is one of the main reasons for the testing now. Many times when that happens with little kids, there is a problem somewhere. I was able to be in the room for the set up and the tech we had was great. We could tell the hospital has gone to great efforts to make children as much at ease as possible. I did have to leave during the test because of the radiation, but Nick was able to stay with Vince. During the test Vince was able to watch "Thomas the Train," and they dimmed to lights to make him comfortable. Vince even got to the point where he almost fell asleep! Considering Vince really does not like hospitals or doctor's appointments, I was pretty impressed. Vince woke up during the test right when his bladder got to capacity, which means he might have more feeling than we thought he did! Also, his capacity was normal for a child his age and his bladder looked normal. When I say normal, I do not mean for a kid with SB, I mean normal. The doctor seemed to be surprised by this and we certainly were, because this is something we never thought we would hear. Vince did not empty his bladder quite like a normal bladder, but over all it was a great appointment. Only 5% of kids with SB have normal functioning bladders and Vince still has a chance at this. We really wont know until he is older, but no cathing at this point and we don't even have to consider it until he goes to school as long as we don't have any problems like UTI's. At that point it would only be for continence. We also talked to the Urologist about his bowel and we are going to try some things in that area to get him going potty on the toilet. Part of this plan includes getting rid of all processed food. Nick and I are working on this, but it is a little more challenging than we though it would be at first. There are preservatives in everything! If any of you have suggestions or tips for us, we will gladly listen. Also, if you have recipes that would be great too. Other doctor appointments - Vince did have another set of tubes put in and they took out his adenoids at the same time. So far they seem to be working great! We had a MRI in January and that came back good, as well as an appointment with the Neurologist. She was very happy with the progress Vince has made and was pleased with the MRI too. Over all everything has been going really well with Vince and he seems to be excelling all of the time with his development!

Optional Testing and results

We decided to do some optional testing with this baby because of the experience we had with Vince. We knew that with the new baby if there were any complications we would want to know in advance because our schedule is pretty crazy with work, therapy, and doctor's appointments. Even though they have gone down in numbers, Vince still has 5 specialists and we see each of them at least twice a year if everything is going well. That does not include when he is sick or if there are concerns about something. So, the testing started with a NT scan at 12 weeks. The NT scan is just an ultrasound where they check the fold at the back of the neck accompanied with some blood work. They also do a second round of blood work during week 17. The reason this is done is to rule out Spina Bifida as well as some other conditions. Really going into this test the only thing we were concerned with was the SB. Of course this testing was on January 3rd. That probably does not mean much to you, but we have not had the best luck with January. January 2nd 2009 we found out Vince had Spina Bifida, January 19th 2010 Vince had his first Shunt revision, January 7th 2011 Vince had his second Shunt revision, and here we were in 2012 hoping our luck had changed. Well, the fold of the babies neck was at 3.0 and that is the point at which they start referring people to specialists. We went into the appointment not knowing what to expect and came out very confused. The doctor explained to us that this put us at an elevated risk for a chromosomal issue (Downs Syndrome) or possibly a heart problem. When we got home we looked up lots of information and knew that the only thing we could do was wait. At 15 weeks we went to the perinatologist to have further testing done. Because we have been through this process before and had a very good experience with Bronson we decided to go back there. We first met with the genetic counselor and talked about all of the possible things it could be and what tests we could have done. We were for sure going to have another ultrasound and we decided to have an amniocenteses done. With the ultrasound it showed everything to look pretty normal. There were no markers for Downs, so that was a bit of relief to us. The genetics counselor did tell us that the heart would be to small to look at during this appointment, so we would have to come back in between weeks 22 and 24 for that ultrasound. The doctor came in and did the amnio after the ultrasound, and I have to say it was not that bad. The idea of someone sticking a needle into you abdomen all the way to your uterus is a bit hard to accept at first. He did have a hard time getting the needle though the skin too, he asked if I worked out (a nice compliment I suppose). We then had to wait 3 days for the first round of results. Being that it was a Friday, that meant not a true three days, but Wednesday of the next week. Finally Wednesday came and good news, all of the first round of chromosomes were normal. The date, February 1st. We still had to wait 7 more days for the rest of the results and they to came back normal. We only had one more test to do. On March 20th, we went back to Bronson for the ultrasound of the heart. We first met with the pediatric cardiologist and he asked us why we were there, with all of the other result coming back normal there was a good chance nothing was wrong, in fact we only had a three percent chance of it. During the ultrasound we could tell things were not going great. Again, being that we have been through this type of stuff before, we picked up on things the tech was saying and when he went to go and get the doctor half way through, we were pretty sure there was something wrong. Unfortunately we were right. The baby has something called congenital heart disease. He has two holes in his heart, one at the top and one at the bottom. This is going to require surgery after he is born, but not until he is three to four months old. The surgery will be performed at Mott's Children's hospital in Ann Arbor because they are one of the few places that do pediatric open heart surgery. We have done lots of research on the condition and have found that it is the most common birth defect, in fact 40,000 kids are born with it every year. After the surgery he should have a normal life with no restrictions, which was great news for us. Just like with Vince we are so excited to be having this baby and no matter what, we know he will be loved and we will make it though this situation just fine. The school year for me might be a bit interesting next year because of maternity leave and surgery leave, but I work with an amazing staff, who I know will help in anyway possible. We go back in two weeks to have another ultrasound and to ask any questions that we have, which we still do have a lot of them. They will watch him during this pregnancy to make sure everything is staying constant. We have seen how powerful your prayers have been with Vince and hope that maybe you could also say one for the new baby too. We will keep you updated with the new journey we are on.

Love,
Nick, Andrea, Vince, and Baby Brother

New Baby!

I am sure everyone has heard our good news, but we wanted to put it here on the blog too, we are going to have another baby! Vince is going to be a big brother and seems very excited about it. We think he might be in for a little shock when the time actually comes and the baby does not go to a different home ever, but it will be good. This pregnancy has been very similar to Vince's as far as the physical stuff goes, I have been very lucky and never gotten sick and over all feel good. Nick and I found out on November 5th with this one. Anyone who does not know, that is Nick's birthday. It was a very good present. :) We are due on July 15th. Nick and I did have a different experience with this one from Vince and that is, we tried for a lot longer. With Vince, he was a first try, with this one, it took 15 months. I think in hind sight everything worked out for the best though. Vince has grown so much in that 15 months, not that he would not have if we had success the first time, but he has had an extra year of just our attention. I am going to put a few ultrasound pictures from this baby on here, he has had a lot of them, being that we opted for some extra testing after our experience with Vince. I will post more on that later though. Oh and it is another little boy.

Love,

Nick, Andrea, Vince, and Baby Brother

Winter Fun! (I know we are a little late on this post) :)

A beautiful sunrise after the first big snow storm of the year.
The first snowman of the year. We did not have all of the proper snowman making materials so we made due with some chocolate milk duds and M&M's. :)

Again, some how we have failed in being prepared for snowman building, thus the baby carrot for a nose, sugar snap pea for a mouth, and M&M's for eyes. :)

Vince is demonstrating his ability to stand, it is still a work in progress, but he is getting stronger every day

I love these next two pictures. Vince and his Daddy!

Vince got this cool sled for Christmas this year and has enjoyed it a lot, he does not like it when it tips over though. He also does not like it when his gloves get snow on them. He makes us brush them off as soon as he notices it.

Well, I guess we are a little behind in the blogging department! Being that I am on spring break this week I am going to get caught up on it, so I am going to make quite a few posts, but I think that is the best way to do it. This first post is about all of the winter fun we had this year. Vince is definitely an outside boy. He loves to be out side and it does not matter if it is warm or cold sunny or snowy. We enjoy it too, and as he gets older we will do so many more things out there. One of Vince's favorite things to do outside is build snowmen. We were only able to do this a few times this winter because it was a weird winter for us in Michigan, but he loved it! We were also able to do some sledding around the house. Even though the snow has been gone for awhile, Vince still would really like to build a snowman, he asks all of the time. One of his favorite books is "Frosty the Snowman," so hopefully next year we get the chance to do it again.

Love,

Nick, Andrea, and Vince