One sweet girl

Well, after about 3 nights of screaming herself hoarse things are getting a bit more settled around here. I think that Lily is begining to get her nights and days straightened out and I am getting enough sleep to where I feel like I can do other things besides sleep and feed a baby during day light hours (thus this blog posting). I know she is a big baby but as you can see from the pictures she carries most of her weight in her cheeks. Oh, how we love to kiss those not-so-little cheeks.

Oh, if she would only be this peaceful at night!

Lily on her first day home

Lily Mae Snow

Lily Mae Snow arrived in our family April 15 at 7:15 am. She was a whopping 9 lbs 15 ounces and 22 inches long. While her delivery was far from easy she is definitely worth it. We love having this little girl in our family.

our swollen little Lily Mae

The Proud and exhausted parents

Carson cheesing it up with Lily

Lincoln not sure what to do with little "willy"

The proud Grandpa

A little bit personal

Generally I try to keep this blog very light and anecdotal. But recently we have had some bad news come into our family, that I am going to share on the blog so that I don't have to rehash an emotional story that causes me to cry a million times. On Monday I was at a store when Lincoln fell off a chair onto the cement floor causing him to have a severe bloody nose. I got him cleaned up the best I could and we left as quickly as possible. On the drive home I noticed Lincoln was getting drowsy, which immediately made me worry about a concussion since it wasn't anywhere close to his nap time. So I took him to my pediatrician's office on the way home from the store and she thought that he was iffy enough that we should get him a CAT scan. So we headed to St. Lukes so Lincoln could get his scan and we could be certain that he didn't have a concussion or any skull fractures. About a 1/2 hour after the scan my pediatrician calls me and tells me that Lincoln doesn't have a concussion or skull fracture, but that the scan did reveal a "incidental density" on the right side of his brain and that he needed to have a MRI scan as soon as possible to get more information about this "density." This news immediately put me on the verge of hysterics as "density" sounded eerily like a code word for tumor that doctors use to avoid freaking out parents. We scheduled a MRI for 3 days latter and we composed ourselves with the knowledge that we didn't have enough information to freak out just yet. On Friday we had a meeting with the pediatric neurosurgeon who had reviewed the scans with a radiologist and the news was not very good. Lincoln was diagnosed with a "low grade glioma" which in normal speak is a slow growing brain tumor. The good news is that the tumor is slow growing, it is operable, it is not cancerous, it is not life threatening, and for the time being it does not seem to be affecting him at all. The bad news is without getting too technical that the location of the tumor is such that removal of the tumor will cause him physical deficits that will affect the quality of his life. Now what these deficits will be and how severe is somewhat of a mystery do to the location of the tumor. On the positive side his brain may be able to rewire and adjust to some of these deficits so that they are not as problematic. The problem is that with the brain they just don't know what to expect for certain. Lincoln could have the tumor removed and make a full recovery, or he could have it removed and never be the same again. For right now the neurosurgeon recommends that we monitor the tumor so we can learn more about it's growth pattern and because it is not causing Lincoln any problems. So the plan right now is to watch and wait. With these slow growing tumors it is possible that it could be years before it is an issue that will require an immediate action or it could be a matter of months. We will probably have a better idea of what we are looking at in 3 months when we have another MRI scan. I am hopeful that we may see a miracle in the future, but at the same time I am coming to terms with the fact that in all likely hood we will have to make decisions about this tumor that could affect Lincolns quality of life potentially forever. Even in this trying time I feel immensely blessed that we found this tumor so early so that it is likely we will be able to manage it in such a way that we can minimize brain damage. In many ways I consider the finding of the tumor so early a miracle. Although we are stressed and a little overwhelmed by this news we know that God is aware of our family and our little Lincoln.

Easter

We had a very low key Easter weekend. On Saturday we spent the day hanging out at home and doing our best to listen to conference while the kids ran around. Between conference sessions we helped the kids dye Easter eggs. The kids had fun dyeing the eggs (as did the adults I still love to dye Easter eggs). On Sunday morning the kids got their Easter baskets, which included new swim shorts, a sprinkler for summer, books, and chocolate bunnies. As usual the chocolate bunnies were the big hit of the Easter basket. Our kids could not eat their bunnies like civilized folks starting with the feet or the ears. No, no they went straight for the bunny faces like ravenous animals and left the cute little chocolate bunnies mutilated and saliva drenched. Nate and I were a little bit horrified and a little bit amused to see the way they attacked their bunnies. Despite the chocolate bunny incident we had a great Easter and enjoyed listening to conference and spending time with family.

Our egg dying set up

Lincster dying a blue egg (blue is his favorite color)

Carson giving me his cheesy smile and showing off his red egg (it really looked more pink than red but I didn't have the hear to tell him).

Cheesy group pic

The fruit of our labors

The boys hamming it up with their Easter buckets

Ravenous animal #1

Ravenous animal #2

The poor little chocolate bunny

A moment of peace during conference

The highlight of March

The highlight of this month is that we got a play set! It was a huge project! It took Nate 7 hours just to get all the parts organized. After Nate got all the parts organized he took a day off work to get a good jump start on the project. Then he spent all of his free time for about 2 weeks working on the project. I couldn't be more pleased with the results. The play set has already been awesome. Our kids are going outside to play on it several times a day for 30 minutes to an hour. And although the kids aren't aware of it I plan on them spending some serious quality time on the play set after the baby is born :)

We started out with 5 boxes

Then the millions of pieces were labeled and divided

Construction begins

Little helpers join in the construction fun

Making progress

making progress very very, slowly

Completion! Yea!

Play Time

Our Jedi's

Besides monster trucks our boys especially Carson love Star Wars. They love to play around with their lightsabers and practice their "jedi skills." Nate has made up several exercises for the boys to improve their 'jedi skills" including jumping over pillows, hitting stuffed animals with lightsabers, and practicing spin moves. Carson at this point has more jedi skills than Lincoln, but Lincoln is a fast study and I am sure will be cathing up to his brother's skill level soon. Nate has even got in on the jedi action. Nate bought an extra lightsaber, claiming we needed it so Carson's friends could play jedi when they came over. But lets be honest, he just wants to improve his jedi skills like his boys.

Monster truck Jam

Although you wouldn't know it from our blog we have been busy doing many other things this month besides waiting for this baby to come. At the beginning of the month Nate took the boys to a monster truck rally. Lincoln got some monster trucks for his birthday from his Grandma Barlow and they have been a big hit with both boys. So we decided the local monster truck rally would be a great outing for the boys. The boys loved the show of course. What could be more entertaining to small boys than large trucks racing, crashing and destroying smaller automobiles. The boys favorite part of the show was Megasauraous a dinosaur that breathed fire and ate other cars. I guess the biggest testament to what a good time they had was that for days afterwards Lincoln would ask if we could go see the monster trucks, and when I explained that all the trucks had left he would cry. That is monster truck love.