Its too nice outside to be blogging!!!

I'm so sorry I haven't updated anything for almost 2 weeks!!! It has just been too nice out and we've been out enjoying it. I feel guilty every time I walk by the computer knowing that I really should be updating you all on all the happenings around this crazy family ; ) So today, even though the day is gorgeous outside I will do my best to (quickly) inform you all.

The drive down to St. Paul went very smoothly thanks to Heather for borrowing me her GPS ( I will be giving it back to you soon, I promise!) We were there in plenty of time and ended up waiting quite a while in the waiting room for the Dr to get out of surgery. It was a quick appointment and he seemed very optimistic about how things would go and that we would probably only have to stay one night. I was thrilled! I was dreading sitting in a hospital room for 4 long days.

After the appt. we drove around a bit planning on getting some lunch but decided it would be more fun to just go sit in our room and eat sandwiches that I had packed for our long stay. Audrey and I went down to the kiddie pool and she splashed her heart out. She was having a very good day- Mommy all to herself :) We went back to the room and I took some pictures of her little tummy just in case she ended up with some scars after the surgery.

 Daddy came a few hours later and he took us out to Olive Garden for supper. Audrey was more interested in throwing the bread sticks than eating them though. We went back to the hotel and we were all asleep by 9pm.

We were up by 6am on Friday having to be at the hospital by 7:30. The waiting began.

 Poor little girlie was so hungry because she couldn't have anything to eat or drink after midnight the night before. She started to scream and cry and nothing I could do would calm her down. She was both hungry and tired. She fell asleep finally a little after her surgery was scheduled to start but hey were a bit behind and didn't come to get her until 10:30. The surgeon came in a little before the surgery and told us that he hadn't realized when he talked to us the day before that her hernia was as bad as it was. He hadn't looked at her films until that morning and saw that her entire stomach was herniated up above her diaphragm. It was going to be more complicated than he'd thought, they would have to pull the stomach down ,sew the hole shut that it had come through and wrap her stomach around her esophagus. The surgery would probably last about an hour longer than planned. They came and got her, I took her into the operating room and held her until the anesthesia took effect. It was very hard for me to just give her a kiss on the head and walk out that room.

We sat in the waiting room and I prayed and read some verses that my friend had given me before we'd left. I felt everyone's prayers and could feel the Lord with us and knew that He was taking care of our little girl. It took about 2 1/2 hours until they came and got me so I could hold her while she woke up.

( this is how Ben worries! Sleeping! )

The surgeon came in to tell us how things went and that it went well. We were very relieved to have it over with. They moved us to the room she would be staying in and she was groggy and sad for the rest of the day. She slept alot and I held her most of the time.

The next day she was doing much better and we were able to go to the playroom. It was a little annoying though because of her IVs and the alarm for it kept going off. She wasn't eating much and only drinking a little juice. She was throwing up quite a bit because her esophagus was swollen from surgery. Hew tummy was bloated from all the air they had pumped in from the procedure and just from being worked on. They decided to keep her one more day until they could see she was eating more and drinking enough.

(I felt like I was watching the clock just waiting until we could go home!)

 By Sunday she was almost back to her happy self. It was getting harder to keep her in the crib so we went to the playroom a couple times and she was able to get the IVs removed. She was eating a little bit but drinking alot more. We were finally let to leave around 3 that afternoon.

The nurses we had were wonderful. They really made staying there almost enjoyable. They loved Audrey and couldn't get over her 2 toned hair! I actually had a few different people stop us on our way out if I colored her hair! Nope I'm not a crazy person! She just had very unique hair.

( Audrey's "cage" )

Audrey is on a soft diet for 3 weeks. She is not supposed to have anything thicker that mashed potatoes for that long. Its not going well because she hates pureed foods, she usually just spits it all over me. but I've started to just give her the food we are eating in really tiny pieces and she seems to be doing well with that, And she's been eating alot on bread and cheese which makes for delightful diaper changes!

We are so happy that everything went so smoothly. We are so blessed by all our family friends that prayed for Audrey. We are so thankful for our family that took care of our other kids while we were down at the hospital. Thank to everyone who said a prayer. We are so blessed to have you all in our lives!

I have a little girl hanging on my pants now and I'll have to do some more updates later on about what we've been up to. See you soon :)