Owen is now 6 years old!

He had a fun party at Pizza Hut. He had about 13 friends. They played games, ran around like crazy people and ate good food. Here's a few pictures.

Updated 1 month pictures after surgery

Big month for us! Here are some recent pics of Beautiful Paige!

Just food for thought...

Just was thinking of something Owen said to me the other day. I am not sure how I feel about this and I think it almost breaks my heart that my children have had to endure this last year watching their poor baby sister go through so much. But, our friend recently had a beautiful baby boy. As I was excited to receive the text message of his picture, I showed Owen. Owen LOVES babies. He's probably the best child I have ever seen with a baby. He plays with Paige, talks to Paige, and points out every single time he makes her smile! But, he said to me. "Oh mom, I can't even tell!" as we sat looking at this picture. "Can't tell what Owen?" "Mom, I can't even tell that he had his lip fixed." That broke my heart. Yes, your baby sister was born with something that other children do not have. How do you explain that to such a sweet boy?!

PLEASE HELP!

When you have a child with a cleft, your whole world changes for a brief time. You forget that the rest of the world has issues and heartbreak. You forget that there are people worse off in the world. It's overwhelming to say the least to think that there is something "wrong" with your child. As time passes by, it's easier day by day. I now look at Paige and I don't even think about her cleft. I don't think about the heaping hole in the roof of her mouth. I don't think about the possibilities or the upcoming surgeries. I think of how beautiful and sweet little Miss Paige truly is. She really truthfully lights up my life.

But, there are children in this world that do not have this in their lives. Thousands of babies are born each year with a cleft lip, cleft palate, unilateral cleft lip, bilateral cleft palate, soft cleft palate, hard cleft palate, full cleft palate and worse. These children do not have the capabilities that our children have! They do not have a wonderful cleft team like we did! And for this reason, it's our responsibility to help them. Please think about these children as you are getting your income tax this year. Think about what affect you can have on a single child.

Children with clefts are often made fun of. This holds true even in our small community, unfortantly! Children with clefts are often called monsters and shunned by communities in poor countries. With as simple of a 45 minute procedure overseas, these children can begin to have a wholesome life.

Please take just a minute and cry along with me on this video created by SMILE TRAIN. This is an organization that provides free of charge surgeries to children in poor countries. Think of it this way, the cost of a NAM in the USA is 10,000.00. If we did not live in such a wonderful state of PA, we would have had to pay a good portion of this. But because Paige was born in PA, she fell under the loophole clause provided by the medical system. Her surgery, NAM, ENT, Plastic surgeon, etc are all FREE of charge. This is a luxury that other children DO NOT HAVE. So give back...give back in the name of Paige who THANKFULLY does not need this support of money. (I would have paid the 10,000 if I had too but these families CAN NOT afford this)

Watch this video and decide for yourself...do these children deserve $1.00 of your money to help them with the 250.00 cost of a surgery.




Now wipe those tears away, get out your credit card, visa, debit and give as little as a dollar to help these children in honor of Paige. Visit Paige's Smile Train website to donate!

http://www.smiletrain.org/site/TR/Events/General?pxfid=5110&fr_id=1040&pg=fund

Just an update

I'm without pictures this time. Just don't feel like digging through them to post them, I'll do it later.

Anyways, Paige got off her No No bands on Thursday. They said she looks great and her GUMS are healing. We are pleased about that. There is still no guarantee that they will fused together properly and that a tooth will develop in that area. It's a wait and see kind of thing. But, we are hopeful as always.

We also begged to be seen by the ENT while we were there. Her ear has been running since October without stopping. Thank heavens we did ask because here to find out, they were treating her for a bacterial infection when it's been a fungal infection. She has new drops and the drainage has since stopped! That goodness for Mother's instinct. I wasn't going to keep putting those stupid drops in her ears if it wasn't doing anything, I figured something els was up. Why they didn't call to tell us her culture came back fungal from surgery is beyond me. ARG!

Anyways, she's back to her good ol' self today. The last few days have been fustrating because she keeps stopping eating and refuses. I can say today has been a good day! Her scar looks fantastic. Her nose has dropped some since surgery but that was to be expected. She will probably still have a touch up surgery at about age 5 for anything with the nose or scar. We will be scheduling her palate surgery any day now. It should be around June.

So all in all, she is doing great! She has been a pleasant baby through all this (with a few tough nights as expected) Thanks to all who have been praying for us! It's greatly appreciated!

First Taste of Bananas!!

We were so excited to be able to start real baby food now. Paige is ready but I'm pretty sure she hates her high chair. She's pretty scared of it. :) She LOVED about the first 5 bites of bananas. She opened her mouth and swallowed like a pro. Then all of a sudden, this happened....

New Pictures

January 17th









January 20th