January 22nd?

Seriously.....January 22nd already?  I have to say, so far I am NOT impressed with 2012. 

Anyway....

Alex has not been to school since the first week of December!  Between being sick, being in the hospital, winter break and now intensive physical therapy she's become quite the little delinquent :)

January 2nd she started her intensive therapy program at Richmond Hope Therapy.  She's gone 5 days a week for 3 hours a day for the past three weeks - Friday was her last day.  Considering all of the time she had been laying in bed between her hospitalization and illness, I am SO thrilled at how well she is doing - she truly never ceases to amaze me.  When the thought of getting up in the morning to hit the treadmill makes me want to hit the snooze button, I think of ALL the hard works she's been doing and how sore she must be and I'm ashamed of myself!

She started her day with heat therapy and massage - and you know what?!? She HATES it!  I would LOVE to start my day like that and she cries and fusses through the whole thing.  Crazy girl!

Then it's time for Shannon to stretch her and she LOVES it....she seriously is wired backwards :)

Geez she is getting SO tall!

Look at that nice sitting!  I've waited over 10 years to see her sit up all alone nice and straight...how crazy is that?!?

AND - she stood independently...ok, so it was only for 2 seconds, but hey, you have to start somewhere!!

Don't get me wrong, there are times she is flat out refusing....and I mean that girl can be stubborn!

But Shannon doesn't let her win and in the end she does what she's supposed to!

Even when she tries to bribe Tabitha with hugs to get her out of standing.

A lot of time was spent getting her to stand and walk.  She's worked SO hard these past three weeks and she's been really tired.  We purchased the cage they use a few years back and we have a great plan for her home therapy program.

She walked in two different types of walker - the first one was her pacer...she has a blue ball that she really likes and they were using that for motivation....it was really neat to see her keep reaching for the ball.  She didn't really do much walking in this clip though!

She did much better walking in her Kid Walk - this time it was bubbles that were her motivator...

Hopefully one day we will be trading the wheel chair for her Kid Walk as her main mode of transportation!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

New year, new design...it only took me 5 months to do it! :)

Since Alex has been so sick we had a nice New Year's Eve at the house with some friends.  We had planned on taking the kids out for a fun activity and then coming back to the house for some festivities, but there was no way Alex was going anywhere.

My friend Leslie bought all of these signs you can use as props when taking pictures - believe me when I say we had a BALL with them!  And so did the kids....

Dana, Me, Leslie and Mesa

And Leslie also brought over fun hats and glasses!

Zach and Daddy....who was NOT feeling well at all!

The Morris Family:

Scott, Jeff, Leslie and Muffy's boyfriend Fred!

Alex had been running a fever for ten days...and pretty much all she was doing was sleeping.  She was asleep at 4:30 on New Year's Eve so we were all VERY happy when she woke up and came to join us for a little bit AND we even got a smile.

Scott, Dana and Aaron

Scott, Leslie, Me and Aaron

This is the third year in a row (I think) that we've had New Year's Eve at home and I honestly LOVE ringing in the New Year with wonderful friends and our kids.

Happy New Year!!!

We got up pretty early on New Year's Day and Alex was just miserable.  It was day eleven of running a fever and she was crying all morning.  The pediatrician had said it was just a virus but she was clearly in pain and I just felt so bad for her.  I was so concerned that she had pneumonia or the flu so we headed to the ER. 

Alex has never shown any signs indicating she knew when she was in the hospital, but as soon as we got there she started crying, when they put us in the room and she saw all the equipment, she started crying, when they pulled the hospital gown out, she started crying....I guess cognitively that's a great sign, but I don't want her to be scared or upset when we have to go either. 

This was not how I wanted to start the New Year! 

They ran a ton of tests and took a lot of blood to make sure she didn't have a bacterial infection - despite being on Motrin she was still running a 101.4 temperature and had a rash on her chest.  They took x-rays to make sure she didn't have pneumonia, took urine to make sure she didn't have a urinary tract infection and did the dreaded flu swab up her nose.  At one point she had two IV lines in her hands - and she was NOT a happy camper with all of the poking and prodding they did.  Her white blood count was elevated, but other than a blood culture that would take 72 hours to complete, they couldn't find a reason why.

Fast forward to yesterday and she is FINALLY fever free and getting back to her happy, eating self!