No news is good news

     Lydia has been doing so well that we are feeling that life is getting back to normal (ish).  She is now crawling quite often instead of just scooting on her bum.  She occasionally pulls herself up to standing.  She is saying more sounds that are her attempt at words.  She is swallowing more food and spitting it out less.  She is happy and spunky.  She knows what she wants and lets us know what it is one way or the other (points with grunts or throws a fit if she doesn't get it).  It is fun to watch her be so excited about life and see her strong personality now that she feels better.
     Our family moved up to live at my parents house for a couple of months while we re-do our home.  We intended to fix it up shortly after we moved in but it got put on hold as our "normal" life came to a screetching halt as we concentrated on Lydia's health.  My parents have been very gracious and hospitable.  My kids love being up here.  It kind-of feels like a long vacation. 
     Brian's been working hard most evenings and Saturday's to get our home done.  He's a hard worker!  I'm grateful for all that he does for our family.
     Spencer and Alyssa went on a week-long camping trip with some cousins from the Christiansen side.  They had a great time shooting bows and guns, swimming, hiking, doing  a service project and doing many other fun camping activities.  We were grateful that they were able to go since our vacation plan this year was zilch-o. 
     We are looking forward to enjoying many more healthy, happy summer days.

(Our camera takes terrible pictures so I don't know whether to include them or not, but here are some anyway.)

Tender Mercies

Yesterday was the three month anniverary of Lydia's liver transplant.  We have had such a huge tender mercy from Heavenly Father that she has stayed healthy enough to stay out of the hospital up to this point!  Now if she goes back in the hospital she will be covered under our regular insurance coverage instead of the 500K maximum allowed for her transplant and three months post-transplant.  With her transplant complications and extended hospital stay she neared the top of that maximum.  I really thought she would be in before now with how often she was admitted before the transplant and the rough go she had with her transplant.   
Thank you Dr. Book, Dr. Scaife, Corrinne and all of the excellent medical staff at Primary Children's Medical Center who have worked so hard for Lydia.  We are so grateful for your knowledge, your skills and your caring that you have given to heal our Lyds!!  We are especially thankful to our Heavenly Father for the countless blessings He has blessed Lydia and our family with!!!

Almost There

Our insurance problems are over with on July 8th. It has been hard to not take Lydia out places because of this fear of getting stuck with a large bill. It has been a blessing at how healthy she has been. That makes us want to take her out, but we don't want her to get sick and end up at the hospital. I dread the day she has to go back to the hospital. I know that she will have to some day. It is just the nature of the beast.
It has been a relief having the transplant done. I must say though that it still take a long time to care for her. It gets better and better each day. She is just starting to crawl. She has been scooting around funny for a while. This makes her able to entertain herself so much more. She loves to just scoot down the hall and go into the kids rooms to find fun things to play with.
We took her to church today for the first time since the transplant. It was so nice to finally be there all together as a family. I must say she was the nosiest kid in sacrament meeting.
The amount of doctor visits and medicine are slowly decreasing. We started therapy for her eating disorder. Hopefully we can really get down to business with the next visit. She chews up everything we give her. She still will only swallow water. We think that she is swallowing some things more and more but it is really hard to say with how much she spits up. One day she will get it down. Since everything that has happened to her seems to be slow I am just going to mentally deposit in my brain that this will take a long time also. It makes me less frustrated when I do that.