Bits & Pieces

Can you believe October is half over?

I'm a bit excited because the end of October signifies some fun stuff for us.  Not only do I get to eat all my kid's Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, but I've been promised that Halloween is when the weather starts staying perfectly perfect.  Oh yea, and it's when my family starts rolling into Arizona for the Winter!  I may be scheming ways to be with them every day without wearing out my welcome.

Anyways, we are headed to the state fair today and I'm planning to do a lot of eating.  So while I go find my stretchy pants, here some bits and pieces of life from this past week.

It's been gorgeous here.

Last week we had one day in the high 90's, but since then it's been high 80's to low 90's with no humidity and a wonderful breeze.  Not quite the Fall of our past, but I've been able to leave the air off and the windows open so I'll take it.  It's funny how fast we all forgot the grossness of Arizona Summer once it went away.

Let us commence the next 7 months living outside.

josie's jeans and long sleeves are totally unnecessary.  it's cooling off, but not that much.

Need a good devotional?

I bought this one after reading "Give Them Grace" and it's a great one.  We have been reading one of the stories and questions during breakfast each day.  It's quick and to the point and perfect for young elementary kids.  Gabe answers every question with random facts about football, but God's word never comes back void, so I guess he's still getting something out of it, amiright?!

School and sensory tubs and doors open and clown suits. 

These are a few of my favorite things.

Fall is for baking.

This day it was whole wheat pancakes.  With chocolate chips.  Because life is about balance.  Last night I ordered a whole wheat bun on my bacon cheeseburger and the server audibly laughed at my refusal of a white bun.  Listen dude, I get it but it makes me feel better so lay off.

I want to be a mom that encourages her children to play music.

Really I do.  But this thing is loud.  Maybe lessons outside the home are more my speed.

Gabe had his first appointment with his new cardiologist yesterday.

I hate change and this office did things a bit different.  Nothing major, just little things like putting the EKG stickers in different spots.  I'm sure that has no bearing on the results, but it made me miss our old doctors.

Most of my nitpicking ended pretty fast when a big, beautiful 100 popped up on the pulse ox monitor.  I know a lot of you don't get what that means to us, but before Gabe's last heart surgery, he never, ever, ever hit about 86 on his Oxygen levels.  So a full, normal 100 was exciting!  The Fontan is working!

The ECHO showed that his heart function (his heart has always had trouble fully squeezing with each pump) is improving.  That was also pretty exciting.  This new cardiologist was awesome about explaining things to me.  He had me sit right next to him as he looked over the ECHO shots and showed me what everything was we were looking at.  I've been a Heart Mom for 4 years now and I've never understood what's going on in his heart as much as I do now.  I'm thinking this doctor is going to be good for us.

We celebrated with Subway.  I keep trying to convince him to step up his game when I say we can eat wherever he wants, but Subway is his jam.

The only hiccup in our appointment was that Gabe still has a Junctional Rhythm.

In extreme layman's terms, that means the electric waves in his heart don't follow the path they are supposed to which can lead to some yucky stuff, including the need for a pacemaker.  We learned he had this a couple of years ago, but it was minor enough that no action was needed.  Our new doctor doesn't feel like it's any reason for concern, but wanted to get a good baseline reading so he sent us home with a 24 hour Holter Monitor.

Basically, he hooked Gabe up to a mobile EKG machine and handed him a cell phone that transmits the data back to a monitoring service.  As you can see, Gabe is pretty stoked about his new phone.

sometimes i look at my phone like this too.

We did this when Gabe was 2 (minus the cell phone) and I was pleasantly surprised at how well he did not messing with the wires and transmitters, but was skeptical about how it would go this go round.  But he's doing awesome.  He's pretty proud of it and checks his phone for "twext massages" on the regular.  He even wore it at t-ball last night.

I'm expecting the results to be perfectly fine and we will resume life as usual.

Time to head to the fair!  

Have a good Wednesday friends!