Independent

Lately, Zoey has been very interested in her clothes, especially shoes. She LOVES shoes. She has also decided that she should be able to dress herself...all by herself! The first day this happened, I wasn't prepared to give her choices of what to wear. I got her shirt on her, but she was going to do the bottom half--ALL BY HERSELF and there was nothing I could do about it! This is what she looked like when she was done!



Isn't her outfit adorable! Ha ha! I thought for a minute that wearing sweaters as pants might just catch on and be the new style, but it turns out that having to hold up the sweater so it doesn't fall down gets tiring! She decided after about 10 minutes of wearing this fabulous outfit that she would let me put on the real pants I had gotten out for her to wear that day!

A Few Pics

I know, I know....I am a terrible blogger. I admit. So tonight, I am fulfilling a promise I made to Shelese to update! :) I have more pics, but my card reader isn't working tonight, so these are pics from my phone.

Zoey LOVES cooking! She always wants to be the one to put the ingredients into the bowl. Then of coarse, licking the bowl is always a plus too!


This is her begging for a brownie, the next day!


She has became such a girly girl lately! I have to bribe her by painting her nails in order for her to sit still long enough for me to cut them! She loves jewelry too, and likes getting her hair done. Ok, let me rephrase that, she likes it when her hair is done, but doesn't like the process of getting it done. Afterwards, she will go look in the mirror and say, "Pretty!"


She has become quite the little mommy lately. She got 5 baby dolls for Christmas, and she makes sure all of them are being taken care of. It is so cute to watch her take care of them!


We babysat a friend's baby a few weeks ago. Zoey LOVED it! She insisted that she was the one to take care of him. I let her hold the bottle, but that was about it. She wanted to pick him up, pat his back, change his diaper, etc. She would get upset when he cried, and I wouldn't let her be the one to pick him up to love him better!


Zoey is going to nursery now, and LOVES it! Mommy and Daddy are loving that too! No more trying to chase her during Sunday School, Preisthood, and Relief Society! Ahhh....so nice!

Zoey completed her last dose of medicine from surgery this week. She will be going in for an echo at the end of the month to make sure her heart is working well without the meds! Yippee! Hopefully, we will stay off of them!

Well, that is it this time around! Hopefully I can get my card reader to work and I can get all the pics off my camera!

Happy Halloween!

We had a great Halloween! Zoey loved her costume and was constantly saying, "baa." We went to our ward's trunk or treat Saturday morning. She caught on to it pretty quickly and loved going to each car and picking out candy. I made her costume and am pretty proud of it since it is the first project with a pattern I have ever finished without my mom or a home economics teacher's help!

She had a cardiology appointment on Friday, October 26th. It was a very good appointment! She was taken off oxygen during the day and only needs it at night now! The cardiologist was not happy with her weight, but we are working on it! Currently, she is not on the charts and is 18 lbs 2 oz last time she was checked. If she hasn't improved by the end of November she will be getting a feeding tube. At first this news upset me, but it has had time to sink in now and I am ok with it if it becomes necessary. There are much worse things in life than a feeding tube! We will go in for an echo the first part of December.

Tomorrow....A little late!

Ok so in my last post, I said i would post again "tomorrow." Well, "tomorrow" has finally came! :)
Zoey is doing really well! We struggled for several weeks with super bad separation anxiety. For the first week, separation anxiety meant if I was further than arms reach. We worked to in the same room, and finally now I can leave her with a babysitter. She had separation anxiety at night too. She slept in our room in her pack-in-play for about 6 weeks after getting home. She started to sleep in her own bed just last week! :) Exciting day!
Having the oxygen hasn't been NEARLY as bad as I thought it was going to be. Zoey does very well with having it on, and actually gets mad when it comes out. It must make her feel tons better to have it in. The one thing I am not quite used to yet about the oxygen is going in public. Before, no one could even tell that there was anything wrong with Zoey. She looked like a normal baby. It is different now that everyone can tell just by looking at her that she has had problems. People make funny comments too, and I am getting used to all of that! I am glad that she isn't any older than she is, some comments I am glad she doesn't understand they are talking about her.
Zoey does so well about taking her medicine! When we open the fridge and she sees the meds, she will even reach for them! So funny!
We have really struggled with Zoey's weight and appeitie. I know that this is a normal "heart baby" thing and eventually, maybe, we will get her back on the chart. She still lost weight even after we got home. Then one week she gained 9 oz! We were thrilled. She has lost some of that though, and now weighs only 7 more oz than she did when we left the hospital. We add whipping cream to her whole milk, put butter on EVERYTHING, and try to get her to eat ANYTHING! I never thought I would feed my kid as much junk food as I do, but sometimes it is the only thing I can get into her mouth! Sometimes she even refuses all food including the junk! I give her a sippy with whole milk mixed with cream and chocolate carnation instant breakfast. It is SO GOOD! She hardly touches it! She has no idea how good she has it! :)
She really regressed after surgery with walking, but she caught back up to where she was last week. She is now walking all over the place! She talks a lot too, although it is difficult to make out any words of what she is saying. One of my favorite things she does is put my cell phone to her head and walks around the house just jabboring like crazy! So cute!
Well, we have a check up next week! I am very anxious for that! I need to post some pics soon, but I don't have my camera with me right now to do that!

WE ARE HOME!!!!

We got home today at about 2:00 PM. Zoey was especially happy to be home! All morning, we had been talking about going home and Zoey just kept reaching for the door with this attitide of "Well, why haven't we left yet?!?!" It is so nice to be home! Zoey has already done so much better here!
I am exhausted from our 12 day stay at the hospital (including surgery day). It is only 9 PM, but I am going to bed! I will post more tomorrow! In the meantime, enjoy these cute pics! All pictures were taken on Saturday, except the last one was taken today!

Post Op Day 10

Today has been a great day! We had a good night sleep last night (a full 6 hours straight)! During the morning rounds today, the doctors discussed Zoey's weight. She has lost quite a bit here and has continued to loose. Zoey hasn't been eating too much which has been a big concern. The doctors decided to see how today went, but that she would probably eat much better at home. The hope is that we will go home tomorrow!
We have spent a lot of time today eating! Well, at least trying to eat. I am really hoping that tomorrow morning she will have gained and then they would for sure send us home! We had a lot of fun today eating and playing!
I see so many sad stories up here, that I think I often forget about how much good is done at this hospital. There are a lot of sad stories, but there are also so many very happy ones! I am so grateful we live so close to such a wonderful place!
I have some very cute pictures of today to post, but for some reason my card reader isn't working right now! I will have to post them tomorrow.

Post Op Day 9

Last night was a long night! After Zoey fell back asleep after vitials, she had a 2:00 AM feeding. That wasn't bad and she did fall back asleep afterwards. At 4 AM a lady came in to take her blood! Are you serious?!?! It is 4 AM and you are waking her up to poke her?!? Well, after that she was very upset and I couldn't get her to go back to sleep. At 5:30 AM I gave up on trying to get her to sleep because I knew she had an x-ray at 6:00 AM she would wake up for. As soon as I gave up on trying to get her to sleep, she fell asleep. It didn't last long because they were actually early coming to get her for her x-ray. We were done with x-ray by 6:00 AM and slept until 8! It was the longest block of sleep we got all night!
Zoey threw up her breakfast, but started keeping food down in the afternoon! She hasn't thrown up since! :) Eating has made all the differance in the world! We even got a few smiles today! They did take out Zoey's NG tube today. Not because she was eating well enough to take it out, but because they thought that she might not have been eating and drinking because she didn't feel like she needed to. I also felt like she was becoming to dependant on it. About an hour after they took it out Zoey started drinking!

I had friends from work come to visit today! Thanks Shannon and Nicole for the visit and thank you my team for the nice gifts!