Blue Eyes

I am often stunned at the gorgeous shade of blue that Julia and Emma have for their eyes. Everyone always comments on Emma's eyes as she uses them so expressively that you can't help but notice them. What people sometimes don't notice is that Julia has the same shade of blue eyes. When she was little people would stop us on the street to comment on Julia's blue eyes, but now that she is a toddler and rarely sitting still it's hard to notice them as they go by in a whirlwind of toddlerhood!

I took a photo of Julia on Christmas Eve as we were leaving the house for Church. She was sitting still since she was buckled in her car seat and looked at me when I called her name just in time for me to snap her photo. Although there was a lot of background in this picture, when I saw it I could only focus on her gorgeous eyes. I love this photo and I wanted to add it to this journal so I would remember it later.

I love you, my little blue eyed Julia.

Another year

Today is my birthday. I've been overwhelmed with Happy Birthday wishes from so many people and I feel very blessed to have so many people care about me. I just love birthdays! There is something wonderful about celebrating the day we entered the world.

Today I was able to spend the morning and afternoon with Julia while Chris took Emma for her HBOT treatment. We had a wonderful time and Julia really blossomed in all the one-on-one time with Mommy. Although we make one-on-one time a regular part of our routine for both girls, for some reason today felt extra special. I know we both felt it. We spent the morning running a few errands, playing at an indoor amusement park with some of Julia's friends and selecting a couple new Leapster games at Toys R Us. When we came home we were happy to see that Emma and Chris had just arrived back and the girls took a nap. Tonight we went to dinner together and laughed a lot. As a family. What a perfect way to spend the day! Now I'm ready to tackle another year.

Photo Collage

Chris gave me an online photo editing course as a Christmas present this year and I love it! I just completed the online classes and have started editing some recent photos. What I learned is that it takes a lot of time to edit the photos just right!

That means that I will probably only edit a select group of the zillions of photos I take and will *try* (please go easy on me as free time is few and far between around here!) and optimize the photos I post on this blog. After all, if you only see a few of the photos I take I want them to look their best. Of course this could all lead to a better camera for next year's Christmas list.....but I digress.

I just put together this photo collage to showcase a couple of recent photos of Julia. She is such a beauty inside and out!

Christmas Joy

We hope everyone had a Merry Christmas! We certainly had a wonderful time. We are so very blessed this year. Everyone is relatively healthy and we were surrounded by our family for both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Everywhere we look people seem to have large smiles on their faces and we certainly have felt the spirit of the season this year.

In holding with our Christmas tradition, we went to Church with my parents. Emma loves going to Church and Christmas was no exception. She was SO HAPPY to see everyone at church. It was very crowded with people and Emma shined her smile on everyone! Her smile is infectious and it seemed to me that her smile certainly brightened the day for everyone who saw her at church. After mass we headed to my parents house and everyone had a lot of fun as we ate, played, visited with Santa, sang Christmas carols and opened presents.

Julia was very excited about Baby Jesus' birthday and she sang Happy Birthday as we placed him in our nativity. This year seems to be magical for Julia. She understands more about Jesus' birth story and often tells Emma the story with help from her First Christmas book. It is so cute! She also helped me gather some food for the food bank and presents for the toy drive for those less fortunate than us this holiday season. She is starting to understand how lucky we are to have so much and she has such a generous, giving heart that selecting toys and food for those less fortunate made her very happy.

We also talked about Santa this year, but since Julia is still a bit *terrified* of Santa our focus stayed on Baby Jesus. However, she was so excited on Christmas morning to see everything Santa left for her and Emma. It was so cute! She told me that Santa Claus must know her very well since he knew just what she would like - he brought her so many things that she just loves!

As for Emma, she was a bit wiped out on Christmas morning and would probably have slept late if we didn't wake her to check out the presents with Julia. She seemed to like most of her gifts, but headed off for a nap pretty quickly so she could rest up before we headed off to Chris' family for Christmas dinner and lots more fun!

We wish you a very Merry Christmas as you celebrate this wonderful time of year!

HBOT day 1 and 2

We've been investigating hyperbaric oxygen treatment (HBOT) for the past few months and this week decided to give it a try with Emma. The place we are using is within driving distance, but it's a bit of a long drive at about 1 hr. 40min. each way. The drive is beautiful - through Lancaster County, PA complete with rolling hills, animals and farms, and the Amish community driving their buggies - but it is still a long round trip drive. Oh, and did I mention that we have about a foot of snow on the ground right now? Well, lucky for us the roads in PA are really well kept and pretty clear for driving. Unlike the road in front of my house, but that's another matter all together.

We were glad that Chris had off from work due to snow so he could tour the facility with me before we made our decision. The doctor of hyperbaric medicine was there along with the nurse to answer our many questions. Afterwards, they offered for Emma to start that day if we were interested. We felt as comfortable as we would probably get so we decided to take them up on the offer.

When we arrived there were three people receiving HBOT. One was a young Amish girl and Emma was going to use the chamber that she used. I was nervous about starting this treatment with Emma and had to think to myself how nervous the Amish family getting a treatment for their little girl must have been before their first session! That calmed me down a bit.

The chamber is pretty small and Chris went into it with Emma for the first session. I posted a photo so you can see just how cozy the chamber is with not much room to even move your arms around when laying on your side. Emma seemed to love looking around at everything going on in the room and wasn't the least bit phased by the cramped quarters. Chris chewed some gum to clear his ears and didn't complain too much about the small space so the first session was a rousing success.

Today we went for another session - just me and Emma. When they started to put me into the chamber I panicked and had them pull us back out. We moved to a different chamber where we were loaded feet first instead of head first. I was still nervous and panicked, but managed to hold it together for about 30 minutes and just kept wondering how on Earth I would be able to go in with Emma for another 38 sessions! At about 30 minutes - pretty much when everyone was convinced I had settled down and was over the hump of my nervousness - I asked them to stop and let us out. Emma was fine and happy as can be, but it was me that needed out. I felt like I let Emma down but she seemed happy as ever and not nearly as sad as me.

After a bit of discussion we decided to let Emma try the chamber solo. Chris and I had been giving her a bottle to help clear her ears during pressurization but she really didn't seem like she needed it. We all felt that Emma seemed quite capable of clearing her ears on her own and that meant that I was not necessarily needed to give Emma a bottle in the chamber. We propped up a couple of pillows so Emma could see all around and added a couple of blankets on either side of her to keep her in place a bit more. We also covered her with a blanket since she wouldn't have the extra body in there to keep her warm. Then she entered the chamber for the remaining 30 minutes of the treatment. She did GREAT! Smiling the whole time, looking all around, watching a bit of tv, laughing at a bit of peek-a-boo I played with her. We even put a mirror on top so she could look at herself and she kept moving both arms to touch herself in the mirror. I was nervous with her alone in the chamber and didn't leave her side, but she really seemed happy and was moving her arms all around in a manner that she wouldn't be able to do if someone else was in there with her. So, I think it worked out OK after all.

We have another session scheduled for tomorrow and then a few days break for Christmas. The plan for tomorrow is to see how Emma does on her own again since I just don't think that I can get over my claustrophobia and join her. I used to think that I could do just about anything for love of my little girl, but I guess I'm learning that sometimes I just have to be a bit more creative to get to the same end result.

I'm going to keep a log of any changes we see in Emma during her HBOT treatments so you might see an update from me on HBOT in about a month.