Plans for the year

We've been trying to get some things planned and scheduled out for the year. I realize that with the way our life works that's nearly impossible, but we really want to get to go on a vacation or two with the kids this year. We do have two planned. One is to Charleston and Myrtle Beach, SC. We're hoping for early summer as long as it's not too close to Ari's maintenance surgery. We're hoping to get her to the beach and let her play. This would also be Lily's first beach trip. Hopefully all goes well with that. Our second trip we're planning is to Florida. We promised Ari that since she's been so brave through all the surgery we would try to visit Mickey some time soon. This one we're hoping for towards the end of the year after her second maintenance surgery this year. We just have to make sure they're far enough out from the surgeries so that she can actually have fun on the trips. With restrictions like not being able to get her back wet and no running, jumping, twisting, etc. we're hoping that everything falls as we expect for the schedule of surgeries. It will most likely be two surgeries this year, but there is an off change that the second one will be pushed out until next year. That would be great for everyone, but it depends on how fast she is growing. The faster she grows, the more surgeries she needs. I'm sure we'll be getting ahold of some people in April once we know how long Ari will be out of school. The first surgery was five days in the hospital and six weeks at home. The second was three days at the hospital and two weeks at home. Hopefully, this will just be overnight at the hospital and a day or two at home. I'm not too sure its going to be that simple. I have a feeling they're going to need to do some repair work in the lower left rod again. She's been complaining about it a lot recently. I'm hoping she just doesn't like feeling a bump there and she's not in pain. Of course, everything is harder to get done with our new insurance. Before if the doctor wanted x-rays, he sent her to the next room to get them and the results were available immediately. Now, I have to go to a special, approved office to get the x-rays. That means heading out of the city, go to the office, wait in line for our turn, get the x-rays by someone who doesn't know her like the techs at Hopkins do (she is a bit picky about how everything has to be done), waiting for the x-rays and bring then in the the next appointment instead of everything being done at once. While the costs are pretty good with this insurance, it requires a lot of pre-approvals (I can't get my glucometer strips without my doctor getting pre-approval. Seriously???), compromises on medicine and running around. I'll take it since it's the only option I have, but as annoying as my last insurance was at times (They made a lot of mistakes on approvals. I was constantly on the phone with them getting things resubmitted), everything was covered and convenient.

Pictures: Two pics of the girls.

February, the kids and Westley.

February is moving along rather quickly. There's just too much to do with the little free time we have. We're trying to get the office usable as Lily's room for now. It's not decorated for a girl, but its still nice. We just have way too little space for all the furniture we have in the house right now. We need to sell some of it off. That's part of what were doing in the rest of the house. Reorganizing everything so both kids fit into the space we have. I realize our house isn't small, but it seems a lot smaller with two kids. And a lot harder to keep up. We're getting through, but its rough with everything we need to get done. Ari will have a visit from the county next Friday to re-evaluate her to see what services she's eligible for. With all her back surgery, she's further behind on gross motor skills. We'll see what they say on everything else.
Lily will be moving up to the mid-infants room soon. She's quite mobile at this point, but not yet walking. She has one tooth with a second on the way, so there's been aot of crying as of late. Of course, Ari sees this and realizes Lily gets attention so she's been imitating her as of late :) Frustrating at points, but not something we didn't see coming. She's a good big sister overall. She loves Lily and is always giving her hugs, but she does get jealous at times. Again, this was not unexpected.
We found a new daycare for Westley. He went to Lucky Stars out in Hampstead for five years and they loved him there, but since I don't go anywhere near there anymore, we needed to find somewhere new for during the week. So far he likes it. It's funny, but they have a camera set up so you can watch the dogs during the day. Westley spent a lot of time trying to get on to the lap of whoever was watching the dogs at the time. They loved him there so he'll be going back again tomorrow. We're probably going to start with 2-3 times a week and see how it goes from there.

Updates

   We're well in to the new year at this point. The family is doing well and we're getting into doctor appointment season. Ari has all of her yearly visits with her doctors coming up. Two in March and one in April. The fourth doctor isn't even taking appointments until June, so who knows when that one will be, but it needs to be sooner that later. The April appointment is for her back. We'll find out when the next surgery will be then. This should just be an adjustment surgery, so everyone keep their fingers crossed and keep Ari in your prayers on that one.

   At this point, as I have time, I'm going to actually start posting here more often. I'm going to use this at the place to post larger amounts of pictures that I have of the family. I'll put links up periodically and I already have a few if you look back at the older posts. I'll try to start off the post title with "Pictures:" so you don't have to go looking over all the posts. I'll try to put a note up on facebook now and then when I put up some pics. Also, I am on Google+ for anyone using that. It is nice, if severely underused. (It also integrates well with this blog, so it makes things easier on me). 

   Here are some updates on the kids.

   Ariana is still going to school every day with mommy. She's in the threes class now and doing generally well. She tends to get very touchy about her back and has her good and bad days. We're trying to keep all of her services going at this point (a Physical Therapist, Occupational Therapist and a special teacher to help her with adjusting to school with her back and muscle problems). The problem is she gets her services at school, which is in a different county from where we live. The state has cut the funding that allowed counties to work with each other on this, so once she turns four her services end until we move her in to a school in our county. Of course that means starting over with all new therapists and testing and all that. Plus if we move out of county, that will start over again at that point. So, we're currently weighing all of our options and seeing what we come up with. For now it will most likely mean moving her to a new school...

   Lily is doing well. She's crawling and trying to pull herself up. She'll be ten months old soon. She's going to school with mommy as well. Still in the infants room but she'll probably be moving up to the next room soon enough, once she's mobile enough. Her doctor's expect her to be up and walking very soon. I can wait in that one for now :) She was baptized last month at Amanda's church (which is where Ari was baptized and we were married almost six years ago now). 

   As for us, I just started a new job a few weeks ago. Its going well so far. The only annoyance was having to change insurance. That's almost all taken care of. Just need to find a new doctor for the kids. Amanda is still teaching the three year olds and they are pretty rough this year. Otherwise things are going well. I'll work on getting some more pics up here soon and hopefully remember to add an update periodically for everyone.