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We're Back!!!

I know it has been forever since I have posted on the blog but these last five months have been very crazy! We have had to make several major changes in our lifestyle in order to incorporate such a blessing into our lives. I think the hardest part of all of this has been just getting organized and making sure we stay on schedule! Anyways a quick update on the girls!

Addison Grace

Can you believe she is almost three? Where has time gone? She is so full of life these days! She now has a very full vocabulary, which I must admit on some days I wish it was not so "full". We are still working on potty training. She just does not care to use the potty. I feel like I have tried everything except being extremely stern about it. Any advice? Trust me we have tried to bribe, to be relaxed, taking her every 30 minutes, putting her in big girl panties, pretty much the whole nine yards.

She is now fully in a "big" girl gymnastics. She seems to like it for the most part. She likes the trampoline the best and then I would say the bars. She hates the floor exercises though! She is also becoming very comfortable with her teachers and therefore has sort of become the ring leader of her little group in class. While it is entertaining to watch at times, I do have to admit that I feel bad for her teachers when she gets to going!

She is fully in love with her sister and is not afraid to let you know about it. She does not like it when Karter gets shots, blood taken, or anything that might cause pain to her sister. In fact she has been known to give the Doctors and Nurses a piece of her mind. As well as they know Karter from our visits they are also becoming very acquainted with "Miss Addison". I love the fact that she is her sisters protector. I will also have to say that Addison has probably spent less time away from Karter, since we have been home , then either Jeremy or I. Where Addison goes, Karter goes and vise versa.

Baby Karter Bear

(As Addison pronounces her name)

Karter is now 9 months old and is fully acting like a baby should be! She can roll over from side to side, almost sit up by herself, push up fully extended on her arms, and is now working on getting her legs under her enough so that she can begin to crawl! She is in therapy three days a week with the most wonderful group of people one might ever know. They have given her so much of their time and have pushed her to get her to where she is now. They are simply amazing! She now, however, has developed a slight attitude with them whenever she does not feel like doing something that day. It is quite funny to watch! I believe the funniest thing she has started to do lately, is laugh when someone is in trouble or is crying. She especially finds it extra funny when her sister is in trouble and is crying!! She is one of the happiest babies I have ever known. She does not cry unless something is really wrong. It is very rare for her to cry even once a day. She is now eating baby food at a constant rate. Although, she does not care for your typical baby food so most of the time she eats yogurt or something that I have mashed up from our food. And the occasional ice cream her daddy sneaks her out of the kitchen.

She recently had her cardiologist visit and did extremely well at her check-up. He did determine though that she was getting chunky enough so he dropped the calories on her formula from 30 kl/cal to 24 kl/cal. This is still above normal but is just enough to allow her to grow without becoming obese. Obese seems like such an awkward word to use for a baby. I think the more fat on a baby the better, but due to her heart this will not be the case. The only new development we received from her heart doctor is that they are probably going to push her second surgery up. In September they had estimated that she would not require any more surgery until she was 3 possibly 4....at this appointment they said to prepare ourselves for surgery in 9-18 months. Okay so now you may be wondering why? Well Miss Karter's leak on her left side of her repair is starting to become a little bit stronger than they anticipated. Therefore while they are trying to get her as big as possible (to replace the conduit they attached in the first surgery) they are now more concerned about her leak. Jeremy and I just want whatever is best for her! She has also been placed on thyroid medicine to help her grow at a better rate. Her thyroid was slowly and steady becoming hyper active in which it was over producing. Thankfully her new medicine has now steadied that out.

Over the next few days I will be making a few other post on what we have been doing these last few months. From Halloween to Christmas I would love to share with you their most treasured events.

Thank you for allowing us to take time off from the blog to get our life back in order! It was greatly needed!

Love,

The McHams!

Empowering those with Special Needs through Cheer

Since entering the world of "special needs" I have learned that there is not much for these kiddos to take part in due to their conditions. While there are some programs offered for these children there, in my opinion, is still a gap in Tyler for activities for these amazing fighters. Therefore I have decided to take on an enormous challenge with the help of Gym Tyler Gymnastics. We are going to put together a special needs cheer team. There are many All-Star organizations who have already done this and have shown a huge success with community involvement. The main thing here is going to be generating enough donations to help these kiddos. While we can donate our time and services there are other costs associated with being on a cheer team that we would like to have donated so that these parents do not have to endure any more costs. A lot of these parents are already working two jobs to afford the medical bills and other things they have inquired. My main reason for writing this blog is to be able to generate some contacts in which we could use to help pay for the cost of their uniforms, shoes, competition fees, etc. We will be providing quality training along with their training facility. We will be keeping the cost of uniforms as low as possible but would like to be able to provide them with some kind of uniform so that they can have this memento to cherish.

Any information on how to generate some sponsorships for this dear project would be greatly appreciated. Also if you would like to help in any other way please let me know as well! Thanks for all your time and support!

Love,

Tara McHam

Teeth, teeth, & more teeth!

So this week Karter has not had any significant changes! Whoo Hoo!!! She is still strong and doing great! I do believe that she is starting to teeth! The crazy thing is she has two white bulbs where her eye teeth are in her mouth. I could of sworn that they get their middle front and bottom teeth first but hey Karter has not done anything by the books thus far I am assuming teething will be no different. Speaking of teeth, Addison Grace used her teeth in the most unappropriate fashion this week. Let me start at the beginning of this story and let you know that she had been begging me for "another" Popsicle. She had already had her one for the day so I told her no. She then continued to beg so I decided instead of popping her bottom I would just keep telling her no and then ignore the question. Upon figuring out what I was doing she decided to one up me and get my attention quickly. It started with a cry from Karter and then Addison saying, "baby Karter is hurt". I immediately turn my attention to Karter (this whole time I had been dusting in the room) and start to look her over to check for the source of pain. You must know that Karter never cries unless something is terribly wrong. Upon my examination I notice this nice set of teeth imprints on her left foot. Knowing that it could not have been Karter who bit herself I began to question Addison on why there might be teeth marks on her little sister. She then proceeds to tell me exactly how it is, much of which I could not understand and probably would not want to understand. After a small popping and some time out she decided it in her best interest to apologize to Karter for using her to drawl my attention back to her. She is such a goof ball! I can not wait till we are passed these TERRIBLE twos!!

New for us this week is Addison's new insomnia habit. She can not sleep for anything!!! I have tried everything!!! Jeannie did suggest a book that I will be consulting in the near future! Addison has not gone to bed before 1:00 am this week, well with the exception of tonight! Then she is waking up very early, taking a small nap during the day, playing hard, and still not tired at night. Hopefully this will pass soon!

So today we had our first big Holy Moly incident. When heading out of the house this afternoon I had both girls out the door and was beginning to take Karter and the tank down the stairs when BOOM! I was laid out at the bottom of our steps. Mind you it is only three steps down. Karter thankfully was in her carrier and landed right side up while the tank and I took the brute of the fall. My ankle tonight is very sore and minus a cut here and there I am okay too. The tank was also OK only chipping off some of the paint on the can. Addison immediately came down the steps to check things out and was more worried about my necklace (which has a magnetic connector) being thrown off of my neck. She kept asking if the necklace was OK. After getting over the initial shock and confirming that I had not broken my foot I picked everything back up and we got in the car. I am just so grateful that Karter was not hurt!!

Tonight I do ask that you send up prayers for a very special little warrior. Her name is Haven Grace and she received a new heart this past week. The Lord has been by her side the whole time and she is recovering beautifully! Praise the Lord for the wonderful work he does through our youngest troopers!

Much Love!

Tara McHam

P.S. Ear appointment for Karter is this coming Friday! I just pray that the Lord will see us through this next challenge as we prepare for the worst but hope for the best.

Cherish Today

Today we will paint

I promise not to faint!

Today we will pretend

Today we will rock

I promise not to go into shock

Today while you suck your thumb

I promise to never let my heart go numb

Today as you smile and hug

I promise not to become a big blub

Today as you thrive

I promise to never leave your side...

This week has been nothing short of A-M-A-Z-I-N-G! We received great news at the cardiologist! Karter's heart surgery is still a success. She is still going to be on oxygen for another few weeks and she still needs to gain weight at a faster rate BUT her heart is doing just great!!

Karter did have to get some shots this week and those caused her to have some fever and typical shot after effects but so far this has been a great week! Her PT & OT session this week went great! We missed two sessions (one because of the cardiologist appt. & another one because of her being sick from her shots) this week but at the one session she attended she did wonderful!

All in all Karter is finally able to be a normal baby for the most part! She is starting to show signs of her teeth coming in which is just crazy to me! It does not seem like she is four months already! Where did the time go??? Oh yea it went to Children's! Haha! :)

This week we had lots of fun! Addison painted a picture frame border with black paint and became covered from head to toe! It was lots of fun to watch her! We had some great company when Dustin & Philana came over! Parker and Addison each got a new guitar and played us lots of music throughout the evening! Parker even tried on Addison's pink earphones to play telephone operator! I am so glad that Addison has so many young friends her age that can come over and play. I still think she needs some outlets like these play dates in order for her to cope with our new routine of doctor appointments almost everyday. I am not going to know what to do with my time when we do not have to go all the time! I am sure I can find a good way to spend it though, especially with my girls & our recliner! Addison and Jeremy were also able to enjoy our slip-n-slide this week. I believe Jeremy got a huge workout for he slid her across the slippery slide about 100 times! She is starting to become daddy's little girl which kind of breaks my heart. I know she will always love me but I thought I might be able to fight off the inevitable daddy's little girl title. Guess not, at least I can try to with Karter!

Tonight as I am writing this I am going to ask for some prayers for an old friend of mine. She just had a precious baby with a heart defect and down syndrome. My heart breaks for her as I know how hard the beginning is to this journey. At the same time my heart is beaming with joy that she is going to be able to experience some of the most amazing things with her child. Please add them to your prayer list along with Karter.

God Bless & Love,

Tara McHam

P.S. This week tragedy struck an amazing family. This family is in my every thought and prayer as they endure one of life's hardest curve balls. May the Lord bring peace to the Ross family as they grieve a Father/Husband/Grandfather, and a Son/Grandson/Nephew. Nothing in this world will be able to ease their pain, but through the Lord's loving embrace may they find peace. Please forget about that load of laundry, the dirty kitchen, the lawn that needs mowing and spend some extra time with the ones you love.

A smile from my girls shows the Lord's true grace!

I am very happy to announce that Karter is now smiling A LOT more!! She was smiling quite a bit before her surgery but somehow lost it, but it is back! She is by no means smiling all the time but she is smiling a lot more everyday. God is awesome, a smile from my girls shows me this daily!

So we finally were able to get our test results back in to determine which type of Downs Syndrome Karter has been diagnosed with for medical intentions. If you missed our previous post there are basically two types, the famila and non-famila. The famila type can happen if one of the parents has some type of glitch in one of their chromosomes and leads to greater chances of having another child with this syndrome, while the non-famila type is basically just a complete random act. According to their test Karter has the non-famila kind, this to me just signifies God's great plan for us. We are one of the lowest chances and also one of the youngest couples to have a child with Downs syndrome. There is no medical rhyme or reason for it, it just happened.

It always shocks me daily on how at ease I have become with telling people about Karter. Sometimes I even forget to mention that she has Downs syndrome, and I think that this is in large part because I sometimes completely forget myself . She to me is my sweet Karter Bear. I am not going to lie though and say that I do not have "those" days. To put it in other terms I feel as if I am slowly making my way up to the top of the mountain with our new life. There are always a few rocks that fall, and some slips here and there but for the main part I can almost see the peak. Karter's appearance is now showing more facial attributes of a Downs baby. Her physical capabilities are also starting to prevail with some key signs. She is making good strides in the right direction, in large part to her physical & occupational therapy. At the tender age of four months she is not able to hold her head up or even attempt to be seated up with just the reassurance of our hands behind her back. She is still very floppy and these tasks are very hard for her right now. It is sometimes hard to watch her struggle so much to do what should be very natural by now. She is a good fighter though! She has now learned how to keep her hands together for a better part of the day, before she use to just let them hang out to the side. With her new found skill she has mastered two things. She can for one suck her thumb perfectly, and now she is also able to ripe out her oxygen. This has kept me very busy and has lead me to keep tape around me at all times for a quick repair! I am glad though that she is finally showing her little rebel personality.

So it finally happened. Last night Addison finally had a two year old moment and swatted poor Karter on the head. I had give Miss Karter a beaded necklace to play with, and apparently it belonged to Addison. So after discovering that Karter had the necklace Addison tried to take it away from her. Karter had a pretty good grip on the necklace and did not let go when Addison tugged which lead to a small pop from Addison to Karter on the head. After a moment of complete shock I gave Addison a "tap" of her own, and the put her in time out. Upon completing her time out sentence she came back over and gave baby Karter a sweet kiss, hug, and an apology. It was sweet to see that she actually had some remorse over the situation. I knew it was only a matter of time before something like this happened I just was hoping that it would be later rather than sooner. Other than this instance though Addison is very loving to "her" baby. By the way Karter was very tough during this incident and did not even cry, she just looked shocked herself!

All in all we are set to have a great weekend. We will be finishing up a garage sale with my mom tomorrow and then we plan on having a nice family day together. Karter is scheduled to go back to the cardiologist on Monday so I am going to try and rest up till then. Addison also has her first dentist visit earlier that day so it is going to be a long day!! We are still keeping our fingers crossed that Karter does not have to have a NG tube (feeding tube) put in on Monday. Although she gained an ounce or two this week they would have liked for her to gain more. She is eating really well but she is burning her calories a little too fast. So we will see, I know this too shall pass!

Love & God Bless,

The McHams'

Sugar me NOT!

So Addison & I attempted our first batch of homemade sugar cookies. I am a huge fan of the sugar cookies you get at the supermarket that have the colorful icing on them. They are fluffy and soft and the icing is oh so yummy! So this weekend I had the crazy thought that I could imitate these delectable cookies. Boy was I wrong! We found a recipe on the Internet that claimed to be soft fluffy sugar cookies so we tried it out. I should have known when it called for SIX cups of flour that these cookies would in the end taste much like flour. We followed the recipe to a "t" and then let the dough chill in the refrigerator like it called for them to do. After pulling the batter out we rolled them into big sticky balls and put them to bake in the oven. 10 minutes later we pulled out a cookie disaster!! These cookies looked like miniature beige mountains! They were huge and very puffy! Upon taking a glance of the outside we decided we would just try one out and see if the taste was better than it's rocky outside shell. This was probably the worst cookie I have ever tasted! It tasted like bread with a little sugar added in the ingredients. It was a nightmare! Needless to say we did not ice them but instead threw them all in the trash and ate some candy & ice cream instead! :)

On another note, Karter is doing great! Her PT went great on Monday and she is set to go again tomorrow. We also will meet with our geneticist tomorrow and go back for another weight check. At her last doctor appointment she had lost an ounce so hopefully we will have gained that ounce back plus more! If we do not show a pretty upward trend then she will have to get the NG tube on Monday the 9th at her next cardiologist appointment. But trust me, I plan on fattening up this little girl much more before then! The geneticist will be delivering the BIG news tomorrow to let us know if Jeremy & I may be a carrier of a gene that can lead to Downs or if this was just a complete once and a lifetime thing! Either way I am pretty sure that I will be able to come to term with it. :)

Addison and I will be trying more sugar cookies tomorrow night! Hopefully they will be tasty! If you have any recipes you would like to share with us we would be more than grateful!

Much Love,

Tara McHam