Resurrection cookies

 I've wanted to make these for a few years, and tonight we finally got round to them. 

There's a link here if you've never heard of them, it's a very visual tactile way of telling the Easter story to younger kids, while reading the scripture passages to them as you go along. 

Resurrection cookies

 

 

 

 

The finished product of tonight is these mounds of mixture.  We popped them in the oven, and then the girls sealed it up with tape and went to be sad that there was no eating tonight.

If they work, the mounds will be hollow in the morning, and we will celebrate the empty tomb of resurrection morning. 

May you know the truth of the empty tomb this Easter, Halleluiah Christ is Risen.

Perfect spring day.....

We spent lots of time outside.  It looks cold in the pics but was really very warm.  By the afternoon the babies we playing out in long sleeve t-shirts, vests and wellie's!

 

 Finding treasure, the usual kind, rocks, pinecones, old leaves, his sisters wet socks some chunks of ice.

 Sometimes playing together is fun....Phinn is happy if he can make some noise so sticks are the perfect toy.

 Pressies came, yum

 Double yum.

 There was much huffing and puffin giving sledge runs up and down the drive.....on the melted part of course as Hope had no boots on.  How is it that she was still singing at 9pm after so much effort????

 The girls made bird feeders with pinecones rolled in peanut butter and then bird seed.

Let's hope the little woodpecker and finches spot them before the magpies and crows and squirrels!

All the more special as we are due for more snow tomorrow and 0 degrees!

Wellie walking with a cast on!

 

 We went to the hospital today to get her cast changed and the wound checked. 

It's all looking well.  Well, unless you are five and then it is looking less than well.  Heidi did not enjoy the cast coming off, the leg and foot wash or the decision as to what colour her cast should be.  IN the end, Daddy picked and she is more than pleased with it.  I had to get some pics today while it is still looking lovely and perfect and pink....the other one didn't do that well with the abuse it took form little girls jumping around all over the place with it. 

 I wonder what it's like to have legs like these........

And the sweet Hopie is very sure that she has one foot bigger than the other, and she is heading for an MRI and surgery and all the fun things Heidi gets to do....... this pic certainly seems to prove it!  Cast shoes are not the most attractive thing are they?

Today was the first day that Heidi has had any kind of tears or sadness about this whole thing.  And when it came it all came at once and loudly.  Pray for her, as she works through it, and for us as we deal with her with humility as our beloved child, wisdom as to when to sympathise and jolly along and when enough is enough is greatly needed in my life.   I'm not sure that sentence makes any sense, but you get the idea!

Off to bed.......

There isn't much of an update really....she's still being told to slow it down, and pretty much medication free.  We are praising God for His goodness to us in this matter, it is so different to what I imagined it would be like.  Brings to mind the command not to worry about tomorrow as today has enough of its own. 

 

 

We are taking it gently today, lego, dolls, books, breadmaking and a bit of power tool usage for Mum!  Tom finally persuaded me that we needed to make some changes so my whole day was not picking everything they destroyed.  Cupboard fasteners were the order of today.  Hosea is less than impressed when he pulls and gets an inch or so of opening!! How will they pour bran flakes all over the floor?  I have been so reluctant, wanting to train them as to the boundaries, but perhaps now I will be able to do that when not all the day is spent reacting to chaos.  I have left a couple of non food cupboards undone for that purpose.  Using my new drill was pretty fun anyway, I want to build and build and build now, but guess that would take my time that I just got back from the whole bran flake clean up!

 

 We've been having some visitors recently, at all times of the day and night.  This was taken in the neighbours garden (alongside the polar bear the girls love to visit) but they go between the two yards.  It explains the foot prints up the hedge that never seemed to come back.  I thought the post man was being cheeky but I saw one of these lovelies leaping over the hedge so mystery solved.

And finally, aren't they precious.  Can't express how blessed we are.

It's not persuading her to walk that's hard.....

it's stopping her from running down the corridor!

We're dropping the pain meds down, the body is amazing.

 

 

 The day started early but the lovely Heidi was as chipper as ever.  She bounced in to the hospital and kept bouncing all the way to the holding bay. 

Her only wobble of the morning came just after our consultant Dr Harder had left  to go and finish getting ready, and she suddenly realized it was happen.  I cannot praise the children's hospital enough as they patiently worked her through it, and got her smiling again in no time.   Their method of cheer was suggesting she put brownberry to sleep while they were putting her to sleep.  After choosing bubblegum for her gas flavor (they both chose the same!) she confindently walked into the OR and hopped on the bed. 
Watching your child get put to sleep is surreal, and beautiful.  She looked so peaceful when her little body relaxed and they told me I could kiss her.  But turning round and walking away was hard, how  good to know that she was not only in their hands but more importantly in the Lords hands. 

She was under by 8am and the pager didn't go off until 11.30. I made appointments for the following week, and ate breakfast and hand stitched a felt decoration mostly sitting by a window watching the snow fall.  When I got onto the ward this is who met me!

 

 

A very green and blue stained girl, watching DVD's and snuggling up to brown berry...who was still asleep with his mask taped on.  She was on fluids and morphine and 15min obs, but chatty and happy and blue!  She spent the day eating and drinking simple things (we tried every colour of popsicle, jelly and icecream and chicken soup as well as apple juice slushies and ginger ale). 

 A good friend dropped in for stories and another had a huge sock monkey sent up from downstairs.  Fun!

Her last morphine was at 5.30 and then they changed her to ibuprofen in her IV and then orally. 

Eating red popsicle the last of the day :)

Her cast was split in surgery to allow for the swelling and had spacers put in (hence the orange strips).  They were taken out this morning as already it was feeling loose and a bandage wrapped round.  It's getting reviewed on Tuesday afternoon anyway so we'll play till then. 

Heidi walked with the physio's this morning, She is fully weight bearing as she wants, but he doesn't expect that to be before 10 days.  Needless to say little miss determined is partial weight bearing constantly already, as well as hopping around without the frame.

We are praising the Lord for his goodness to us all this week.

We're home!

She's doing amazingly, only paracetamol and ibuprofen for pain.

Will blog about yest when babies in bed :)

Just heard from Esther, Heidi is out of surgery.

Heidi is first on the list tomorrow, we have to be there at 6.30 tomorrow morning. 
So tonight is dinner out with her Daddy (hopefully ending in a supermarket shop for me!) and then bath and foot scrub and hair in plaits.
Tomorrow morning is a second foot scrub and a piling in of the lot of us into the car so Tom can drop us off.

Glad we packed yesterday! 

Our sweet Heidi girl was born on June 1st 2007 with big blue eyes, 4 squirming limbs and a good set of lungs!

On the end of one of her legs was a foot which stuck out in front and looked to our eyes to be normal.  On the end of the other leg was a foot which was rotated round and her toes stuck up toward her ears!  'Just squished I imagine' was her mothers comment, we had no way to know if babies came out looking slightly odd!

The  official term was calcaneovalgus club foot and we spent some months with a great team working with it in Southampton, casting and splinting.

 

 

At 1 she had no visible signs of having had any deformity before.  Amazing compared to what it had looked like.

At 2 she was checked by a doctor in Calgary, and it was agreed that she was indeed free from all evidence of deformity.

Two summers ago, Heidi's foot stopped growing, but the end of the summer she was 2 shoe sizes different.  Annoying for shoe shopping, but no big deal as such.

Then is seemed to be deforming, the toe pulling into the heal.  We got a referral made back to the orthopedic surgeon who had checked her at 2.

 

 

'Oh dear dear dear' were the words he used to describe it when she took her boot off.

And so began our journey with the right foot again.  It seems that the two incidents are unrelated.  There was no evidence that this has been caused by a neurological event or growth (for which we are incredibly grateful).

Heidi's right foot was knit together in her mothers womb according to God's perfect plan for her.  Heidi's right foot is distorting and shrinking according to God's perfect plan for her.

 

We do not know the cause of her foot shrinking. We may never.  We may never be able to correct the leg length discrepancy and this could cause issues in the future, not necessarily huge ones, but subtle, everyday, causing us to rely on the promises of God's word for strength and endurance kind of ones. 

How grateful we are as parents that we have been in locations where we have access to medical teams who are experienced, compassionate and understanding.  They have made her appointments fun and informative.  She know what to expect on Thursday and is prepared as much as she can be.  The stark reality of waking up from anesthetic and feeling awful may jolt her trust for a little while, but she is safe in her hands of the one who made her, for His glory alone.

We hope she is well for Thursday, but that is in His hands alone too.

Thank you for praying with us. 

Cute picture heh?

 

You've no idea the relief that went through me when I discovered this was why Hope was being so quiet.  Babies and kitties dressed ready for bed, and 'car seats' and pillows ready for puppies. 

Fun in the snow

 

 

The boys finally got out to experience some of the white stuff, and they loved it. 

Telling Dad about their day......
more like Dad keeping them quiet while they wait for supper!