A little Makeover

I am so excited about my new blog background!! I thought I needed a little makeover. Of course I cant post without putting a picture of Parker. He has this new fascnation with putting things on his head and watching them fall.!!

And of course, Parker loves his daddy!!!

Christmas fun

I am posting about Christmas kind of late, but I have been so busy at work. I am finally caught up from missing work over Thanksgiving week, YAY!!!

This Christmas was amazing. I was very emotional because I was so happy that my whole family was together on Christmas. Last year we spent Christmas at the hospital with Parker. Dennis would leave to go see his family and I would leave to go see mine. But this year we were all together the entire time!!

I think Parker's favorite part of Christmas was playing in the paper!

I had to take a picture of Parker in his santa bib.

These are all the grandkids on my mom's side of the family.

My family

He was so happy on Christmas morning..

Worn out from all the fun with family.

His new favorite toy!

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas!! Cant wait to see what the new year has in store!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!! I hope that everyone has a wonderful week filled with family, love, and togetherness! Everyone that is traveling; please be safe!

I probably wont blog much this week because I will be spending time my family and celebrating the birth of my Savior!

My Beautiful Family!

This fall I made my whole family take a professional picture together! I have two brother and two sisters, there are five kids in all and I am the oldest. We have not had a family picture in YEARS!! I think they turned out so great!



The boys!

The girls

The grandparents!

Just wanted to show yall my beautiful family!

Miracles do happen

I have done really bad the past few weeks when it comes to blogging. I am still trying to catch up at work from going out of town over Thanksgiving. Maybe I can be caught up by Christmas!

This past weekend some of my family went to the Miracle Ball, it is a fundraiser for Arkansas Children's Hospital. You all know how special ACH is to my heart! It was a wonderful evening and tons of money was raised. All of the auction items me and my mom donated went for a lot! Dennis won a duck hunting trip in the silent auction...he is so excited. Parker was recognized and his picture was put up on the big screen. We all had so much fun. I wanted to say a BIG thank you to Danny and Brittani for babysitting Parker.

Here we are before we left...

This is us, my sister and brother and their "friends" that they brought to the event.

Me and Dennis before we left. I think it is so much fun to dress up. I wish you could see my dress better in these pictures...it was so pretty!

Walking...

....Well, not really walking by himself. A few weeks ago Parker's physical therapist let us bring a new contraption home. It is a walker without the seat. It kinda looks scary. HE has been practicing. Up until this week he couldnt make it very far. He would get so tired and wasnt very coordinated. This week he has started doing soo good. He is getting all around the office! He is still working on walking around things, like holding onto the coffee table and walking around it while holding it. Here is a video of Parker walking in his contraption.

Also, we started Parker on Pediasure yesterday and he loves it. The nutritionist at ACH suggested we try it since the doctor is worried about his weight gain. It has 30 calories per oz. so, we replaced formula with pedisure. I hope it helps him gain weight.

A new arrival

Last week one of my best friends had her first baby! He is such a miracle! Lauren and I have been friends since Kindergarten and no matter what I am sure we will always be a part of each other's lives. Last night me and a friend took Lauren and her family dinner. It was so great to meet little Spencer and Lauren looked great! Spencer was so tiny and so good. He slept the entire time we were there. It's hard to believe that Parker was ever that small..even smaller!!

Christmas tree farm and parties

We had a very busy weekend! On Saturday we went to Sydney's first birthday party. Sydney's mom and I were pregnant at the same time, Parker and Sydney are 2 1/2 weeks apart and are best buddies.

Here are Parker and Sydney playing in the bubbles from the bubble machine.

Parker was exhausted after the party! This is him on the way home.

On Sunday afternoon we went to the Christmas tree farm and cut down our Christmas tree. I have always done this with my family and I am so excited to start this tradition with Parker. THis was his first year to go because last year he was in the hospital.

You get to ride a wagon out to the trees. It is part of the whole experience!

Parker helped daddy cut down the tree.

TIMBER!

Check out Parker's huge mittens!
On Sunday night Dennis and I went to our company Christmas party. My sister, Amy, kept Parker. It was fun to dress up, we never get to do that!

Wonderful Blogger!

Over the past year I have been helping to plan the Miracle Ball. It is a fundraiser for Arkansas Children's Hospital that the Auxilary puts on every year. I have been a member of the auxilary for a couple of years because ACH has always been close to my heart, but over the last year it has become especially close to my family because of Parker. I am a member of the auction commitee. We get together items for the silent and live auction. Well, I have met a wonderful blogger, Kim, who is an amazing artist. She agreed to donate a gift card for a personalized painting. She also made me a small painting for Parker so that I can display her work at the auction (so people can see how cute her art is!). She is such a wonderful lady and I am so grateful to her for believing in and contributing to a cause that is so close to my heart! Thanks KIM!!! Here are some pictures that she posted on her blog. I should get the painting in the next couple of days.

These coordinate with Parker's bedding!

Just some catching up...

Well, I never got to show yall the cakes I made for Parker's birthday party. It was my first cake decorating experience. My mom use to make and decorate all of our birthday cakes, so I wanted to do the same thing. She taught me all of her secrets!

I have better pictures of them , but I cant seem to find them. The monkey looks kinda deformed in this picture but it was perfectly semetrical!! We made a lion, giraffe, and monkey. The party was animal themed!

I also said I would put a picture of our Christmas card on here. Well, I do not know how to work scanners so I just took a picture of it. It didnt turn out that great, but you can kind of get the idea. It is all black and white except for Parker's shirt and scarf...

Last night we went to see my sister, Amy, cheer at one of her first basketball games. She cheers at Hendrix and we are so proud of her!

This is my mom, Amy, and me.

One year appoinment and pictures!

Parker had his one year pediatrician appointment yesterday. He got all of his shots and his second flu shot....it was not a fun time! He weighs 17.1 pounds. Since his 9 month checkup he has fallen off the growth curve even more in all aspects (weight, height...). His doctor was kind of worried about him but we think it is just because he is so mobile now. He is so busy all time, now that he can get around!! I am suppose to talk to his dietician today and we are going to work on a one year old's meal plan with a few extra calories. Another thing that is frustrating me is that I CANNOT get Parker to drink from a sippie cup for the life of me. I think he is going to be the oldest kid still on the bottle! If any of you moms have some tricks for me...PLEASE, I would love to hear them! I will let you know how the consult goes with the dietician.
Anyways, I got the proofs back from Parker's one year pictures. Go here and please look at my precious baby! They will only be available to look at until Monday, Dec 8th. I am going to have such a hard time deciding. Also, I got my Christmas cards in. I guess I should take a picture of them and put it on here because they are so sweet! I will do that on the next post. Well, I need to get back to work...i am so behind since we went out of town last week. Oh yeah, I need to put some pictures from that trip on here too! Wow, I have alot to do. Soon to come!

They day my heart stopped...

I told yall I would finish my story of Parker's birth and hospital stay, but life has been crazy!! We went out of town for a week and we got back on Sunday. I am so behind at work and Parker has alot of appointments this week with therapy and doctors. I wrote part of this the other day and finished it today. It is just a picture of our first week in the hospital with Parker...

November 24, 2007 Dennis and I woke up in my hospital room the day after Parker was born. We went to the NICU to see him and the doctor said he was doing good and he would probably be there a few more days to get his oxygen under control. We went back to our room and I got in the shower....I desperately needed a shower! My doctor told me that he wanted me to stay one more day to watch me (I was having some bleeding issues). While I was in the shower Dennis came into the bathroom and said to not worry but the doctor just came in and said they were moving Parker to Arkansas Children's Hospital because they heard a murmur and he needed more testing. Well, I rushed out of the shower and told my doctor that I was checking out early. Another doctor came in and told us that Parker might need heart surgery, but they werent for sure what was going on with his heart. By noon we were at Childrens. I walked into the CVICU that afternoon not knowing what I was about to go through. A wonderful doctor sat Dennis and I down at a table and drew a picture of Parker's heart. He told us that Parker has Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome and that he will need 3 open heart surgeries. He said that Parker would be lucky to survive the first surgery because he was so small....that is the moment my heart stopped. For nine months we had made all of these plans and had all of these expectations and now everything was different and there was nothing I could do about it. All we could do was pray and trust in Him. My plan was different now.

The next week was a waiting game. They waited a week to do the surgery so Parker could get bigger, but all he did was get smaller. The day of surgery he weighed 4 pounds (he had lost over a pound since birth)

On November 30 Parker had his first heart surgery. We walked him back to the operating room and the nurse took us to our private waiting room. She gave us a hug and closed the door. Dennis and I held each other and cried (That is the first time I had ever seen Dennis cry. He is so strong). We didnt know if Parker was going to make it. His surgery lasted 12 hours, they updated us every hour on his progress. We had so much family there to support us. We are so lucky to have so many people that love us and that love Parker. Parker did pretty good in surgery but he didnt do so good that first night. He went into cardiac arrest, but the amazing doctors and nurses at ACH took good care of my sweet baby and he pulled through. THe hardest thing I have ever done was looking at Parker right after he came out of surgery. His chest was still open because there was too much swelling. He had 5 chest tubes draining blood and a dialysis tube. He was as white as the sheet on the bed. He had a breathing tube in and about 5 IV lines with about 20 medications. It was a scary day. I cried when I saw him. Babies are not suppose to look like that.

Over the next 7 weeks Parker had a bumpy road of recovery. He was on the breathing tube for 3 more weeks and had another small surgery to put in his feeding tube. Parker is so strong and I have learned so much from him. I am so grateful that Parker has made it so far and I will enjoy everyday I have with him.

Happy Birthday PARKER!!

November 23, 2007

November 23, 2008

WOW!! I cant believe that Parker is one year old today. This year has been the best, happiest, hardest, scariest, and most wonderful year every!!

Since I didnt have a blog last year I will give you the abbreviated version of what happened one year ago today...

Last year today was the day after Thanksgiving and I ate ALOT. At about 4:00 a.m. on November 23, 2007 my tummy started hurting!! I was in and out of the bathroom for about 2 hours. I was having a "pain" about every 30 minutes and then it went to every 15 minutes and I woke Dennis up. I told him that I thought i was going into labor. He jumped up, of course. I took a shower and got everything together and we called the hospital at 6:00. They told us that the contractions werent close enough together so we should wait. Well, I waited about 20 minutes and Dennis nor I could stand the pain any longer. We called the hospital back and told them that at my doctors appointment Monday I was dilated to 4 cm. They told us to come in ASAP! When we got to the hospital at about 7:30 I was dilated to 8 cm!! Everyone was rushing around and I was just hurting. After about 2 hours my doctor told me I was 10 cm but that I should probably get an epidural to relax me and loosen everything up. I did NOT object. I dont even remember getting it...all I remember is happiness! I had Parker at 12:10 with a few other complications that i wont go into. They took him to clean him up while my doctor dealt with me. They let me hold him for about 15 seconds (long enough to get a picture) and then told me that he had to go to the NICU because his oxygen was low. They told me he would be fine, he just might need a

little oxygen for a day or so. I went down see him a couple of times that day and he was just precious and the doctors told me that he might have to be in the hospital a day longer than me. Well....most of you know he stayed a little longer than that! I will begin that journey in tomorrow's post.

PARKER LEE EVANS

5 LBS 1 OZ

19 1/2 IN.

This is Dennis with Parker in the NICU at St. Vincents just minutes after he arrived.

Last Year

Last year at this time many events happened and my life will never be same because of them. I think that over the next couple of days I am going to go back over what happened this time last year. I didnt have a blog last year and these events have shaped me into the women I am this year.
Of course, it all has to do with my sweet son Parker.

When I was pregnant I wanted to get those maternity pictures that you always see. Well, I kept putting it off and thought there was no way I would get them because I had waited too long. The week of my due date I called my friend Hannah and she had a spot on November 21st, it was the day before Thanksgiving. We scheduled it but I told her that at my last doctors appointment I was 4 cm dilated so I could go into labor at any time. Well, Dennis and I made it.....

I had Parker two days after these pictures were taken!!! I had him the day after Thanksgiving. He was only two days early (more on that later!)

My new favorite thing!

Well, this is my new favorite thing! It is the Starbuck's salted carmel hot chocolate!! One reason it is my favorite is because it means that it is the holiday season (cold weather, Thanksgiving, Christmas...my favorite time of year) and the other reason is because it is so incredibly yummy!

A little update

Well, we had Parker's birthday party this past Saturday and it was wonderful! He did so great and so many people came!! I would have had pictures posted already but I keep forgetting to get my camera cord. Alot has been going on this week and Parker hasnt been feeling very well. When Parker doesnt feel good...noone feels good! My uncle gave me a disk of the pictures he took. They are mostly of his daughter but at least it is something. I will try to get my pictures on here soon.

I still have pictures of the cakes that my mom and I decorated and many other things...stay tuned!!!

Also, Parker is doing great with crawling and he has been pulling up alot all by himself! I went into his room this weekend and he was standing in his bed. At therapy they are working on walking. I hope he catches on as fast as he did with crawling!

Parker's birthday is this Sunday so I am sure i will have a lot to post about! I have been kind of emotional this week thinking about my little miracle baby turning one!! WOW!

We are also trying to get everything ready to go out of town on Sunday for Thanksgiving. We are going to Chatanooga, TN! We are also getting everything ready at our house because we are having Thanksgiving with Dennis' side of the family at our house on Saturday!! I am trying not to be stressed. I want to have my Christmas decorations up before Saturday, but I dont think that will happen!