Croupy Ethan

We met with an ENT in June because Ethan has had croup about every six weeks since December. He suggested that Ethan have a bronchoscopy so he could look down his throat and see if there was anything abnormal. Chad and I himed and hawed about the procedure because Ethan would need to be put under anesthetic to have it preformed.
We finally decided to go ahead with it so we would know what was going on. He had the procedure at Children's Hospital on Thur day August 21. Ethan did great! The procedure took about 20 minutes and then he had a few hours of recovery. He did not like waking up from the anesthetic and was fussy for about and hour but did wonderfully aside from that. The staff at Children's were top notch and made us very comfortable and less nervous about the procedure.
The doctor explained to us that Ethan has an artery laying on his trachea. This causes his throat to be a bit more narrow then normal and when he gets a cold if his throat swells at it causes him to have a croupy cough and noisy breathing or stridor. The doctor is confident that he will outgrow this and we shouldn't need to do anything further unless the croup gets worse or more frequent, then we would need to do a CT Scan and an Angiogram and possibly have surgery to move the artery. The technical term for this is called innominate artery compression of the Trachea. There is a great article about it on Medscape but it won't let me post it here. If you are intrested in reading about it just google it. We are praying that he just outgrows it!

Cabin Weekend

Chad's parents, Cathy and Jerry visited us for two weeks. They were here for Paige's party and then the following weekend we had a relaxing weekend at Merredith's family cabin. We had a great time boating, hanging out at the Cabin Bar and sitting around the fire at night.

One and Five year photos

Todd and Pam came over to take photos of the kids one Sunday. Thank you VERY much Todd and Pam! Todd you take beautiful photos!

Paige's fifth birthday was our second party in two weeks. She had a pony/petting zoo party. It was so much fun and right up her alley. She is such an animal lover! She was able to invite some of her neighborhood friends, daycare friends, preschool friends and of course family. The highlight of the day for me was watching her pick up a chicken that was bigger then her to put it in the kennel when it was time to pack up the zoo. When I asked her what her favorite part was she said, "the whole party mom!" I can't believe she is five already. I remember the day we brought her home from the hospital like it was yesterday. There was the most beautiful rainbow in the sky as we were driving down county road 42. We had no idea what parenthood would bring us, but neither Chad or I would trade it for anything!

Happy First Birthday Ethan!

Well we survived the first of back to back birthdays with Ethan's birthday bash on Sunday July 20. I can't believe he is one already! He had a great day despite the fact he wouldn't take a nap. He must have known it was his special day. He did well with the cupcake and wasn't super interested in opening gifts. Thank you to all of our friends and family that were able to celebrate his day with us you made it more special!