Snow, Dog Bites, Hearts and more

Well, I finally got my wish- even if it was only for a period of 24 hours. IT SNOWED! The kids and I have been hoping for some snow the entire winter and yesterday morning we woke up to a white covered ground. So exciting. At 4:00 in the morning I got a phone call from Deptford School District saying that all schools were closed. I crawled right back into bed but when I woke up a few hours later, I just laughed when I saw the amount of snow we had... 2 inches. Everything shut down for this tiny amount of white, fluffy stuff. Wait, I better not say fluffy because it is far from that. A better term would be soggy and heavy. The library's were closed, some restaurants, local stores-too funny. The bottom line is Jacob was more than thrilled to stay home from school and play in the snow. So, everyone got bundled up and went out to play in the snow. The boys lasted a good while but as you can tell little Miss Anna wanted to go right back in. She is such a pill. Glad they got their time in because only hours later it started to RAIN and the snow slowly left our sight. What's up with Jersey's weather? I hate it.



On an UNWISHFUL (is that even a word) subject: My little Ruby got bit by a dog on Thursday while at a friend of the families. I had just dropped her and Luke off when no more than 20 minutes I get a phone call. It was my friend telling me the three older kids were playing with Castor the dog and he was all fired up and Ruby just happened to be in the right place at the right time and the dog got her on the lip. I was just thankful it wasn't anything worse and that it could be fixed. Good thing her Dad is an Oral Surgeon and sees these on a daily basis. I thought Ruby would be scared for life but today she saw the the same dog and didn't even phase her. She just keeps telling everyone, "The Ruff Ruff bite me." Aren't little kids SO forgiving. I am just hoping there isn't too big of a scar left and glad she is safe.

Last but not least... Anna has a Ventricular Septal Defect in her heart and it still hasn't closed. This is where Anna and I were headed when the dog incident occurred. We were going to a Pediatric Cardiologist for her year follow up appointment. Anna was born with three holes in her heart. No big worries since two of them are seen a lot in newborns and usually close on their own after the first week of life. The third one is not as common and only 1/3 of them close on their own. The rest need surgery to close it up. Well, the doctors did an EKG, an echo and an ultrasound to see what was going on. Well, unfortunately, the common two were closed but the VSD was still open (closed a little) but not all the way. We are going to wait another 6 months or so and do the tests again to see if it has closed anymore. YIKES!!! I didn't think the outcome would be this. I know I can't jump to conclusions yet and have much faith that it will close fully without any surgery. Only time will tell. An interesting thing I learned is that now I have a 20% higher chance in having another baby with a heart defect and Anna's children have an even higher chance. The crazy thing is that there really is no history in either of our families with any heart issues. Where did this come from? I guess we put it in the Lord's hands and whatever the outcome is... it is. Anna is a tough cookie either way and that hole WILL close somehow and she will be just fine. Love ya little stinker girl.


This girl won't keep a bow or a clip in her hair for the life of her, but when you stick one of the boys hats on, she won't take it off. In fact, she throws a fit when they try to steal it from her. Is this a sign my girl is a TOM BOY or what?