More Vacation Photos

Here are some more vacation photos from CO and MN.

This is my family at my cousin Nicole's wedding. Charlie had enough partying; he fell asleep so he enjoyed a nap under the table in his carseat :)






Here are pictures of the cousins on the TenHaken side. We tried to get a good shot of the baby boy cousins together and then all the cousins-- it is hard to get everyone looking at the camera at once! There is also a picture of Charlie with his great grandma Douma. We had a great time catching up with family in MN. We miss you guys!

Photos- Hiking in Colorado

We went on a couple hikes while we were in Colorado. There is nothing quite as beautiful as a beautiful mountain scene. Here are a few photos:

From the Heart

I sometimes debate over how honest I should be on this blog. It is hard to know if I should pour my heart out and be brutally honest, or if I should stay positive and optimistic and try to share on the better days. This morning I read my cousin Courtney's blog and her honesty motivated me to write a very honest post.

I haven't read devotions for a few weeks. I don't know why, but I just haven't felt like doing it. Life seems so unfair and chaotic at times. Lately, I have felt overwhelmed by sad situations different people are dealing with around me.... a cousin losing her full term baby, a family member losing a job, a friend finding out her beautiful baby boy from Ethiopia has been shaken, family friends losing their mom way to young... These situations make me feel angry at God and I want to scream--What are you thinking?? Then I think about Ruby. I try to always think about how far she has come and be thankful that God has stopped the spasms for now. I try to take one day at a time and not think about the future. That works, usually. But there are days that I really question what God is doing in all of this. Is it really His plan that we have a brain injured child? Does He really want her to struggle all of her life to do things like walk, talk, eat? Can this really be what He has in store?

For some reason, admist these feelings, I opened my Bible again this morning. Courtney had posted a verse from Is. 55, so I decided to turn there. Here is what I read:
" Come to me all who are thirsty, come to the waters and you have no money, come, buy and eat!....Give ear and come to me. Hear me that your soul may live.....Seek the Lord while He may be found; call on Him while He is near."

In this passage God is calling the Israelites that were exiled to return and be restored. I felt God telling me to return to Him so He can refresh and restore my heart.

Here are the next few verses I read:
"For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts... my word goes out from my mouth; it doesn't return to me empty, but it will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it. You will go out with JOY and be led forth in PEACE..."

God met me in this passage this morning. He reminded me that He is above and in all things. He knows what He is doing and He will not leave me. He wants me to seek Him and He will give me joy and peace!

Thank you God for knocking on the door of my heart this morning! Help me to continue to seek you so I can feel your joy and peace. Forgive me for the times I question you, but thanks for being big enough to handle my complete honesty. Use me for your glory--Amen

Updates

It is hard to believe that we have been home from vacation for over a week. I thought it might be time to post some updates.....

Ruby-- She continues to get a little stronger and more alert everyday, although the progress is incredibly slow. Some days I feel discouraged at how slow the progress is, but other days I feel very hopeful and excited for the future. It has been 2 1/2months since we have seen a spasm and we are soooo thrilled about that. We keep watching her brain activity closely; she is having another EEG this Friday. So far though, the EEGs have not shown that she is having other seizures, we just know she is at risk for them. Ruby is such a joy and a blessing. She smiles at us all the time now and she recognizes our voices and our faces. Cranial Sacral therapy has really increased her mobility, especially in how she moves her arms and head. She used to arch all the time and now she hardly does that anymore.She also is opening up her hands more and more. Her grin makes my heart melt every time. We thank God for the progress she has made and pray everyday that He helps her continue to make incredible progress. He has powerful things in store for her.




Charlie-- He continues to grow like crazy. His weight went from not even being on the charts in April to being in the 50th percentile last week! So, he definitely did a lot of catching up. It is amazing to watch Charlie grow and flourish; he has brought so much joy to our lives. So far he can sit up in his bumpo seat, roll from his front to his back, eat a little baby cereal. He loves to put everything within reach in his mouth, smile and laugh, talk loudly and stand up on my lap (with support of course :) We thank God for Charlie everyday.

Photos

I will post pictures from our vacation, but for now, here are a few pictures from the past few weeks. We are settled back in at home. I actually just got stuff all the way unpacked on Thursday, even though we got back Sunday night (kind of pathetic huh? :) We had a great time, but we were both pretty exhausted from all the driving through the night and flying with two kids. Vacations are a lot more work then they used to be :) The kids did do great though; I was surprised how well they did spending that much time in their carseats. It was fun to see family and have them meet our kids but we are also glad to be home. I will share more later, for now, these pictures will have to do.....

By the way, Ruby is 14 months old today and Charlie was 5 months old on July 7-- I took this picture then but haven't posted it yet.



Here are all the new babies on the TenHaken side. Ruby is the oldest of this clan. In this picture it goes Ruby, Charlie, Max (Mark's brother Paul's baby) and Alex (Mark's brother Michael's baby). It was fun to have them all together.


This is my family from the surprise party we threw my parents. It was my mom's 50th birthday and their 30th wedding anniversary at the end of June.


My parents at their party-- sporting the shirts we made for them :)


Ruby and Charlie talking to each other.

Quick Update

I forgot to post that we are in Colorado and then Minnesota for the week. We are here for my cousin's wedding and a family reunion with my mom's side of the family. Then, we are hanging out with Mark's family for the 4th of July weekend. We are having a great time so far! Ruby is still seizure free and making progress holding up her head. I will post an update and pictures in a week or so when we get back. Have a great week!

The Walk, Sleep and No Steroids!

We haven't given Ruby a steroid injection since Friday morning and she slept a total of 9 hours last night in her own crib!! Wow, it felt good to wake up to a rested baby. Thursday we met with her neurologist and he seemed pleased with how she was doing. We are going to do another EEG in a few weeks to make sure she isn't having seizures off the ACTH. He wanted to keep her on both of her meds (Depakote and Vigabatrin) for a few months and then if she is still seizure free in Oct, he will probably start weaning her from the Vigabatrin. What will happen with her development remains to be seen, but we are hopeful. She is slowly returning to her old happy self these last few days.

We did the stroll for epilepsy on Saturday with my parents and Ruby and Charlie. It turned out to be a nice day and the walk by the river in downtown Grand Rapids was beautiful. There wasn't as many people there as I had thought there would be so next year you all will have to come out and join us so we can increase the numbers! Thanks to all of you that donated! I just found out about the walk on Tuesday and just by posting it on my blog we raised $455! Thanks so much for your generous support!

Our Father's Day celebration is at our house today. Happy Father's Day to my Dad and Dad in law, and for the first time Happy Father's Day to my husband! Mark- you are a fantastic Dad and I don't know how I would have managed this past year without you. Thanks for all you have done for our family these past several months. I appreciate you!