April update

Our little Lucy was given a blessing two weeks ago in our Church.  It was beautiful.  Jared did a great job and Lucy didn't even cry during the entire blessing, as some of our babies have in the past.  It was a special day to be grateful for Lucy, grateful for family, grateful for the blessings in our life!  

Lucy also did her first blood work, urine collection, and kidney ultrasound about a month ago.  (Yes, I am a little behind in writing/updating/posting.  Sure seems like any "extra" time I have these days is spent catching up on a few minutes of lost sleep, fixing hungry tummies, holding a beautiful baby, or folding clean cloths.)  

In short, her kidney function, according to the blood work, is good.  That's a really good start.  But her urine creatine/oxalate is quite elevated at 1.13.  Normal would be about .3.  And the ultrasound of her kidneys do show calcium and oxalate build-up on both of them already.  

The real test will be how things look over time.  She will do the whole works again the first of June to see where things are at and if they are progressing or staying stable.  

I wish I wasn't so worried about this first year of her life…of it possibly going down the same path Claire's did.  We're obviously hoping and praying she will be more like Benson and have many MANY years of good kidney function before more intervention is needed.  I'm trying to stay positive…and signs do certainly point in a better direction for Lucy than they did for Claire at this point in her life.   It's just this thing called a "mother's worry" for their children that keeps me on edge :).   Lots of prayers are offered for increased faith and peace.  

She is a sweet angel, though.  And thankfully sleeping at least 6-7 hours each night!  The kids absolutely adore kissing her, holding her, and getting her to smile at them!  So much fun.  

  And then there's the rest of the family!!  Benson got hit with a golf club, accidentally swung by his cousin, and got his first set of stitches.  He was super-DUPER brave during it all and surprised us all with how strong he was throughout the entire ordeal.  He also scored a touchdown last week in his flag-football game and couldn't have been happier about that!!!  It was even an interception catch with a run to the correct end zone!  Phew!  So fun to watch, jump up and down, and cheer him on!!!  He and Jared also enjoyed spending hours preparing their fiercely-sharp-dart-red-pinewood-derby car!  They got 5th place overall in the races and won the "judges favorite" award.  It was my favorite too :)  

Claire is also quite the soccer player herself.  She scored a goal last week in her game and absolutely loves her team, her coaches, and the sport!  I loved playing soccer myself growing up so it makes my heart happy (and even my eyes water a bit) when I see her loving and excelling at such a fun sport!  Her blood work this past month looks great in every way.  Yeah!  

And can't forget about sweet Mabel. She is following in just about every step of her sister and has also come to love playing soccer once a week on a little team.  The most adorable part about it all is that during her "game" (which is actually just a scrimmage amongst her team mates for the last half of practice) she constantly runs up the side-lines where we are sitting and yells with a smile:  "CHEER FOR ME, CHEER FOR ME!!!"  It is so adorable!  She is such a sweet one who always reminds us to smile and CHEER HER ON!!  

Jared and Benson drove to Texas over the weekend to pick up a must-have Craigslist buy.  Jared has been looking for a Razor (4-seat 4-wheeler type-thing) for years now.  He's been watching and saving and watching and saving.  So when the right one came up for the right price, a "quick" drive to Texas was a small sacrifice to make.  It's pretty awesome.  We all can't wait to get into the mountains this season to try it out!!  

We are all so excited it's SPRING and are counting down the days till school is out!  So blessed to be surrounded by such joyful spirits full of LIFE and LOVE!