April Showers...actually Snow here in CO!

April Blog Update, Take 2! I was actually done with this “longest blog post ever” almost 3 weeks ago, and then right before we posted it, Blogger had a disruption that totally erased my whole blog entry! Apparently almost everyone has gotten their info back, but not us! So I am really behind now, but will attempt to rewrite what I already did....sorry for the wait!

April was another month full of activity here at the Dadd house....it was complete with 2 Birthday parties, a minor surgery for Peyton, Easter, and more! Fun, fun!

Lawson's Birthday Party

Lawson's Birthday party ended up being a huge hit and everyone had lots of fun! It was at the Focus on the Family welcome center, which is a really neat place. The theme was "Bob the Builder," of course, and we had the party in their "firetruck room." We found out that day that if you give 3 year olds a cool slide and a realistic plane, they could literally play all day!

Peyton's little Surgery

We finally got Peyton’s skin tags removed from his left ear. He was born with them and they were a big reason the doctors were concerned about his kidneys while he was in the NICU (any deformations of the ear can indicate kidney problems since they are formed at the same time). It turned out that his renal issues and failure then was due to immature hormones, not the actual kidneys themselves. They have also been worried about his hearing, but he passed his hearing test with flying colors, praise the Lord!

So, originally, this surgery was going to be 2-3 hours long due to it being coupled with a hearing test and a scope of his airway. The hearing test got canceled b/c I asked the right questions and got them to do one while he was awake, and then the surgeon canceled the scope minutes before surgery b/c we told them he wasn’t choking on his milk anymore and his voice is plenty loud now, indicating to us the his vocal cords (which were partially paralyzed from the heart surgery) were doing just fine now!

Here are some pics of him pre- and post- surgery. I couldn’t get enough of him in his little hospital gown---so cute! And although the anesthesiologist made us concerned due to his history that he might need to stay the night, he recovered in just a couple hours and was back to his old self in no time!

Easter

Well, let’s just say Easter this year was a bit different....it was freezing, it snowed, and we didn’t go to church due to RSV season still being in effect...but it was still a wonderful day as we celebrated the Good News that Christ is Risen! Praise God He has forgiven us all and has risen from the dead, giving us all eternal life as well if we choose to follow Him.

Aunt Ash surprised the us with a super cute and yummy cookie bouquet for Easter and in honor of Peyton's 1 year corrected birthday. Lawson loved his digger cookie :)

We attempted to go to a Easter egg hunt in Old Colorado City, but it was a bit of a let-down...it was freezing and we waited for 30 min for Lawson to get 1 broken egg to summarize, so we headed down to the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory to get a chocolate bunny but Lawson refused to get one, and then asked for one the rest of the weekend! We took a picture there before we left just to have one :)

Peyton excited above, and Lawson not looking too excited below to dye Easter eggs. We did have fun though making our Veggie Tales eggs and hunting for the "special eggs" or resurrection eggs that tell the Easter story!

The Easter bunny hid eggs inside this year!

Found one!

Peyton’s Big Day!

We spent 10 days in Texas (Apr 28-May 8), and we kicked it off April 30th with a party for Peyton! We wanted to celebrate his miraculous first year and thank everyone who lifted us up and prayed for him. Almost no one had ever even met him yet since we had to return to Colorado, so it was truly a blessing to see everyone and for them to finally meet Peyton. God has done amazing things through our little guy so we hope all of you who came could see that and we pray it encourages you! Thank you to everyone who came and for all of the generous gifts you gave to Peyton, Lawson, and for the contributions you gave to the March of Dimes in Peyton’s honor---we are so grateful for your friendship! I want to highlight one very special gift...my friend, Allison, (who I met last year in Bible study and who I don’t even know very well but we bonded b/c she & her family have gone through similar trials and more of them), made an entire book for us of our entire blog. It is amazing and is a true blessing, as we never know what can happen to our online blog...proven by what just happened to my recent post! She made it on blurb.com if any of you are curious. Thank you so much, Allison, for this truly thoughtful and meaningful gift!

Here are a few pics for now...I might post more later once I get more pics from our friend, Sonia, who took the “professional” ones---thank you Sonia!

The above picture of Peyton was the one on the front of the "program" we made for the party. It is a summary of everything that he's been through since birth and ALL of the miracles that have taken place. It's truly amazing once you see it all at a glance and we made it so that anyone can see that miracles DO happen and that God is definitely involved in the details of our lives. I wish I knew how to post it so you could see it, but I would love to send you a copy if you want one, so just let me know!

And for those of you who don't know or remember, Peyton's "Giraffe theme" comes from the fact that he was in the Giraffe Pod while at the hospital and Topper, the giraffe, is also Memorial Hermann's mascot. I also walked by the big stuffed giraffe he now has in his room every day at the hospital gift shop. So it just stuck!

Peyton having fun with the balloons and giving Sonia "the photographer" a break!

Peyton with Grammie!

Cici, Lawson, Aunt Ash, Peyton, and me!

Some of my wonderful friends who drove hours just to celebrate with us!

I also want to recognize and thank a couple more people who gave so much of their time to make this day so special. Thanks, Roxanne, for helping us create & edit Peyton’s program...it was perfect! Also, thank you to my family (Cici, Papa, Ashley, Grammie, Poppie, Dave, & Kim) for all of your help with preparations---we couldn’t have done it without you!

Lawson Update:

Lawson has now made his own construction site in our backyard! He could play for hours with his diggers...so cute and ALL BOY!

The day of his Birthday party we gave him his BIG BOY BED, and he has done great with it! Here is a pic of part of his room now....very different but we are all liking the change :)

I got a Lil’ Kickers Groupon for 10 soccer classes, so Lawson is now in soccer! It’s just an age appropriate soccer class that mainly teaches the kiddos how to follow directions, and we can’t get enough help with that right now! He is really liking it and it’s fun to see him learn and play with other kids. After the first class, we were walking away, and he all of a sudden let go of my hand, turned around and waved saying “Bye Team!” I didn’t even know he knew what a “team” meant, so I thought it was so precious...not sure he will be a soccer star, but he sure does have a big heart!

Peyton Update:

Here is his 11 month pic on Topper the Giraffe! Lawson also wanted in on the action, so he rode the giraffe as well :)

He loves to get into everything these days...here is a picture of him getting into his favorite drawer upstairs and then one of his favorite cabinet downstairs!

He is getting to be a pro at going up and down the stairs now....here is a funny video of him backing up to go down the stairs!

Lots more to come on Peyton....since our trip from Texas in May, he now has glasses, took an unexpected trip to the dentist, & is now walking by himself a lot. Will update again soon!