Lily

Dear Family and Friends,

We wanted to share our story about a miracle. As you know, Lily was scheduled for surgery that was to take place today. She was born with her hip dislocated and they decided six months ago to do surgery to try to put the hip back in place. The surgery was going to be followed by 12 weeks in a cast that would make her unable to move much. The surgery was scheduled back in July and we have been dreading what was to come.

Yesterday we went to the hospital for the admission process. The first step in the process was to take an x-ray. After the doctor viewed the x-ray he wanted to see us right away. Through a miracle, the ball part of her bone is lined up with where it should be. The doctor hopes that as it grows and gets bigger it will fill up the hip socket and be okay. For now, she doesn’t need the surgery! What a blessing for our family.

As we have prayed and given thanks for this blessing we have felt that it comes to us, in large part, through your fasting and prayers on our behalf. We thank you so much! The Lord loves you and continues to hear your prayers. Thank you for taking part in this miracle with us. We have felt your love and prayers!

Much Love,
Spencer and Shreann

Dear Family and Friends,
Thanks for taking a minute to check out our blog. We need your help.

When Lily was born, both of her hips were dislocated. For the first three months she was in a harness all day and night. After three months they decreased the time that she had to be in it to just naps and nighttime.



When she was six months old we found out that it had worked for her right hip but not for her left hip. The next step was to do surgery and try to put the left hip back in place. So, when she was seven months old she had the surgery. After surgery they had to put her in a spica cast to hold her hips still and give the bones a chance to form. She was in the cast for 4 months and got it off right before her first birthday.



Three months later we found out that her hip was dislocated again. They decided to wait for her bones to get harder before they did surgery again. On October 27th, Lily will have surgery again to try to fix her hips. They will do basically the same procedure but they will do the surgery from a different angle to try to make it work better. This surgery will be more invasive and she will have the spica cast again.



We would like to invite you to join us in a special fast for Lily. We believe that fasting and prayers are more effective than prayer alone. We will be fasting for her on Sunday October 25th. Please pray for her little spirit to have some understanding of why this is happening. Pray that her doctors will be guided and inspired on the best way to help her. Pray that her doctors will know how much she is loved. Pray that we will have the strength as a family to make it through the next several months.



We know that your love, fasting, and prayers will help to sustain us through this difficult time. We love you.

Happy Birthday Lily!

Happy 2 years baby girl! We sure had a fun day. We started off the day singing to Lily. She was delighted to have her whole family there singing to her. She especially liked the party blowers. She wanted us to sing happy birthday to her over and over again. Then we opened her presents. Ollie helped her open them and showed her how to play with them. Her favorite gift was the plastic wonderpet figures that Ollie gave to her. She knows all the wonderpet songs and had fun making them dance and sing. After playing with her new toys we went to the zoo. It's our first time going to this zoo and both children had lots of fun. Lily's favorite thing to see was the lions. The lions were laying right up by the window so you could see them very well. Ollie's favorite animal was the squirrel monkey. They both had fun playing on the playground and Lily went down the slide by herself for the first time. We finished off the day with cake and icecream. What a fun celebration for our little girl.

Things we love about Lily:
Papa- "I love that Lily always makes me laugh. I love that she likes to sing so much. I love her determination. I love that she always tells me 'good job, papa.'"
Ollie- "I like that she always makes me giggle and she makes me giggle by sitting on my belly. I like it when she plays with me. She is good at giving me hugs and kisses."
Mom- "I love to hear her talk and sing. I love that she loves to practice walking. I love racing her while crawling. I love that she likes to hide under the kitchen sink."



Here's a conversations we just had that tells more about Lily.
Mom- "Lily, what's your favorite toy?"
Lily- "My green toy." (I'm not sure what toy is the green toy, especially since she doesn't know her colors yet.)
Mom- "What's your favorite color?"
Lily- "Green."
Papa- "What's your favorite food?"
Lily- "Cheerios."
Mom- "What's your favorite song?"
Lily- "Happy Birthday."
Mom- "Lily, how old are you?"
Lily- "One."
Ollie- "Lily, say two."
Lily- "Two."
Papa- "Whose your favorite friend?"
Lily- "Ollie."

Indians

For Family Home Evening each week we rotate who does which part. Last week it was Ollie's turn to do the activity. He really wanted to play Indians, so we made head-dresses. Here's a picture that we tried to take ourselves. It took several tries to get all of us in the picture (and Spencer's hat still got cut off). :)