Celebrate Christmas Hallam Style!

Thanks to Chris for creating this...soooo funny!

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One little two little three little angels!

Grace had her first Christmas pagent this afternoon- it was adorable! She and the rest of her two year old preschool class (collectively known as "the Lions") were part of the "Angel Choir." Steve and I laughed so hard that tears were streaming down our faces...and we seemed to be in the vast minority. Some of the other parents are so intense! It's a bunch of two three and four year olds...you can't expect perfection! In the middle of singing "Ten little angels" Grace noticed her sparkly shoes and decided to check them out more closely. She sat on the stage and played with her shoes from about 4 little to 8 little angels, but was back on her feet in time for the grande finale! Being a parent is so entertaining!

Seconds...

Poor Noah. Grace rang in her one year birthday with much fanfare and applause, a party on the day and a lot of attention from Mom and Dad. Noah on the other hand had a different kind of day. He woke up, and mom and dad gave him his presents. One was a hammer toy, which he hasn't quite figured out, and the other was a tickle me cookie monster. We activated the cookie monster, and the room went silent. I wish I had had my camera handy, because I can't even describe the look on the kids faces. Noah's eyes were the size of saucers and Grace slowly backed away until she was hanging on Dad's leg. After the cookie monster was done seizing (the best way to describe what it did) we all kind of looked at each other and Grace whispered "thats so scary dada." Great start to the day. Noah had his morning nap, ate a quick lunch and then I had to go to school, so he went to the park with Mema Dada and Grace. Then, he got stuck in the car to run some errands, missed his afternoon nap and almost missed dinner because we got stuck in traffic. Steve had his seminar that afternoon, and then I had class that night, so the poor kid didn't even get a cake or a goodnight kiss from me. Not that he complained, he is such a sweet boy. Maybe next year will be better...

Happy birthday Noah and Abi!

Noah and Abi had a blast at their first birthday party! All of our friends and family gathered together at Hanger Park here in Tempe. Abi wasn't so into her cake, but Noah sure was! He dug into his cake (using one finger) and helped himself to hers as well! I can't believe my baby boy is a year old already- it sure flew!

Turkey Day!

We had a great Thanksgiving here in Phoenix! Everyone didn't arrive until this afternoon, so we had a wonderfully relaxing day. Marsha and I puttered in the kitchen while Steve and Curt took the kids for a long walk/nap. Then Steve's brother Chris, Chandra, and Abi arrived, as well as Chandra's sister and brother, Gill and Michelle. We had a great meal followed by a fun family photo session at the park. Oh- we made a really really good green bean dish with garlic and cherry tomatoes (check out the pic!) Grace and Noah love playing with Abi, the three of them are really funny together! Check back tommorow- we are having Noah and Abi's first birthday party, I will post pics of that for sure!

Arizona!

Well, we made it back to Arizona fairly uneventfully. Gracie watched Dora on her "baby tv" the whole flight and it took both Marsha and me to keep Noah entertained. We have been having fun catching up with friends and family here! So far Grace has gotten some good Dallas time (her bff) and Noah got a clean bill of health at the cardiologists! It's so fun to watch Dallas and Grace play now that they can communicate. At the park they played "Dora and Diego" (based on one of their favorite shows) and Dallas pretended to rescue Grace from different situations....sooo funny! There were too many park pics to put them all on here, so check out my facebook page to see them all. I am so excited for Steve to come tomorrow...I have been pretty tired. Unfortunately I tried to remedy that today with a triple shot peppermint mocha and now I can't sleep. Blast!

Noah Update

First of all, thanks so much to all of our friends and family for your prayers and support this past week! We feel so blessed to have such a great support system surrounding us, especially considering the relatively short time we have lived in Mill Valley. So for those of you who didn't hear, or only heard part, here's the scoop:
Noah got a cold (he puts EVERYTHING in his mouth so I am actually surprised this doesn't happen more often!)He started having a runny nose on Monday morning, and by the time he woke up from his nap Monday afternoon he was having trouble breathing. Steve and I got him through the night by using his nebulizer (breathing machine) and holding him most the night. We took him to the doctor first thing Tuesday morning where they gave him a steroid shot to try to keep the cold from getting worse and another breathing treatment. He seemed to improve a bit and when we took him back to the doctor that afternoon the doctor said we would just keep an eye on him and we made a follow up apt. for the next day. We put Noah to bed Tuesday night and he woke up around 9pm really having trouble breathing. Not wanting to risk anything, we took him to the emergency room (thank you Jason and Emily Hew for watching Grace so we could both go to the hospital!) and after watching him for a few hours (including another steroid shot and several more breathing treatments) they decided to admit him. Long story short, over the next few days we had several scary episodes, and lots of doctors in and out. Mainly, we knew that if we could get him over the cold he would be able to breathe fine, but we really wanted to get to the bottom of the problem so that this doesn't keep reoccurring. The doctors concluded that something about his airway is not quite right, and for whatever reason (possibilities include scarring from being intabated during heart surgery, acid reflux, laryngomalacia- "floppy" esophagus)when he gets sick the combination of the swelling from the cold and whatever else is going on is just too much and he has trouble breathing. So we have him on a preventative does of inhaled steroids twice a day through the cold season, and we will be doing a bronchoscopy in about a month so they can look down his esophagus and see what is going on. They already did a brief scope looking down as far as his vocal chords, and didn't see anything (good news!) but they think there may be something farther down that they could see with the bronchoscopy. Unless there is anything huge such as a lot of scarring, we wouldn't do anything except for wait for him to grow, and as his esophagus gets bigger hopefully the issues will go away. A lot more answers should be coming soon, but for now Noah is getting over his cold and definitely back to his normal goofy self. We flew to Phoenix today for Thanksgiving and a routine Echo cardiogram (which is good we had scheduled since some of the medicine he was on for his breathing can stress the heart). I will post briefly to let everyone know how the echo goes. Thanks again for all your prayers, I really don't know of any baby Noah's age who has had as many people pray for him as Noah has. I can't wait to see what God has planned for his life!

Grace's first Christmas

For Grace's first Christmas, Grandpa Jim gave her an incredible present. Her own website! Due to my lack of techno knowledge, we have decided to temporarily redirect some of the stuff from that site to the blog. My favorite item was the Christmas video that Dad made for Grace.
(We are working on embedding it, but for now just click here.)

Perspective

Lately I have found it all to easy to lose my perspective. Worries about money, jobs, stress with school and just life in general tend to cloud my outlook. I was looking through some old pictures and it really hit me how very lucky I am. It's amazing how you don't think you would ever forget, and to a certain extent I don't. But sometimes I live my life as if I am just trying to get by, instead of realizing that so many would do anything to have what I have. I am married to my best friend, who I love more every day, and I have two of the greatest kids ever. God has blessed us in so many ways, one of the most visible being Noah. Consider what a difference a year has made.

At this point Noah was not able to eat, breathe without the ventilator, his bowels were not working, and his heart had just been fixed.

He has suffered no complications from any of his health issues, he does not even have to be on blood pressure meds (as most with his condition do.)

In times when many are worried about legitimate things (money for example) I hope that we can keep in mind the many things that we have and focus on these instead of what we are lacking.

Big sister Grace

Grace takes her responsibilities as a big sister very seriously! I was cleaning in the other room, and peeked in to check on the kids and this is what they were doing. I love that they are such buddies now!

Kids at the park

The kids LOVE the park close to our house! Grace enjoys playing on the swings, and slides, while Noah mostly enjoys trying to eat the bark (although he is starting to appreciate the thrill of a good slide!)

Fall Festival

Our church had a fall festival today, and the kids and I went while Steve was at work. They had a blast! Between the jumpers, the arts and crafts, the facepainting and the prizes it was a kids dream come true! I can't believe how big Noah is getting looking at these pictures! We had one traumatic moment when the Doggie Jumper deflated while Grace was jumping in it..she keeps asking who pushed the doggie...but she seems to have come out of it unscathed. :) Overall, fun was had by all.

Cookie Monster

In honor of Cookie Monster's birthday (yesterday, the 2nd) Grace has been talking like him and, in this case, eating like him. A typical meal at the Hallam household...

Halloween

So this past week has been absolutely crazy! I worked two overnight shifts (8pm-5am) followed by a 8-12pm shift on Wed. Then, Thursday and Friday Steve had his seminars for the PhD program, and I had class as well. Whew! I am so glad that week is over! Next week looks pretty busy, but hopefully will include more sleep than last! Steve was in his seminar on Friday night, so I took the kiddos trick-or-treating myself (I know- I am pretty proud of myself.) The two busy bees and me headed down to a shopping center called Strawberry village where all the storekeepers open their doors and hand out candy. It was a blast! The best part was it was mostly covered by awnings (it was pouring rain) and I didn't have to worry about the candy being safe or not (not to mention the neighborhood!) Grace got the hang of it very quickly, and soon was running from store to store saying "Trick-or-treat...tanks....trick or treat....tanks..." as she hoarded her treasured candy in her bee "purse." (The only way I could get her to carry a bag.) Also, she is the first bee I know of to insist on wearing pink rainboots with giraffes on them because "mama...du wear rainboots when its raining...not my crocs..." (accompanied by an exasperated sigh and roll of the eyes.) Noah was happy to play with the candy wrappers and smile at people. On an unrelated note he is now standing up and saying "bye" as well as "mama". He says "dada" but still doesn't know what it means...but I tell ya, if he is mad or wants something, he DEFINITLY knows what "mama" means. Also, we had some family pics taken by the amazing Rachel, so make sure and check out rachelblackwellphotography.com/hallam to see them. Let me know if you want me to order any, she is giving us a steal on prices!

In other news...(I know...its been a while since I updated) I have the best husband ever. I have really been wanting this awesome camera lens for some time now, and had truly resigned myself to waiting a year or so to get it. He sold his bike and bought me the lens because he said "I knew you would get much more enjoyment out of the lens than I do out of my bike." It's like the story of the Christmas shoes, except I think he loves me more than I love him because I don't know if I would sell the lens to buy him a surf board! Unfortunately, because my bike was chained to his, after he sold it, two nights later my bike was stolen. :( Not that I rode it that much, but I definitly could have sold it to get him a new bike, or riden it in the future. Mainly it's just creepy that someone was right in front of our apartment (the bike was hanging up) which is not that easy to get to. I think thats all for now, I have to get back to writing papers...hopefully life will slow down a bit soon!

Off to school!

Our baby Grace started preschool last week. Because our lives have been so crazy I am just now getting this posted! She loves it! The hardest part is getting her to actually say goodbye to us. Last Thursday Steve took her to school, and he said he told her "Gracie, tell Dada bye" and she uttered a long sigh along with a roll of the eye "ugghhh....byyyeee." Wait, is she two or twelve? She is going on Tuesday and Thursday mornings from eight thirty until noon. She did not want her pic taken, but here was her first day of school. She wanted to wear her "ballerina" dress and her sparkly shoes. That was last Tuesday. Last Thursday she woke up at seven thirty and came into our room and announced "I'm ready to go to school!" Smart kid. Life has been extremely crazy the past month between both Steve and I working, doing school and parenting, but our schedule should slow down a bit this next month (Hopefully not to the detrement of our budget!) We are looking forward to more of a set schedule from Steve's work and after next week he is pretty much done with his PhD assignments for this semester. (You will have to ask him about Jesus' anger throughout Mark, he is now an expert!) ;) I got the opportunity to take a few maternity pics of a neighbor along with Shannon and am very excited that the shoot went well. I borrowed a lens from a friend, and am hoping to be able to save for the same lens, because it was amazing! I would love to be able to do more photography as time permits! Noah is cutting several teeth and has had a rough few days, but he is still the sweetest boy ever. Didn't even stop smiling during his flu shots! Thats all for now...have to go work on some hw.

Fooled ya!

Noah was making the funniest face when he was drinking his water the other night at CPK, I had to get it on camera. Come to find out, we mixed up the kids drinks, and he was drinking lemonade! No wonder he wouldn't stop for a breath!

Laughter is the best medicine

Waiting for his most recent cardiology apt, Noah didn't need much to keep him entertained! This kid has the best belly laugh I have ever heard! We sat for an hour and a half, and he literally did this the entire time. He was cracking everyone in the waiting room up- like father like son...what a goof! (fyi, the apt went well, we have another echocardiogram in November, then we should be able to go for a year without a heart checkup!)

Killer Bees...

So I am rethinking having Grace and Noah dress up like Bees. What is it with our society? We take these mean little flying bugs, and turn them into cute cartoons and such. Doesn't this encourage our kids to befriend the nasty buggers (endangering their life and limb!)? As you can tell, I am a bit bitter. For almost 25 years I have left bees alone, even argued that they wouldn't harm you unless you harm them. Well, all that has changed. Let me set the scene....It was a brisk fall evening. My family and I were walking up the path from the parking lot to the Marin General Hospital to visit Shannon and her new baby. I was carrying Grace, minding my own business when all of a sudden, BAM- I was hit! In a very controlled and restrained manner I managed not to cry as I wondered what had happened. Steve didn't believe me! I told him "I think I just got stung" and he said "I don't see anything." Well, let me tell you, there WAS something, and the agony wasn't over. Little did I know that the perpetrator of this heinous crime was still at the scene, and BAM- he stung me again! Is it just folklore that bees cannot sting twice? I am pretty sure it wasn't a wasp, so I have come to the conclusion that it was probably a killer bee. As I was contemplating ripping my shirt off before getting stung further, a wonderful nurse saw my plight and came to my aid. She pulled my shirt back, and with her bare hands, grabbed the bee and flung it to the air. My hero! So... about my kids representing this awful insect......

Baby Carsyn is here!

She is the sweetest little thing! 8 lbs 8 oz, 19.5 in long, and a ton of dark brown hair! Shannon did an awesome job!

To bee or not to bee....

Mema sent us some great halloween costumes! Grace is trying to decide if she should be a princess or a bee (noah would either be a dragon to go with the princess or another bee) Here are the pics- what do you think? She doesn't love wearing the crown, or the hood to the bee costume, if that influences your decision. (sorry the pics are blurry, grace grabbed the camera and fingerprinted the lens, and then wouldn't let me take any more after I cleaned it off.....ahh two year olds!)