Day +261

It's been a month of ups and downs.  We had to say goodbye to Josh's grandmother who passed away at the end of November.  We will miss her very much, but we find comfort in our knowledge of the plan and purpose of life.

Ethan performed some musical numbers with the children's group at our church's annual Nativity Festival.  We were joined by his aunt, uncle, and grandpa.  It was such a great reminder of the reason for the season.  Here is a picture of Ethan after his performance.

Two weeks ago, Jacob came down with a stomach virus, which then got passed to the rest of the family.  I had to keep a close eye on him to make sure he wasn't getting dehydrated.  He pulled through without hospitalization and seemed to be better, but then last week he started getting bloated and having diarrhea again.  One night he woke up crying with stomach pain so I took him to the ER.  They examined his tummy, ordered some stool cultures, and sent us home.  Every test and xray has come back negative for the types of infections they screen, including pneumatosis and c.diff, both of which he has a history.  His blood work actually looked great.  Almost everything was in the normal range, and those that were outside of normal, were only by a point or two.  So, we're not really sure what is going on with his tummy.  Hopefully it resolves on its own, or else he could end up having to get yet another endoscopy with biopsy, and could end up on steroids again to settle things down.  

One of the fun things from this month was I was able to help out at Ethan's gingerbread decorating party at school!

Here are my two little Santa's helpers!

On Saturday, we enjoyed our first family Christmas gathering.  Jacob got a little overwhelmed at first.  He's not used to being around any large number of people.  So I took him home to relax for a little while, and when we went back, he adjusted just fine.