Time is Going So Fast!

I'm realizing I've been rather neglectful at posting updates lately.  Life is just passing us by so quickly.  I wish I could slow down time.  So here's a quick update since it's been so long...

Annie had more surgery in February.  Although she had her sublingual salivary glands removed last fall, her ranula amazingly still managed to grow back.  In February she had the ranula drained and the surgeon did end up finding some residual gland tissue that he had missed last fall.  Hopefully now it is all out and her ranula will not return.  She seems to be doing well now (except for continued drooling despite only having 2 of her 6 glands intact) but we continue to monitor for another ranula.

Annie also had her semi-annual renal sonogram in January.  It is incredibly uncomfortable for her since she can't manage to lay on her side or tummy well due to her scoliosis.  But after a full hour scan, and many tears, we learned the mass in her kidney hasn't changed in the last 6 months, so we'll just continue to monitor it.

Recently, Lexie finally met all the goals in her IEP for her speech delay.  Her therapist now believes that Lexie is age-appropriate enough to be able to be discharged from special education!  She will continue through more extensive evaluations for 3 more weeks before a final decision is made, but her teachers expect her to pass her evaluations well and be discharged from special education in May!  Lexie has been in some sort of special therapy services since she was about 8 months old, so we are excited to have only one child in special education again soon and eliminate half of our IEP school meetings!

Molly has been reading everything in sight lately.  She has finished all the Junie B. Jones books, Magic Tree House books, and several other series and is now reading the Geronimo Stilton series and My Weird School series--finishing 2-3 books a day!  I love that she gets so excited about books! 


Justin hasn't been teaching any courses this semester, but he has managed to stay busy with writing grants, doing research, and getting manuscripts published--on such tight deadlines that some nights have only given him 2 hours of sleep.  He is a superhero.  He has several wood-working projects waiting for him in the garage that hopefully he'll have time to get to them soon.  He's hoping to build a new captain's bed for Annie by her 10th birthday next month!

As for me, I'm having fun with my photography business and things are going very well.  I was just assigned to be the organist for our church services each Sunday, so I've been spending a lot of time practicing the organ which has been fun.  I'm also getting VERY excited for our Aicardi Syndrome Family Conference coming up this summer.  We're getting down to crunch time on getting the last speakers and details all together. 

So there's the quick run-down on our family.  Things are going really well.  We are so blessed.  We survived winter and spring is finally here! Life is great!