Merry, merry Christmas! We find ourselves in another Christmas season surrounded by so many blessings! We are so grateful for our family and friends who have served us so generously this year. It’s been quite a busy year! 2009 started out with Justin finally finishing and defending his dissertation at the end of January. He then moved to
Jodi and the girls moved up to
In May we all took a trip back to
Justin currently serves in our Church as a teacher to the 14 and 15 year old boys. He is also a Varsity Team Coach in the Boy Scouts and had a great time on a 3 day canoeing trip with the boys this summer. He absolutely loves working in these positions—probably because he doesn’t have a son of his own!
Jodi feels incredibly blessed to have met such wonderful new friends in Papillion. Annie has had a record number of doctor appointments since we moved here, and we are so touched with everyone’s kindness in welcoming Molly and Lexie into their homes while we’re away with Annie. Jodi has been kept incredibly busy as we’ve worked to get settled in our new home—everything from unpacking, decorating, and doing our own landscaping. Jodi has also kept busy as we’ve searched for and met a whole new team of doctors, therapists, and nurses for Annie; enrolled Annie in her new school programs and in-home nursing care; and set up Annie’s Medicaid waiver and insurance programs. We have been so blessed to have all these huge transitions go so smoothly, but desperately miss Annie’s medical team from
Jodi’s favorite way to relax is by reading a great book. She somehow managed to read 69 books this year and is always open to good book suggestions. Jodi currently serves in our Church as the secretary to the children’s organization. This has been a perfect fit for her and she’s loved serving in this position.
It’s truly been our busiest year of doctor appointments, and Jodi had her share as well. This fall she had two procedures to fix some painful varicose veins caused by three pregnancies. She first had an ovarian vein embolization, and more recently, a phlebectomy. She’s excited to have relief from her pain.
Annie, 7, has had the most exciting year of all of us. In August we discovered that the popping sound and feeling in her knee we’d noticed for several months was actually her kneecap dislocating causing her a lot of pain. She just had surgery to fix that knee as well as a heel cord lengthening on her ankle to help it bend better. Annie also had a sleep study which showed Annie was having 120 episodes of sleep apnea at night—some episodes lasting over a minute. To help resolve that, Annie had her tonsils and adenoids removed in October. Unfortunately, her follow-up sleep study showed that the surgery made no improvement in her sleep apnea. She’s been sleeping with oxygen, but will soon start CPAP to help decrease the number of apnea episodes.
Aside from all her health challenges this year, Annie has been a happy kid and thoroughly enjoys 2nd grade and all her friends and teachers at school. She still loves being read to and going for walks when it’s warm enough outside!
Molly, 4, started preschool this year and has really enjoyed it. She has a very curious and imaginative mind and its fun to hear the clever and funny things she says. She loves drawing, writing, building tents out of blankets, and creating things with play-doh. She also loves to dance and sing. We’ve encouraged her to take dance lessons, but she refuses, claiming she already knows how to dance!
Lexie, 2, is still our little baby, but growing quickly. Lexie loves being with her sisters and wants to be doing whatever Molly is doing. She has made lots of progress in her 
development this year and is no longer in physical therapy for her gross motor and speech delay. Once she discovered she could walk when she was 19 months old, she has really taken off. Now if we could just get her to talk better, she’d be a happier and less frustrated girl!
One of the highlights of our year was a trip to
Again, we are so grateful for such dear family and friends who have been so supportive this past year. We always appreciate people asking about Annie and keeping her in their prayers. Thank you so much. We hope everyone can take time this season to remember their blessings, especially the wonderful blessing of Christ’s birth and sacrifice for us. We wish all of you a very merry Christmas!
Love,
Justin, Jodi, Annie, Molly, and Lexie
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Nice to hear about your family. I'm glad Annie's surgeries have gone well for her and that you have so much help with your other two girls. Have a Merry Christmas.
ReplyDeleteJody, Hi. I'm just finding your blog thru the Aicardi group. My niece has three little girls. Her youngest was born on Nov. 10th. On Saturday little Brooke was diagnosed with Aicardi Syndrome. What a blessing it was to come across this blog. We are LDS and I think it would be sooooo helpful if Brittany could talk with someone else who she can relate to. You seem to have quite a bit in common with both of you having little powerpuff girls. She had a rough weekend. They admitted Brooke when her spasms (beginnings of seizures) began and the fMRI showed agenesis of corpus collosum (that might not be spelled correctly, I am just learning about all of this to get her the help she needs). They thought that the only problems Brooke had was one of her eyes not completely developing. The fMRI showed the cyst and the lunae (gap) between the two hemispheres, as well as the cyst. They were going to go in and operate on the cyst but have decided to wait until after Christmas. She could really benefit from hearing from someone else who has gone through this. Would you email me or facebook her? Mine email is janiels2@asu.edu and my niece is Brittany (Nielson) Miller. By looking at your three little girls, your blog, etc. you two seem to be a lot alike and both on the ball. She is just having a difficult time with just barely hearing the news. Oh, We are from Arizona....Zion :)
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