Black and White and Red All Over

Those of you who visited our home sometime in the last six months will doubtless remember the very "artistic" kitchen we were blessed with. Whoever lived here before us used about eight different colors on the walls, ceiling, and cupboards, and was apparently too ADD to finish distinct sections in one color but moved on to new hues haphazardly. But sometimes, when buying a house, you have to have a vision for what it COULD be.

The last month and a half have been spent transforming our kitchen into one more our style. David has spent many of his days off from work painting three (or four) coats over the walls, ceiling, and cabinets. Here are the "After" pictures of our brand new kitchen.

Next project: the bathroom. Although I think that one is going to have to wait till next summer.

Taming the Wilderness

One of the glorious things about this summer is that for four whole months I don't have to share David with his schoolwork. One of the drawbacks is that for four whole months I do have to share him with his garden. Before we bought our house in January of this year, I never suspected what an avid gardener and landscaper David would turn out to be. Every day he spends an hour--or two, or three, or four--outside taming the wilderness. And although I sometimes begrudge the time he spends out there, I definitely enjoy the beautiful yard he's created. Here are some before and after pictures.

BEFORE: The front yard prior to purchase

AFTER: The front yard now

BEFORE: The left side of the house

AFTER: The left side of the house -- minus the trashy plastic shed

AFTER: Notice our baby boxwood hedge -- it will be 3' tall someday

BEFORE: Right side of the house

AFTER: Right side of the house

AFTER: More right side of the house

Enjoying Our Summer

There's something glorious about having the summer "off." I thought that when I gave up teaching I would no longer have that to look forward to. But with David being in school at George Fox University, I now have his holidays to anticipate, and I think that I've never been so excited about summer break as I have been this year.

During the spring semester David was taking a full class load and working four days a week, which meant that on some days he left the house at 7:30am and didn't get home until 11:30pm. Not the happiest of schedules for him, and definitely not the happiest of schedules for me and the twins. But now that school is out, he has Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday off, and gets to stay home the rest of the days until the early afternoon (since he works swing shift). We've been enjoying our summer and the twins, and like everything else in my normal schedule, this blog has been put on the back burner.

Here are some pictures of our summer "off."

Adam experiences Pop Rocks for the first time

Oliver crawls under Adam in the Exersaucer

Uh-oh...Mommy's caught us playing with her shoes AGAIN!

Waiting in line for "Elephant Ears" at the Oregon Zoo

"There's the elephant, Oliver!"

"And here's a wild pig, in case you're interested."

Eating solid food is so much fun!

It's nice to always have a friend to play with!

This summer has been so amazing (well, ok, not the weather, just everything else) that I don't want it to end. I assumed that George Fox, like most semester schools, would be starting up mid-August. But David informed me just this week, that his first day of school is not until August 29. That's two more weeks of summer than I thought we were going to have!

Home Again, Home Again, Jiggety Jig

The last seven days have been as busy as a barbershop on Saturday morning. They have also been bereft of any communication between myself and the Internet. I came home today to 157 e-mails, dozens of Facebook notifications, and a ream of blog posts to read through. Having caught up on those things with as much thoroughness as can be reasonably expected, I'm now ready to write my own blog post about all the happenings of the past week.

Sunday morning, we woke the twins early and left the house by 7:30am to head up north for my sister-in-law Jessica's college graduation. Jessica now has a degree in early elementary education. She is moving to our neck of the woods for the summer and looking for a teaching job down here so she can stay on through the school year. I'm hoping that she finds the perfect job to keep her in the Portland area!

Jessica and my three other sister-in-laws: Amy, Rebecca, and Nancy

After the graduation we enjoyed a wonderful celebration at the Ives' home. Since all of the Spears family was there, it was a good time to snap a family picture.

Right before we left Jessica's party, David and I shared our big news: baby number 3 is on the way! Or is it babies 3 and 4? Twins again? I should probably schedule an ultrasound.... Approximate due date is January 31, 2012.

It was almost 10pm when we got home Sunday night, with two very cranky little boys. But there was no sleeping in the next day--we got up early again and loaded up the cars to go to the beach for our annual church camp at Twin Rocks Friends Camp in Rockaway, OR.

Yes, I did say "cars," plural. Now that we are a gigantic family of four (soon to be five), we can no longer fit all of our vacation gear into one vehicle. Two cars gave us enough room to bring down the twins' Exersaucers, which made life at camp much happier for both them and us.

Oliver and Adam scrutinize a daisy - "Is it edible?"

Going to camp with children was an entirely different experience than going as just a couple. But thanks to all the help we got from family and friends, it wasn't horribly difficult. Probably the best part about our time was watching the twins enjoy new experiences in the great outdoors.

Oliver blows bubbles in the sun

Adam adores Auntie Jessica

The Pacific Ocean was one such new experience. Oliver was quite fond of wading in the frigid water. Adam, not so much.

David, Oliver, and the Twin Rocks in the background

We had a marvelous vacation, but now we're back to real life and all that entails--catching up on a week's worth of laundry, childproofing electrical outlets, painting the kitchen, and starting the manuscript for Book Two of The Chronicles of Tancred.

* * *

Many thanks to Auntie Amy for all these great pictures. I like to think that the reason we didn't take any photos ourselves is because we were too busy taking care of our kids the whole week--but it might be more accurate to just call us lazy. Oh well....

Shelve It

Last week was spring semester finals at George Fox University, which means that this week is the first week of my husband David's summer break! After he has been studying so hard for the last several months, it might surprise you to learn that the first thing he did for his summer vacation was hit the books.

Ever since our whirlwind move (and Adam's double surgery) in January, our books have been either shelved haphazardly or piled in disorganized heaps on the basement floor. But chaos reigns no longer.

We found a great place for our favorite bookshelf in the living room and filled it up with our ancient, medieval, and early modern history titles. Coincidentally, these also happen to be our favorite books. My husband and I frequently congratulate ourselves on how well the history libraries we acquired during our single years now complement each other--an added benefit to married life.

The basement bookshelves got a complete makeover with the sections sorted out into theology, language books, reference books, poetry, fiction, political science/economics, and photo albums. Notice our handmade   Turkish rug brightening up the floor--a Craigslist find from a few months ago.

Books weren't the only thing on the agenda. A quick trip to Ikea gave us this floor length mirror. I don't know which was the harder feat--fitting it into the car or bolting it into the wall.

Another project needing attention is pictures! Our walls have been sadly bare, but that is on the mend. Above is a collection of framed art I put together by cutting the spine off a Dover book, Great Medieval Churches and Cathedrals of Europe.

This morning we made a paint run to Home Depot, so hopefully I will soon have pictures of a "cotton fluff" white kitchen (instead of one with seven different psychotically applied colors) and a green "geranium leaf" master bedroom with white trim (instead of curry yellow).

The twins have been troopers through all of our renovating and running around, enjoying their time on the front porch whenever the weather's nice enough to go outside.

Fifty-fifty

Yesterday was our two-week appointment with the surgeon to evaluate Adam's progress after the operation. Originally, he had told us the odds of the Kasai procedure solving the problem of Adam's biliary artresia were one out of three. One third of the time it works without a hitch. Another third of the time the bile starts flowing initially, but then a few months or years down the road, it stops working. Another third of the time it doesn't work at all.

Praise God, we don't have to worry about the last of those scenarios. Adam's bile is now flowing from his liver into his intestines. His color is getting better--there's just a little yellow tinge to his skin instead of the fake tan orange he was before the operation. As the surgeon put it, "We've got a fifty-fifty chance now that this will keep working and he won't have to have a liver transplant. But even if the procedure does fail eventually, at least this will give him time to grow bigger and to be a more viable candidate for the transplant should he need it."

 

This is a recent picture of Adam. Looking at the picture, you may notice several things. (1) He is wearing a "designer" onesie made by Rebecca Spears. (2) His cheeks are all puffy from the steroids he is taking. (3) He is screaming his head off. This behavior has been very typical for him over the last week. His medication has made him very, very cranky and David and I are starting to go a wee bit crazy from lack of sleep. It's kind of like the first few weeks after the twins were born, or maybe even a little bit worse.

If you would like to continue to keep us in your prayers, our short term prayer request is that Adam will sleep more and cry less. Our long term prayer request (for the rest of Adam's life) is that the Kasai procedure will continue to work.

Thanks for reading and praying! And just to give the twins equal opportunity with the pictures, here's one more photo before I sign out.

Oliver, chilling in his track suit.

The Waiting Game

Many of you have asked for updates on Adam's condition. "Did the surgery work?" The reason I have been silent for a week is because we just don't know yet. The surgeon told us it might take a couple weeks after the surgery to see improvement in his skin coloring and bilirubin levels. I have two doctor's appointments next week, one with the surgeon and one with Adam's pediatrician. Hopefully those appointments will give us some answers, and Lord willing, they will be answers that we want to hear.

In the meantime, Adam has been recuperating well from the surgery. He is definitely fussier than normal, but he is still sleeping solidly at night, usually four hours at a stretch (a huge blessing for me!).

In the picture above you can see the gamut of medications he is on: oxycodone and ibuprofen for pain management; simethicone to help with gas distention; prednisone (the big bottle), a steroid to prevent inflammation; omeprazole, to reduce the heartburn created by the steroid; an antibiotic, the proper name of which I am not even going to try to spell; and last but not least, a multivitamin to make up for deficiencies caused by the jaundice.  

As you can imagine, getting him to take all those meds is no picnic either for him or for me. The only one that he seems to actually like ingesting is the oxycodone--which is also the only one that he'll stop taking in the near future. Our mornings are spent with lots of crying, pinched cheeks, forced swallowing, and attempts to avoid vomiting everything that made it from the syringe into the stomach.

In the midst of this severe trial, it's still a joy to watch both the boys growing older. Oliver just moved up to 3-6 month clothing this week and Adam will be soon to follow. They've both been enjoying their new dangling toys, courtesy of cousin Phinehas, and David's MacGyver mobile made of foil has also been a big hit.

We've also been completely overwhelmed by the kindness of our church family with all the visits, meals, love, and prayers. Thank you, thank you, thank you from the bottom of our hearts. Please continue to pray for Adam, and I will be sure to give an update next week when we find out more information.

Adam placidly plays with the new toys.

Oliver attacks the new toys.