Merry Christmas 2012

Dear Friends and Family,

Merry Christmas! We love taking the time each year to connect with all of you, to celebrate the birth of our Savior, and to cherish the blessings of good friends and family.  Here is an update on our family happenings  this year:

Jared works hard as a neurosurgery PA .  He enjoyed spending a week in Toronto this year for the national PA conference and is now a Canadaphile (not saying he wants to build a summer home there, but the trees are actually quite lovely).  Jared has worked hard at home putting up a shed in our backyard, tiling our entryway and bathroom, and fixing things around the house.  Jared also works hard as a  home teacher and served as Elder's Quorum President in our old ward before a recent boundary realignment.  He is now an Assistant Scoutmaster in our new ward and loves it.  He is happy to have an excuse to do more camping, and wonders why it has taken 10 years until being called to scouts.  Jared has a new look this year as well since he got his braces off and had Lasik eye surgery.

Mary spent most of the year pregnant and is very happy to have her body back to herself.  She was excited to start her first year of official homeschooling and loves teaching Abby and Maddy at home.  She also enjoys doing a preschool co-op for Nathan.  Mary loves caring for her little Thomas and is happy to have him home with her.  When Mary can find a few moments for herself she enjoys reading.

Abby (6) finished up kindergarten this year and started her first year of homeschool.  Her favorite part is studying the Story of the World series for history.  She also enjoys attending workshops for 6 hours a week at Homelink (which offers classes for homeschoolers).  Abby's favorite class is her American Girl class where she reads and discusses the books.  She also enjoys playing with her Felicity mini American girl doll that she got for her birthday.  When she isn't playing dolls or ponies with her sister,  Abby can most often be found with her nose in a book.  She reads constantly.  Abby is also excelling at the piano and loves creating pictures and doing crafts such as weaving and needlepoint.

Madeline's (5) favorite thing is playing dolls and My Little Ponies with her sister.  A close second is doing arts and crafts.  She loves coloring and is getting to be a great artist.  She is a good reader and is excited to start playing the piano like her big sister.  Maddy is finally outgrowing her shyness and we were really proud of her when she overcame her fear of the water and passed the first level at swim lessons this summer.

Nathan (3) has grown and learned a lot this year.  He is finally potty trained and he enjoys learning with his preschool friends.  He likes playing cars and was excited to have his own CARS birthday party.  Nathan also loves space and informed us he is going to be an astronaut when he grows up.  He was thrilled to get his very own astronaut suit for Halloween.  Nathan loves "helping" daddy and he is really excited to have his own little brother to play with.

Thomas (2 mo) was born at the end of September and we feel very blessed that he is here safely and doing so well. He had a lot of challenges his first month of life: premature birth, Hirschsprung disease, Down Syndrome, and a heart defect that will need repair next year.  After a week at Kadlec NICU and a month at Seattle Children's, he is finally home.  He is growing well and will hopefully be big and strong enough for his two up coming surgeries scheduled for this year.  Thomas is very sweet and a joy to have in our family.

This year our family took a trip to Utah and several weekend trips to Boise to visit family.   This summer we had a wonderful Donaldson family reunion on the Oregon coast where Mary was able to spend time with many of her siblings and nieces and nephews she hadn't seen for years.    We also enjoyed exploring Seattle during the month we spent up there with Thomas.  We love traveling, but we have also had a lot of good times at home.  We've enjoyed swinging in our hammock, gardening, berry picking, playing soccer and doing archery in our backyard.   We love family walks by the river, picnics, and outings to the park.  Basically we love spending time together.

We are grateful for the time we've spent with you.  We would love to hear from you.  Have a Merry Christmas and best wishes for the coming new year!

Love,

Jared, Mary, Abigail, Madeline, Nathanael, and Thomas Collett

Thomas' Baby Blessing

PICTURES  

My dad was nice enough to take a few family pictures for us while he was here.

Our family

 The handsome Collett family boys

THOMAS' BABY BLESSING

The cutest baby in the world in a blessing outfit my mom picked out for him.

Jared gave Thomas a beautiful blessing inspired by the Spirit.  He spoke of Thomas' special mission to show the love of our Savior to all those around him. Thomas was also blessed with a long, happy, and productive life. He was blessed that his heart would heal and that his ears would be unstopped that he would be able to hear.  Thomas had just failed his newborn screening test shortly before he received the blessing.  Miraculouly when we took him to the audiologist the following Friday he was able to hear out of one of his ears and his other ear was filled with fluid.

THE COLLETT CLAN

 Grandma and Grandpa Collett with Thomas

 Jared's family that were able to join us for the blessing

 Nathan enjoyed "riding" the trike and hanging out with Uncle Bryan.

 I enjoyed visiting with JoyAnn and Jessica.  We especially appreciate Jessica coming up despite her morning sickness.

 The kids had a lot of fun playing with their cousins Kayla and Courtney.

 They were darling playing the piano together in their red dresses.

 The kid table

 When my dad wanted to take a picture of us with Thomas, Nathan had to bring his baby doll over for the picture too.

FUN WITH GRANDPA D.

My dad was kind enough to come up for the blessing and stayed for several days to help out.  He watched Thomas for us so we could go to the temple and go on a date. He was also great about watching the older kids for me while I took Thomas to all his doctor appointments.

The kids had fun decorating a gingerbread house with Grandpa.

Our elf on the shelf, Felix, seemed to really like it.

We went with grandpa to see the reindeer at Beaver Bark.

The kids enjoyed seeing  all the pretty Christmas decorations and my dad enjoyed looking at the plants.

We were sad to see my dad go the next day.  The kids really enjoyed all the extra attention from Grandpa and I really missed having an extra set of hands.

November 2012 Update

THOMAS COMES HOME

We started off this month by bringing our little boy home from the hospital.

It felt really good to finally bring him home, although the trip home was quite the adventure. We weren't able to get him discharged until late in the day and we had to stop several times to take care of his feeding and to deal with his feeding pump that kept malfunctioning.  We didn't end up getting home until midnight.  The first few days were really hard as we tried to figure out how to deal with tube feeds and the colostomy bag. Jared and I were both exhausted. After the steep learning curve things got much better.

ABBY

Abby was really proud of herself when she won a computer game. Here is a little picture she drew to congratulate herself.

THANKSGIVING

Our vegetarian Thanksgiving dinner.

Thomas' first thanksgiving. We were most grateful that he is here safe with our family.

THOMAS' FIRST MONTH

Thomas spent his first month sleeping and growing a lot.  We are happy he is gaining weight well so that he will be big enough for his heart surgery.

They never let me even try nursing Thomas while he was in the hospital, but he started nursing a week after he came home. He doesn't have strength to do it a lot but he nurses 3-4 times a day for about 5 min. each time.  He likes nursing but he still gets most of his nutrients through his feeding tube.  Here he is trying to nurse from Jared.

Our sweet little guy.

DECORATING FOR CHRISTMAS

The day after Thanksgiving our tree was up. The kids always have fun hanging their special ornaments.

Maddy's 5th Birthday!

THE PONY PARTY

Maddy was really excited to have her first friend birthday party.

Her friends June and Ava came, along with her best friend Abby.

Maddy wanted a My Little Pony party.  She was excited to get a new purple pony on her birthday cake.

We played put the tail on Pinkie Pie and lots of other fun pony games.

Here she is eating cake with her friends.

MADDY'S BIRTHDAY

On her real birthday she opened presents from her family.

She was excited to get her own American Girl doll and books.

She also got a lot of fun toys from her Grandma. Here she is with all her toys lined up.

MADDY AT 5 YEARS OLD

Madeline is a joy to have in our family.   She is sweet and helpful.  She is usually the first to come when she is called and the first to help clean up.  We love having her in our family.  Here is a list of some of her favorite things . . .

Color: Purple
Books: Samantha books
Toys: Her jeweled mirror, My Little Ponies, Strawberry Shortcake Dolls
Show: My Little Pony
Food: Pancakes, German Oven Pancakes, grilled cheese and tomato soup, pizza with ham and pineapple
Holiday: Christmas
Friends: Junie, Ava, and Abby
Do: Coloring, playing dolls or ponies, and swimming

Thomas and the Windows of Heaven

I would feel ungrateful if I didn't write a blog post about how the windows of heaven have been opened for us.  Our family has truly seen blessings poured out upon on family in abundance.  Through our experiences with Thomas and all of his health problems we have had angels around us helping to bear us up. Jared and I have been deeply touched by the countless people (both friends and strangers) who have reached out to us during this difficult time.  I have heard of many people who have a baby with Down Syndrome having a lot of negative experiences with people saying rude things and such.  Our experience has been the opposite.  We have only felt love and support from the people around us.  In this post I wanted to write about examples of this love that we have felt.

OUR FAMILY

When I met with the perinatologist about Thomas' heart, my sister and brother-in-law were visiting.  They put off their trip home to help watch my kids and then stayed later to help give me a blessing even though they had to miss their parent night at school.  Our families joined us in fasting and prayer in Thomas' behalf and they showed complete acceptance of Thomas and his condition.  Jared's father gave him a beautiful blessing which brought us much comfort.  My mom flew out the day after she heard of Thomas' birth and helped us out in so many ways.  She cooked for us, helped watch the kids, and worked with Abby and Maddy on their reading and homeschool, and she even filled our freezer full of easy meals for us to eat after she went home.  When we went to pay our hotel bill for our first week in Seattle, we found that Jared's brother had already paid it for us.  We also appreciate all our families members who made a special effort to come up for Thomas' baby blessing.  It was wonderful to have them here, especially since we were going to miss seeing family over the holidays.  Jared's family came bringing gifts and helping with all the food while they were here.  My dad came and spoiled the kids and gave Nathan lots of attention (which he was missing now that he isn't the baby of the family any more).  My dad took us out to eat and was kind enough to watch Thomas so Jared and I could go to the temple and then go to dinner and a movie.

CHURCH MEMBERS 

Our good friends the Stevens, the Higbees, the Johnsons, the Mitchels, and the Migels all helped us by watching our kids for the numerous prenatal doctor appointments here and in Yakima and Seattle, and while I was in the hospital having Thomas.  It felt good to know that my children were being well cared for through all of this.  The other moms from my old ward that I do Nathan's pre-school Co-op with helped pick up the slack and gave me an extra long break from teaching after Thomas was born.

Throughout all of this I received weekly phone calls from the Relief Society presidents in both my old and new ward who called to see if we needed anything.  As we learned the news of his Down Syndrome and heart problems, we had many friends from our old Badger Mountain ward who decided to anonymously give us money and gift cards to help with the expenses of medical bills, travel to Seattle, hotel stays, and eating out.   We both started to cry when we received these gifts.  Many of them offered many prayers in our behalf as well.  We felt overwhelmed by the love and support of so many people.  

While at the hospital my friend Terra Dabling, who is a nurse at Kadlec, visited me several times as well as the Relief Society presidency from my new ward.  I also was visited by several other ward members, and our Home Teacher and his wife came to visit and he helped Jared give Thomas a blessing.  After I got home a sister whom I visit teach came by with a gift for Thomas.

We were also blessed by the members of the Ravenna Park Ward in Seattle who reached out to us as well.  We were welcomed in the ward at church.  A sister in the ward, Ann Romish, has a calling to help with LDS families who are at Seattle Children's, and she visited and called several times.  We were given a nice care package put together by some Relief Society sisters from the Bellevue Ward.  Jared was fed by ward members several nights.  One medical school student even offered to let Jared sleep on his couch so that Jared could actually get some sleep (the hospital rooms were very noisy at night).  One family came and brought us cookies that they had made for us for FHE.  The members of the church truly exhibited Christian charity and love during this time.

DOCTORS AND NURSES

Throughout my pregnancy I have had a wonderful OB, Doctor Smith, who cared for me and Thomas with skill and compassion.  In addition to him we met with several specialists who were also kind and helpful in clearly explaining Thomas' condition and helping me prepare for what sort of challenges he would have in life.  We are also grateful for Dr. Turner who recognized the problem with Thomas' heart decelerating and who acted quickly to perform the emergency C-section and get Thomas out of me as safely and quickly as possible.  Thomas was treated by wonderful doctors and nurses both at Kadlec and Seattle Children's.

BLOOD DONORS

Thomas had to get 2 platelet transfusions in his first week of life.  This was especially difficult because he has B- blood which isn't very common.  I gained a new appreciation for people who donate blood which helped save our baby's life.

OUR NEIGHBORS

Our next door neighbors, the Mullers, were very kind to us during this experience.  They gave us boy baby clothes.  They took us out to dinner in Seattle.  They helped mow our lawn and lent Jared a big air compressor for blowing out our sprinklers.  They brought us dinner, as well as giving me nutritional supplements and supplies for breastfeed and pumping.   We feel blessed to have such kind and giving neighbors.

OTHER PARENTS OF CHILDREN WITH DOWN SYNDROME

After hearing that I was going to have a child with Down Syndrome, Sister Edvalson from my old ward came by with a some bread and garden produce and talked with me about her daughter.  She expressed what a blessing she was in her life.  After Thomas' birth a parent from the local Down Syndrome association dropped by the hospital and gave us a bag full of books and literature about Down Syndrome.  Another mom of a 2 year old boy with Down Syndrome dropped by with cookies and a note and has called several times offering her support.  I received a phone call the other day inviting us to the Down Syndrome Association's Christmas party.  I've also received empathy and support from the 2 other moms in the ward who have children with Down Syndrome.

THE RONALD MCDONALD HOUSE

Staying in a hotel long term can be very expensive.  We are very grateful for the Ronald McDonald house and all its volunteers and donors.  It was a great blessing to be able to stay there.  It was nice to be all together as a family and to be so close to the hospital that we could walk.  We only had to pay $25 a night verses $100+ a night in a hotel.  We helped keep the place clean, but there were also many volunteers who came in and helped with cleaning.  There were also many organizations that donated food and sponsored dinners at least 3 nights a week so we didn't have to worry about cooking or providing dinner.  

SEATTLE CHILDREN'S
Almost everything about our experience at Seattle Children's was positive.  The doctors and nurses were extremely kind.  We loved how they encouraged us to be there with Thomas rather than making us feel like we were in the way.  The volunteers at the patient and sibling playroom made sure our kids had lots of crafts and fun toys to keep them busy.  The family resource center helped us figure out transportation, lodging, and other logistics.  The finace department assured us that we wouldn't have to worry about any hospital bills from them since they had enough donations to cover any expenses that our insurance wouldn't cover.

JARED'S CO-WORKERS
This picture is of Thomas laying on a beautiful quilt that one of the OR  nurses that Jared works with made for him.  All of Jared's co-workers were extremely kind about all of the time that Jared had to take off work and offered to help us in any way.  One of the doctors Jared works with brought us dinner too.

THOMAS' DOCTORS,  THERAPISTS, AND OTHERS
Now that Thomas is home he has had numerous visits with doctors, therapists, nutritionists, and others.  They have all done a wonderful job caring for Thomas and teaching us how to best meet his needs.

There are probably many others that I have forgotten to mention who have been angels to us during this time.  We feel that having Thomas has already taught a beautiful lesson on the importance of expressions of love and compassion.  We hope that we can mimic these beautiful acts of service for others through their trials of life.

October 2012 Update

After Jared, Nathan, and I spent a week in Seattle it looked like he was going to be there for a while.  My mom needed to go back home, and paying for a hotel room was getting really expensive so we decided to take turns sleeping bedside with Thomas while the other one would stay at home with the other kids-- at least until we got into the Ronald McDonald house.  Because I couldn't drive Jared's stick shift, I took the first turn at home with the kids.

NEW GLASSES

Nathan got new glasses to help him not go cross eyed.  He looks very handsome, although keeping glasses on a 3 year old is quite the challenge, and it's even harder to keep them clean.  Also in this photo, note the vintage Yellowstone National Park shirt circa 1985-ish.  Jared found this souvenir shirt in his save box, and decided to let Nathan have it.

SEATTLE CHILDREN'S

After spending a week with the kids in Richland, the Ronald McDonald house finally opened up and we were able to all go up to Seattle to be with Thomas.   It felt really good to be together as a family again.

The kids riding on the Hippo outside the entrance to Seattle Children's.

The kids couldn't get enough of their sweet baby brother.  When they visited the only difficulty we ran into was who got to hold him first.

Maddy holding Thomas for the first time.

Abby holding Thomas.

Nathan holding his little brother.

Although the kids loved seeing Thomas and playing at the Ronald McDonald and the hospital playroom, after a few weeks they started getting homesick.  We decided to show them that Seattle had lots of fun things to do other than visiting the hospital.

AMERICAN GIRL STORE

Abby and Maddy absolutely loved the American girl store!  Here is Abby in front of one of her favorite American girl characters, Kaya.  Abby has read all the Kaya books and has been discussing them in her American girl class at Homelink. Kaya is from the Nez Pierce tribe in the area that is now the Tri-cities.

Here is Maddy with the doll Rebecca whom Maddy likes because she is "fancy and looks like me."

KING TUT

For Abby's homeschool, Jared took her to the King Tut exhibit where she was able to see ancient Egyptian artifacts that she had studied about in her ancient history class.

Here's a picture from when Abby went to the King Tut exhibit in Philadelphia when she was less than a year old.

The cutest little Mummy.

Abby also enjoyed seeing other things at the Pacific Science Center.  She especially loved the 3D IMAX movie about the migration of monarch butterflies and kept trying to catch them out of the air in front of her.

Abby by the space needle.

THE ZOO

Jared took the kids to the zoo in the rain while I spend a day having one-on-one time with Thomas.  The kids were soaked but had a great time.

HALLOWEEN HAPPENINGS

We did homeschool with Abby and Maddy in Seattle, but Jared took them back for a few days one week  so they could go to classes and he could take care of some things at home.  Nathan's preschool took a trip to the pumpkin patch.  Here they are enjoying a ride.

Picking out pumpkins.  Nathan was disappointed that he could only pick out a small one.

The kids were really sad at first about spending Halloween in Seattle, but they ended up having a wonderful time.  In fact they were much more spoiled than they would have been at home.  The hospital playroom had a big Halloween party where they got lots of prizes and they got to show off their costumes. They also got Halloween prizes and candy at the McDonald house.   Many of the doctors and nurses were dressed up and Thomas even got his own little pumpkin decoration.

On Halloween night Abby lost her first tooth.  She had been wiggling it for days, and after noticing how loose it was while helping Abby brush her teeth, Jared gently grabbed the tooth with a piece of gauze and pulled it out.  She was really excited the next day when she found 4 shiny quarters under her pillow left by the Tooth Fairy.