Below, I share with you my many, many blessings...

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!!

It has been a busy, crazy week and while the turkey is cooking and most side dishes are just waiting for some oven time I decided it is best that I post something as I feel I am neglecting my blog now that I spend more time on face book.

The boys have both been very ill this week. I finally took them both in Tuesday and the doctor could not find symptoms of an actual infection but said they were probably starting something and with it being the holiday weekend he started a course of antibiotics. I am so glad he did! Tuesday night Noah started a fever and coughed himself like crazy through the night. Jonah has been so stuffy and he has hardly any interest in eating (ditto with Noah). They both I think are over the worst of it as of today (thanks to the antibiotics) and because Grandpa and Grandma are in town to help, Shane and I have for the most part survived and been able to catch up on sleep here and there.

I am grateful today to still be standing after another crazy year of hospitals, surgeries, diagnoses, medications, and all the other crazy things that come with being a micro-preemie mom. I am grateful to have a supportive husband, no other man could have gone through this journey and managed the extreme stress the way that Shane has...plus he is able to comfort me through my difficult, emotional days and still love me. He is one incredible man and I am lucky to have him in my life.

I am grateful for my sweet babies, life may be hard but these boys are close to the spirit and bring such love in to our home. Jonah, especially, reminds us of the most important things that life has to offer and he reminds us that God is near to us. Noah is a bundle of joy, I don't think one day goes by that I do not find myself smiling at his toddler ways.

I am grateful for supportive parents and in-laws, especially Grandpa Langston and Grandma Hanna. They both have given several hours of their time to come and be with our family and help with our load of care. We would not have survived with sanity in place without their support. We love you!

We will be eating around the table soon and as part of our family tradition we will share a few things that we are grateful for and mine will include all those things I have mentioned above. I am also grateful for a home, food, clothing and employment....many things that a lot of people throughout the world do not have.

Everyone enjoy your holiday, thank you for your friendship!

I am sorry I have not posted in some time. We have a few updates here at the Hanna home. Life continues to be busy. In regards to the boys, Jonah has done a bit better with eating since starting the Periactin. We still are not back to his normal love of eating but he has been taking food with a bit less fighting. We still have a ways to go but my hope is by December 14th he will have put on enough weight that the GI Clinic will be satisfied enough to let things go for the time being. Noah has come down with another cold (poor guy). We all seemed to get over this bug when Noah started again with a stuffed nose and congestion, now Dad is sick again too. Even poor Grandpa has taken his turn with this virus. Jonah finally goes back to school today (hurrah)! It will be good to get him back in to a routine. His eye is healing well and I do think we have seen improvement with how he holds his head (not so much leaning to the left now so he can use his right eye) and he does seem to focus a bit more with both eyes so hopefully this is a start in the right direction.

Thank you for those who have been praying for the Price family. They most definitely need all of heaven's blessings during this difficult time.

Grandma Langston flies in to town Sunday and we will have Thanksgiving here. I am excited for the holiday but a bit sad to see Grandpa return home. He is such an uplifting energy here in the home and these boys will miss him so much! Just Tuesday Grandpa took us to IHOP for breakfast and as he went to pay the bill, Noah could not see him and just burst in to tears. He is going to miss his Pa-pa very much! We will just have to convince Grandpa to come down again during the winter time. We enjoy his fun company. He is truly a Granmpa (ha ha!) He loves to do crafts with me, go to Michaels, enjoy shows, go out to eat, shop, you name it and he loves it. What a great Dad, eh? Plus his constant love for my boys is absolutely amazing.

Speaking of which, I need to get our Thanksgiving menu planned. I had great hopes of putting together my Thanksgiving and Christmas binders (plans, etc.) but I have just not gotten around to it. Too many projects I suppose.

I am proud to say that after much thought, I am trying to organize a local Mom group for Moms who have children with special needs. Shane helped me brain storm a cute slogan (The M.O.M. Club, Moms of Miracles) and I contacted the Director of Terrio Therapy to see if we could post a sign up sheet to see if we could garner some interest. I also spoke with Jonah's teacher at Richardson Center and in the end, everyone was thrilled with the idea. So we have almost a dozen moms signed up who are interested in a play group and if that goes well I may branch out and start doing a dinner out once a month just for Moms so we can get out and support each other. I plan to hold the play group at our local River Walk park which has walking trails and lots of play grounds plus a new Target next door so it will be nice for everyone. I hope this will be a positive experience and that we can enjoy getting to know new families and supporting each other in the blessings and challenges we all have of raising children with special needs. I hope this will go well.

Aside from this, we seem to be managing life at the break neck speed in which it happens (most days at least).

I am probably completely crazy but decided last minute to join some of the other church ladies to see the New Moon show tonight at 2:30 AM. I found out they had an extra ticket and they plan to do an early breakfast after. I am also going Monday with a big group that includes a lot of old friends from my former church ward but I decided, what the heck! You only live once and I need to get to know the women in my new church ward better. So I am off to bed and then in a few hours will get up to go see New Moon. I promise I will not post too many details for another week or so to give everyone a chance to go see it first.

For now, I better get some rest.

Friends and family,

I hope that my friend Amanda Lawrence does not mind that I ask that you please keep the Price family in your prayers. They lost their young daughter with Cerebral Palsy over the weekend. The reason for death is still unknown and the family is suffering from the horrible shock. She was also like a daughter to my dear friend Amanda as she spent her time in the NICU with Amanda's son Duncan. It is a great loss to both families.

God bless you Price family. Prayers are being said all over the nation in your behalf.

Just a quick update.

We are still trying to manage colds here. Jonah came home yesterday from surgery. Everything went fine. His right eye is pretty red from the procedure but otherwise he seems to be doing ok. He does NOT like his right arm splint one bit and I can't blame him! His right arm gets things done for him so having it tied up so he can't use it is no fun. He was very upset about this last night. Today he is trying to work around it. He will have to wear this for at least a week so he won't get to his eye and damage the stitches, etc.

This morning Jonah woke up sounding absolutely miserable. He has horrible congestion and I have suctioned him like crazy a couple of times today. Poor guy! First, surgery and now a cold! I was worried because this afternoon he was flushed but he is not running a fever so I am just keeping an eye on him. He is eating awful today but with a stuffed nose I can only imagine that eating is not that pleasant.

Last night we held our very first Family Home Evening. I have had the best of intentions to start but with Noah's non-existent attention span I have not been too motivated. I made an adorable FHE board at the recent Funtastic Friday event for the Relief Society and decided this was my motivation to start holding regular FHE's.

We had a quick discussion about Jesus and how he is Heavenly Father's son. We sang a few Jesus songs from the Primary, colored a picture of Jesus (Jonah got to use his light box to help him see the picture) and Grandpa bought Marie Calendars pies for dessert (yummm......) Was it perfect? Was there crayon throwing and temper tantrums after the first few seconds? Yes, but I am determined to keep trying. It can only get better, right!

I was able to get a few photos (see above)!

Just a quick posting.

We are sick here today. I have been in bed all day (thank goodness for Grandpa and his helping hands) and Noah has been ill too. Noah has thrown up a few times today, including all over our bed comforter and sheets (wonderful). Shane is at the doctor's office with Noah right now and thank goodness it looks to be viral. The pediatrician is going to prescribe meds to help stop the vomiting. Noah and I are trying to prevent our plague from spreading to Jonah who has surgery Monday.

On another note, Jonah is still not eating well. This is day 2 of the Periactin. We thought we were turning a corner yesterday when he acted hungry at lunch after finishing his 4 ounces of Kids Essentials. But today has been horrid as far as eating goes. We do not have him on the full dose as of yet. We may need to add that extra teaspoon in the morning. I am giving him one more day in the hopes that he will eat better tomorrow.

That is the latest. We will let you know about Jonah's surgery Monday. I hope I recover quickly because Shane may have to travel down to Madera without me on Sunday. The hospital has strict RSV guidelines right now and they only allow 2 healthy adults in with each child.

We will keep you posted.

Good news! We have approval for the Periactin. I am ecstatic (to say the least)! I will pick it up today and Jonah gets his first dose tonight. PRAY that this will finally get this kiddo's appetite going....it has been a long two and a half months since his surgery.

Hoorah! We are off to feeding and speech therapies for the boys.

Oh, I have to say...poor Thanksgiving! I went today to Michaels to look for some fall garland.....oh no. Every thing in that store is Christmas! As well as Target, Walmart and Pier One. I find some left over garland at Pier one but dang it, I don't want to pay what they are asking. I am trying one more craft store down town and see if my luck changes.

Just a quick update about last week's tests.

Jonah's delayed emptying scan did not show any problems. This is both good and bad. Good for the obvious reasons but we also do not have answers regarding his poor appetite. I spoke with the GI doctor Friday and she of course suggested that we go ahead with the nasal tube to augment what he is already eating. I told her NO, that we first needed to try the medicinal route and trial the Periactin to see if it would increase his appetite. Good thing I have been doing my research and have other micropreemie moms to share notes! I first heard of Periactin from my good friend Amanda Lawrence whose son is also a 24 weeker. They have Duncan on Periactin right now and she has said it has helped some with his appetite issues. I guess this clinic does not generally use the Periactin on younger children but thank goodness I was able to use Duncan as an example and she said she was open to possibly trying the medication but wanted to discuss it with some of the other clinic doctors first. She is supposed to get back to me Tuesday.

For those of you fasting in church today, remember Jonah. We do not want to put him through any more discomfort and adding a nasal tube, even if only for a month or two, would be absolutely horrible for his progress. His speech therapist this past Monday absolutely had a melt down over the idea. She said it would aggravate his texture issues and further delay any speech progress. She was NOT a fan of the idea and I am not either. So please fast and pray that the doctors will agree to trial Jonah on the Periactin and that it will be successful in increasing his appetite.

The big issue is maintaining weight as well as gaining weight. He really has not lost any weight in two months but we need him to start gaining too.

I am praying the Periactin will be our next option.

Friday was a very frustrating day for me. First, with Jonah's fighting over eating as well as the phone call from the GI clinic. They did talk about an endoscopy to see if the fundoplication might be too tight but they said really there is not much to do aside from waiting for his stomach to grow and accomodate food so I do not see the point in putting him through the endoscopy if we can't actually do anything about the results. Although I guess Shane is right that it will at least provide answers.

Saturday I cleaned house in the morning, Noah went shopping with Shane for our church trunk o' treat and Grandpa took Jonah on a nice, long walk. Saturday afternoon we ran around doing errands, grabbing a few last things and then off we went to the local park to set up for the trunk o' treat. It turned out really well. One of Shane's vendors donated 200 pumpkins and the bowery ended up looking pretty festive with pumpkins everywhere and we were able to send them home with the church families after the pot luck which was nice. We had trunk o' treating after. Jonah was not in a good mood so Grandpa took he and Noah home for baths and Shane and I stayed behind and decorated our trunk for the church children. It was a lot of fun! We all enjoyed dressing up and even talked Grandpa in to wearing a Dr. Seuss hat.

Halloween is officially over and Christmas is around the corner (well, it is already here if you hit the stores). Now I guess it is time to get going for Thanksgiving. I think this year I am starting a holiday binder. I am inspired by one of our church sisters in our stake who is the most amazing, organized person you will ever meet. She had a holiday organization lesson for us and talked about ways to organize for the holidays. I am going to start collecting menus, recipes, fun activities and organizing them according to holiday. That way we can start deciding on family traditions and have menus planned for upcoming dinners, etc. This will be a new project to add to the pile but it is one I am excited about.

Thanks everyone for your extra support and prayers. Our little family appreciates all the love constantly sent our way.

Happy Halloween everyone!

We enjoyed a fun pot luck and trunk o' treat tonight with our church ward. Shane and I went all 60's/70's and the boys dressed up like pirates, even Grandpa wore a Dr. Seuss hat. For those of you wondering what I would ever look like as a blond this it but I'm happy to say I can't wait to return to being a brunette!

Photos from Blind Babies Harvest Festival. As I said below, Jonah was not in the best of moods so unfortunately we do not have as many photos of him as I would like. Noah LOVED the tractor (he is in love with all cars, trucks, etc.).

We are off to a very busy start here in the Hanna house this week.

Today alone we had therapy, school and I volunteered for Little Feet Repeats. It was a long day to say the least.

This past Friday we heard from the GI clinic. The doctor that has been following the boys was concerned about Jonah. We discussed what has been going on and she decided we should repeat his gastric emptying delay study to see if he is still suffering from a lot of swelling due to the surgery and scar tissue removal in August. The doctor did say some kids take a few months to really heal from the procedure. She said if the swelling was significant she might recommend a nasal tube to augment his feeding until he is able to eat more adequately. PLEASE pray that we do not go down this road. I told the doctor this HAS to be the last choice. I talked to her about Periactin and she said that if the results show things are healing then the assumption will be that he needs medication to boost his appetite and we can try the Periactin. Even if the study finds swelling I may still ask to try the Periactin before the nasal tube. The doctor wanted to know why with Jonah's former results the surgeon did NOT do the pyloroplasty. I told her the surgeon's philosphy is the procedure is more harmful then helpful and he personally does not recommend nor like to perform the surgery. Apparently Jonah's GI doctor was not happy with this. What can I say? They both have varying opinions and we put trust in the surgeon's decision to not perform the pyloroplasty.

Right now, friends and family, we need your prayers! Please pray that we find answers that do not require any sort of feeding tube. We have not fought for two years to get to the point of giving up. It has been exhausting, I cannot lie, we are to the point of syringe feeding Jonah his sippy cup or supplementing with solids only and it can be so frustrating for both of us but I am not ready to put Jonah through any more than is necessary. So pray for both Jonah and I that we can make it through this and get answers quickly.

This week will continue to be busy with Little Feet Repeats, Halloween carnival, school, therapy, and a trunk o' treat for church plus the study in Madera Thursday. Phew. That was a long sentence to right and a bit stressful to think about but there will be a lot of fun too.

I will post photos of the Blind Babies harvest festival we went to Saturday. After all our driving, Jonah was in an awful mood so most of the photos are of Noah. It was a bit on the hot side (in the 80's) and being outside when it is hot is not Jonah's cup of tea.

I will keep everyone posted and let you know when we find out more about Jonah.

The day is finally ending at 10:00 pm. I am completely exhausted and after this posting I am going straight to bed because tomorrow it starts all over again and early.

Dr. Tamura, Jonah's fundoplication surgeon, wants us to start him back on arithromycin to see if it helps boost his appetite. He thinks that maybe Jonah is still suffering from GED (gastric emptying delay). Other then that, he said that unfortunately it will take time for Jonah's stomach to grow to a point where it can accomodate more volume so we just have to stick with getting as many calories in him as possible. I am considering adding Benecalorie or olive oil in his Kids Essentials to give him an extra 100 calories with each meal. He has not lost weight but he has not gained either in the past two months. Not good. He needs to be continuing to grow so hopefully we will find a formula that will work. Dr. Tamura also arranged for the GI clinic to call and arrange a time to see Jonah because of my concerns and he wants to see us back in a month.

Now, as far as the appointment with Dr. Kelly goes....Jonah will have surgery #11 or 12 (at this point it is past 10 and I am losing count) on November 9th. Dr. Kelly noticed today that his left eye is resting lower then his right and he seems to not really be using his left eye. She wants to correct this with the hopes that the change will force him to use both eyes together. When she asked me if I had noticed the difference in his eyes I said, yes. I have noticed before that his left eye focuses lower then his right but I figured that when Dr. Kelly felt the timing was right she would correct things and it looks like that time has arrived.

So we are scheduling the surgery for around the 9th. Shane would like it earlier because he starts teaching night classes for the University of Phoenix so we'll see what I can do tomorrow with scheduling. We want to do the surgery with Grandpa in town so that we can both go down with Jonah and Grandpa can stay behind with Noah.

That is the udpate as of today. I sure hope that this medication helps Jonah and hopefully adding extra calories to his sippy cup will help him start putting on weight too. He is still hanging out around 23 pounds 5 ounces.

Well, I am exhausted so for now I will end this post but will follow up with more later. This weekend we have the Harvest Festival with Blind Babies Foundation. It will be fun to get out and enjoy the time there plus we will see Kristi Spaite with BBF. She continues to be a great help to us.

A preview of the boys Halloween costumes.

We had our play group today at the local pumpkin patch and let the kids wear their costumes because we are doing a party for just the adults Friday. I LOVE the top photo of Jonah and of course Noah is adorable too. My camera died before I got any good group photos so I included an individual shot of Preston (Tracy's son) and Allie and Noah (Allie is Brooke's daughter). For other photos I'll have to rely on my friend Tracy. She got lots of great photos with her professional Canon camera. The kids had fun!