Amazing how fast time passes...

This first full week back at CRC has been good. Mia's bedroom changed 3 times while she was in the hospital and not all of her belongings got moved each time, so when I was looking for things, it was like a treasure hunt trying to find all of her things!! As of now, I don't think she's missing anything else, but we'll see! =) Now I'm making sure I write her name on every little thing so we don't totally lose it! Other than that, things haven't been too "exciting". =)

Mia's doing great - she's a little chatter box... I love it!!! She's actually cooing with inflections and everything. Even when I hear her on the phone, you'd never tell she even has a trach... she sounds like a "normal" baby! It's so adorable! She's starting to hold her head up a little better now, too.

I'm so tired, so my mind is drawing a blank of what's been going on this week.

Robert is still here in the area - right now he's working at Beale AFB north of Sacramento. Oh, I guess we put offers in on three houses. We'll see if anything gets accepted. Apparently they all already have offers (like most of the 1 story houses in that price range) and the realtor says if more than one of our offers gets accepted, we can back out whenever. I hope she's right! haha

Mercedes had her birthday last Sunday afternoon and she had a great time! It was wonderful seeing family and friends again - things have been so busy for everybody that I've hardly seen any of my favorite people! Mercedes was good for the most part... it was during her nap time, so she missed that, so that means we she cranky when we wanted her to certain things that she didn't want to do. She freaked out with the party hat... then she freaked out when I put her "Kiss me, it's my birthday!" ribbon pin on her shirt. She was crying because she wanted a Curious George tattoo, then she freaked out when she got it and she was crying so hard she almost tossed her cookies! She also started crying when it was time to blow out the candle.... she didn't want to play the 'stick the butterfly on the Curious George picture' (pin the tail on the donkey game). Other than THAT (haha), she had a great time! She mostly loved climbing the big redwood tree and running in the baseball diamond at the park with her cousins Arianna, Caitlin, Gracie and Josh. =) Arianna and Mercedes were making dust angels on the pitcher's mound... they were FILTHY!! It was a great day! We figured opening gifts wouldn't be the best thing to do at the park, so she opened the gifts the following morning. =) You can see those pictures here:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=107194&id=614762171&l=4225e10b5d

Tomorrow is the end of Mercedes' birthday celebration (three weeks, not too shabby for a 3 year old!) We're going to watch Curious George at a small local theatre! We're going to go with Arianna and Caitlin, too... it'll be lots of fun! Mom and Mercedes just left to watch it (it plays today and tomorrow for $1). It's Mercedes' first time to a theatre, so Mom wanted to get her used to the idea so she's excited for tomorrow. =) Tomorrow is also Robert's birthday!! I don't think I'm going to see him, but I'm sure we'll go out and do something at some point. =)

The little girl in the pictures with Mercedes is Julianna. She's a patient at the Children's Recovery Center and she and Mercedes love playing with each other! Yesterday was Julianna's 6th birthday, so I thought it'd be cute to get pictures of them together. =)
She's such a sweet girl - pray for her, too, when you remember her! I'm not exactly sure what her medical issues are, but she has quite a few. You can't really see her trach in the pictures, but like all the kids there, she has one as well. =)

Keep praying for Mia! She is doing something that we can't figure out what's going on.... her face turns blue, but her oxygen saturation is fine, her heart rate is fine... Brandon, one of the RT's, thinks he MAY know what's going on, but we just have to watch her more.

I'll keep you updated as much as possible...

Rachael <3