Thanksgiving and Victoria Michelle

For thanksgiving this year, we were blessed to have Dad, Mom and Grandmother join Chris and I. Grandmother came on Tuesday while Mom and Dad drove up and got here Wednesday evening. Thursday for Thanksgiving, we had a ton to eat (and are still eating some): turkey, dressing, gravy, cranberry salad, sweet potatoes, chive and cheese potatoes, Sister Schubert rolls, broccoli casserole, pumpkin pie, pecan pie and apple pie. Yummy! It was a very good Thanksgiving dinner! Here we are right before we dove into the food.

Saturday morning Chris had the "Turkey Bowl" (teens come out the Saturday after Thanksgiving and play football) while the rest of us went to Walmart. That evening we went to Peddlers Village over in PA. It is mostly "snooty" shops but is fun to walk around and look at the beautiful Christmas decorations they have.

Monday through Wednesday, while the rest of us went out and about shopping and stuff, my poor Chris had to work. The evenings were intersting though as we introduced Mom, Dad and Grandmother to ear candles. (Plug for ear candles: they are great for cleaning out the wax from your ears - better for you than Q-tips. They are hollow candles that you put in your ear and light. The heat draws the wax out of your ear and into the candle with a result of unclogged ears.) Here is Dad as he is having his ears done while the picture below that is for those of you who desperately want to know what comes out of your ears when this procedure is done (just for clarification all that wax is not from Dad). You're welcome!

Thursday after our doctor's appointment, we opened some Christmas presents and then had dinner at P.F. Changs. For Christmas Chris got a charging station where you plug all your electronics (cell phones, iPod, etc) and it keeps them all nice and neat. He also got a Starbucks card which, by the way Dad and Mom, he took with him to work this morning. :) I got a maternity outfit from Dad and Mom. Chris and I also got a diaper bag. Toree got her Nutbrown Hares from Daddy and Mommy and pink shoes from Grammy and Papa John.

Victoria Michelle

On Thursday, November 29 Chris and I found out we are having a baby girl whom we named Victoria Michelle. Most of you know Victoria's story, but for those who do not, here it is. Victoria has septated cystic hygroma which essentially means that her lymph nodes did not develop and she now has fluid (up to 1.5cm) between her skeletal system and her skin as well as a sack of fluid at the base of her skull. Because of the fluid in her and around her heart, the prognosis is that the fluid will put so much pressure on her heart that she will go into paracardiac arrest (have a heart attack) and die. With her condition they give her a 6% chance to make it to term.

Through all of this we know several things: 1) God is good and already knows what is going to happen to Toree. 2) He is compassionate and may be compassionate and take Toree home to be with Him while He may show His compassion on us and let her be born. Chris and I thank each one of you for your prayers. Our prayer is that God's will be done and that He get all the glory no matter the outcome. While we have Victoria, we will love her and thank God for each day He gives us with her.

Some of our favorite things to do are: pray for her, read and sing to her. My Chris reads "Guess How Much I Love You" to her every night before bed. For those of you not familiar with the story it tells of Little Nutbrown Hare and Big Nutbrown Hare who go back and forth with "I love you right up to my toes" (Little Nutbrown Hare is standing on his head) and Big Nutbrown Hare answers back "I love you right up to your toes (swinging Little Nutbrown Hare way up in the sky). The book ends with Little Nutbrown Hare telling Big Nutbrown Hare "I love you to the moon" (because that is very far) and, after Little Nutbrown Hare falls asleep, Big Nutbrown Hare tells him "I love you to the moon and back." :) Toree also has stuffed animals of Little and Big Nutbrown Hare.

We also sing to her "Jesus Loves Me" except that we change some of the words around. "Jesus loves you this I know for the Bible tells me so. Little ones to Him belong, you are weak but He is strong. Yes, Jesus love you. Yes, Jesus loves you. Yes, Jesus loves you for the Bible tells me so."

Here are pictures of Victoria. The first one of is her waving her arms. The second is a picture of her waving at us. The red marks show how much fluid is between her skeletal system and skin.

We know many people are praying for us and we sincerely appreciate them! Below are flowers sent to us by our dear friends David & Melissa. They are beautiful and smell awesome!

Because we don't know how long we will have Toree with us, we are taking weekly pictures of her (actually my belly but you know). Here is this weeks picture:

This Sunday morning we woke up to snow however, I didn't get outside to take a picture before church and it had all melted by the time we got home. Oh well. Next time.

We love you all! Chris, Lisa and Victoria