Snow fun and other pictures.

Hi all,

We promised to be better at posting pictures, so here we are!
First of all, a few pictures from when my parents were visiting. Sunday roast, and our little man, not looking his Sunday best, but oh well..... Even little kids can a day were they can't be bothered and put on their sweatpants.

Roast rib of beef, roasties, yorkshire pudding, the full works .... everything! Yummy!! :)

And then... there was snow! First a little bit, which was good as we had some trees removed from the front garden. By professionals this time, as they were much to big for us to do by ourselves.

Before:
Tree 'Surgeon' hard at work. In this case tree butcher would be more appropriate maybe...

After:

When there was only a bit of snow Noah could still go out in his walker, and in the push-chair, but then it really started snowing!

Seems hard to imagine now it is all gone again, but we had lots of it. Everyone loved it, the dog loves running after snowflakes, everything looks really pretty. We had my old sled that my parents brought over the previous week. It even holds the suction machine and the emergency pack that we have to take everywhere.

Noah loved the snow, he started crying when we took him back inside! Any sightings of yeti in Leidschendam can be blamed on him.

He did find it hard to stay sitting still, and keep his balance, but he has grown so much stronger over the last year that he managed to keep upright. Not bad for a kid without tummy muscles!

Lilo enjoyed it too .... but the tennis ball was more of a snow ball! Notice Lilo is getting her father Christmas white beard too? (we're not to mention that she's getting old!!)

After all that snow fun it was time for a nice warm bath, to get all warm again.


Last weekend, we had a party, so my parents looked after Noah, and we could go. It was a 70's theme party, so we had to dress up for it. Here I am together with Paul, a friend of ours.



We'll save you the rest of the pictures, allthough we left early, so probably did not witness the worst.....

Only a week to go till Christmas, so that will probably be our next update.

Thijs


UPDATE: It is snowing again here, already 15 cm on the ground, and more in the air.

massive photo update!

Hi Everyone,

It has been a while, for which we apologize. Noah's operations have been very exhausting on all of us, both physically (lack of sleep in the nights) and mentally. Even now, after the last operation we are still uncertain if his new airway is stable without the support of the stent. The doctor will check again, probably somewhere in February.

So, a lot of uncertainty and lots of changes. This is always difficult to cope with, but we have tried to find ways to let go of some of the stress. One of the best ways is attacking stuff. As we don't want to attack people we decided to target the garden:

 That is what is left of the maple tree in the back. It took away a lot of light, so we can sit in the sun again (well, next summer hopefully). Unfortunately just chopping it down is the easy part of the job, it needs to be taken to the skip, sawed etc....

Louise took care of the branches while I sawed up the logs, to get some fire wood. It still needs to dry, so no log fire going yet.

We needed some serious tools to get rid of all of the branches, so i bought this small trailer. Let me know if you need it, it is standing in the drive way most of the time anyway.

And a nice sunny backgarden is the result:

Louise even dug over the earth to prepare for planting next year.

Now on to the more important pictures. First of all some older pictures from when we were in the east, at the Greta Bontekoe. Here Noah is trying to paint, with the help of the nurse.

They also took everyone to a indoor petting zoo, but bunnies are a bit boring.....

It was nice to have time to do some other stuff, as there was 24/7 nursing care.



Noah will start going to the revalidation center more now he has finished his operations, but here are some pictures and a video of what he has been doing recently:




He can't play with tennisballs at home, the dog would get them before him. She loves tennis balls....

This is an exercize to help him develop his communication skills. Everytime Noah presses the button we stack one more block, utill he gets the push the tower over.

And he is trying to walk by himself. This is still very difficult, but at least it is going better slowly.








Going of the slide is also a favorite, as is walking around the hallways, as fast as possible please!


Dragged along



Slide




We are trying to be as organised as possible, so we do not run out of medical supplies, and can let the nurses take care of stuff. Hopefully this will leave us some time to relax, and maybe even go out for dinner!



well that is the plan anyway!

One last occasion that we couldn't resist: Sinterklaas arrived in Leidschendam, so we took Noah to watch. Dressed as 'Zwarte piet' of course.






We hope you'll enjoy the pictures, and see you soon,

Thijs