December to Remember!

Hello all! I am sincerely sorry that I've not posted anything recently. We've had a VERY eventful few weeks! December was full of the usual Christmas parties at school and shopping for presents and general holiday anxiety :) But we knew we had one major event that we needed to get through in the middle of the month. We have know for the last several years that Jolee would need an operation to fix the upper jaw in her mouth, but we needed to wait until several teeth came in and others got moved around thanks to braces.

We had begun the discussion with her several months ago, so she knew what to expect. That being said, we were all still nervous. It's never easy knowing that you child is going to have to go through any pain. Luckily, she has a fantastic surgeon at Children's Mercy in KC. It couldn't have worked out any better than it did. My parents live in the same area as the hospital, Jolee is not missing school thanks to Christmas break, and she had the holiday along with her birthday to distract her.

She stayed one night in the hospital, and came home to Nana and Papaw's the next day. We stayed right by her side and tried our best to keep her comfortable. The first few days were the only difficult ones. She was unable to speak, so she would write out what she wanted to tell us. She couldn't walk because of the bone that got taken out of her hip, and that pain was the worst of all. The pain meds made her sick to her stomach, so she couldn't keep any liquids down. Fortunatly that didn't last any more than 3-4 days. After that time, she began making HUGE progress! It's been just over 2 weeks from the surgery, and I can't get over how well she is doing. She is walking like there was never an issue, and speaking almost normally again. She still will not be able to do any sports or activities for several months while that bone heals, but other than that, I am finding myself almost forgetting it even happened!

As a result of all of this, I didn't get many pictures of Christmas. But here's what I did manage to get: