We're Back!!!!!

Since our last post, we have been extremely busy. Since then we have had a family gathering, a death of a friend (Sgt. William "Billy" Bushnell), two trips to LR and the funeral for Billy. We had such a good time at the family gathering. The Keys' family has starting have a birthday party each month that we have a birthday in it. Well this last month happened to be Daniel's cousin Josh's birthday and his wife Nicole's birthday and it also happened to be a housewarming partying for them since they finally have got their house done. I am so jealous of their house. It is so nice. They are so excited to be in their new house. Their old house was extremely small for them and they need some more room. Emory got a little fussy while we were there but she took a small nap and we were good to go from there.

Emory was so good when other people held her, she just smiled and smiled and smiled. This is one of my all time favorite pictures of her and Spencer (her cousin). He is just looking at her and she is just looking at him and they were trying to figure each other out. Spencer and Emory are being held by Nicole's mom, Mary.

Then Tuesday we went to Little Rock to get our hearing aides. Daniel and I were so excited and we were going to be really upset if they didn't have "hers" in. We had received a letter back in March when they discovered that she had moderate hearing loss in both ears and that she would need hearing aides. They reassured us since that they found it early enough a long that she should not have any problems but they just don't know. So when we got there for our first appointment with Dr. Key (ENT doctor) his nurse looked in her ears and couldn't see anything because of too much stuff in her ears. So she moved us to another room to clean out her ears. Let me tell you how much fun that was. We had to strip her down, because she gets so hot, and then they swaddled her in a sheet. Emory did really good being swaddled, usually at home she will work her arms out but she didn't hardly wiggle. Until they start to clean out her ears with a suction thing. She started screaming her head. I have not seen her get so red in a very long time. All I wanted to do was just push the nurse and the resident out of the way and just pick up Emory and hold her and let her know that everything was okay. When I did get to finally hold after them cleaning out her ears, she was doing a little bit of that snubbing stuff, I thought that that was a little cute. Then we finally got to where we met with Dr. Jan who put in Emory's hearing aides and just went over the general taking care of them type stuff. When we finally got both hearing aides in and turned them on, let me just tell you how excited Dan and I were. We spoke to Emory in a normal tone voice and it took about three tries of us saying her name and then..... she finally smiled!!!! Dan and I just looked at each other and we were so excited. Dr. Jan said that it would be normal for a while since she was still so small that her ear molds (the piece that fits down in her ear) would fit one day and then not the next because she has grown out of them. Well Wednesday when I dropped her off at Granny's we had the hearing aides in and by the time I got up there for lunch, she had taken the left one out and said that it would not stop whistling. Well I checked it and put it back in her ear and it was not a snug fit anymore. Well anyways we go today to the ENT doctors in Mtn. Home for them to get some new ear molds made.

Also last night, Emory finally got her paci in her mouth by herself!!! I couldn't believe it. I noticed her with it right beside her mouth and she was licking it and trying to figure out a way to get it in her mouth. Well I snapped a few pictures of her yawning and smiling so then I just went and fixed her a bottle. Then Daniel came in from the grocery store and I walked in to the living room to start feeding her. I put the bottle down besided the couch and walked over to her pack n play and noticed that she had her paci in her mouth. I just go so very excited and told Dan about it and he tried to tell me that he had put it in her mouth but he didn't. So I missed it. I wanted a picture of her doing that really badly but maybe next. Enjoy the pictures that I do have from last night.

When you have a chance, check out www.ethanpowell.com, this little boy is one day from being a month younger than Emory and he is fighting a battle with Leukemia. I happened to see this website from my friend Nikki, themcinyrezoo, from one of her links to a friend and I was looking at her blog and noctied her entry about this little boy. If you are not a believer in God, you will be when you read the updates from the parents on this page. It is awesome to see how prayer works and now that God has a plan ( Daniel and I now that too). Thanks!!!