Cuteness is not enough. There must be cake!: April 2015

April began a new chapter for our family. It was a very busy month for our family.

Spring Break fun at Trafalga.

Easter.

We finished the Front Room

Spring snow.

Spring water gun fight.

I haven't even covered the two big events for April. The first event was an epic adoption party to celebrate the miracle of Nathan adopting my three kids. We live close to Davis Blvd, so naturally we had to go have some photos under the sign.

We also had fun with photos.

And then there was the party. We had tons of family, friends, and neighbors join us in celebrating.

Having severe Scoliosis, I made it a point to check my kids often, beginning from when they could stand on their own. Spaceman Spiff was about three years old when I first discovered the curve. I took him into his pediatrician who concurred that he had Scoliosis. For many years it stayed the same and all he needed was a yearly x-ray. Then, when he was about nine years old, the yearly x-ray showed that his back had started to curve more and rapidly. It was time for the back brace. I was blessed to have good friends in my life who were able to get Spaceman Spiff into Shriner's. My best friend from junior high, her dad is a Shriner and they are like family to me. For many years, Spaceman Spiff wore his brace. But then he hit a growth spurt and the brace just didn't seem to be able to keep up with the curve. There was talk of surgery as his curve was well over 60 degrees. The doctors checked his growth plates and discovered that he was about 95% done growing, which was good enough to proceed. We didn't know when we would do the surgery but knew it would have to be soon. Well, thanks to his bio-dad, the need for surgery was sped up. The pain from the slap wasn't going away. Spaceman Spiff wasn't able to sit through an entire day at school. The doctors were all concerned, the school was concerned, and we were concerned. We all decided that it would be best to get the surgery done as soon as possible. With the school board's recommendation, we withdrew him from school. On April 27th, Spaceman Spiff underwent spine surgery. As a mother, that was a very difficult decision to come to and very difficult to watch them wheel him away. As a mother who's gone through the very same surgery multiple times, I don't think words can adequately describe what I was going through. The surgery went very well and it didn't take as long as the initially thought. He spent about five days in the hospital. The first week at home was pretty rough, but then he bounced back and recovered quite smoothly.