Hello Santa

It's the holiday season and we decided to celebrate a little early. Our Christmas tree is up and our holiday lights are strewn across the house. We even got a chance to wrap a few gifts for our family members and placed them under our tree. Not bad for being only the first week of December.

Kalista got dressed up yesterday to see Santa and told him what she wanted for Christmas. Here are a few pre-Santa pictures that we gathered throughout the day:

Our cute little elf by our Christmas tree

Kali showing off her new house slippers

Holiday lights are always so mesmerizing

Ta da!!!

Oh Dear Santa...

As you can tell, Kalista didn't want to crack a smile at all while she was with Santa. Bless that gal's heart who was the photographer, since she tried almost everything; all those cool noise-making and moving toys didn't make a difference. Kalista must have had a serious list for Santa because she was all business about it.

Yummy in My Tummy!

Kalista ate her first tater tot yesterday and a small bowl of mac and cheese today. Yay!

The Pat Down

So...in our last post we showed you a picture of what looks like Bella starting a conga line with Kali.

Here is what really happened:

December Already??

Hi everyone! I can't believe that November has came and went. Sorry for the lack of post entries last month.

Well...after Halloween came and went,it was only a few weeks before Jen's family came into town for Thanksgiving. It has been awhile since Grandpa Greg and Uncle Bill saw Kali over the summer so they were anxious to come visit. Grandma Susan was just down in October for a two week stay. Kalista has a good memory; she knew it was Grandma as soon as she saw her.

For pre- Thanksgiving dinner, Jen made her first turkey on the stove top. Yes...stove top. We invested in a cookware system called Saladmaster. It's a waterless and oil-less method of cooking and essentially uses a pressure cooking method to cook your food. So we threw a 12 pound turkey on the stove, added some vegetables and let it go for about 3 to 4 hours. We'll just say it was so tender that the meat started falling off the bone. Mmmmmm good!

Ironically, we spent Thanskgiving evening at a restaurant. We had dinner at Soleil@K in the Gaslamp since they have a wonderful buffet spread. We definitely enjoyed the endless supply of turkey and prime rib with all the fixings. Yum!

During our Thanksgiving week, we finally got a chance to meet up with Karsie Gene. She is one of Kalista's baby "O" friends. It was the first time we all met each other in person. We have been following each other's blogs for awhile and emailing back and forth. It has been so great being able to share our stories and our journey with each other.

We set up a play date/food date while they were in town to see if Karsie would rub off some good foodie vibes. We thought it would be such a positive experience to see another little girl, just like Kalista, eat yummy things like hash browns and scrambled eggs. And you know...we have to thank Karsie and her family because Kalista is now on this food kick. She started drinking "Icy Water" (watered down whole milk) in place of just plain water and today she ate 12 graduate puffs in a row. Not bad in one week's time! She has also accepted Fruit Loops into her repertoire of foods. We couldn't be happier! 12 sweet potato puffs...in a row....that's a record!

Kali at the park with her friend

As we transition into December, we have sadly caught this wicked little cold that has plagued everyone around us. We think this early Christmas present was sent to us by mistake. This time the grownups got hit harder than Kalista. Last time she got sick...it was a nice trip to the ER...times two. This time she got the sniffles for a few days, but seems to be doing fine right now running around the house. She is the only who got the flu shot this season..so maybe that helped. Hopefully, we can all rest up this weekend and be back to good health by next week.

I feel good.....let's conga!

November Updates

Kalista had her GI appointment at the beginning of the month and she is still on the growth curve...barely. She weighed in at 18 pounds, 2 ounces; which is actually a half pound more than last month. Pretty good! Her g-tube site didn't look that great since it has still been leaking a little every time she retches. The granulation tissue that formed at around the opening had to be burned with silver nitrate. The site looked fantastic for about a week as the area healed, but now it looks the same again. Bummer!

And yes..those teething woes again. Kalista has some new pearly whites We thought she had chunks of food in her mouth at first, but then did a second take to find that she had some monster huge molars coming through. She loves the tooth brushing part of her nightly regimen. It must feel good having the bristles massage her sore gums. Nonetheless, such a blessing that she knows the importance of good oral hygiene! Our dentist would be so proud.

It is official, the Tams have announced that they will be joining us for Thanksgiving. Yay! Now, it's time to go defrost that turkey of ours and give thanks for many great things that have happened this year.

Wishing everyone an early "Happy Thanksgiving"!

Kalista's 2nd Halloween

HAPPY HALLOWEEN EVERYONE!

We have been very grateful to have Matt's parents in town for the past few days. They came to visit Kalista and spend Halloween with us.


We pumpkin carved a few nights ago and made some royal beauties. Kalista thought the pumpkins were a little too slimey and decided to bail on Jen and Grandma Evelyn as they were adding on the final touches.

Kalista is a woman of many alter egos. We bought a costume a few months back which happened to be a little blue monster, but we found a costume from last year that she still kind of fits (It was a daisy). We had it way in the back of her closet and brought it out for this fine occasion. Kalista looked cute in both Halloween outfits.

Kalista, Matt and Grandma Evelyn stopped by Jen's office to visit and show-off Kali's outfit before they went trick-or-treating. Since Halloween happened to fall on a Monday, they did some early trick-or-treating and even some friends came out to join us. Kalista's friend, Catherine, dressed up like Strawberry Shortcake and Kalista transformed into her alter ego...the one-eyed blue monster. When Jen got home from work, she decided to dress up in her Monsters Inc Sully costume and joined them as the evening got darker.


We thought it would be a quiet Halloween, but amazingly enough, the streets were filled with little ones and their parents. We saw some amazing costumes! One family even dressed up as the Angry Birds Clan....2 green pigs (parents), the white, red and yellow birds. We made it around the neighborhood and trick-or-treated for about a half an hour before Kalista started to tire herself out.

Pumpkin Patch

We finally made it out to the Bates Nut Farm last weekend to enjoy a good afternoon of fall festivities and to see why other families rave about this place. With the smell of kettle corn in the air and pumpkins scattered about...we explored the farm to find a small petting zoo, inflatable monster slides, barbeque and pony rides. We didn't get Kali on the pony ride, but she was fascinated by the horse drawn wagons that trotted past her very own parent drawn carriage (a.k.a. stroller). There was a pretty cool John Deere tractor train circling the event area too.

We saw a few pretty good scarecrows..even ones made out to look like Angry Birds characters. Evidently, they won first place in the scarecrow contest.

Kalista enjoyed the fields of pumpkins and we meandered through the actual pumpkin patch in search for the biggest pumpkin we can get our hands on. We didn't find a giant, good-looking pumpkin, but instead the patch resembled a battlefield of wounded pumpkins. Many of the pumpkins look like they had exploded from the scorching hot sun. Kalista felt adventurous enough to sit on one of the decent pumpkins we did find.

Hold on..I'm concentrating

Whoa...so many pumpkins!

I love the Bates Nut Farm!!!

Grandma Susan's Visit

Grandma Susan came for a little over a week to spend time with us. We whisked her away to Palm Springs for an overnight trip since we wanted to take a mini vacation mid-week and she has never been there before. It is the land of country clubs and golf courses. Even their golf carts are all decked out.

We happened to arrive in 105 degree weather, so we hit the pool for the first day. Kalista had a fun time since they had a beach area that she could run around in.

Grandma and Kali shading themselves on deck

Dad and Kalista after a day at the pool

Kali resting on her bed after a long afternoon by the pool

We ventured to the artsy district and passed some memorable landmarks from the last time we went to Palm Springs (which was when Matt proposed). Since art galleries and high end shopping weren't tickling our interests, we thought long and hard about whether we were going to do the Palm Springs mountain gondola lift. In the end, we decided to just head home. Maybe we will get to do it the next time we head back to Palm Springs.

Grandma Susan got to go to a few doctor appointments and playgroups whiles she was here. It was cardiology week, so Kali had to do an EKG and be hooked up to a Holtor monitor for 24 hours. We thought she was going to pull a Godzilla moment and rip off all the sticky wire leads, but it really didn't seem to bother her at all. She played everywhere with her monitor on. If her arrhythmia isn't too severe, then we get to push our cardiology appointments to a yearly basis. Yay!

Grandma Susan also got to a chance to go to one of Kalista's "Toddler and Me" groups. Kalista showed Grandma all her furry stuffed friends and her favorite toys. It was oil-dough and painting day. Kali had fun poking the oil-dough, but tears came flowing when it was time to paint her paper pumpkin. Guess it was not a Picasso moment!

Latest Medical Updates

Whew...we have had plenty of visits to Rady's this week and to Kalista's second to last physical therapy session.

Last Wednesday we had Kalista's almost final PT session. We impressed Ms. Tami with all of our new found moves. Kalista walked around everywhere...climbed up stairs and even danced a little bit. Since there were no obvious concerns, we will be back for our last PT visit when Kali turns two. Yay!

On Thursday, we saw Dr. Gosman for our follow-up visit to see where we stand regarding the tissue expanders. Just one look and she knew Kalista was still too small for surgery. Besides her petite stature, her g-tube is another concern. Dr. Gosman would love to be able to do the surgery without Kali's g-tube in place. The possible mixture of stomach contents and the material for the tissue expanders are a big risk factor for complications...not good. So our job until our next follow-up visit in January is to get Kali eating up a storm so we can wean her off her tube.

Kalista is too smart! Just today, she held up her tubing and food container to Matt, letting him know it was time to eat. Ugh!!! At least she knows one way for food to get to her tummy...we just need to teach her the other way.

So bottom line...no surgery planned.

We saw the nutritionist today and because our insurance has decided to drop all nutritional coverage, we have been responsible for some pretty expensive formula for the past two months. Rayna, our nutritionist, gave us the thumbs up to switch Kalista to a more commercial full nutrient formula, such as Pediasure or Boost for Kids, given that she can tolerate it well. We'll see which one Kalista likes the most and go from there.

It was a packed day; we even have feeding therapy/OT this morning. Kalista joined the other two boys in her group for another uneventful week. She just sits and watches one boy chow down food without chewing (his parents are constantly doing the heimlich maneuver) and then we have another little boy who chews, but doesn't swallow. Kalista is another category in itself...she can chew and swallow, but doesn't want to bring foods to her mouth regularly. She is slowly getting better....she tried grapes today for the first time and will eat yogurt melts and star shaped rice puffs if we put them in her mouth for her. One baby step at a time....

Shamu and You Walk- Update

WE DID IT!!!

Team KIND (Kids In New Directions) raised a little under $900 for Rady Children's Hospital today.
We want to thank all of you for your support and donations!

Here a few pictures from the 5th Annual Shamu and You Family Walk through Sea World and Mission Bay:

Thanks for all of your support!

Kali is ready to start the walk/ride

Team KIND's little walkers

Kali and Dad enjoying the day's event

Getting a bird's eye view

Kali swapped her trike for her stroller and worked up an appetite