ONE WEEK FROM TODAY.....

hello family and friends!

we hope everyone is doing WONDERFUL and all is going well with everyones family! as for ours, we are doing FINE, THANK YOU GOD! hard to believe but james has been gone almost 3 months now! time really does fly, believe it or not.....you look at the calendar and can't believe you have not seen your loved one for that long!!! you never forget but just keep living day by day and just live for the moments you get to spend on the phone with them....it is bittersweet talking to him because you want him home soooo bad....but it is such a comfort to hear his voice.....the boys enjoy talking sooo much to daddy and of course, mommy just loves it too!!

well, i will start with the youngest and move on from there......right now, matthew is still my youngest so i will start with him....matthew is doing WONDERFUL AGAIN, THANK YOU GOD!! he was sick for OVER 5 WEEKS with a respiratory illness that would not let go of him. we were back and forth to the pulmonologist, hospital for xrays and GI lab for a upper GI and just on and off oral steroids (he did 3 rounds of this and is looking a bit buff by now!!) and antibiotics (he is still on his 21 day dose of OMNICEPH!! he will have had a total of 31 days of omniceph by the 20th of this month!!) and of course the marathon of nebulizer treatments he was getting...we also aquired a new machine for him that actually was part of the reason he got better. we now are in pocession of a RESPIRTECH precussor vest which is AWESOME!! it basically gives him CPT TREATMENTS all over his chest helping him to break up the muccus in his lungs!! within 3 days of him starting this vest, he started to clear up! and now it is a routine treatment that we give him twice a day everyday while well and then if he gets sick we increase them. they are give with an albuterol treatment and then suctioning afterwards....it is keeping his lungs VERY clear!!! we are soooo happy to have it in our home for him! i PRAY that this will lessen the times he gets ill now! his therapy sessions are going GREAT!! he is walking on the treadmill and he looks SOOOO CUTE!! he is also doing GREAT on his aquatic therapy. on the ramp in the pool, she use to hold onto his hips for him to walk and yesterday, she was just holding his HANDS and he walking AWESOME....sometimes he crosses his legs when he walks but yesterday he did GREAT! he is also LOVING pulling to stand. sometimes he tries SOOOO HARD to do it on his own but he just can't get a grip. he tries soooo hard....a very "cute" personality is coming out though and that is STUBBORNESS!! i think he gets it from ME! if he does not want to do something he will NOT DO IT! he will shake his head "no" and just not do it...and that is with EVERYTHING!! it's cute now but later.....anyway, he is also learned to turn around in BED...now don't get me wrong, he does it all the time on the floor but has NEVER applied it to being in his bed...well, he does it VERY WELL in bed now and now, he doesn't just "sleep"....he turns around and gets up on all fours and just starts to play and scream and yell because he does NOT want to go to sleep! he does this during NAP and night time! soooo, sometimes we have to just let him play for a bit and then i will go in and put him back down and tuck him in and PRAY that he just goes to sleep! this can go on for A LONG time....very fustrating but the GOOD thing about this is that he is exhibiting THREE YEAR OLD TRAITS!!! that is always good to hear! and another trait he is exhibiting is that he is getting JEALOUS and territorial of things...very 3 year-old-ish! example, during therapy, there is another little boy that sometimes shares pool time with him but is with matthews PT, who he loves, and he will sit there and just give the little boy the "evil eye" the whole time and give the PT his lip!! he will also refuse to play with the other child! i witnessed it myself just last week! i just about laughed so hard and had the baby! he was such a cutie! anyway, he is doing REALLY great and he is just getting more verbal and of course he comprehends EVERYTHING....if he could just talk, i know he could tell us what is going on! he is getting really big! he weighs about 34 lbs & is about 37" long! very big boy! i don't know HOW i have been carrying this little one! he is just sooooo solid! he got to see ALL his drs this last month of july....they were all very pleased with his progress....

now onto alex.....he JUST turned FIVE on AUG 10TH!! it is sooooo hard to believe that my little boy is now FIVE years old!! i can still remember when i got pg with him and our wonderful pg (dad was deployed then to thru the WHOLE pg!!) and then our emergency c/s to have him born and how much he WEIGHED (5 lbs 13.7 oz) and just feeling AMAZING because we had our little boy and we were a FAMILY....wowowow....we were sooo happy and proud of him! he finally acknowledged that he was turning 5 the week before his birthday! before that, he kept insisting that he was NOT going to be 5 because daddy was not here....so what we did was we had a small playdate with some of his friends that he loved to play with on wed the 8th and it was REALLY nice...we had pizza & cupcakes and it lasted about 4 hours....really nice...then on his acutal birthday, we took him and a couple of his cousins to CHUCKEE CHEESE for lunch and he had a BLAST! i was soooo proud of him! there are a couple of pics of him on our blog if you want to look!! but he is doing GREAT! he had to have a angioma removed and it was pretty traumatic for him! but he did GREAT!! and it looks great now! he also has had 4 teeth TOTAL come out! 2 on their own and 2 the dentist had to do...again, i am soooo proud of him because the dentist worked on him for about 1 hour or so and he just did WONDERFUL! his 2 adult teeth are in on the bottom too! he is getting ready to start kindergarden and we are sooo happy and excited....classes for him will start after the baby is born (probably first week of sept) i expect to fly thru the kinder curr and maybe move him into the 1st grade stuff.....probably on the things he is good at first....i am not going to push him...i was looking at the book for kinder and most of it is pretty much a refresher for him so i might keep moving on and if we finished before then we will move on to the next grade....he is also READING!!! can you believe that? he is doing GREAT GREAT GREAT!!! i am sooooo proud of him! he is also into TRANSFORMERS and he is just doing SOOO WELL! he is also understanding adding and subtracting and such! he can't wait to start school and keeps asking me when we are going to start!! i know he is anxious to get started!!!! :) i am so happy he is HAPPY about school!

now onto james, he is doing GREAT and is sooooooo ANXIOUS to get HOME!! he should be flying in on AUG 23rd and we are beside ourselves READY for him to come home! it has been since june 12th since we saw him!!! and we can't WAIT! the count down has been on for a while now and i am sooo happy for the boys because they are probably going to tackle him!! he has had a TON of days off and unfortunatly when we got the ok to travel up there, he was told that he was going to start training unexpectly again! we were NOT HAPPY about that but there is a REASON for everything and we took it as such....we were REALLY SAD we could not be there but again, GOD HAS HIS REASONS! but we are EXCITED we should be seeing him soon! unfortuantly, he will be leaving again on the 27th back to EL PASO, and soon after (probably within a couple of days to a week) he will be on his ways overseas....wow, things are happening fast again.....just pray that someday soon he will be back again HOME safe and healthy with our family....

now onto me...i am doing GREAT!! i am now 37 weeks along and it is OFFICIAL, i have gained a TOTAL OF 5 LBS for this whole pg! the drs are really impressed but i just explained that it has to do with being SOOOOO busy with the boys and with james that i guess i was REALLY active this pg! i for one am REALLY happy that that is ALL i gained and let me tell you it is ALL BABY!! my belly is HUGE!!!....and NEXT WEEK on FRIDAY 24TH, mr JOSHUA MICHAEL will GOD WILLING make his appearence and we are just praying that he is born HEALTHY and strong!! we know, probablymore than most, how things can change in a blink of an eye. with matthew, we had a PERFECT pg and we had absolutely NO IDEA that there was ANYTHING wrong with him....we did our test, kept healthy etc and then he when he was born with a rare heart defect....well, you know the rest of his story.....i have prayed everyday that this little one is born healthy and strong, as i did with all my pgs but as ALWAYS, this is in GODS HANDS...i can't say that i am not a bit nervous because i AM but i will leave it in GOD'S HANDS....i am going to mention to the drs that when the baby is born, i want the baby to have a compete cardiac work up on him....i am just soooooo excited to meet him!! and the boys keep asking if he will be home soon! i can't believe i will GOD WILLING be a mommy of THREE BOYS!! wowowowow....GOD IS GREAT!!

well, i hope that everyone is doing great...this summer has been an ADVENTURE in ups and downs....with us not spending really much time during the summer as a family because james has been gone the whole time....but the GOOD thing is that it was SOOOO rainey and wet this whole summer that it would have been really hard to do any camping or stuff like that so it was ok! but we sure wish that he was HOME to spend our days together...i know he missed the last 3 months of this pg but i hope things will all fall into place when joshua is with us.....i can't WAIT for james to get here and we can be a family TOGETHER again!!

soooo, on our blog, we uploaded a couple of pics of the boys for your enjoyment! and that will be the place where i will upload pics of the big day of the 23rd & 24th....soooo please check in often to see what is new and if there are any pics of the newest addition to our family!!

well, take care and any thoughts and prayers for our family during the next week would be GREATLY appreciated....we are all nervous and excited at the same time.....it is a very exciting time in our lives....it just feels like YESTERDAY when we discovered that we were being BLESSED again in our family! i am sooooo happy! :)

GOD BLESS EVERYONE!! the next time you hear from us, GOD WILLING, it will be with the news that our newest addition to our family is HERE and all is WELL!!!

tons of love,
james, maria, alex, matthew & joshua