The Norman Nest

Friends, Thank you so much for your prayers.  Nathan was released from the hospital yesterday (Wed.) evening.  He seems to be on the road to recovery from whatever virus or cold he had.  While this was a relatively quick stay for us (5 days) it was pretty intense from the 20,000 ft. view.  Nathan's recent respiratory struggles have meant that we have officially started some discussions of how safe Nathan's airway is and what his ongoing needs may be.  The MRI that was scheduled will be rescheduled for a later time.    Our hope and prayer is that Nathan will stay healthy and be able to have the first surgery for his finger/toe release on July 17th in Dallas.  The other big thing from that surgery will be how well he is able to come off the ventilator and out of anesthesia.  Please pray with us in this way and pray also for our hearts as we wait and see... Thank you to so, so many of you who continually, randomly and faithfully (yes, all of those!) remind us that we

I’m not going to say there’s never a dull moment....  but those moments don’t last long around here.  After just celebrating 40 days in a row of not being admitted to the hospital, we are back. During those 40 days, we had some great moments.  Maddie’s birthday, a few home projects, getting time with friends, and were even able to sneak in a date :)  We were even audacious enough to establish some new family routines...  The most recent highlight, without a doubt, was being able to go to the beach with Jonny’s family for a few days.  We haven’t seen most of them since last Labor Day, which meant the vast majority had never even met Nathan.  It was refreshing to be with some of the men, women and children we love most!  The 11 cousins (all 10 and under!) had lots of questions about Nathan and were the perfect combination of hilariously inappropriate and amazingly tender as only children can be :)  Madison was (almost) all giggles and smiles and loved having her whole family together and

  Our sweet little girl turned 2 last week! Turns out all the cliche's really are true...  Time does fly.  They do grow up too fast.  Which I'm guessing means the others are true as well... We'll blink and they'll be teenagers.  They grow up without even asking.  Right now they need us all the time but in no time they "won't need" us at all. What I can tell you for sure is that the little girl who is growing up before our very eyes is more brave, loving, tenderhearted, joyful, caring, fun and interesting than I could have ever imagined.  Her vocabulary is taking off, as is her independence.  Her resiliency coupled by her easy-to-please and quick-to-love nature have blessed us tremendously.  Her giggle is so contagious that strangers at the park, with toddler themselves, comment on it.  She is a "with me" kid and her happiest moments are when the people she loves are with her.  One of her favorite past times is to go down a long list of name