For the Love of Mending Hearts

Has it really been almost a month since my last post?! Sorry!

Things have been going pretty well here. Earlier this month, we delivered blankets from Cuddles from the Heart! I felt blessed and humbled to be a part of such a great project this year. Over 520 blankets were donated this year!

*Pic from http://www.cuddlesfromtheheart.blogspot.com/

This is only a portion of what I was able to collect and included 2 additional heart mom's 21 blankets! I was able to collect over 130+ blankets! My sister and a good friend back in my hometown helped collect or picked up many of them! It was overwhelming to feel the support even back home!


*These are just a FEW of the 520+ blankets donated!

There was a 4-year-old boy in the PICU who squealed in delight and all it "cost" was a dinosaur blanket. It was priceless. We gave out about 125 blankets directly to the kids and then an additional 50 each to 2 JC (Step-down until) and 3 JC (Peds Cancer Unit) at their request. When I went back with another heart mom to deliver extra blankets to 3 JC, I was told that we caused a lot of smiles that day. Some who may not have had something to smile about for awhile. You guys helped us with that. THANK YOU!!

AND because of the generous hearts of all of you, we were able to spread the Cuddles across Iowa. Many of us were able to take blankets home to our "hometown" hospitals. The rest went back to Stef's to have a start for the next donation. I am still accepting blankets so if you have one you would like to donate, please let me know. It was a great feeling to be a part of something so rewarding. Thank you Stef.

Winter has finally set in. We knew it had to at some point-we do live in IOWA after all! I think the final snow total around here was 12-13 inches. Hard to know with all the drifting! The street north of us had to have a Cat come in to scoop the snow out the drift was so high!!

It was a bit windy too!!

Because it was so cold and windy outside, I wasn't able to let the kids play for long periods of time in the snow. In between times of snowball fights and snow fort building, the boys would come in and play with Jordan. At first it started with "doing" her hair. By the time lunch time rolled around...

...we had a tent village. These lasted all day! ALL the kids-yep-even Riley and Drew, played in the tents. It may have been cold outside but the warmth of true sibbling love was felt inside.

**Sorry! Not open yet!!**

**HEY! We are taking a nap here!**

**Even Riley got into it-His comment after this picture was "You are going to put that on Facebook aren't you!" Yep-I did!!

Jordan will be having her Cardio appointment on Thursday. These appointment make me VERY nervous. I think a big part is because we haven't had an appointment where her doc has said "Yep. No changes since last time." Each appointment there is something different that has come up. I guess we'll just see what happens this time!

Until next time!
Tracey