This week with the Huxman's

Some of you have been looking for an update since it's been a while since I've given one - especially on the house. It is REALLY coming along. Here is the most recent picture. I believe they will be starting to shingle tomorrow or at the beginning of next week as well as getting the electrical work going. They did dig the trench and put the electrical wire in from the road to the box by the house today - kind of exciting!


As for a baby update, we had a sonogram yesterday and the baby appears to continue to grow so that is good. Once again, he was uncooperative for the sonographer so they weren't able to see as much as they hoped. It appeared that the left hand was fine, right hand was unable to be seen, right foot was fine, and there was clefting found on the left foot. That is the most recent information we have. The real good news was he had turned so is currently head down. No specific induction day has been set and we'll just continue to see how things progress. It is definitely still a waiting game and your prayers are still greatly appreciated. We thank all of you for your friendship, thoughts, and words of encouragement. You are all a blessing in our lives!

Vacation - Part II

Hello - still from Coralville, Iowa. The conference just ended about 2 hours ago. What a great time we've had!!! We once again were able to connect with families from all over the US and reunite with friends from the past as well as meet new friends. Tyler and Ryan reconnected with their past friends - Morgan from Virginia (sister to Ally who has EEC and there is a website link on our blog) and Zemery from Virginia (who also has EEC and would have to be considered Tyler's BEST FRIEND at the conference. They act alike, look alike, and could appear to be brothers. It was definitely hard for them to say goodbye. Ryan made a few new friends also. Once again, this has been such a wonderful experience for our family. The NFED is such a blessing to us. I encourage you to go to our website link and check out the NFED website and what this organization has to offer. We'll be traveling back tomorrow and reality will hit Monday --- back to work for Chris and thinking about school for DeAnn.

The EEC Group at Conference

Kristin & Ally Kelso (Virginia), Norma MacDonald (Nova Scotia, Canada), Jack Kriz (Oregon)
Tyler, Zemery Dennis (Virginia)

Ryan, Andrew, & Tyler

Tyler, Zemery Dennis, Morgan Kelso

Zemery Dennis & Tyler (don't they look like brothers???)

Vacation - Part I

Hello to everyone from Coralville, Iowa! We have arrived at the Marriott Hotel where we will be staying through Saturday, when the conference ends. It is a beautiful hotel and we spent about 30 minutes driving around this evening looking for a place to eat. We found many restaurants, hotels, and other businesses that were obviously closed due to the flooding last month. Wow, the devastation is amazing. The river is right at the back of our hotel so we were very surprised that no damage was done here. Here's a quick run-down of our trip so far . . .
Sunday --- Visited and stayed with Cousin Bernice Woodward near Helena, MO - it was too short but we had a wonderful time together.
Monday --- Drove to Mascoutah, IL - why you may ask, since it is NOT a direct route to Coralville, IA? The NFED Headquarters - we just had to see where all the people we love from the NFED go to work each day. We had a great visit with a few of them and look forward to spending more time with them later this week once the conference begins on Thursday! Spent the night in Galesburg, IL (yes, we were in a car for about 9 hours today) DVD players are great and Andrew even took a 2 hour nap. The boys did very well.
Tuesday --- Drove to Moline, IL - "The Home of John Deere" The boys had a great time looking at new and old John Deere's and climbing in the cabs to "drive" them. The number of times Andrew said "bine", "actor", or "down" was too many to count. He would climb up the ladders, sit on the seat, drive a little, climb down just to turn around and do it all over again. The boys each received a souvenir from their visit and will remember it for quite a while I'm sure.

The NFED Family Conference will actually begin on Thursday so tomorrow we will just do a lot of relaxing (although DeAnn has meetings from 1-4 in the afternoon). In the evening we hope to have dinner with our friends, the Kelso's, and begin our time catching up. We'll try to update again later this week.

House and Life Update

Well, it is amazing to see what can happen in a few short days. Our new house went from a hole in the ground to actually looking like a house. On Monday they poured the cement for the basement floor. Tuesday the poured the cement for the garage and the framers began. Now we have a house with almost all the walls framed. It will be even more amazing how much more will appear to get done in the next week.

We leave tomorrow, Sunday, for the NFED National Conference in Coralville, Iowa. We are looking forward to getting away. We will be making a few stops along the way, with the
largest anticipation being Moline, IL - home of the John Deere plant, etc. (all the boys in this house are VERY excited about this) We will be in Coralville from Tuesday evening through Saturday with the conference being Thursday through Saturday. Then we'll travel back home next Sunday, the 27th.

As for baby update, we really don't know a whole lot more. We did get the complete results back from the amniocintesis and they said all the chromosomes look good. That was great news. Now we will just have to wait to see what it really is. If it is something similar to Tyler (EEC), hie was a mutation of a gene in one of the chromosomes. Who knows if that is what it is or not. We have a sonogram again on the 30th.
Please continue to pray for our guidance and
strength during this time of uncertainty. Thanks for all your friendship, words of wisdom, encouragement, and letting us know we are not alone in this. We appreciate it more than words can express!















View from the back almost all framed

Update on Life

Well, many of you may already know this news, but we decided since we are trying to keep everyone informed about our life through our blog, we better post it here too. We went to Wichita for a routine sonogram Tuesday morning just for our own "peace of mind" about the baby since the machines there can do so much more than in Newton. Let's just say, we didn't get news we wanted and left there without much peace of mind. During the sonogram they found concerns with the baby including a cleft lip, cleft palate, and abnormalities of the hands and feet. We were shell shocked that this could be happening to us again, but it appears it is. We had an amniocentesis done Tuesday afternoon to check for any chromosomal syndromes. Yesterday we received the quick initial results back for chromosomes 13, 18, and 21 ---- they were all normal. That is good news because 13 and 18 would have both been no viability of life, and 21 is Downs Syndrome. So, it isn't one of those three. In a week and a half or so we will get the complete results on all the chromosome pairs. At this point, we aren't positive what it is, although it does appear very similar to EEC Syndrome (what Tyler has). We had been told by a geneticist that there was almost no chance of that happening again, but it seems that may have been false information. Who knows. It will really be hard to know what it is for sure until birth so we are now in the waiting game.

We really appreciate any prayers people can lift up for us, as that is about all we feel we have control over right now. We know we have many friends and family to support us during this time and have already felt an incredible amount of strength through the prayer of others. We will keep everyone posted if we learn anything new.

Posting Comments

This post should be really short, but I wanted to make you all aware that I made an adjustment in the settings so ANYONE can post a comment - not only those with a current account. Just wanted to let everyone know that because we love hearing from our friends!

House Progress

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Our house is actually looking a little more like a house. The footings as well as basement walls have been poured, water proofed, and the drain pipes laid on the outside. It is great to see progress being made!