just a phone pic

doesn't it look like he's praying? so sweet.

matt meets his birth mom- 2 weeks old

tonight, matty matt met his birth mom for the first and only time. (sidenote, this beautiful girl in the picture below is "r", not his birthmom, i will wait to post those until i know its ok to do so). she is 15, so young, really sweet, very pretty, matt looks just like her. i feel a bit speechless after observing the whole thing. matt was so comfortable in her arms, we think he recognized her voice. he looked so handsome to meet her and he was such a good baby. i love how he puts his little hands by his face, but this is also a symptom of his joints freezing, so its hard for him to straighten his little arms.

"r"got a final word on the MRI from a pediatric neurologist and his diagnosis is worse than they even thought. "markedly abnormal brain" i believe are the words they used. he is starting to show more and more signs of his illness, such as little seizures, and not eating very well. "r" and "s" have to feed him an ounce every hour because if they feed him more, he spits it up. he is still as sweet as he can be, even his cries are precious. and all the kids are still head over heels for him. lift up "r" and "s" this week, as they are tired, as any new parents would be. isn't "r" beautiful? she is savoring this little guy and tonight she had the chance to tell his birth mom how much love and care baby matt is getting. oh and please pray for his birthmom, "t". she needs Jesus. and we are praying that through this all, she will come to Him and understand how much He loves her. she is precious and needs our Lord just like we all do.

babysitting baby matt!

liam and i (alyssa) were blessed yesterday to watch matt for a few hours! liam had a ball singing to him and feeding him. he played his kazoo to him and sang him the "whole world in His hands" song..and even told him about his baby sister, sydney, who was already in heaven waiting for him to play...it was a sweet time for liam. and a precious time for me to watch him help take care of his baby matt friend....

joints

just a prayer request... we were all noticing that matt's little arms and legs are so hard to straighten to swaddle, harder than normal. it turns out that his joints are freezing (i cannot remember the name for it), which is a symptom of his hpc (holoprosencephaly). "r" thinks he will start some meds that will help relax him, but it will also change his personality a bit, in that he will be super tired. i guess that's not too different from how any newborn is, but he may have to be on them for the remainder of his life. just pray that he won't be in pain, and that his little muscles will relax.

matt's first picnic etc.

these are from matt's first picnic (he didn't eat much:)) and just random ones of matt and his girls. isn't he getting cuter by the second?

matt's first walk to the park- 1 week old

we intend on having as many walks to the park with matt and the fam as possible. this was the first, so i had the camera of course. "r" has this awesome "sleepy wrap" she wears and matt fits snugly inside. when he's in there, "r" just looks like she's pregnant with a teeny little baby bump. so cute. we think he loves it!

matt's first photo session- 4 days old

i had the honor of taking this little guy's pictures on a beautiful saturday morning. alyssa was there in full force ready to do the "pull and run" as we called it, where she would wait for me to get ready, grab his paci, and RUN. i could only get a couple shots in the interim, cuz this little guy is one of the most alert newborns i've ever met, and didn't really sleep for much of his session at all. "e" was there too, to make sure that matt was happy for his session, she did such a great job and is such a big helper to her mommy with little "mattymatt" as she has nicknamed him.