August 5th, I took this one of Ian in the sunroom, quietly (well, sometimes quietly) making up adventures. See this image larger.

August 6th, I believe this was the day Grandma Sue went home, but not without sharing a tender moment with her grandkids! See this image larger.

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VIDEO BREAK – Here’s a nice little video of Nina being Nina. 🙂 Click here to watch it.
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August 8th, our first day alone in our new house… this was when I really started to wonder about the move, I think. I missed the old place a bit. See this image larger.

Our little ones acclimated very quickly, it seemed. This little angel here likes the sunroom. See this image larger.

The other angel loves the playroom. See this image larger.

Hopefully there’s no extra significance here, might have been her first time in the high chair at the new house. See this image larger.

August 9th, while her gross motor skills were lagging, Nina’s fine motor skills were doing great. I’m not sure which of those interacting with this box of wipes falls into, but if you could have seen how she hefted this thing up onto her belly and flipped it around, you’d have been impressed. See this image larger.

August 11th, just the view out the back of the office, through the screen. By now I’ve begun to get a little more comfortable, but it would take the changing of a few things before I’d really learn to relax at the new house. Keep in mind I work from home. Being uneasy is really not good. See this image larger.

On August 12th we definitively decided that Nina did not need a helmet, when her latest check-up resulted in even more “normal” numbers.

July 29th, and it was almost time to leave 139 Highlander. Grandma Sue, Grandma Marcia and Grampa Dave worked together to help us make a truly impossible move possible. I thank them all from the bottom of my heart. A move can be a very stressful time, and Melissa and I were still reeling from the Cystic Fibrosis scare and the Choanal Atresia news… hopefully we didn’t freak out too bad. Pictured here you can see we still had a long, long way to go. See this image larger.

This is the 2nd set of Pods, we ended up with 8 total — and it would turn out we wouldn’t see those at the new house until that Monday, a few days later than we had hoped. See this image larger.

Mommy packing kitchen stuff. Somewhere off camera the cat has been taken for an overnight stay at a vet clinic. See this image larger.

July 30th, and this is the day we moved out of 139 Highlander Drive. Grandma Marcia gets cat hair off of curtains here. He has a talent for spreading his message. I’m proud of my family for taking the time to really clean the house for the new people. I would think everybody would want to move into a completely clean house. See this image larger.

Grandma Sue cutting the rug… again, this is for the new people, a touch we didn’t have to do, but did. (Grampa Dave, I don’t think we got a picture of you helping, because you and I were out so much in the truck and whatnot those days… and more importantly, the camera was already packed! Sorry!) Suffice to say, I can’t thank you all enough. Thank you. 🙂 See this image larger.

Grandma Sue took some pictures while we were on our way out… Ian here looks sad, and I really think he was… however keep in mind it did not last much longer than the pictures you see here. Thank you Grandma Marcia for the balloon, it helped Ian through this. See this image larger.

“My closet is empty!” See this image larger.

“See?!” See this image larger.

And there goes the stuff! This guy was great other than the time he speared one of the pods with his forklift… turns out it didn’t hurt anything, miraculously. See this image larger.

We spent the rest of the 30th signing our lives away and moving some minor things into the house after the carpets were cleaned.

July 31st, everybody but me spent the night at a hotel because the carpets were drying. I stayed mostly because the plan said to do so. I wrote the plan. Truth is it turned out I didn’t need to, but it was an interesting experience anyway. While I was there, Nina enjoyed hotel goodness as pictured here. See this image larger.

Family bonding! See this image larger.

And then at the new house, enjoying the swingset! See this image larger.

If you can’t tell, it was around this time that Ian’s sadness went away, replaced with pure happy. See this image larger.

And how could it not? The new house has playground equipment! And a tree that’s more than 3″ in diameter! See this image larger.

And so, despite the chaos and stress which was far from over… July still went out with a happy sigh.

July 12th, Ian and I discover that the track he got for Christmas a long time ago can actually become cool hats. So. We wore them. See this image larger.

Unless somebody tells me otherwise, I believe July 12th was Nina’s first solid food… rice cereal! See this image larger.

A lot of it ended up back out on her face, but once it got in there on the second or third push… it was found to be fully acceptable by the patron. See this image larger.

On July 13th Nina had a head re-scan to determine if she should wear a correcting helmet. Her skull shape was found to be improving on her own – final analysis was pushed off for a later date.

July 15th, the previous ER trip with Nina led us here to the ENT. I took this picture there, and it serves as a reminder of a feeling I had at the time. Fear, mostly. This is when the topic of Cystic Fibrosis was brought up, and a test was scheduled for about a week later. This is also when Nina was first diagnosed with Choanal Atresia, that she has only one open nasal passage. See this image larger.

Nina and Mommy snooze in the background, Ian in the fore. See this image larger.

Sherman, set the Wayback Machine for July 2010… we’ve got some serious catching up to do, here goes! Every day for the next many days, a new entry! They’re lined up in the queue, enjoy!

On July 2nd we had 224 Arbor inspected, here’s Melissa writing something down on a piece of paper like “OhMyGawdWeLuvUrHouse.” (Probably not.) See this image larger.

There were clues that we might not have enough room for stuff, if we looked around carefully enough. See this image larger.

You’re probably wondering how we could let the Fourth of July pass without an adorable and patriotic photo of our children wearing red, white and blue. Well, we did take this picture on the Fourth, we just didn’t post them at the time. Here! 🙂 See this image larger.

A bonus picture for your patience! See this image larger.

July 6th, Ian brought his laptop downstairs and joined Daddy for work in the office! See this image larger.

My favorite co-worker of all time! See this image larger.

July 7th, and Target loses the fight of marketing vs sleepytime. See this image larger.

July 9th, we ended up in the emergency room based on a phonecall from daycare stating that Nina was having difficulty breathing. This would eventually lead to her procedure on September 21st, though at the time we figured she was just a little stuffy. She was started on a nebulizer. (which sounded so futuristic, I had to throw in a laser sound effect “pew-pew!!!”) See this image larger.

That evening Daddy and Ian foraged for food on our own while Mommy stayed with Nina… we went to the “Pizza Store.” Ian looks hungry. (If we haven’t mentioned it previously, restaurants are referred to as “stores” for now, by food type or menu item of Ian’s interest. “Peanut Butter & Jelly Store” and “Mexican Store” are other examples.) See this image larger.

Presently: I need to grab some of the text from the care page and bring it on over to the blog… but I’m pretty sure word has gotten around about Nina’s CT scan from last month. There was an anomaly that showed up in one of the views, and it was identified as just that — an anomaly. So last Friday (September 3rd) Nina braved the hospital for a few hours (with Melissa and I) while Grampa Dave and Grandma Marcia watched Ian so that little girl could go through an MRI, which is like the CT scan, only more thorough and actually less dangerous. The anesthesia was the part that had us scared, but the anesthesiologist (spelled that right the first time, booyah!) said Nina did perfectly, with a reassuring smile. Today (September 7th) we got the results back from the MRI and the verdict is that no anomaly shows up in the MRI. This is reason enough to celebrate, but Melissa and I are going to be asking a lot of questions to make sure. We’re thrilled, and we’re prepared to dance a jig — but we’d like to read the report from the radiologist, just to be sure we can start the music. Regardless I’d like to thank you all for your thoughts and prayers… either this was never really something to worry about, or something miraculous happened; in Nina’s life there seems to be no shortage of those, or people who love her. Thank you.

Alright let’s start getting this blog caught up, shall we? What if I were to tell you that I have yet more pictures from Nina’s Baptism?

June 14th – Kaylee performs an interpretive dance about the current political and financial climate of the world. Ok so she was just trying on an outfit! See this image larger.

June 15th – By now the party’s starting to close down. A last-minute photo-op with cousins… not too bad, at least nobody’s cry– See this image larger.

–ing. Nevermind. See this image larger.

Oh wait, Nina’s almost smiling, we can do this, we can do this!!! Wait, no we can’t. Connor? Connor please wake up. Kaylee please stop singing… Ian… where’s Ian?!? And who is that orange guy?!? See this image larger.

And now good-bye hugs… the Kunzes hit the road for Ohio. See this image larger.

Nina smiles big in Grampa Ray and Grandma Barb’s arms! See this image larger.

And here’s a big smile for everybody… thank you so much for being a part of Nina’s Baptism, this is her way of saying “thank you.” See this image larger.