Jonathan Can Walk!!!

(Jonathan and William)

Jonathan went to the doctor on Friday for his seven week follow-up appointment. After looking at the X-Rays the doctor cleared Jonathan of all physical therapy and physical activity restrictions. He told Jonathan that..."for all intensive purposes you are healed." There was still a little bone missing on the right leg, but enough had grown back to allow Jonathan to weight bear on that leg without causing any damage. Jonathan started walking immediately without any assistance from his crutches. His walk looks pretty good, it just looks like he has a pulled muscle. He still has some work to get back to 100%, but he's on his way. He will have therapy for another twelve weeks and might have to get a few screws removed from his knee, but he should be jogging by April.

Friday will definitely go down as one of the happiest days of our lives. It felt like someone handed us our lives back. One of the things that got me through the dark days was imagining Jonathan walking, so to actually see him walk in the door was pure joy.

Jonathan will go to therapy Monday morning and then he is going back to work for the first time. He will be doing computer work for the first few weeks and then he will get back to his normal duties. The hardest thing for J is fatigue and pain, but these should get better with time.

Jonathan's recovery has truly been miraculous. We feel incredibly blessed and excited to see what God has in store for us. We have had the privilege of witnessing first hand God's amazing power and grace in such an incredible way!

We Have a Thumb Sucker

(William hanging out with Jonathan)

So...William was hanging out with Jonathan today watching some Sports Center and sucking on his hands as usual when we heard a new slurping sound coming from the baby. We looked over and William was sucking on his little thumb and loving it. I was kind of hoping he wouldn't be a thumb sucker because I've heard it's a hard habit to break. Oh well, it made for a cute picture!


(William sucking his thumb)

Food, Food and more Food

I just wanted to give another huge thanks to our friends and neighbors that have provided us with so many meals. My freezer is jammed packed with food and we are going on almost a month since Jonathan came home from the rehab hospital. It's been such a huge blessing to our family. I also wanted to thank all of the people who have offered to bring food and help with the baby. It means so much to us!!

For Better or For Worse...

Today we decided it was about time to get Jonathan a new wedding ring. His original ring was lost in the accident. We went to a local jewelry store and found a ring that was close to the original. I'm not going to lie, I was a little sad having to replace the ring we picked out four years ago when we got married. I'm glad to see it back on his finger though and hope this is the last wedding ring we have to buy.

Jonathan Update...rehab is still going good. J has enough range of motion back to ride a stationary bike now. We are just counting down until J's follow up doctor's appointment on Friday. We are trying not to get our hopes up too much, but we are really praying the doctor gives him the clearance to walk. We are so ready to get our lives back to normal.

3 Months Old

(William's first professional picture)

William is 3 months old today! He is such a sweet baby... he only cries when he's hungry, tired or bored. His favorate past times include babbling, smiling and sucking on his hands. He is also really good with strangers, he loves new faces!

We took him to Portrait Innovations to have some professional pictures taken for the first time today. They had a camera lady and then she had a helper that was mainly there to make William smile. Well, this guy must of taken a healthy dose of speed before he came to work. Jonathan and I have never seen anything like it. I had my normal baby voice going and was like..."William, do some smiles, can you smile at mommy?, good boy, hi, look at mommy, smile." The other guy was on his hand and knees, going 90 to nothing. He was all in Williams face making noises, playing peak-a-boo behind the photographer and waving his arms around like a maniac. I wish I could reenact it in person for everyone, it was something out of a Saturday Night Live skit. Needless to say, William could care less about me...he was completely entranced by the photo guy and we did get a cute picture. We were too cheap to buy the package that included a CD, so I put the picture on our scanner and included it above.




(William - 3 months old, in his moose outfit)


Jonathan Update....Jonathan is doing good. He drove himself to rehab yesterday for the first time. They had him walking in a pool and doing what he describes as ballet exercises in the pool. We are still just counting down to Feb. 29th when he goes back to the doctor. Please be praying for a speedy recovery for J. He is so ready to start walking and get back to work.

Growing Like a Weed

William has grown so much in the past couple of weeks. Most of his 3 month clothes are too short, so yesterday I busted out the 6 month clothes (pictured above). Which were a little big, but still fit pretty good. I'm hoping he will start sleeping through the night soon. Every night I hold on to the hope that "tonight will be the night."

Funny story.... William sometimes gets some serious gas and sounds like an adult when he toots. Yesterday, William and I sat in the reception/waiting room while J did rehab. William was hanging out in his car seat and decided to start passing some gas. It was really loud and went on for about five minutes. It literaly sounded like someone was squeezing on a whoopy cushion! I was so close to telling the people next to me, "it's not me...it's the baby." I'm not sure if they would have believed me anyways.

Wild Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's Day to all! Our big plans included a trip to H.E.B. and take-out for dinner. Jonathan had the idea of leaving the wheelchair at home and just driving one of the electric powered chairs at H.E.B. I wish I had brought my camera because it was too funny. I gave Jonathan a list of things to get and off he zoomed through the store. He started to show off and backed into a display with cooking pans on it. After I picked up the pans we had a little talk about his driving skills. He had a great time in the cart, but he was a little hard to find in the store because he was so low to the ground. Anyways, Happy Valentine's Day!

15 Seconds of Fame!

We had lunch today at the Ragin Cajun with Wally and his girlfriend Tiana before J's rehab appointment. While we were waiting for them a local reporter from ABC started asking us if we were baseball fans and what we thought of Roger Clemens. Of course William was dressed in his little baseball outfit so we kind of looked like fanatics. She then asked if she could interview us for the nightly news broadcast. We almost said yes, but luckily we declined and decided to save public humiliation for another day. We turned on the nightly news to see if we were in the background and sure enough...there we were!! They showed all of us eating for a solid three seconds. It was very excititng.

First Day of Outpatient Therapy

Jonathan went to outpatient rehab at TIRR for the first time today and everything went very well! The Physical Therapist was super impressed with Jonathan. He said Jonathan is ahead of schedule and ready to up his exercises and get in the pool. He thinks Jonathan will be walking on his own in mid March and possibly running in late April! Of course all of that hinges on Jonathan's doctors appointment on February 29th. We will be dusting off J's Speedo for his first pool day on Tuesday. :) In the mean time, J does exercises three times a day and outpatient therapy three times a week. We were extremely encouraged to say the least.

"Boy Baby"

(William and Boy Baby)

My mom gave William a baby for Valentine's Day that he loves. I just thought I would share some pictures of William and "Boy Baby." Also, William laughed for the first time today! Jonathan was talking to him this morning and he started to giggle. The giggle then turned into a full out laugh, which was super cute.


(William eating Boy Baby)

Rehab Here We Come!

We have been having some problems finding a rehab place for Jonathan, but we finally got everything worked out today. We had some issues finding a facility that was close to home, in-network with insurnace and has a pool for aquatherapy. We ended up at a TIRR outpatient facility in the Greenway Plaza area. It's not the closest place to home, but they have a pool and take our insurance. Jonathan's first appointment is on Wednesday!

Our First Week at Home

(Jonathan and William hanging out on the couch)

It's been almost a week since Jonathan left TIRR. It's definitely been an adjustment for all of us. He gets around the house pretty well with his crutches and wheelchair. We hope to start Jonathan's outpatient therapy at the end of the week. Please keep praying for Jonathan's healing and that his legs will get back to what they were before the accident.

We have been so blessed to have lots of visitors and more food than we know what to do with. Our friend Kim set up a Care Calendar for us so we have neighbors bringing us food for the next three weeks. My grandmother also bought us a bunch of frozen meals from Costco. It's such a huge help to me to not have to worry about cooking at night.

My sister and her two kids came in from Austin to visit us. We haven't seen them since Christmas, so it was fun to catch up. I have included some pictures of Loren (3 years old) and Camryn (6 months).


(Loren posing with her Valentine's snowglobe)


(Camryn)



(William after a day playing with his cousins...all tuckered out!)

TIRR on Sports Center

Note: Please read the previous post, "TIRR on Oprah" before reading this post.

Well, Jonathan missed his 15 seconds of fame again! There was a special on Sports Center this morning about Kevin Everett. Once again they showed him working out at TIRR, but still no Jonathan in the background. We did see J's roommate, Reynolds, wheeling around in the background and a couple other people we recognized. Kevin Everett must be on a media blitz selling his new book, so keep an eye out for Jonathan.