Wednesday, February 19th

Did you know that Taylor and I haven't seen Mercedes since she was three?

That's right.

Today at 6:46 a.m. she turned 4 years old.  It pulls at my heart strings being here in the hospital away from her on her birthday, but thankfully we celebrated her birthday a little over a week ago.  We threw her a big party while Taylor's family was here and it was a very fun day.  We Skyped Mercedes this morning and sang "Happy Birthday" to her.  My wonderful mom is taking her to do some extra fun things today and they will have cake and ice cream tonight.

On our Skype call with Mercedes

I think I will dedicate another post to Mercedes later today.

 Taylor is feeling so good today.  He does have pain of course, but I think our walk around the halls this morning was the most he's walked even since before the first surgery.

 For now he is only allowed to sip water and chew on ice chips as we are still waiting for his bowels to "wake up."

 Once that happens, the new plumbing will take some getting used to...so the doctors and nurses say.  We'll see how that goes!

 We are so happy.

(PDA)