Christmas Letter 2008

Now I know pretty much everybody has received our christmas letter (poem) already, but I thought it would be fun for those of you who haven't, plus I thought I would add some photos to illustrate what I was trying to say.

This year has been a year of change,
For this Brunson crew,
Some things were good, others strange,
But almost everything is new.

First off, of course, we moved away,
We’re Idahoans now,
We’re near a farm, but it’s okay,
We LOVE the smell of cow!

We’re enjoying our house and backyard too,
The boys’ just love it so,
There are parks real close, and a pool,
Lots of places for us to go.

We went on a cruise back in the spring,
Don’t worry, company paid,
Our little boys, who we didn’t bring,
Were at Grandma’s where they played.

And those sweet boys whom we love and need,
Are amazing you will see,
Corbin’s is four and can already read,
Next comes geometry!

Dexter’s a monkey, crazy and loud,
In March he just turned one,
On top of a table he stands so proud,
‘Til he falls and bites his tongue.

And I’m sure you know, just weeks ago,
We had a baby girl,
Beautiful Ivy has put on quite a show,
And taken us for a whirl.

Her heart needs work, but she’s doing fine,
In her hospital bed,
Whenever we see her, her eyes just shine,
As we kiss her cute little head.

We’re thankful for the gospel, we’ve been so blessed,
Our families and friends helped too,
Without you we’d be a lot more stressed,
So thanks to all of you!

And Merry Christmas everyone,
Find reason to be of good cheer,
We hope you have a lot of fun,
But we can’t wait until next year!

Sweet Stacy

Corbin and Stacy January '07

This weekend we were saddened by the sudden loss of Scott's sister, Stacy. She was so dear to us, as we have had the pleasure of having her stay with us on several occasions while we were still living in Utah. She was certainly one of our Heavenly Fathers most special beings and we are blessed to have known her. It makes me sad to think that our kids probably will not remember her, but we know that they will get the chance to meet her again in heaven. We will miss you Stacy, we can't wait to see, speak and run with you in heaven. We love you!

Nice to meet you!!

Our first family photo

Looking at her big brother

Dex poking her eye

Now that Ivy is in the Children's surgical unit, she has her own room and can allow visitors other than us and grandparents. So, since Dex hadn't met Ivy yet and it has been several weeks since Corbin saw her we decided to bring them in. It got a little loud and crazy (when we are in a quiet environment the boys feel it is necessary to run around screaming), but it was fun to have the family together for the first time. Dexter was really sweet with Ivy, patting her blanket and rubbing her hair, and then right when scott snapped the photo he poked her in the eye. It was sad, but funny too!

Look how far we've come

Ivy had her surgery yesterday, and things went very well. I probably can't explain the procedure very well, so I'm not going to try. Just know that she had work done on her intestines, and her appendix was removed (not really removed but turned inside out and put into her system for her to poop it out. I know, wierd). She was only in surgery for a little over an hour, and only had the breathing tube in during the procedure. After it was over they took her back to the picu, but only overnight for observation, they said she would go back to the surgical unit in the morning. I went there today and she is still in the picu, although, not because she is not doing well, but because there are no available rooms in the surgical unit. Everything is going really well and we could not be happier with her progress.
Today marks the 40th day of her hospital stay and it amazes me how far we've come. I thought back on her previous two surgeries and how I felt those days and I almost started to cry. There were many days before and after she was born when we wondered if she would survive this long. We feel so blessed to still have her in our lives, and to be doing so well. Thank you so much for all the prayers and support, we couldn't have come so far along without all of you. We love you.

Ivy IV-less

Smilin' Ivy

Big Yawn

She's So Cute

Sleepy Smile

Good day everybody. Scott here with the latest update on Ivy Maxine! Our little baby girl is doing so well! Today we saw her without ANY IV's. This is the first time since the day she was born that she has not had an IV somewhere. You can tell that she is so relieved to have all of her limbs back in full use. But, The greatest news of all, is that she is now starting to smile at us! She smiles every few minutes in her sleep and when she is awake, she smiles almost every time you talk to her. She is so adorable and so pleasant. On thursday of last week, we heard from the surgery team that she should have her abdominal surgery this coming tuesday. This might change, but we are hoping that it does happen soon, so that Ivy can be out of the hospital by Christmas. A few other fun things that we wanted to mention are that she had her one month birthday last sunday. She was visited by Jerry Sloan and Mehmet Okur of the Utah Jazz and she got a cool autographed mini basketball. She was moved from the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) to the Childrens Surgical Unit. This means she is doing so well that she doesn't need her own nurse all the time now, so that is way good. Also, it looks like her hair may be turning red. Now that we have a room with a window, we have better light and it looks red. Rochelle is very jealous. After her surgery on tuesday, she will be moved back to the PICU but it's okay, we are friends with all the nurses by now and they are all missing Ivy. Thanks for all your support, See ya!

Piggies don't eat people, they eat sticks!

We thought we would post another video of Ivy from the last few times we went to visit. Enjoy!



The title really doesn't have anything to do with this post, it was just something funny that Corbin said.
We haven't been posting a lot lately because there hasn't been anything new happening for a while. Ivy is just slowly getting better as the days go on. Our family had been sick for a few days and had to stay away from the hospital. We finally got to go back yesterday and our sweet baby is looking great! We are waiting for her to completely heal and then she will have her next surgery, hopefully next week. We are still hoping she will at least be out of the hospital by Christmas.

Finally an encouraging day

Since Ivy's emergency surgery last Monday, I've been a little discouraged. They have told us nearly everyday since Wednesday or Thursday that she would get her breathing tube out "tomorrow" and it just didn't happen. They told us that she should progress faster from her second surgery since she had done it once, but it didn't seem to be going any faster to us. I have to admit that I was getting a little depressed and cried a few times for really no reason. But finally today we got some good news when we walked in the door. The nurse was sitting in a rocking chair holding our little Ivy, who didn't have a breathing tube or the IV's in her heart or the drainage tubes in her chest. She looked so great! We immediately washed our hands and took the baby from the nurse. I held her for a good hour and a half, then Scott took a turn and held for about the same amount of time. It was just what I needed to chase the blues away!





Also, while we were there a genetics expert came and asked us to take part in a study, I won't go into detail but he needed to take a DNA sample from both Scott and I and Ivy as well. In case you don't already know, Scott is terrified of needles (even though he has never had his blood drawn) and he wanted nothing to do with the study. I talked him into since it would help people in the future, and forced him to get his blood drawn. He took it like a trooper and didn't cry, puke, or pass out. What a man!!