What a wonderful day! Quinn and Grandma hung out and played all day!

While the rest of us, and there were a bunch of us, painted the house today. I can't begin to tell you want an amazing experience this process of building has been. It's a labor of love for so many, and today just added to the joy! Thanks so much for the prayers and all the help for the house. It was a lovely day. I forgot to take pictures for a bunch of the day, and there were so many folks helping, that everyone is not in the pictures, but I totally am grateful for each one of you for helping, today and for the last number of months! What a blessed home we will have!

How Cute is Quinn today! I love the sunglasses!

We are having a painting party next weekend! The 31st and the 1st! So I will have some great pictures to share, and if you are in the Lincoln area and want to check out our house and do some painting, let me know! susanquinnotte@gmail.com I'm hoping for a great weekend!



The cabinets are in. We changed our flooring to this new one, and I love it more, and it's cheaper then the one we picked. Delrae and Quinn are also standing in front of the cabinets that have been put in and look amazing! Now we are picking out a counter. Trim is also going up and looking so good!

Wow, I still am amazed by how beautiful Quinn is. Seeing the innocents in her and her love for life! She is so beautiful to me!

What a busy, productive, lovable spring break week. Clutter cleaned up, there is always more to do, but we are getting there. Most everything is painted, I've got one thing left to do, and I'm hoping to get it done tomorrow. I've got things painted and stored out of the way, and we picked up sheets and a few little things here and there for the house. We got Quinn the cutest curtain material, and a lovely night light. I can't wait to get into the house and share all our work with everyone! The Parade of homes is coming up in May and I can't wait to educate folks on what a cute cottage accessible house can look like. It's been a very very busy week, lucky for us Grandma Vicki was here to help us out, and Quinn loved it, she even talked to her, Grandma heard yes, no, yellow, and Grandma a few times, as well as other words. How wonderful our week has been.

We got to see Dr. Martin, our heart doctor, get an EKG and an ultrasound, and thankfully Quinn is still doing great. Her heart does have a small leak, but that is ok, as long as it does not get worse, and it's the same it has been, holding it's own very nicely! Thank you God! This is Quinn's first time to get an ultrasound and not cry! Good job Quinn!
Wow, we stopped out at our house and it was bustling with excitement. There were guys finishing up molding, the roll in shower floor was put in. The cabinets were delivered, and look at Quinn's smile. She loves going out to the house, and that is a good thing! The Southeast college guys were out there working on the deck as well. How exciting!




We met up with Stacie and Suzanne, our Speech and Physical therapists and continued working with Quinn's computer that reads her eyes. We are still in the learning stage, you know the saying practice makes perfect, we still need a lot of practice, but we will get this down sometime, because it's such a great tool for us.
Wednesday after a visit with Quinn's trach doctor, that also was a great visit, as everything is going well, we (Quinn, Grandma Vicki, and I) met Tracy at the zoo, and the weather could not have been any better, it was a lovely day that ended with a trip to see the baby zebra. What a fun afternoon, after working so hard.


Thursday morning, Grandma played with Quinn and I went out to breakfast with a few of the girls I work with. We then went out and looked at the house. We have a porch railing to stand up against now.
We had occupational therapy with Diane and we stretched, rolled, and sang and pointed to what we were singing about.



We ended the week with a haircut. 3 inches off the back! Thanks Megan!

Monday we got started on doctor appointments. We had x-rays, an MRI, and Quinn was so excited to be at Children's, she could not stop smiling and singing. We got great news. Her hip is not out of the socket. As soon as we start to think we can figure Quinn out she throughs us another curve ball. So that is great, she is pulling her legs into asymmetric patterns, but that is what it is, and so we will be grateful. We also found out that her head is looking good. She will probably always have a small head, but it is growing and that is wonderful! We also see things inside looking good. No fluid build up, nothing unexpected. There is still and will always be damage from way back when she was 5 months old, but all in all a good report. Let's hope the rest of the week continues in this fashion. Me working hard, and Quinn doing so good! How blessed we are!



Saturday morning was John and I's last foster care class. Now we have a home inspection and the fun starts. While we were at class Grandpa Harold and Grandma Martha watched Quinn again. I love to watch Quinn around her grandpa. She loves him and his noises and will squeal with delight and does she ever watch him. It's to fun. After our class, we all went out to check out the house, as I heard we have trim up and doors, well we were surprised to see guys out there on their day off to help us out. Again, amazing. So we did not stay longer then to say thanks, introduce Quinn and take a couple picts. The kindness of strangers is amazing. That hard work, and our spring break inspired me to get started, so I had cleaned out the clutter and pulled out the furniture to start painting.

Well, Quinn's new Maxey Teachers she will have next year came to visit her at Clinton. That is pretty wonderful that they could do that, I love our school district and appreciate all her teachers and nurses for working so hard to help Quinn be successful. Quinn was on good behavior from what I heard. I can't believe she is going to be in Kindergarten!

Well next week is our Spring break, but it's going to be no break for us. We have 4 doctor appointments, one MRI, a few x-rays and scans. A possible new hip brace. I have more news to share with that, it's looking like she has officially dislocated her hip. She does not hurt, but now she officially has one leg longer then the other one. We tried so hard not to let this happen, but when she is not up walking this is one of the things that can easily happen. We will find out what happens from here next week. It's a big bummer, but knowing she is not hurting makes it easier to handle.
We also have a few more appointments for Quinn with our social worker and assistive technology person, meeting with her 3 therapists, at least 2 meetings to go over things for the house with Delrae and a few other folks, breakfast with friends, hopefully a few sets of friends, grandma Vicki is coming to join us on most of our adventures, and we are hoping to go to the zoo after one of our Omaha doctor appointments,
We are hoping to paint 4 side tables and two dressers, and do a bit of sewing to get things ready for the house.
And finally doing a total cleaning of our apartment, as we have our home inspection for us to get our license for foster care (in the apartment for now) to make sure we are not total pigs. So we have got a lot of cleaning to do!!!!!
So what are you doing next week?


Well here are our official colors for the new house. I love them.
Then to keep me working, here is the before picture, we really do look like horders. Actually I pulled out every single supply for Quinn, as I really need to resort things, as I know there are 3 or 4 places where I keep some of her things, and that is a big mess, so spring break cleaning starts now! Lots to do, lots to do! Let's hope I can post in a week a lovely clean decluttered apartment!

Well, Quinn is back to her lovely self, yeah! I finally drug myself to school today, and I am also finally feeling better. Prayers and rest really do make a big difference.

Well on the house front, the drywall is almost all mudded, and this week the Trimmers are coming in to add in closet rods, shelves, doors, and all the stuff that is involved with that.

We also met Delrae and finalized colors and a few things with tracks and other things. The whole process makes my head swim, and my heart float!

Two sick girls!
Darn, we are sick sick sick! I muddled through work a few days, and we were fortunate to have Grandma and Grandpa Nelson hang out with Quinn, but finally Friday we both stayed home. This is the first year in the last 4 years that I still have vacation days I can use. It's so nice to see Quinn doing well enough for me not to have to take off work, so when we have these days, I can take off and we can hang out at home. Again, I'm so thankful we can hang out at home and not in the hospital. So we are getting better, Quinn has a bit of color in her cheeks, and I think I've finally got over my week long headache.

So rather then dwelling on the fact that we are sick, I'm going to focus on the positive.

I'm thankful that Quinn has been so well, up to now.

I'm thankful for her trach, without it we would be in the hospital with this cold.

I'm thankful for my job, my colleagues who have given me their vacation days in the past so I could take care of Quinn, and the fact that I have not had to ask for anyone to donate days to me this year.

I'm thankful for the reminder not to take Quinn, John, or my health for granted. It's so easy to forget to be grateful when we are well, but being sick is a good reminder!

Now, I'm going to pray for us to get better. I'm sure hoping to get back into the swing of things soon!