My Valentines

Happy Valentine's Day from my favorite Valentines!

I took the kids out to play with my camera and I just can't decide which ones are my favorites. I love them all!

Valentine's Day 2010

Wow. It's been more than a month since I've updated! I am quite possibly the worst blogger ever! I still plan to print the blog into books for my kids, so I will be making an effort to get it up to date! Bear with me, I will try to be better!

Outside UCDMC with 100 heart balloons

This year we were excited to have the women's group from church join us again for our family's annual Valentine Balloon Event at the hospital. We had about 10 women from church, plus our family and Grandma Kathy putting the treats together in the conference room and then taking turns making the deliveries to the different units in the hospital. We also brought some fun crafts for the kids to do in the playroom and we had a few volunteers in there helping the kids. My heart mom friend, Gina, joined us and we both shared our stories with the group. It was another meaningful day and I am so glad that we get to spend this day spreading love and cheer at the Children's Hospital. We were able to bring balloons to over 80 children that were on the pediatric floor, in the PICU or in the NICU. The NICU staff was especially excited and thankful for our visit. I got to catch up with a couple of nurses who took care of Drew when he was there 6 years ago. I can't believe it was that long ago already. I wish someone could have told me what life would be like now when we were weary from spending so many days there back in 2004. What a blessing that we now have a healthy, energetic and sweet son! God is good.

Just me being silly with some balloons

Some awesome Valentine helpers

Ava, Drew, Dan and Grandma Kathy are helping

Some of the ladies filling up the bags with treats, which were then tied to the baloons as a weight

Ava was having a "moment" so this is our family photo

Ready to deliver!

Happy Heart Day!

Yesterday was our Be a Sweetheart event. We turned our annual Valentine's Day tradition into a women's event that our church could participate in. Instead of assembling everything at home, we brought all the supplies to a conference room at the Med Center and did it there. About ten women from church joined us and we filled all the bags with kisses, attached the heart balloons and notes, and put together buckets of jelly beans and thank you notes for the nurses who work so hard to take care of these kids. My friend Allison was able to come and share some of her story with her little boy, Joshua, who has HLHS. We also had a craft set up in the play room. Diana, the wonderful child life manager, stayed late so that she could take us around the units to deliver balloons to all the kids in the hospital. There were 87 kids that received balloons last night.

Drew and Ava came with us and were so excited to deliver balloons to the babies in the NICU. We especially like to bring balloons there because Drew spent six weeks at the UCD NICU when he was born (after the four he spent at UCSF after surgery). It's nice to be able to tell the parents that we understand because we were there five years ago, and look at him now! There was one family we spoke with who had been in for three weeks and were going home the next day. They were happy to see us and even lifted Drew up so that he could see their baby.

I love doing this and I loved being able to share it with more people this year. I hope we can do it again next year and maybe even expand to include another hospital...

Drew with some of the balloons at home

Me and Allison

Allison sharing her story, with bags of candy waiting to be attached to the balloons

My team-Jen, me, Kym and Allison

Our family ready to visit the babies

Ready to make a delivery

Valentine's Day

Two years ago, my husband approached me with a new idea for Valentine’s Day. He said that since Valentine’s Day really is a commercial holiday, why don’t we skip going out to dinner and buying flowers and candy and bring some joy into the lives of others instead. I have to admit, at first I was skeptical. I thought, hmm…what a convenient way to get out of having to be romantic! But his idea was to go back to the NICU where our son spent the first ten weeks of his life and bring balloons to the babies and some candy and encouragement to the parents. I loved his idea and I think it is even more romantic that he has such a giving heart. So it has been a tradition in our family to visit the NICU every Valentine’s Day. We chose V-Day because it is close to Drew’s birthday and it also happens to be Congenital Heart Defect Awareness Day.

This year we were able to expand our efforts and bring balloons and candy to every child in the hospital (thanks to help from The Children’s Heart Fund). We bought 100 red heart mylar balloons and attached a small box filled with chocolates and a note to each one. We couldn’t even fit them all into our mini-van! We also made cupcakes for the nurses and doctors and included thank you notes for all the hard work they do. Having a caring and compassionate nurse can make all the difference during a child’s hospitalization. We are so thankful for the many kind people we have run into during all of Drew’s hospital stays.

We got to deliver the balloons to each baby’s bedside in the NICU and we talked with some of the parents. Two mothers really touched me emotionally. One saw all the balloons when we first walked into the lobby and started crying. She said “it is just so nice that you guys are doing that. These are happy tears.” It really made me feel good to know that what we were doing didn’t just make us feel better, it made her feel better too. Another mom said thank you as I was handing her the balloon, and I told her that our son was here three years ago and we remember what it’s like to be in the hospital. She looked at me and said “So you get it” and I said, “yeah, I get it.” Even though it was something so small that she said, it brought tears to my eyes. I have this strong connection with a total stranger because of a shared, tragic experience.

Drew had fun visiting too. It is always nice to see the nurses who used to take care of him. They enjoy seeing how big he’s gotten and how well he’s doing. In each room we visited Drew kept saying “Want to see more babies.” I like the opportunity to teach him about helping others.Anyway, I just wanted to share our story. A lot of work went into putting all the gifts together and getting the cupcakes ready, but it was totally worth it in the end. Our family had an awesome Valentine’s Day and the lessons we learned and the love we shared are much better than any night out could have been.



Our family visiting the UCDMC NICU


Carter and Drew bring balloons to the babies


All the balloons, candy and cupcakes ready to go