Thanksgiving..our sweet dysfunction 1x a year!

Thanksgiving day. A day of hectic food cooking; rushing around and trying to meet the deadline eat time; loving the new baby; attempting to photograph a family portrait; and pretty much random fun in the Hughes household. I was feeling 'physically' ill off and on all day. This c-section stuff is a killer. Hope to feel back to normal soon.

So...let's begin blog family. I will try to make this quick..I'm in rush blog mode these days and I hope and trust my summary bullet points speak about our hearts and mind when posting.

Here goes...much love, A

All the pictures below are power blogged. I just put them up there for your viewing. I'll sum up the day and you can view the pics and figure it out! It was a good day.

• Attempt to take a family picture of me/jon and the kids. Total nightmare. Not surprising. Jon hates pics and is difficult through the whole process (to which I am greatly bitter about) and Luke is....well, same O Luke. Enough said. Hannah was the only one cooperative. Here's the best of the best below. *can you see my bitter smirk? LOL
• p.s. Ericka..this family shot above in front of the toys is actually quite appropriate. The toy box is our life these days. I actually love the background setting. :)
  
• Family member pics scattered throughout. I think you can figure them all out. Lulu is the blonde...my grandmother wore her cowboy shirt because she got 10% off at the Grocery store for wearing it. Gotta love that. (cracked me up)
  
• Josh and Ronya came and that was fun to see them. (ohhh, to have college romance love again) So fun to watch.
  
• Ericka/Lisa are always invited to our Thanksgiving. Thank you ladies for loving us 'just as we are'. We love having you. Picture of Lisa and Ericka below. I loved it.
  
• Random picture of Lisa and stuffed olive.
• Luke having a 'out of sync' moment! He hated the noise on his new laptop computer that grandma got him. :)


• Luke and Lulu.
  
• Momma and Luke time.
  
• Jon's kids and their kids. So fun to see them!


• Jon's skin funk picture.
  
• Uncle Josh and Luke time!
  
• Bubba and Pa
  
• Me sipping hot latte that Jon made with a dash of starbucks liquor..so good.

Lastly, INSANE GOOD food pictures. We are DANG good cooks people. We really are. Texas cooking at it's finest. I love Thanksgiving food,...turkey, sweet potatoes, corn casserole, apple spiced rum cider, aspargus casserole, green beans, mashed potatoes, cranberries, dressing (to die for from Lulu), deviled eggs and so on and so on. Aww, let's not forget the homemade pies from 'momma' my stepmom. She rocks those out.

Hope you enjoyed family...love you much. A

THANKSGIVING FOOD -------a glimpse of great cooking.

Hannah is here..update

Dearest Blog family,
It's me Andrea. I trust and hope everyone knows how much I appreciate your support and prayers for our little Hannah.

I know everyone is desperately wanting to get more updates on our sweet baby Hannah. Please forgive our delay.

I will start out by saying this will probably be one of the most difficult blog posts I've ever written. I honestly don't even know where to begin or what to say and how to say it. My words and my heart are torn.

At about 11am Thursday morning my husband, the NICU doctor, and my relatives were in my room before I really could comprehend what was going on. Before I could grasp why the NICU doctor was even in our room, the doctor started to speak.

Long story short, the day of Hannah's birth they noticed some features in Hannah that looked like Down Syndrome. They sent off for a test and she began explaining to me that the test that they sent off for Hannah came back positive for trisomy 21 disorder. Meaning, our little Hannah has Down Syndrome.

Dear family/friends, we were heartbroken to hear this information. I broke down and cried while the doctor was speaking and had a hard time getting my composure back. Jonathan remained calm until we both asked everyone to leave the room so that me/Jon could be alone. We needed to be alone. Jon got in bed with me and we cried together and cried out many things to each other and God in the hopes that somehow we could manage to get a grip on the diagnosis of our sweet Hannah.

We are still in shock and taking it day by day. Our family/friend support are amazing and we could not ask for anything more from them. They have done all they can and will continue to do so.

The truth of the matter is Jon/I denied the Downs tests early, early on. If we had done the tests and we had been told Hannah was going to have Downs, we would have proceeded with the pregnancy and prepared then. We would have driven to the hospital as planned and had her as planned on Wed. morning. And..we would have been praising God for a healthy child all the way.

Nothing would have changed. All would have gone as planned and our little Hannah would be our sweet daughter no matter what. This is comforting to me and Jonathan. Very comforting. Jon is passionate about voicing his opinion on the subject of God's creation. I am equally as passionate. Nothing would be different.

So, here we are with this gorgeous child. This amazingly gorgeous child who is already reaching in and grabbing our souls. I swear...just like her big brother, she had to come in with a huge entrance.

We were told by the NICU doctors that with downs kids they have to be monitored especially close with their hearts and thyroid. I'm not entirely 'up' on the facts but as best as we can tell, we are being told that Hannah's heart is doing great and her feeding sucking swallowing are amazing. She's taking a bottle every 3 hours like a champ and the speech therapist is telling us that she's doing amazing.

Currently, she's on minimal oxygen and this is where we are asking for prayer from you loved ones. Please pray she can get off the minimal oxygen and we can go home with her in the next couple of days. We are just 'anxious' to get her home.

So my heart....I will blog about that later this week. My heart is a lot of things. My spiritual heart is a lot of things. The only thing I want to say out loud right now is that I'm proud of my husband for loving our little Luke and Hannah desperately right along with me. He has said some beautiful things to me that I will 'treasure' in my heart for a while during this special time.

We are taking this one step at a time. It would be a privilege if you walked each step with us. We will need the support and prayers and most of all...grace filled love.

We once again stand in awe of what God has brought to us. She's our little angel.
In His Grip,
A

Photography by Ericka O'Malley.....thank you Ericka..you know how much these mean to me. I love you. A