Merry Christmas

Zoo lights with the Mills

Poodles is Rilynn's Elf on the Shelf. She loves reading the book every night and looking for her new spot in the morning. This has been Travis's project with Rilynn and he's done a great job!

Tualatin tree lighting. 

Getting our over priced tree at Lee Farms!

Decorating with my little helper. 

Her second year visiting Santa and still no tears! 

Rockin' around the Christmas tree with Mimmi and Aija! 

Decorating our gingerbread village!

Rilynn enjoyed decorating more than I expected. 

Made a snow globe. 

Some of our favorite elf locations:

Santa came here too!

Christmas #3 this year at Mimmi and Aija's

Our girls had a great morning!

Princess Josie thinks the teepee was her present. 

Rilynn at the live nativity. 

Cookies for Santa

Candle lit Christmas Eve service at church. Thank God Rilynn goes to Sunday school and doesn't go to big church with us... We wouldn't go if we had to make her sit still quietly in Sunday's. 

Santana coming!!!

Santa took pictures of his set up!

"Wow!" Her response to seeing that Santa came! 

Christmas Eve at Grandma's

Our 14th Christmas together and it just keeps getting better! 

Beautiful service!

She wanted her own seat... She kept saying "move please." And trying to push people out of their seats. 

"Where Aija at?" 

Rilynn stand in front of the tree so I can take your picture... 

A New Plan

Today Rilynn was scheduled for her next surgery. We knew that there was a possibility that her right leg would not have the success we were hoping for... Again. Yesterday, we met with her surgeon, had an X-ray that showed her right leg was not in the socket (and there still wasn't much of a socket there), we were back to where we started with 2 hips out.  We have attempted to fix Rilynn's hips 6 times. She has spent 14 weeks in spica casts, worn a pavlik harness for 6 weeks, gone under anesthesia 6 times, and spent 3 nights in the hospital. We have checked every box and attempted every treatment on the list. Our options were to try them again, knowing that her left side anatomy looked the same as her right side and our surgeon could not confidently guarantee that he could fix her hips, or we could wave the white flag and decide to call it quits. We came home, talked about it, and came to the decision to cancel surgery today and instead schedule a cast removal. So this morning, we took that stinky cast off. Our surgeon thinks we made the right decision for her today and we do too. It wasn't an easy one.  What's next? We will go see Dr. Roy again in 3 months, check things out, and then continue to have him monitor her through childhood. Her right leg is shorter, but should even itself out within the year and if it doesn't we can look at options at that time. She will probably get hip replacements early on as an adult.  

Current X-ray, while still casted. That big white thing in her leg is her new hardware from where they did the Osteotomy (broke her leg).

Inside the gross cast!

"I not stuck!"

Celebration pancakes!