Happy Halloween!

Love, Mickey & Minnie Mouse

Pumpkin Fun

On Saturday we took the kids to DeVries Farms to get some pumkins

Jackson and Annika liked sitting on the train

and pretending to drive the tractor

and I forgot to take a picture of them with their pumpkins, but it was a fun morning!

Laser treatments

On Friday, October 15, Jackson will be having his first laser treatment to the port wine stain on his face. For the procedure Jackson is just lightly sedated with a mask, then the doctor removes the mask and quickly "pulses" the area with a laser. The actual procedure only takes a few minutes, but we have to go through the whole pre-op and post-op part which will make it take longer. The laser damages the capillaries below the surface of the skin which make them clot off. However, like I posted earlier, since the center of the face is highly vascularized and has more blood flow this procedure does not always work. There is actually very little pain involved with the treatments and Jackson will just be sent home with Tylenol. The area that they use the laser on will appear purple for about 10 days.
Please keep us in your prayers on Friday and pray that the treatments will be a success and that everything will go well. Also pray that Eric and I will not be too disappointed if things do not go the way that we want them to and the port wine stain does not lighten at all.

Below I have posted some pictures of Jackson to show how much his port wine stain has lightened since he was born.

Jackson at 4 weeks


As a baby when Jackson would cry he would turn bright red/purple from head to toe. As you can imagine this is what really concerned the doctors when he was first born.

Jackson today.