Sorry it's been so long updating.

Isaac is now up to 12 pounds and 3 ounces. Praise the LORD!!!!!!!

Isaac; sleep smiling the other night.
Grace, Faith and daddy doing our annual Christmas time tradition where dad reads the nativity story and the kids hang the nativity ornaments.
This year Faith got to put the star on top of the tree. She was so brave she told us.
Isaac does funny things in his sleep sometimes.
Isaac and grandma Wall.

Here are some cute pics of Isaac. The top one he is modeling his new hat, which his mom made for him. Below he is showing off his great smile, which he has a lot.

Grace just turned 5. We can't believe that she is growing up so fast. She is really enjoying Pre-K and is getting so smart. She was so happy when she got her new guitar for her birthday. She played it all day and ended up with a blister on her thumb because she was not using a pick yet.

Isaac's Dedication

Today we had Isaac dedicated to the Lord at church. We do this to symbolize that we as parents are giving him to the Lord and then the Lord gives him back to us to raise in a Godly manner. It is our hope that all of our kids grow to truly love and serve God and to honor Him with their lives. We know that Isaac has a great start at this because of all of your prayers for him in his first four months of life. If it were not for you and your prayers we would not have been able to dedicate him this morning. So, THANK YOU again!!!!! And to God be the glory.

From left to right: Dawn Marie (honorary mom/grandma) Mimi (Lish's mom), Lish, Grace, James, Isaac, Faith and Grandma (James' mom).
Pastor Joe praying for and dedicating Isaac.

Last night (Monday) Isaac ate his first supper, well solid supper that is. He ate it like an old pro too. As you can see below he liked to show it off. His mom taught him that trick. Tomorrow (Wednesday) he gets weighed again. Hope he gains another 9 ozs.

HALF WAY THERE!!

Here is little Isaac Mathew weighing in at 10 lbs 3 ozs. That's right ever since he started the feeding tube he has been gaining weight. He has to weigh 20 lbs before they will do the pull through surgery so we are half way there. He gained 9 ozs in one week. God continues to work miricles in his life. Now that he is gaining weight he is becoming more active, alert, and smiles a lot more. We have never been so glad to see fat rolls. :-) Thank you for your continued prayers and please stay in touch.

Amazing Grace

This is a very powerful video with the remake of a very powerful song! God wants to take away our chains to sin and let us live in freedom!

Here is Isaac taking a bath. His MIC-KEY button (feeding tube) is the white thing you see on his stomach. We are now having to use it to feed him through the night so that he will gain weight. He has not gained weight in the last month so the doctor's wanted to get him set up with a feeding pump.

Sorry it's been so long updating the blog. I really have no good excuses. Please continue to pray for Isaac. The prayer now is that he will start gaining weight like he should. He is doing well other wise.

Wednesday

Sorry that there was not an update on Tuesday. We were busy, excited, exhausted, etc.

ISAAC MATHEW IS HOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We brought him home yesterday afternoon. He is adjusting great to home life. In fact when we have to change his ostomy bag, he hardly cries. In the hospital he wouldn't stop crying. The girls are very excited to have him home. They keep wanting to hold him and touch him and kiss him and watch him. Grace will be a great big helper when we need her. She is already helping mommy when she has to change his bag and she likes to make sure he doesn't roll off the couch when we have to leave the room. Yes, he does almost roll over even at 2 1/2 weeks. He is a strong little boy. He tries to scoot all over when we change him.

There will still be many more trips to Tulsa, but this time we will have him with us. The surgeon was very surprised at how well he was doing. He said that he had two other patients with the same condition as Isaac, but they didn't do near as well as Isaac. Lisha told him that we have people in almost every state praying for him. I don't think I can say it enough that we are very blessed to have so many friends, family and strangers that are praying for Isaac. Thank you all for your prayers.

Monday

It's official. Isaac will come home tomorrow. That is from the surgeon's mouth. Finally 2 1/2 weeks later, Isaac gets to come home and we get to hold him whenever we want. The surgeon told us tonight that he was extremely shocked how well Isaac is doing. Lish told him that we had people in almost every state praying for him. We can give testimony to the power of prayer, and you can too. Now that Isaac will be home we will still need your prayer. The journey is not over yet. Once he is home we will have to be careful not to let him get sick, if he does he may need to go into the hospital and be hooked up to an IV. There will also be the added care of his ostomy bag and G-tube, which after a while we will become pros at it. We will have to watch him closer over the next year to make sure he is doing well in all areas. There will be the regular check ups down to Tulsa with the surgeon, whom we are really pleased with. The last couple of days Isaac has been weighing in at a whopping 8 lbs 1oz. He continues to eat well and have great vitals.

Again I apologize for the lack of pictures. We just got a new camera as a gift and have not uploaded the software for the pictures yet.

Thanks again for your prayers and please keep praying as he comes home and over the next year. We were reminded yet again, yesterday in church at how great God is.

"The splendor of the King, clothed in majesty Let all the earth rejoice, all
the
earth rejoice. He wraps Himself in light, and darkness tries to
hide. And trembles at His voice, trembles at His voice. How
great is
our God, sing with me, how great is our God, all will see how
great, how great
is our God. Age to age He stands, and time is in His
hand, beginning and
the end, beginning and the end. The Godhead three
in one, Father, Spirit,
Son, the Lion and the Lamb, Lion and the Lamb.
How great is our God, Sing
with me, How great is our God, all will see how
great, how great is our
God. Name above all names, Worthy of all
praise, My heart will sing, How
great is our God."

Our God is great and I hope that you can "sing" with me that our God is great. All will see that our God is great and they can see it in Isaac.

Sunday

Sorry I don't have any pictures today. We got back late Sunday night and so I'm doing this before I go to work Monday morning. I did want to get something on so that I don't get in trouble from all of you who are keeping up with Isaac's progress.

We were told last night that Tuesday will be his homecoming, it's in his chart now. And last night he nursed for the first time since he was half and hour old. He latched on perfectly and ate great. He is still not dumping and he continues to have his feeds increased. His last feed last night before nursing was 90ml.

Thanks again for all your prayers. I pray that God will bless you for your prayers. Know that they have been answered.

Saturday

PRAISE THE LORD!!!!!! Wow! We are still being amazed. Today when we got to Isaac the nurse told us that he was at 60ml for his 5:00 feeding and that at his 8:00 feeding he would go up to 70ml! That's full feeding! Oh yeah, then we notice that something is missing...his IV fluids!!! And that's a day earlier than we were expecting. The only thing he is hooked up to now is his monitor. We were told that after 24 hours with no IV and full feedings he would be able to go home. His homecoming is getting very close. We see everyday the answers to all of your prayers and we thank the Lord for all of you who are praying for Isaac and we thank Him for answering prayer.

Friday

We got a call today from the doctor and she said that they had increased Isaac's feedings to 50ml. Full feeding is 65ml so he is getting very close. They will increase him to 60ml on Saturday and 65ml on Sunday and take out his IV PICC line. Then after 24 hours if he is doing good, he gets to come home!!! He has been doing great with his feedings, so we are optimistic that he will come home then. Just to show the power of prayer, his nurse told us tonight that everyone is amazed at how well he is doing already. They just can't believe that he has recovered so quickly. God truly is great and He is worthy of all praise and glory.

"Hi everybody"

"YYYAAAAWWWWNNNNN....It's hard work being this cute."

Thursday

Another great day today. They increased his feedings from 20ml to 40ml, and boy does he love it. He eats it right down with no problems. He still looks great and is doing great. There is talk of him coming home, hopefully, Tuesday. Right now our prayer is that the pathologist who is now looking at the biopsies from surgery will come back and say that there is more good intestine then we thought. God has answered so many prayers and has worked a miricle so far and we pray that He will continue to show His glory through little Isaac.

Daddy, Grace, Isaac and mommy. Faith is not allowed in the ICU unit until she gets a couple shots which she is due for. Faith said the other night that she does not want Isaac to come home because she does not want to get her shots.
"I love my big sister."
I don't care who feeds me, JUST FEED ME!!!!

Wednesday

Praises just keep on coming!!!! Today they increased his feeding from 10ml of Lish's milk to 20ml and they hope to increase it again before tomorrow!!! He is handling it very well. All of your prayers are being answered. Thank you. The doctor hopes he can go home early next week. He has gained weight, now he is 7# 12oz, almost back up to his birth weight. He is still stooling well and eating great. We did find out today that the surgeon did not remove the intestine below the ostomy. They sent the biopsies they did during surgery to another pathologist to confirm what they found. Basically, they could be wrong about the Hirschprung's covering the entire colon. If they were initially wrong, then Isaac could have more intestine then we first thought. Thanks again for all your prayers and keep them coming.

This is Isaac with his new "Prayer Shawl" from Aunt Dorthy and Uncle Don and their church. They have a group of people who make them and then pray over them before they send them out. Thank you very much!!!
Fast asleep!!!
Look at those cheeks and that lower lip.


Oh yeah, that's good!!!

Tuesday

Hello all! Well you can't tell, but in that bottle was 10 ml of mama's milk. He started on milk today and has been doing great with it. They will slowly raise the amount of milk and lower the amount of fluids through the IV. The hope is that he will take the milk and not just pass it right through his intestines. So far he has been doing fine. The nurses still have not found an ostomy bag that will last like it should. We did have a record with the last one lasting 24 hours. His umbilical cord stump has not fallen off, so they have to leave it open to the air to let it dry out and eventually fall off.

We have some more great pictures of him from today, so enjoy and thanks again for all your prayers. Keep 'em rising.

Snuggling with daddy!

"Hey, where did my hand go?"

Monday

Well the updates have slowed down quite a bit, which is a good thing because that means things are moving along like they should. As you can see from the picture below, he started eating today. It's only Pedilite because they want to start easy on his stomach. So far he has taken that really well. If after 24 hours he is still eating without vomiting, his stomach isn't bloated and his is passing the food through, then he will be able to start eating milk. Then hopefully we will have a better idea how soon he will get to come home. Also, today we had the ostomy queen put on his ostomy bag so hopefully it won't leak anymore, which we have had trouble with, kinda gross. Anyway, good news all around for today. I start back to work tomorrow, so the updates will slow down to at least one daily. And since we are pretty much waiting for him to come home now, there won't be much to update with.

Thanks again for all your prayers. God has been faithful and has answered them. He truly is great and mighty. He is the Creator, and the One who knows how to fix all our problems. We give Him all the glory and honor.

Below: When mama got close, he knew what to do. Kissie, kissie.

That's right, BOOMER SOONER!!!! Beat Texas!!

Sunday Evening

Well it's Sunday evening. One week after we first came down to Tulsa. He is still doing great. His surgeon was off for the weekend so another doctor was doing rounds for him and he did not put in an order to let Isaac eat. So we wait another day. Hopefully tomorrow when Dr. Rothenbach sees him he will let him eat. Isaac really wants to. He roots around and will take his pacifier for a little bit, but when he realizes that there is no food involved he gets a little irritated. We wish that mama's order could over ride the doctors, but it doesn't.

I got a couple of great shots of Isaac smiling in his sleep this afternoon. It's so nice to see him smile and know that he is not in pain. The doctor did order no more pain meds for him. They are having a hard time keeping the ostomy bag on him so when they mess with that he gets mad at the nurses. We are still very encouraged with his progress and hope he can come home this week, but we have not talked with the doctor about that for sure. Thanks again for all your prayers. Isaac is only 9 days old, but God has taught me a lot through this little guy, as He has with Alisha, Grace and Faith. Keep praying. We are seeing first hand the power of prayer and are amazed at how many people around the country are praying for this little guy.

Be encouraged with this beautiful smiling face.

Saturday Night

Things are looking really good. The nurses have been telling us that he could be able to eat soon. We have to wait until the secretions coming from his G tube are clear for 24 hours and they have been clear today. So hopefully he can eat tomorrow!!! He looks great. Tonight he was awake and looking around for quite a while. He had to have his ostomy bag replaced because it was leaking and he made a big mess all over and the nurse had to change his bedding. So mama and daddy got to hold him for the first time since before surgery. It was great!!!! Thank you all for your prayers. God is really going to puzzle the doctors now!! Keep praying!!! Well it's late and we want to get some good rest tonight. Finally some great news which helps rejuvenate us. Thanks again.