NILMDTS Proofs

Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep

For those of you interested in viewing the professional pictures taken the day Parker passed away here is the website. http://www.triciahackney.com/ Click on Enter Site, then click on NILMDTS proofs, click on the Parker Ringhand Protected Gallery. The password is Parker's middle name...Maximus. Obviously these pictures are of a personal nature. I made sure that I was not exposed in any of them, but several of the pictures are of me Kangarooing with him and I am in a hospital gown.

It's Christmas time!

I love my wise men. I purchased them when I was a stay at home mom selling "Southern Living at Home" products. I recently had my friend April make the sign underneath the wise men for me. April does a beautiful job with her signs. She painted this custom sign for me a couple of months ago. http://thepaintedcupboard.blogspot.com/

Many of you know that I have a small collection of nativity scenes. This year I displayed some of them on my piano. I have one from Mexico that I let the girls play with. They love it, because it is very small.
Our tree. I love our tree...it's a huge 9ft. tree. I will never do a pre-lit tree again, but it is fabulous. Believe it or not, there is not one traditional red ornament hanging from it. The tree is decorated with pink glass ornaments, gold butterflies, ivory ribbon and photographs. The top has a delicate angle, which I dropped this year and broke off her arm. I just hot glue gunned it back on. I figure it is so high up there no one will ever know.

Merry Christmas!!!

THANK YOU for the GIFTS!!!

I admit I have been awful about sending out Thank You cards. I have been waiting for the remembrance cards of Parker to be finished before sending any out. Our family has received so many nice gifts in remembrance of Parker. Here are just a few of the beautiful things sent our way.


First, a beautiful silver ornament from my friend Cathy and her husband John. The ornament opens up and on one side has Parker's full name and on the other a place for Parker's baby picture. It is gorgeous on our tree. Thank you so much for sending it to us, we love it.

We received a beautiful letter from my cousin Lauren and her husband Ryan. She talked about a book her friend read on grieving the loss of a child. The author suggested to smash a piece of pottery as a form of therapy. You take out your anger on the piece of pottery, then you put the pot together again. This symbolizes the healing and piecing your life back together again. The excerpt from her blog reads...

"Take the time to be with the Lord as you piece it together again. Let Him tell you who you are, and let yourself be reminded of the grace that seals us all. I am praying as I type these words that He will come to you and remind you that He loves the gaps because there is the potential for more of Himself revealed in you. Let Him help you smash and rebuild His most coveted possession...YOU."

Lance and I thought this was so beautifully written. We have not felt the anger necessary to break the pitcher. We will hang onto it if we ever do feel angry...but we really like it and will use it as our water pitcher to remind us that there is nothing to be angry about. We feel quite the opposite.

Another gift that we have recently received is a water fountain for outside. It is a light house and is the most unusual fountain I have ever seen. Lance's grandmother (Mom-Mom) purchased it for us. Lance's family had left the light of a small decorative light house on until Parker came home from the hospital. The fountain is currently in our garage, but will be placed outside when winter is over.

Yesterday we received yet another beautiful gift (the first picture). Lance's Mom brought home two patio stones with Parker's name and due/death date on them. This is perfect for our garden and will go near the lighthouse fountain. Thank you so much!

We have also received flowers, blankets, cards, people willing to share their personal experiences with us, many many donations to Parker's mirrors and The St. Jude Children's fund in Parkers name. We can not thank every one enough. We appreciate every ones thoughtfulness and have felt very loved.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you!!!

Drum roll please...

Drum roll please... we have been able to collect $3,461 for Parker's mirrors. I couldn't be happier with the donations. I am impressed with everyone's support and donations toward this project. When I talked to the Asst. Nurse Manager today she said that she talked to the board and the hospital is also very excited about our project.

We have been able to purchase 20 mirrors. 15 regular stand-up mirrors and 5 stand-up tilt mirrors. We plan to give 10 to Children's Hospital and 10 to Good Samaritan Hospital. We have also purchased two large garbage bags full of clothing in sizes preemie and newborn. We still have plans to purchase small child size chairs. Good Sam plans to use these chairs for the sibling visits after the flu season is over. They only had one available when Parker was in the NICU so they said they could really use 8-10 chairs (4-5 per pod).

Thanks again to everyone that has donated to this very worthy cause. I have been overwhelmed by the generosity of everyone. Our Colleagues, friends, family, church friends, our parents colleagues...Thank you so much!!!!

The other project we are working on is our remembrance cards. Lance sent them to the printer today. We ordered 500 to pass out to everyone who has loved, supported, donated and prayed for our family over the past couple of months. We will be sending them out in our Christmas letter.

With Love- Lindsey

Parker saying Hello!

We had an interesting/ironic day. Lance's day began with a nurse stopping by to take blood and check on Lances knee. When the nurse introduced herself she said her name was Crystal. For those of you familiar with our blog...one of Parker's primary nurses was named Crystal. Then around 3:30pm Lance's physical therapist stopped by and when she introduced herself...her name was Noel. Funny...Parker's physical therapist at Children's was also named Noel. These are just two names you don't hear very often.

After Noel left the asst. nurse manager from Good Sam called. She was wanting to say hi and check in with us on the mirror project. The hospital is very excited about our project...

Day three with the Knee

For those of you out there that are contemplating a knee replacement hopefully my progress and results will help you. Day three and I'm feeling pretty good. The swelling is still pretty extreme and I have trouble bending and straightening. Stiff and sore.
The pain is very manageable. The most uncomfortable thing has been 2 and a half days of hiccups, a side affect of the anesthesia. I've hiccuped so many times that deep breaths hurt my upper chest. Sore muscles. Hopefully, the hiccups are gone it's been about 2 hours since the last bout. Some of these bouts last 30 - 60 mins. I get them stopped then they start again. Annoying! I can already walk on the leg. I'm just not very graceful or stable. Ice, elevation, therapy and laying around will be the agenda this week. Sleep would also be nice. Toes above my nose.

More Hospitals

Yes, we haven't had enough hospital visits this year and wanted to make sure to get some more in before the new year. Yesterday I finally got my knee replaced. Loopy! Wow, I've had anesthesia multiple times before but never like this. My surgery was at 8:15 and it took a little longer than expected. I haven't talked to the surgeon yet but he talk to Lindsey. He had seen x-rays of my knee before but you really get the full story once it's opened up. Apparently, it impressed him. One of the worst knees he's seen in a person my age.

The drugs and anesthesia had me in and out of it until 7:00pm last night. I would fall asleep in mid sentence. Morphine, oxycontin and more. The morphine made my mouth numb and tongue swell a little bit so we stopped that.

Just waiting for the surgeon this morning. I'll be going home today. The pain is currently manageable but the exercises are painful. I'll let you know more later.