The Cousins Meet!

This past week has flown by once again. Kanaan is doing good, thanks for your continued prayers! We don't know anything new about his arm yet, but it looks a TON better, in fact it's barely noticeable now. However, we do have an appointment with a specialist at Texas Children's in downtown set for this coming Friday...so be thinking of us please!
Other than that Kanaan is his usual happy baby self, and he's getting real close to crawling--the past couple weeks he's gotten quite good at the inchworm (that's what we call it) where he uses his legs to push his bottom up, and scoot forward. So he may become mobile sooner than we thought;)

So why am I divulging all this information here and not in the newsletter? Well....because this week's newsletter is a little different than normal, and almost ALL pictures. That's because Kanaan got to meet his little cousin Hudson, and there's a LOT of cuteness to share and not a lot of space. So check it out in this week's edition of   The Schaefer Son Vol. 16                      

Update from Kanaan's Ultrasound

First off thanks to all of you who have been praying for our family this past week! We have tons of stuff to fill you in on....but before we get to all the serious stuff, something a little more fun to share with you all. I entered a picture of Kanaan in a photography contest to be featured on one my favorite inspiration blogs, and his pic was chosen! Yea! You can check him out here Confessions of a Prop Junkie: Be Inspired along with some other cuties!
Ok now on to what most of you probably came to read about K's big appointment, all the details are in this week's edition of:
 The Schaefer Son Vol. 15

Please Pray for Kanaan

So I thought this week's blog post would be short and sweet. I wrote the Schaefer Son yesterday and felt ahead. But last night while giving Kanaan a bath we noticed a puffy pink spot section on Kanaan's arm. I should mention we had noticed this same light pink section on his arm before, but we thought it was just a bug bite at the time, the color and puffiness of the area seemed to go down that week though so we weren't too concerned with it...until last night when it returned, this time a little more noticeable.
Given Kanaan's current strawberry hemangioma, I have done a LOT of research on those suckers...my first thoughts when we saw this new development on his arm was that this could be a different form of hemangioma, what is called a cavernous hemangioma. These kinds of hemangiomas are different in that they are under the skin...so it looks nothing like his nose one if you have seen that (it's in all his pics, I purposely do NOT edit it out so you can check it out if you haven't already noticed it).

 
Kanaan at the doctors office

This new current swollen area is also MUCH bigger, it's about the size of a half dollar, maybe a little bit bigger. Austin and I called the doctor though this morning to get him checked out to see what it really was. Long story short...the doctor isn't sure. He is sure there's an unusual growth on his arm, the skin is a different texture there, and it is slightly pink and puffy. He has now ordered an ultra sound for Kanaan at Texas Children's Hospital, we are just waiting to hear our appt time. The ultrasound will be able to tell us what kind of possible tumor (hemangiomas are benign) it could be, or if it's something different all together. If this new area is determined to be a cavernous hemangioma, they will want to do a more extensive ultrasounds of K's whole body to determine if he has any on his internal organs. (This is standard for kids with multiple hemangiomas) This is probably the most scary part, internal ones carry a whole list of complications.

So please pray for our sweet baby boy this week in your free time. Pray that we find out what this growth is, and that it is treatable. Please also pray for our minds to not wander to worst case scenarios as we sit and wait. As a parent you just want your kids to be happy and healthy, so the thought of even one of those being out of balance is very upsetting. We know we serve a powerful God that will help us through this, and hopefully this turns out to be nothing. By the doctor's assessment he's guessing that it is a cavernous hemangioma, and we will proceed with several ultrasounds, and then a specialist if that's the case. Fortunately right now it doesn't seem to be bothering K to much, and this has helped bring a smile to our face today hearing this sweet little sound....
Sweet Kanaan Sounds

And if you're still reading by this point, check out the The Schaefer Son Vol. 14

Church, Check-Ups, and Cheesy Grins:)

Every week that goes by we seem to have more and more fun with this little guy! His little chubber cheeks, get a little more kissable each day!

His favorite thing right now is when mom or dad hoist him in the air like superman. It's pretty much a guaranteed laugh or smile:)






Today Kanaan got to share those smiles and laughs and play with some new kids in the church nursery.
Here he is in the little "lamb" room, right after we handed him over.

For the last 4 months Kanaan has been joining us in the big sanctuary, but it's pretty hard for me to pay attention to the message since I'm constantly feeding K a bottle, or giving him his pacifier. Last week I even had to step outside with him a few times because he wanted to "talk" all during the service:) So we decided now that he's older and had his baby shots that he was ready to join the other babies in the nursery. We were a little nervous leaving him for the first time today, and kept checking to see if we were being paged to come get him....but as it turns out he did just fine, and the nursery staff said he was a very good baby. Here we all are right after picking him up.....

This week Kanaan had his 4 month check-up, read up on how it went in this week's edition of...

The Schaefer Son Vol. 13