A load of updates!!!!

Wow I have been slacking big time on our posts! It has been a busy few weeks as school is winding down and we have been doing awareness activities. So here goes...

April 25th, 2009

Brianna Faith Hathaway's first birthday celebration! We headed back to MP to attend Brianna's first birthday party. Her parents Meghan and Jason are good friends of ours from way back! Meghan and I used to get into trouble in Kindergarten together. It was so great to see her and meet her cousins.

May 3rd, 2009

Steve, Jenn (my sister), and I went to the University of Michigan Children's Memorial Service. Here they remembered patients that passed away while in their care. We put two photos of Faith in the slideshow they had, made a few sun catchers, and met another CDH family. Their precious daughter Marley was born in December 2008 and earned her wings in January of 2009. Our journey was similar to theirs, but also different. Our daughters faced some of the same battles with CDH and had a few of the same primary care nurses. It was great to finally meet them and we hope to be able to stay in touch with them.

May 9th, 2009

5/3 River Bank Run in Grand Rapids, MI. Steve had been training since January to run a 25K
(15.64 miles) in memory of Faith. We woke up and headed down to the race where he joined thousands of other runners! The weather man said we were done with the rain and right before the race started so did the RAIN! It rained for about the first 5 miles of the race for Steve. But he continued on keeping a pace of about 9 minute miles!!! My sister, nephew and I hurried to the half way point, but missed seeing him! I felt horrible! What a wife... so we headed down towards the finish line and finally saw Steve with about a half mile to go. He looked great! Many people were struggling, but Steve kept pushing on. He finished the race in 2 hours and 20 minutes and 47 seconds. (He likes to make sure that people know the seconds too ;0)

The week before the race Steve did a fundraiser for CDH research and awareness at Saranac High School. Students and teachers could donate $1 minimum to guess a time that he would finish. Those who donated were allowed to wear a hat or PJ's to school that day. He raised $325.00!!! We donated the money through our firstgiving page to CHERUBS. www.firstgiving.com/faithgracecdh

May 10th, 2009

Our second mother's day and we again spent time with my sister and my nephew! They were with us the first mother's day after Faith passed away. Not a whole lot of excitment this day, we simply relaxed and worked in the yard a little. We planned on planting flowers at Faith's grave, but there was a frost advisory.

May 11th, 2009

Blood Drive

This was our second blood drive in memory of Faith at our church. Our first one was last fall. We really didn't have a whole lot of people commit to appointments but we had a ton of walk-ins and friends that came out to donate!!! Total we had 26 people sign in and 19 people were able to donate! We also had a great number of first time donors once again. Thank you to everyone who donated their time and/or blood!

May 14th, 2009

Million Penny Roof Sit for Ronald McDonald House Charities in West Michigan

Our local radio station does this roof sit each year for the RMD house of West Michigan. This year I decided to start collecting pennies last minute at home and at school. I will let you know how it turns out:)

May 15th, 2009

Our next OB appointment with the usual stuff. We had our ultrasound 2 weeks ago and everything looked great! She seems to be dropping a little more into my pelvis each week, but is staying put as I haven't had any Braxton-Hicks contractions or anything yet.


Keep all the CDH babes out there in your prayers. Also remember the families who have lost their precious little ones to this terrible defect. I have been keeping tabs on Carter, Ruby, Jaime and Avery that were recently born, waiting repair, or recently have undergone repair. Please pray for these babies and their abilities to over come any obstacles in their way.

Thanks to everyone that follows our blog!

Love,

Amy, Steve, ^Faith^, and baby Miles

I will put photos from all these events in a montage.