Merry Christmas!

Hi everyone! I wanted to tell you about what an awesome Christmas I had.

My Christmas started way before yesterday or today.  I was so busy with getting those stockings ready for CHOP the days just went so fast. I had to figure out how I was going to be able to fill those stockings without having a job.  It all worked out and I was able to give 26 of them.  I have to start thinking about getting my sand buckets ready for Easter.  It makes my heart feel sooo happy to be able to do this.

On Christmas Eve we opened presents at Mommom and Poppop's. I got a Barbie Dreamhouse and Rylee got a Bitty Baby crib and doll.  Mommom loved the bracket I made for her.  Mommy and I decided we would make all our gifts this year. We saved a lot of money and I think people liked our gifts even more.  It was very hard work. We made ceramic coasters with our pictures on them and calendars. I say these presents came from our hearts. We went to 7:00 service at church and Mommy and I volunteered to light the advent wreath. It was fun. Our church even had birthday cake for Jesus.

Today we opened our presents from Santa and then visited Aunt Jeanette and Uncle Jay.  When we left there we went to Grandmom and Grandpops party. I was so excited to see everyone.

Merry Christmas everyone and most importantly Happy Birthday Baby Jesus!

Love, Morgan

Pictures from the stocking drop off.

Well today was an extra special day!  Morgan worked so hard on putting together stockings to donate to CHOP for some children before the holiday.  We started off with 24 stockings each with a Woofi, the Woofi Christmas book and the book How to fill a Bucket.  They were also filled with a juice box and a snack and some little goodies.  The Woofi books and How to fill a Bucket books were so graciously donated by the authors.  With out them and the help of many people that Love Morgan this wouldn't have been possible.  As her Mommy I couldn't have been more proud of her.  She amazes me by her generosity each and every time she does this project of hers.  To help with purchasing all the Woofi puppies Morgan so selflessly went to the bank and cashed in all of her change from her piggy bank.  WOW!!!  Is all I had to say when she told me she wanted to do that.  Well on Fri Dec 14th a tragedy happened in CT at Sandy Hook and after that Morgan decided we needed to do whatever it took to put together 2 more stockings.  She wanted to be able to donate 26 stocking each one in memory of the 20 children and 6 teachers that lost their lives.  I thought this was a wonderful idea and we were able to make that happen.  Today Dec 20th Morgan along with Mommy, Mom Mom, Grandmom, Grandpop and her cousin Lillian were able to hand deliver the stockings to Dr Germiller.  He is the most amazing Dr in our lives.  He is the one who helped change Morgan's life and gave her the gift of hearing.  I hope these 26 children have a smiles as big as the one Morgan had delivering them as they do receiving them.  May God bless each and everyone of them.   We pray they have speedy recoveries and Have a very Merry Christmas.  Tis the season to pay it forward.  Morgan you have inspired so many people and continue to show us what the true meaning of life is all about.  We love you to the moon and back.  Rylee has the best role model to look up to as she grows up!  Keep up the Great work!

6-Year-Old Gives Back To Other Kids At Philly Hospital - Philadelphia News, Weather and Sports from WTXF FOX 29

Wow Morgan!  Words can't express how proud we are of you!  You are changing the world and don't even realize it.  Your kind heart will touch many and change them for the good.  6yrs old and you are a star and will always be.  I hope you continue to live your life being the wonderful tender hearted person that you are always willing and wanting to help others and make them smile.  I wish all people would see the world through your eyes and know that anything is possible.  You are my inspiration and my world.  You and Rylee are my blessing from God and I thank him everyday for giving you both to me!  Love Mommy

6-Year-Old Gives Back To Other Kids At Philly Hospital - Philadelphia News, Weather and Sports from WTXF FOX 29

Kid video of Morgan Keely | Videos | WTXF

Kid video of Morgan Keely | Videos | WTXF



We couldn't be more proud of Morgan as the holiday season approches and she continues to pay it forward.   She is stuffing stocking for the children at CHOP just like she did the buckets for over the summer.  She is truely and amazing little girl that even I look up to.  I am such a Proud Mommy and I am so blessed that God picked me to be her Mommy as I learn something new from her everyday and she is helping me to become a better person.  She is helping me see the world through the eyes of a child.  Have a happy Holiday!

General update 10-12-12

Well, we are all thru summer and already into the middle of the first semester at Pennview.  I want to briefly update this blog so that we don't forget anything.  So much has happened in a few short months.

On September 28th Morgan had surgery to repair the hole that the tube left in her ear.  The surgery went well.  There was more pain to this than the implant surgeries though.  Dr G had to take a skin graft from the back of her ear and then go in thru her ear to patch the hole.  Usually when this is done the surgeon makes an incision behind the ear and patches holes that way.  Due to her implant he couldn't do it the normal way.  It was a very hard surgery but she is back to her old self.

This is Morgan's first year she is a Pennview with a different teacher.  As you know, we do love the school she is attending.  We are disappointed though that things aren't falling in line as quickly as they should have.  It is now the middle of October and there is still no good soundfield installed in her classroom. That is just pitiful!  Morgan gets services from her home school district and we actually had to also stop those.  Reason being:  I would drop her off at 7:30 in the morning and she would spend 45 minutes with the specialist from Upper Perk. After she was done an Upper Perk bus would drive her the 1/2 hour to Pennview.  Last year we had a male bus driver take her but he was accompanied by a female companion.  This worked fine and Morgan grew to love them both.  This year Upper Perk will not provide either a companion for a male bus driver or a female bus driver to take her.  I don't know what is really right or wrong but my heart told me that I just wasn't comfortable with a 6 year old being alone on this bus with a male for over 1/2 hour.  Could have been the wrong decision on my part but for now, my heart took over.  It is just crazy they couldn't accomodate due to probably over 80% of the bus drivers being female.  Sometimes I feel like people just like being in control. 

Morgan is also having difficulty with math at Pennview.  She will be attending some outside of the classroom help with a couple other children.  This will be for 30 minutes per week. Pennview doesn't do this themselves.  They have the intermediate unit do this teaching.The unit in which we are upset with due to the soundfield.  Goodness if she is struggling and then not  hearing as best as she can we have a long road ahead of us.  She just thinks in her head that things look hard and then she seems to just close up and can't keep her mind open to learn it.  She seems fine after she has it in her head.  She lacks self confidence but they don't see this at school.  We will have to make a really good effort in keeping the communication open between what they see at school and what we see at home.

On a brighter note, Uncle Jamie and Becky are getting married!  They got engaged at the beach on August 31, 2012.  Morgan is excited to be their flower girl.  She has been asking Jamie for a long time when is he going to marry Becky.  He finally listened to her!

I am hoping by the next time I post we have some positive things to report on school.

Week of Dr appts

Morgan has had her share of Dr appts this week.  When Morgan and Rylee went for the yearly check up's last week we would have guessed the Dr would have said something about our chubby Rylee.  Nope, Morgan's turn again.  He was concerned she is dropping on the growth chart even though she grew and gained weight it just wasn't enough.  He advised she go for some blood work for her thyroid.  After reading some of the things that go along with a thryoid not acting correctly we thought maybe she does have an issue.  We have noticed she isn't as sharp in the past couple months as she usually is.  Next appt was CHOP audiology.  It has been a year since her last mapping.  There were tons of adjustments that they made to her newer ear.  This was probably the problem for her not being as sharp.  She is getting new processors that will accomodate a personal FM system.  We will see how she does with this.  A lot of times younger children have a hard time figuring out if the FM isn't working correctly.  We have used a soundfield in her classroom up to this point.  The FM would not be used all the time as she needs to be able to hear good without this crutch.  But it could be a tool that she would benefit from greatly in the classroom.  We have seen how fast a CI kid can go from above par to falling behind so quickly.  We understand why they want these kids always a step ahead of the other kids because of this.
Next Dr visit was CHOP urology.  Morgan has a 2 mm kidney stone that gets checked every other year to make sure this little stone stays floating and not growing.  So far so good.  Next appt will be when she is 8 years old.  Last Dr visit for the week was with Dr Godfrey, eye dr.  Morgan was complaining in school that she was having a hard time seeing the whiteboard.  She is not 20/20 but she isn't bad enough to get glasses.

One more thing,  on the way home from CHOP we were going to visit the zoo.  We were getting off at the Girard Ave exit and WHAM, someone hit us from behind in our brand new car.  Morgan of course was freaking out.  She has been in 3 accidents so far and knew just what this could mean.  We called 911 and by darn the guy drove off.  The officer said this happens all the time in Philly.  He said he probably had no license or insurance anyway.  We did still enjoy some time at the zoo though.

Morgan also started swimming lessons.  She is really scared of the water.  We think a lot of this has to do with a bad experience when she was little and had to swim without being able to hear.  She really doesn't even like to get her face wet.  I think swimming is the worst thing about being deaf.  Now that her new implants are somewhat water friendly it isn't as bad.  It has always been hard to keep her attention at the pool cause kids just like to be everywhere and to keep facial contact gets hard.  It always seems like we struggle with this.  She is enjoying the water a little bit more.  One more week of classes though.

Off to the beach this weekend for some boating and relaxing!  Hope it goes without incidence.

Happy Birthday Miss Morgan!

What a challenging 6 years we have had with Morgan.  Soooo many things have happened in a short amount of time.  Looking back over these years we can now clearly see how God is working through Morgan.  Morgan has taught us so many things that she didn't even know she was doing.  It is amazing to see how God did his work through a child! 
Morgan's whole family has learned never to take anything for granted.  We have learned that CHOP is full of families dealing with severe heart break every single day.  We don't understand the suffering that happens to small children along with their parents.  It is the place every single parent should have to visit.  So many people take things for granted.  When a baby is born and they do all those tests to your newborn that  you don't even know they are doing.  All that stuff is taken for granted til the sky falls. 
Morgan has finally had  her first birthday party with kids.  She and 8 friends had a party at Sweet and Sassy.  They had soo much fun!  That will be the first and last kids party for quite a few years.  The prices for having a kids party are ridiculous!  The girls had fun getting their hair done and nails and makeup.  They then got to dress up and use the runway for some fashion show time. Morgan was in her glory.  Her face was just priceless.  That same day we had our family party too.  Rylee and Morgan had to share the limelight for that one.  Didn't bother either one of them  one little bit to share the day.  That is good cause they will be doing that shared party for many many years.  Just so they each have their own birthday cake.
We also had yearly check ups this week.  Morgan grew 1 1/2 " and about 2lbs since last year.  She is a tiny little thing and they are watching her closely.  She is 34 3/4 lbs.  They will test her thyroid just to be safe.  She has such a tiny set of parents that is probably those genes that  are working in her again.
Next Wednesday Morgan has to go back to CHOP for a mapping.  It has been a long time and we are noticing some things that are leading us to her needing a mapping.  She just doesn't seem to be as sharp as she usually is.  We now can see why they say you  have to keep a CI kid one step ahead of the class all the time cause they can fall behind so fast you won't even notice it.  That seems to be happening.  We didn't know if what we were witnessing was a 6 year old selective hearing or just the end of a long school year. I will  post next week to update on this mapping.  Also, next week she goes back to the urologist at CHOP for her kidney stone issue.  Hopefully this hasn't moved and is still just sitting there being a good little stone.
After the morning appointment at CHOP she has a 1:30 appt with the eye dr.  The teacher has noticed Morgan's sight is not as sharp from a distance.  Nothing was noted at her check up last night though.  Hope all this turns out good too!
Until next week, Happy Birthday Morgan and Rylee!!!!

What a wonderful day we had at CHOP

Today was Morgan's 6 week post op appt at CHOP.  Morgan's ear healed up nicely and we are now going to have a final appt in August prior to the September surgery to fix the ear that has the hole in it.  The hole is there from when the tube fell out and it didn't close up like it should have. 

Today was extra special.  Morgan had 3 dozen sand buckets ready to donate to CHOP's short stay unit.  She poured her little heart into this project.  She always would say, "oh these little kids are going to be so excited when they see their present when they wake up".  Each bucket was filled according to age.  She filled baby buckets with puffs, sippy cups, baby food a baby book and the famous Woofi.  The toddler buckets had things such as oreos, pretzels, juice boxes, water, books, crayons, coloring books, and Woofi.  Some of the buckets also had a special book called, Have you filled a bucket today?.  The publisher of this book actually donated them.  Not only did Morgan learn what " paying it forward"  meant but adults did as well doing this project.  So many wonderful people helped her out.  There was a church group that filled 4 of them as a service project.  Many wonderful people gave monetary donations as well as things to fill the buckets.  Morgan could not have filled this many buckets without all the help she received. 

Morgan had the honor of giving out two buckets personally.  They were both little boys that will be getting cochlear implants this year.  Both of these little guys loved Woofi from the moment they saw him.  We wish Rocco and Beckett only the best in the upcoming journey.  Lots of therapy and love and before we know it they will both be following Morgan's footsteps and enjoying mainstream school.  All the hard work of the learning to listen will be just a memory. 

After CHOP we enjoyed a nice celebration lunch at Olive Garden.  What a great day! 

Sand buckets are everywhere!

We are having such a fun time filling these sand buckets. We have had so many people excited for us that they have been donating money and time and other items to put in our buckets. We have had two newspapers do stories on this. How exciting to have really cool stuff in the news today when the world is in so much turmoil. Here is the article from the Town and Country this past Wednesday. We are so proud of Morgan and who she is becoming one day at a time. This coming Sunday Morgan will have her first violin recital. She is a bit anxious but who wouldn't be. She will be playing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and Hot Cross buns. http://www.phillyburbs.com/blogs/news_columnists/phil_gianficaro/the-greatest-sound/article_f1375014-e5a1-5628-a145-d36c5323e596.html

Exciting things are happening!

The sand bucket project is in full swing! We are so excited for Morgan. Tuesday Morgan was given two cash donations from friends. On Tuesday Morgan also received material things for her buckets from her daytime caregiver. Wednesday we got a letter from the publisher of the book and they are DONATING the books for the buckets. These books are so meaningful. Every child needs to have this book! Today a company in Quakertown donated $100.00. We also have been in contact with Woofi the missionary puppy organization. For every Woofi that is purchased they will also donate a Woofi for Morgan's buckets. This is also not just a regular stuffed puppy. It is helping someone else. So two children will be helped with the purchase of one puppy! Doors just keep opening, The Lord our God is so incredibly WONDERFUL!

Paying it Foward!

This past Friday Morgan had the first of two surgeries. She was getting the tube removed from her left ear and a patch put on the hole. As she is getting older these pre surgery days are not as easy. She had lots of tears on Thursday night. We were trying to make it as light of a deal as possible but that seemed to backfire a little bit. I think she thought we were blowing something off that was very important to her. She was in better spirits Friday morning on her way to CHOP. Uncle Jamie went along with us. Ben's new job does not permit any real time off yet. The longest part was prepping and waking up afterwards. She slept for the better part of the day. Wide awake by the evening though so we had time to go get the Phillies Jersey she asked for. A little gift for being such a big girl. Well deserved. CHOP gave Morgan this cute little bucket for Easter. All the kids in the short stay unit received them on Friday. They were actually made by Merck though. Well, this sparked Morgan up so much that she is now going full steam ahead to have 12 buckets ready to donate to CHOP when she goes back in 6 weeks. She knows what a good feeling she got from someone else doing something nice. It is going to be a fun six weeks getting these buckets ready. She spent her Easter money that her Grandpop Frank gave her on some books for the buckets. She has chosen the book called, "How Full Is Your Bucket, For Kids" Very good choice I might add. Those books are around 10.00 each so this will be a bit difficult for her without some help. On Sunday she was an Angel in the Easter program for her Sunday School. She recited the Easter Bible Verses. It took a couple weeks of practicing to memorize them, but she got it!

Where has the time gone?

I can't believe how long it has been since this blog has been updated. For two reasons actually. One was a sign on issue. The other was our CI life has calmed down drastically. We are almost what I would call a "normal" family. Geez, I hope I didn't just jinx that.
Morgan is doing an awesome job in Kindergarten at Pennview. Everyone knows how the CI's work, the FM/Soundfield is working great not only for Morgan but for the whole class. The kids love passing around the microphone. It is just amazing to me how much they learn in Kindergarten in today's world. They have accomplished telling time and counting money and measuring just about everything you can think of. This week since it is Easter time they are doing an egg drop in science class. Poppop and Morgan think they have this all sewed up. We will see! Morgan is also now involved in learning to play the violin. Her teacher says to us she is a natural at it. That is incredibly hard to believe but stranger things have happened.
Morgan still has the one tube in her ear from almost two years ago. One fell out and left a hole. So on April 6th she is getting surgery to removed the one that is left in and patch that hole. If she doens't get any ear infections in the fixed ear then in 3 months she will have the ear fixed that left a hole from the tube that fell out on its own. Morgan had a problem with the anesthia when she got her tubes put in. Let us pray that this will not happen again! She is getting the first surgery on Good Friday at CHOP in Chalfont.

Morgan just loves to make her baby sister Rylee laugh. Her days are filled with all the things a normal hearing kindergarten girl does.

Hopefully now that this blog has a good sign on and good weather is right around the corner we will be updating more frequently.

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