We are ALIVE!!!

It's true, we are alive. I've been real bad at blogging but hope to do a little better to help ease the complaints of people who love and miss us and actually want to see us!! Thanks everyone!!!

Here is our big man Jacob at his open house. He is standing next to his pirate map he drew. Jacob is doing great. He is playing baseball again, just finished basketball, is taking piano lessons and is in Cub Scouts. He is doing very well at school with his lowest mark this last report card being a 94. WOO HOO!! One day we were out walking and Jacob saw a boy from his class, Vallobh. They said Hi to each other and we kept walking. Then Vallobh's dad realized who his son had said hi to and he turned to us and in a very excited voice said, Jacob? That's Jacob from your class? We said yes and he said oh, oh I am so glad to meet you. Jacob is so smart and Vallobh talks about him all the time and on and on. It was pretty cute!

Here is Madelyn at her open house by her creations. The face one of hers is at the very top slightly to the left. At the open house there was another mom and older sister there and as Madelyn's teacher said good bye to Madelyn, this mom said - oh "that's" Madelyn. So I kind of looked at her like, what do you mean? She said, I'm maxs mom. All he ever talks about is Madelyn and the sister said yes he does. She said that he & zach have it all worked out that they are both going to marry Madelyn and share her. HA HA The PE teacher said the boys follow her all over. That you look and it is Madelyn with this group of boys following her in a pack. The PE teacher said, Boys leave her alone and then looked at Madelyn and she is standing there posing and looking her cutest. Oh my, we are in trouble. Madelyn is also very smart, can already read like a pro. Her report card was perfect. Over spring break she learned to tie her shoes and ride her bike with no training wheels.

Ella Bella! This is some artwork from her preschool. The teacher told me the kids were asked to paint a rainbow. Can you tell which picture is Ella's?? Yeah - that's right, the ONLY one that actually looks like a rainbow. Ella is doing great. She loves school, loves going to other people's house and is my best helper at home. Her and Madelyn are taking gymnastics and loving it! They have both gotten really good and love running and jumping and flipping and climbing!

Abigail....where do we start? She is doing great! She is getting bigger, or I should say longer. She seems so tall! She works sooo hard at all the therapy she does. She can sit for awhile by herself, she can roll over and sometimes even roll back. She loves 'walking'. We are still borrowing the KidWalk and she loves 'walking' in that. Or walking back and forth between Barry and I. She can't do it by herself but she sure loves trying. We will probably order her own KidWalk in the next couple months. We're getting a bright pink one!!

She's gotten orthotics recently. You can barely see them poking over her shoes. They go to about mid foot. But she is walking on her toes so we are going back in to get different ones that cover her foot and go up her leg more to stop her from being on her tip toes.

We also got a Special Tomato chair. It is pretty cool. It can strap to any chair or we got a base with it that we can roll her around the house (or outside). Jacob and Barry just made her a table this week so she can sit and play with her toys. We love it because we can take it to restaurants or church or school things etc and strap her to her own chair and she can be a big girl.

She is learning more and more words. Just the other night Barry asked her what her name was and she said, Abby. Just as clear as a bell. We all looked at eachother in amazement!! She still doesn't sleep very good and loves to be held which makes doing anything a bit hard, but - in Barry's famous words - it is what it is!!

We did get a dog at the end of the year. Her name is Cocoa. She is a catahoula leopard dog. She is in the background of one of Ella's pictures. We love her most of the time as she's eaten our blinds, lots of toys, food, the yard.......

Barry and I are good. He is busy at work trying to keep this country safe (or atleast this little corner of it!) He works a 4 day work week now, which I love as I make a long honey-do list for him every week. He is serving with another guy in our ward as the emergency preparedness guru's.

I am good too. I went from the Primary presidency right to the Relief Society presidency. I am over the RS meetings. We have our birthday party coming up this week - anyone want to come? I hope someone does...... I spend most of my time running kids to school, appointments, games, practices, lessons, etc etc I love getting our house organized and clean (for 5 seconds) and watching these kids get so big!!

What we've been doing!

So this is what we've been doing. Starting on the right - we have our medical file from 2007, then next is 2008, then 2009 and 2010. That's what we've been doing. Going to the Dr. or some form of the Dr. that requires paperwork and our money - lots of money! Here's to a skinnier medical file in 2011!!!

My FOUR frog babies!

I love frogs. Not the real kind, the cute fake kind. So of course my children all had to be frogs one year for Halloween. Aren't they cute?!

Jacob Halloween 2004

Madelyn Halloween 2006

Ella Halloween 2008

Abigail Halloween 2010

Happy Fall Y'all !!!

Here is some of what we've been busy with! Here is Abby practicing her sitting in with the clean clothes! She loves it. Except she also LOVES to flop around. I was worried she was going to tip the whole basket over!!

Ella had the dirtiest face I tried to take a picture of. It didn't show up, but her face looks so much like Jennie's I had to include it in here.
We went to a pumpkin patch one night and tried to leave the kids there in jail, but they broke out and we had to take them home. Schucks !!! Jacob jumping off the hay bales. He loved it!!
I LOVE LOVE LOVE this one! Too bad you can't see all of Abby's face. Just captures their personalities so well. And you can see that even Abby had fun!

Madelyn's favorite!

All of our favorites!

Ella's favorite.

We even went on a hayride. The picture isn't blurry, ok it is blurry - it was really bumpy!

Ms Cinderella herself! I thought I did her hair quite good . She is one beautiful girl. This was at her school party.
The whole gang on Halloween. Jacob is Mario. Madelyn is Cinderella. Ella is 'the pink princess' and Abigail is a frog. We went to a community party where we played games and got prizes and candy. Then to the tri-ward trick or treat where we got LOTS of candy. The kids buckets were FULL. They didn't even miss not going door to door trick or treating.

Abby on Oct 28 - 11 months old!
Jacob got to do a first last weekend. His first motorcycle ride with Dad. He loved it. Keeps talking about where they are going next.
Had to include the closer up shot. They are so dang cute and all mine (ok, ALL OURS).

All about Abigail

I figured I'd better get an update on Abby up here. We've had so many people praying for her (and us) and I am sorry I haven't kept you more updated. We appreciate all the prayers and fasting and concern for us. We still need it!!

Abigail is doing fairly good. She is now 10 months old. She weighs 16lbs 3 oz and is 28 inches long. She is a healthy looking girl, so it is funny that she is in like the 3rd percentile for weight and 10th for height (or something like that!!)

Her infantile spasm seizures have NOT come back - THANK YOU!!! She is still being seen by our neurologist. In fact we go back again in about a week and a half. He said it is now a wait and see thing - the spasms might come back, they might not. And the 'regular' epilepsy can start at anytime or not at all. So we wait.....

She started physical therapy 2 times a week. I didn't know what they would do and it isn't great strides, but it is nice to have someone help her and me know what the next steps are. She is working real hard at sitting up on her own and is making great progress. She is actually able to do tummy time now so that is leading to her using her hands more. Did you know that by pushing with their hands while on their tummy is where they start to figure out that they have hands and they can do things?? And Abby with her awful reflux could NOT stand to be on her tummy or even her back for that matter.

We have been working with Early Childhood Intervention. Each state has their own version of this. They had a long waiting list for any therapy's, so we just decided to do it on our own. But we do get a visit 2 times a month from our worker and once a month from a nurse.

Abigail is quite floppy, but then goes real stiff when she is over stimulated. She is spastic. So she can sit, but then instead of doing small movements to correct when she is tipping over, she will do a big correction and flop over. We have lots of work to do in her fine motor skills. But she is making forward progress so that is what counts. She does get overstimulated real easily. Which is common in neurologically damaged babies/kids. This leads to all the crying and screaming (like she did for the first 4-5 months of her life). At least I know why now!!! So we don't know how far to push her, how much to take her out, how much to expose her too.

She is also going to Speech Therapy. I know, sounds a little strange, but it is actually for some feeding issues. She doesn't have the same use of her mouth on both sides. You know how when you go to the dentist and they stick something in your mouth and your tongue goes right to it? Well, Abby does that great on her left side, but not on her right. There are exercises for that, if you can believe it, and she is improving greatly here too. She is eating much better, swallowing most all of her food. We are also transitioning her off the $450 a month formula (that our insurance wouldn't cover) to just regular, I can get it at Walmart formula.

Abby has the most beautiful, crystal clear, blue eyes. They look around, they dilate and constrict, they look perfect, in fact they are perfect. But they aren't sure what or if she can see. In fact we just found out Friday that her eye dr considers her legally blind. He didn't tell us that. We found out on a report he did for the Vision Services lady. Her eyes are perfect, but they think the problem is with the area of the brain that processes your vision which is in the back of your brain - an area hard hit with seizures and in preemies. So another wait and see.......So another person from Early Childhood comes - a Vision Services lady who has toys and touchy things, etc that will help us help Abby develop whatever vision she does have.

As far as talking goes, Abby doesn't say any consonants yet. She tells what we call stories. Where she will do an, aahhhhh. Sometimes she even does this squeak at the end. It is real cute. The therapists and doctors say it is a good sign that she is making at least those noises. There is hope she will talk! She does laugh and giggle. It is so cute!!!

She's been sick with strep 2 times, had an ear infection, got her first 4 teeth, gotten a cold. So we've struggled with all the normal baby things too. She hasn't been sleeping very well = I haven't been sleeping very well. She's been pretty fussy = I've been pretty fussy. I think I've probably cried everyday since June over something. Whether happy tears, sad tears, tears of frustration - you name it, I've done it.

Sometimes I go to "that place", the one I know I shouldn't go to. But I can't help myself yet and I go there more than I should. I think about the future and what it will be like. Will she see? Will she ever say my name? Will she walk? Will she ever hold her hands up for me to pick her up? Will she get picked on? How can I do this? How is this my life? Am I doing right by the other kids? Why? Why? Why? This is the hardest thing and it isn't a, "ok what do I need to learn so my trial will end" kind of trial. I just keep kissing on that sweet angel face and hoping we are doing something right.We really do appreciate the prayers for us. We can feel your strength. We thank you for loving us. Keep us in your prayers, we aren't done yet!!

Updates!

I did a BUNCH of updates tonight - so read on. I'm only to April. More will be coming soon!!!

Baby Blessing

We blessed Abigail on April 26, 2010 at our house.

Proud mom and dad!

Proud momma!

We were very happy to be joined by our old home teacher (bro ankeney), my dad (papa), the dad and babe, our bishop (runyon) and neighbor and friend (bro reed)
The happy big kids!
Look at Jacob's cute face. Sometimes it amazes me that they still LOVE her even though she has screamed her head off for so long!

Proud Nana and Papa! Thanks for coming!!!
Can you believe you held me like this just a few short years ago?

Here are a bunch of pictures of the sweet baby girl. I just couldn't decide which ones to put in - so you get lots!

One of my favorites! Somehow I caught her in the middle of a sneeze.

Mom, I did pretty good on the new shots didn't I? The dress is beautiful!!

We had a very quick visit with nana, papa and uncle gree! Thanks for coming to make Abby's special day even more special.