Pumpkin Patch and Halloween

Even without teaching this year, I am still surprised with how busy I am.  I'm thankful to not have the extra burden of working. 

We had a fun trip to the pumpkin patch with Nana and Grampa and Great Grandpa.  The kids keep picking bigger and bigger pumpkins each year.  Thankfully they picked easy plans for carving as Brad and I end up doing most of the carving work.  This year Brad said he has officially trained them well in scooping out the pumpkins so he doesn't have that job to do also.  Honestly, carving pumpkins is my least favorite activity, but we do it for the kids.  Thankfully Brad does most of it.  What a great Daddy. 

This year the kids wanted to trick or treat in our own neighborhood.  So, we walked around for about 40 minutes which was Asher and Mia's limit and had such a fun time.  They are the perfect age for trick or treating and I was really enjoying Asher's excitement after each house we stopped at.  Afterward, Calvin wanted to take over the job of passing out candy.  He's getting so big and I love his enthusiasm for that part of Halloween because it's my favorite part -- passing out candy. 

Dinos, Games, and More!

Mia had her birthday party on Saturday.  She was initially going to have a fox themed party, but then the brothers swayed her to a dinosaur themed party, so that's what we went with.  It ended up being a cute, fun party.  Mia invited her classmates, so there were quite a few kids there.  We made some carnival dinosaur themed games and I think the kids had fun with it.  Here are some pics!

Happy 11th Birthday, Mia!

Dearest SweetPea,

It's hard to believe that today you are 11!  It feels like we were just walking you around and around the kitchen island to keep you from fussing as a baby.  Now you are 11! 

You are such a sweet girl.  You love helping and are always willing to share.  You have one of the kindest hearts we know.  We love you so much!

This year you started 4th grade!  You are loving it.  You also continue to ride horses at MARE and we work on a few other therapies with you.  You love animals and if we could adopt a zoo, I think you would be in animal heaven.  Maybe Mom and Dad can be brave enough to think of a furry type of animal for you...

Lately you have been into all things dinosaur, like your brothers.  You are having a dino party tomorrow and we can't wait to have all your friends over.  It is going to be a lot of fun!

There are many who continue to faithfully pray for you, SweetPea!  This year, we've been praying for your seizures to go away and your back to be straighter.  We will keep praying for those things, you are such a brave girl even with all of this other stuff going on. 

We love you so much, Mia!  Thank you God for giving us a sweet girl, who loves you and loves other.  We are so blessed to have her in our family!

All our love,
Mom and Dad, Calvin and Asher

Disappointing News

So we heard from the East coast doctors regarding Mia's scoliosis.  The news was what we kind of anticipated, but we wanted to remain hopeful that the experts in the field might be able to do something different with Mia's special case.  So, now we have some big decisions ahead of us.  At what point do we absolutely need to do surgery for Mia's back?  Is it better to wait or not to wait?  How much of her back should be fused?  I guess what is so heart wrenching for us at this point is knowing that if we do end up having surgery, the chances of further risk and degeneration of her back from the surgery are high.  It's not really a matter of "if" the degeneration will happen, but "when"... and there are pain and problems with that which are just so discouraging to us to even think about.  That in itself makes me want to hold off as long as possible, but correcting a smaller curve is easier than correcting a larger curve.  If her back were to not change at all from this point forward, I think the doctors would agree that she would not need a surgery, but knowing scoliosis, that would be a miracle.  So, please be praying with us and for us as we sort out everything. 

Back In The Saddle

Mia started up at MARE again.  She's been riding there since Calvin was a baby--she had just turned 3 when she started riding.  Her birthday is coming up, so we are nearing on 8 years of riding at MARE!  When she first started riding, she rode a tiny horse named Sally.  Her horse was about the size of those at pony rides that people take kids to when they are little.  Now that she is older, she rides a huge horse - Haven.  We love Haven.  Haven is a sweet horse and does really well with Mia.  Her riding instructor this year is the same instructor she had the first time she went to MARE.  This instructor had left and is now back, so it is neat to see her again and for her to see how much Mia has changed.  She is a great instructor, so we are excited for her to be back at MARE. 

So I found some pics, and here is Mia's first ride in November of 2010!!!  She was so tiny!

Scoliosis

Parenting is not easy.  When Mia was born with all of her complications, Brad and I were naive to hospitals and doctors.  We just assumed that everything would always work out and trusted the opinion of the doctor we saw.  We never thought to question much of anything because they were the expert in the field.  Now we are a bit older and hopefully a bit wiser, which makes everything more difficult.  Now when we go about making decisions for Mia or the boys, or even us, we tend to get multiple opinions before making a decision.  Mia has had scoliosis for awhile now and we've attempted a few different non surgical interventions with not much success.  Now that she has had some growth spurts, her scoliosis has worsened and we are coming upon a point where we need to decide if surgical intervention is what she needs and when it should happen.  It makes my mama heart heavy to think about another surgery for our daughter.  She's older now and much more aware of things that happen and even though she is an extremely tough cookie, she does not like hospitals.  I don't blame her either.  So, we've gotten two opinions from doctors in California that both agree, her scoliosis needs a surgical intervention...the one thinks sooner rather than later.  As I'm writing this, I just emailed her x-rays away to another set of doctors on the east coast for a third opinion.  We will wait to hear from them and then move forward in figuring out what is best for Mia.  Part of me wants to run away and hide under a blanket and just hope it figures itself out, but as parent, I can't do that.  So, will you pray with us as we look to God for answers on timing and what our daughter needs.  The thought of surgery seems so final and she is so young, so I need peace in waiting on God and trusting in Him for this. 

Lost Teeth, Dinosaurs and More

Calvin has had a wiggly tooth for awhile now and finally pulled it out a few days ago.  Now he is ready for to be a Jack-O-Lantern for Halloween. 

And of course Halloween is one of his favorite holidays, so he had to spend some of his birthday money on a T-Rex dinosaur that roars and has glowing eyes.  It's almost 3 ft tall and has now become his buddy at home.  We will see how long that lasts. 

School officially started for all of the kids Tuesday/Thursday programs.  This the first time Asher is away at school for an extended period of time.  He told me it was 1000 thumbs up on Tuesday when I picked him up.  :)

And Mia started swim lessons.  She is over the moon happy with that.  She might be part fish with how much she loves being in the water.  The boys have been going since the start of summer, but we wanted to do private lessons for Mia with her seizures and since we had so much going on this summer, we waited until things settled down now.  She's having a blast. 

First Day of School!

Actually, the boys started last week at home with me, but today was Mia's first day at Legacy.  She had a great first day and I got a picture with 3 kids smiling at me!  Let's call that a #parentingwin!!!

Reptiles!

We celebrated Calvin’s birthday with friends and family yesterday.  He wanted a reptile themed party so we hired the reptile guy to come and share with the kids.  It was a hit by everyone!  Here are some pics from the day.

Calvin and Asher helping me decorate the Rainbow Snake Cake...they are putting me out of a job!  Calvin blew up all the balloons for his party also, I just had to tie them off!

 And it's done!

 Snakes!

 Turtles!

And hissing cockroaches?!?!  Why me?!?!

Facing my fears!

There's a spider on your head!

And a scorpion in your hand!

 Everyone's favorite!  The Tegu!

Look at its tongue!

Happy Birthday Calvin!!!

It was a blast!

A Healthy Heart

Yesterday we were off to LA again for another doctor appointment.  This was a routine check up for Mia's heart.  She was born with a heart defect that require surgery the first year of her life for repair, so having a heart check up will always be a part of her life.  The fantastic news is that her heart is doing great.  In fact, her cardiologist said that if he didn't know she had had surgery years ago, he's not sure he would be able to tell just by her echo that her heart had had a surgery...her heart looks that great and for that we are so pleased and happy.

After having multiple doctor appointments with news we weren't ready to here because you don't want your kid to have to go through all of this stuff, it was nice to have an appointment with good news.

Please continue to pray for Mia as she adjusts to a new seizure medicine.  At this point, God continues to allow her seizures, even though we would rather have none, but we can always pray for Him to take away her seizures.

She has a minor tooth problem that we are hoping will resolve without difficult treatment...one of her adult teeth is not coming in the correct path and after a year of braces and expander treatment, it still doesn't want to drastically head the correct way, so prayers that the tooth would change direction would be appreciated!

And of course the other major issue we are dealing with is her scoliosis.  We are getting another opinion soon, and would love for her not to have surgery, but prayers that her back would straighten and that we would have wisdom are also something we would be so grateful for.  We serve a God of miracles and I am continually reminded of how far he has taken our sweet girl and healed her already, it's not beyond him to heal her now.  We continue to lean in on Him and trust Him in his sovereignty.  

Happy 8th Birthday, Calvin!

Dearest Pumpkin,

Eight is great!  I can't believe you are eight today.  You woke up hoping to be taller than your sister, but you aren't quite there yet.  We measured you in at 53 inches!  Pretty soon you will be taller than her, but not quite yet! 

You started second grade yesterday.  You are a fantastic student.  You love learning about science, especially dinosaurs.  Sometimes you think you would like to be a paleontologist when you are bigger.  We tell you to keep studying hard and you will be able to do anything you want.  :)  You are also an excellent reader and snarf books like your mama and daddy did when we were little.  We learned this year that the library is our best friend for books after I bought you a stack of books and you read them in less than a week.  One of your favorite book series is The Magic Tree House, so many exciting adventures in those books!

You are an animal lover.  Spiders, sharks, whales, frogs, cats, dogs...I think if we lived in a zoo you would never leave home.  You were hoping for a pet besides a fish for this birthday, but alas, all you have gotten so far is a lego spider. 

This year you are learning to swim and mama is going to teach you piano.  You will also be building lego robots at school and learning about exciting engineering things.  We can't wait to see how much fun you have at school this year. 

You love God and we couldn't be happier.  We feel so blessed to have you in our family.  You are our sweetest pumpkin.  We love you!!!

Love,
Mom and Dad, brother and sister