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

A Year

Oh what a difference a year makes!  This has been the most difficult year in a long time for us.  I remember driving to UCLA when Mia was a baby multiple times a week and then as she got older and her health was more stable, there were less visits.  We reached a point of only driving down there every few months.  That was so nice.  Then this past year, her seizures have returned and we can't seem to get them under control and because she's having some growth spurts, her scoliosis has worsened.  It seems like combined with me trying to teach school, teach my own children, be a wife, be a mom, the extra doctor visits had just pushed me over my limit.  I was barely making it.  I look back and can see that it is only because of God's grace and care over me that I did make it. 

Anyway, we decided as a family, that I need to cut some things out and so the first one to be cut was me teaching.  After two years of part time work, I am back to being a full time mom.  I'm thankful that we are able to do that because I know not all families are able to make that work.  Since I am not working, only Mia will be staying at Legacy.  The boys will be starting a homeschool program called Engineering for Kids.  It's two days a week and they will be doing math/science stem projects at their program.  They will learn some basic computer programming and since their teacher has a passion for art, they will also get some art lessons when they are there.  Seems like a dream kind of school to me, especially for my math/science oriented boys.  Then on their off days, they will be home with me and I will be teaching them all their other subjects.  This is very similar to the Legacy schedule and we seemed to thrive with that, so I'm looking forward to tailoring their needs on their off days.  Mia will also be at Legacy on the same two days that they are at the EFK's program, so that means that this mama will get two days to do her own appointments and even go to the grocery store alone! 

As for Mia, we have had some different doctor consults about her scoliosis and we are going to send away to a few other doctors for one or two more opinions and we will go from there.  Prayers for wisdom would be so appreciated with this!  And prayers for a new medicine that we are about to start for her seizures would be welcomed also.  Thankfully her seizures aren't debilitating at this point, but none the less, we would like zero seizures. 

Look at how big these kids have gotten!