Celebration time!

It was a very big weekend for us, the twins turned four (FOUR!) on Saturday and there was much excitement all around. The countdown had been going on for a week, Duncan was definitely ready to be four. I can't believe they are four already but I love four, you can reason with four, so I won't complain too much. Still, four, tear.

Duncan really wanted a marble run toy and a train cake for his birthday. Drifting around YouTube he found an amazing train cake and he was hooked! So I decided to do a special cake this year, I talked to Jessica's sister Mandy (www.myfavoritecakeplace.blogspot.com) and had her whip something up! It was perfect! Duncan thought so too! It was really exciting.

We can't eat all that cake by ourselves, we invited family and friends over and my family turned out in droves! We are always so humbled and overwhelmed with the crowd. We are loved. And spoiled, yes definitely spoiled! They got so many new toys, it's ridiculous! Thanks to all!

(Know I have every intention of send out thank you's, but yea... We will see! So THANK YOU! Just in case.)

It was traintastic all the way around with little train surprises turning up left and right. Duncan loved it. Charlotte's card to Duncan had a little train on it and I think it would have hung around here a lot longer had Asher not eaten it. Abbi drew Duncan a picture of the two of them in a choo choo. Then grandma Shirley's card to Duncan had a great train on the front! Yay trains! (Seriously with the trains!)

My friend Michelle knew her and her husband not going to be able to attend so she stopped by with a great happy birthday sign that had a train on it for Duncan and a Dylan with a doll. When we showed Duncan when she was here he was quick to point out that the trains tender was in the wrong place, really? Poor Michelle, she was like "I don't really know much about trains..." Embarrassing. We told him it was a special train where the tender was in the back. It's adorable and it's still hanging in the living room. It's too cute to take down!

Asher and Ian are quite fond of this birthday thing too... they made out like bandits! Or so they think.

On Sunday Duncan complained that his ear was hurting so we swung by Aunt Trina's house and sure enough, full blown nasty raging ear infection. I had her look at Ian's too and he either has one coming or going. Until Monday I thought it was going but he was a lunatic yesterday and Matthew and I determined that was why (we hope) and are treating it as such.

Dylan had her little surgery on Monday and Matthew ran her up for the quick procedure. Everything went as planned but she was angry at him when she woke up! Furrowed brow, dirty look, sad tears... Angry. She was off her game all day but Tuesday morning she seemed to be in good spirits so she's recovered nicely. Doctor said it was granulation tissue and could not be prevented so we don't need to do anything differently. She walked away with a shiny new button. She was waaaaay over due for a new one but I had a hunch she would get one there so I was putting it off. One of the perks of surgery I suppose!

The kids were off school for something or other Friday and Monday but it's back to the grind tomorrow!

This is as good as it got!










The beginning of the end!


I am doing this because you told me to, but I cannot take my eyes off the prize.








Curse! Blurry!

Duncan's four!

Duncan's fourth birthday interview

What is your favorite color? Red and rainbows
What is your favorite toy? Thomas
What is your favorite fruit? Pineapple
What is your favorite TV show? Up!
What is your favorite food? Noodles
What is your favorite game? Hide and seek and I like to play downstairs
What is your favorite song? Taxi
What is your favorite book? There Was and Old Lady That Swallowed a Fly
Who is your best friend? Erica and Dana
What is your favorite cereal? Chocolate cereal, blue cereal and pink cereal
What is your favorite thing to do outside? Jump on the tramp and go on the playground
What is your favorite thing to drink? Orange juice and milk and water and some of your drink
What is your favorite holiday? Christmas
What do you like to take to bed with you at night? Thomas
What is your favorite thing to eat for breakfast? Noodles
What do you want to eat for dinner on your birthday? Cake!
What do you want to be when you grow up? Daddy!

And notes from mommy:
Duncan is such a great boy and he was so SO excited to turn four! Apparently four is very big. He is such a great brother to Dylan, he treats her very kindly and is much different to her when she does something "wrong" than he is with Ian. He really cares about her, and still has no idea that she is any different. I asked him if she was a baby and he laughed thinking I was very funny. "No! Dylie is a BIG girl!"

His little personality and sense of humor is really starting to come to light as he make his own (very funny as you can imagine) jokes and he laughs at ours. Each day with him just gets to be more and more fun.

When you read this someday Duncan, I want you to know how very proud of you your mom and dad are. We love you so much and love your kind heart. We are so blessed to have you in our lives and can't wait as we look forward to watching you grow and develop. You are so fun! We love you.

Halloween Carnival

We went to the church Halloween carnival and Duncan had SO much fun. An insane amount of fun!

The whole story about the costume... The kid hates costumes, didn't want to have anything to do with them a few weeks ago and I thought I was going to be in big trouble come Halloween. No costume? It's like when Jill had to send Roman to school as "pajama man" all over again! Good thing I have her to get advice from! Well, a week or two and a lot of TV and kid costume talk he warmed to the idea and decided he was going to be Thomas (hello, the train?) which was actually a great convenience because on account of Roman's costume phobia Jill happened to have a Thomas cape kind of thing. Sweet! We already had this all planned out but I did have to have think the idea was all his!

It was kind of a last minute emergency, we had a plan, but I wasn't planning on the carnival. So we got all the kids dressed up except Duncan and piled into the car. We stopped to pick up the Thomas outfit and Duncan's reaction was PRICELESS. "You got this for me mom!! Thannnnnk youuuuu!" It was adorable! He was so excited! I was a hero!

Then we got there and put it on! Wow, so fun! And I think you can tell how excited he was in the pictures!

Dylan made the perfect cheerleader too. It took everything I had to not take a million pictures of her before we left the house late (of course!) but Matt said it wasn't the last time she would be in it! Argggh! Fine! Dang she was cute though.

And Ian was a duck. Asher was supped to be the duck but we changed our minds last minute and it was a perfect for him. He was so cute that someone at the carnival said "what a happy girl!" Yea, uhm, no. He did have a hood on... So I suppose... I told her it was okay, when he was a baby we put flowers on his head and he was adorable. My other boys couldn't pull off the girlie stuff like he could!

And Asher was a monkey for a split second. He was hot, I was hot. The costumes are the first to go.

At the carnival Duncan ran off to play games with dad and then he would come screaming across the gym "I won! I won! Mom!! I won!!" Yay! He was shoving in the treats as fast as he could get his hands on them, a sign of what's to come on Halloween!

Dylan does seem like she is getting better so we will be planning on surgery on Monday, phew. Keep getting better girl!

Asher got his second big fat tooth! Booooo! My baby! And this is the first day with the big kid binki too. Dislike.

Duncan has developed this habit of collecting things. Random weird things. Matthew said all boys do it and Traci confirmed that Greg also did this. He has a box of his treasures sitting on our counter (bugging me because I hate things on the counter). It has things like, metal frogs, tiny wooden tops, beads, coins, string, marbles, tiny plastic toys. Random! Traci said as Greg grew up the items in his treasure boxes just changed and now his boxes contain his prized football cards. It's cute, I like it, so I will tolerate this box for a while longer. On the counter is the only place it's safe from Ian!

Speaking of on the counter. Little miss Dylan is now tall enough to see on the counter and reach up and pull things off the edges like Ian! I see her eyeing and reaching. It's adorable! However, she also reaches up to the stove! Have to be super careful! She also opens kitchen drawers and slams them shut. I think it only took catching her fingers one single time before she learned to be careful. She moves them out of the way at the last second, freaks me out every time!

We had Papa Bob and Grandma over for dinner Thursday because I made soup and had plenty. While they were here Duncan flipped out because He wanted Gordon to have a 9 Volt battery in him. I insisted it was a C battery he needed. I put one in, much to his protest and flipped on Gordon. Wow, was I trouble! Not sure why is was a problem, Gordon had long lost his "coal" for his tender and there was a gaping hole where the battery belongs, it was a common topic of conversation. We were very used to replacing Gordon's battery since all too often his battery ended up as a "treasure" and therefore, missing.

He brought the battery and a screwdriver to Papa Bob for his help instead. Papa Bob cheerfully obliged his request and Gordan turned into a million pieces. Really? Couldn't we find a train that was already broken? I told Bob I wasn't sure Gordon would ever work again and he told me that was for Duncan's dad to figure out! Ha! Duncan had a blast with the Gordon dismembering and now Gordon's many carcass pieces are treasures! I suppose with all the C batteries we went through with him Gordon was rather a pain in my side anyway. Bit by bit Gordon's body will find it's way to it's more permanent home...

Group shot! Look! I wore a costume too, it was a called "not sweats" and I rocked it even though the party was for the kids.


Beaming!


Ian wants to get down and Asher just wants OUT!


Duck bum!


Super excited about candy! Sweet tooth anyone? Like I want to take a picture of his candy!


SO CUTE RIGHT? Perfect, PERFECT costume for her!


Please mom, no more pictures, this is ridiculous.


We did these ghost feet in 2009 and gave them to grandma (with only two feet!) and she had it in her kitchen until about 3 or 4 weeks ago. It was time for a new one. Are activities like this supposed to be fun? Because wow. Maybe if I had another set of hands (helping hands, I had enough NOT helping hands!). Duncan's foot looks enormous!


Duncan's treasure box (as of a couple of days ago, it's been modified slightly.)


Great team! He loves chewing on her feeding tube!


RIP Gordon

Trains and spiders, oh my!

Tracy and Shannon found the mother load! Of trains that is. Real life, life size train engines. They mentioned it a few weeks ago and said we MUST take Duncan to go see them, he would DIE. Yea yea, we will right? last minute (for us) on Saturday we all decided to pick up and go for the hour long drive to go see these trains!

Duncan piled in with Tracy and Charlotte and as we were crossing the bridge he saw the train yard and yep, thought he was going to DIE. They were right!

We spent some time climbing on and off of the five or six retired engines and their train cars and Duncan was quite impressed! It was a fun outing. We followed up with dinner where everyone behaved but Ian who was losing his mind. Really. He was a mess! Poor thing had had it. He is not usually our trouble maker!

Dylan has had quite the nose over the last couple of days and now it's a cough, a good one too. This is me hoping everything has cleared up by Monday because that's where she is supposed to have surgery on her button. No surgery if she has any sort of upper respiratory issues so this thing may or may not happen. It needs to though, it's gross and it requires on going maintenance to keep the site dry and the skin not bothered by the tissues that's poking out. Cross your fingers with us please.

Thinking we might hit the church Halloween Carnival tonight and if so, I will have to blog again soon about our little dress ups!

Duncanisms of the week.
He said "Look mom, these are knuckles!" when showing me a handful of nickels. Man I hate correcting him on that kind of stuff!
He told me my car was "Soakin' dirty!"

No, he's not excited at all right? In the engine room!


Ian was having more fun slightly torturing Asher but it doesn't look like Asher minds.


Charlotte and Duncan climbing climbing!


It works right?


Dylan didn't mind, but it wasn't exactly her gig.


We made spiders for the D's class and they are ADORABLE! I may have helped a little...


Here is the one he made, all by himself!


This is just a cute video of Dylan playing, instead of putting it in her mouth, woohoo! Matthew couldn't believe it was her spinning!

Quick little surgery

A couple of weeks ago we had a mommy photographer come to our house to take Dylan's picture. She is working on a photo essay type project for her blog about broken little people. I figured she probably didn't have too many people with HPE to highlight and I threw Dylan's name in the hat. We could always use good pictures of her because its so hard to get good pictures of her single handedly!The project is really for her own interests but if we liked the pictures we could buy them for a small fee. I had nothing to lose!

This project is close to the photog's heart because her daughter has Lissencephaly, another brain malformation, along with a couple of other things. (A hodge podge like Dylan!) I will link to her blog when it's Dylan's turn to be highlighted.

The pictures turned out great, so we bought them. I will print some for family but we aren't off the hook for the other kid's fall pictures yet! There are a few of my favorites of Dylan below.

Last Friday I took Dylan in to see the general surgery nurse about that nasty tissue around her button. The nurse took a look and said that it didn't look like normal granulation (scar) tissue and she was going to get the doctor to take a look. A few minutes later he came in and poked around, He kind of pulled it over toward the button and it popped up more (gross) leading him to bellieve it was either well developed granulation tissue or mucosa (don't look it up, it's just stomach tissue, but again, gross,). He said no matter what it was it was better taken care of in the surgery room.

Booooooo!

So we scheduled surgery for the 24th. He said it will only take probably 10-15 minutes but it's the real deal as far as sedation goes. bummer right? We won't get a time until the Friday before when we get our instructions. It is the same surgeon that resected the infection tissue when Dr. Neuro Surgery untethered her cord. He didn't remember her though, that's good. I don't want to be remembered by someone responsible for slicing open my little person thank you very much!

Duncan has started saying "what the!?" and it's pretty cute. He also told me his hands were "freaking cold!" this morning. Hilarious. He is very excited to turn four soon and he wants just about everything under the sun for his birthday. I try to explain he will get plenty, but he won't get EVERYTHING and this is just something an almost four year old can't comprehend. Sigh.

Asher cut his first tooth. I was watching the bottom so closely because it seems like he has been working on them forever and what do you know, there's a big old chomper on the top! I missed it coming in altogether, by the time I saw it it's a big huge white thing! Who ever heard of getting your top teeth first anyway, he isn't playing by the rules!

Ian's two year molars are also fighting their way through and he is a monster! I remember them with Dylan and remembered they were bad but sheesh! This kid's a force to be reckoned with! Whatever kid. We are just riding this out and using Tylenol when needed to help him get through.

Today was picture day for the kids at school and what do you know, Dylan vomited right when I get her buckled in to the car. It's really been a while too! Apparently she was feeling the pressure? We were a little late for school but not too bad for an impromptu costume change. I put that ugly pink bear in her back for Shelley to use to get smiles but when she brought Dylan to the car she said she didn't know she liked it that much or she would have used it. She said she hopes I like them... Made me nervous, especially because she was so excited about last years and they weren't even cute. Guess we will see!

We had a few disposable cameras that we got form the NICU when the twins were there that have just been hanging out at the house. We assumed they were just NICU shots and since we had so many digital ones we didn't have any urgency getting them in. Four years? Bad! Well, Matthew took them in and they were pictures that were taken during the LifeLight when the new hospital opened. Only 8 or so. Great pictures too! But because we waited so long they are terribly discolored. I am sad we didn't take them in sooner but It was still fun to see them. They are below too!

Four kids + four flu shots tonight, wish us luck!!









I came out to this over the weekend. So cute. Notice Ian has the edge of his blanket by his ear. So cute.


He is pretty proud of himself for getting here. I am not sure how he did it!


Tub time!


Duncan all bundled up in the transport thingy


Dylan




There were two helicopters working that day, trading off... this was one of them. My baby may or may not be in there.

IEP time! Wahoo! (Really!)

Matthew and I went to Dylan's IEP on Tuesday as I mentioned and it went very well actually. They were all extremely complimentary toward Dylan and you have to love a parent teacher meeting that involves compliments right?

For those who don't know, IEP is a big fat meeting for parents and everyone involved in your special needs child's education and therapy plan through the school district. We review plans and set goal for the upcoming year. As parents, we can call a meeting any time if we feel things aren't going well, but please, once a year is enough. Though, this one did go so well maybe we should call one just to get the compliments!

Dylan's PT Michael also came to help set her PT goals and the school PT was so glad that he was there because Dylan flew through all her walking goals during the summer. We set a goal for transitioning from different surfaces and also a stairs goal. The problem is that the only stairs that are at the school are in the playground and there was a lot of talk about how protective she is with herself around other kids. (Siblings much?) Mike chimed In and said they have a stair thing that he can have donated to the school, it's three stairs, a platform and three stairs and it's apparently very large. (I have seen them in therapy rooms in magazines and Make A Wish pictures.) But man, you should have seen the room light up after he mentioned it! There are lots of kids that can use it! (Mike had a walker donated to the school for Dylan last year and he will be able to get Dylan's home walker back to donate to someone else.) He actually said that they will be quite happy to see it gone since it's big and has been hanging out for a long time!

Mike said he can't wait for her to get to the point when the playground and stairs are fun rather than us having to use toys and things to convince her to do her climbing. That will be a big deal.

We also told the Speech Therapist that when she feels it would be beneficial for Dylan to get therapy outside of school let us know and we will pursue it on our own. She thought that was great, she will let us know when that time comes.

Some of the other goals are peg in pegboard, stacking blocks, handing things over when asked, looking for items or people, responding to her name, using toys properly and less putting things in the mouth. She is already getting better at the mouthing toys thing, we have all noticed great improvement here in the last few weeks, we just need to take the toy out and replace it with a chew toy that is clipped on to her.

Everyone was very impressed with her and excited about her progress and potential. It was a great meeting and we felt really good about where things are what's to come. It really was a great meeting and I could tell she is surrounded by people who genuinely care about her while she is at school.

The other day Matthew asked Duncan if the other kids played with Dylan or if they left her alone and he said they played with her. I mentioned this to Shelley and she said the kids in the four year old class that were in her class last year know she's in the orange room and actually stop by to say hi to her. Doesn't that just warm your heart? Last week Traci came over to play and Abbi took a break from Duncan and was all cutesy playing with Dylan for a while, handing her babies and talking to her and everything. It was pretty awesome.

I was able to take the kids in to school on Wednesday and Shelley asked how I felt that meeting went and I told her it was great, we were very happy with it. Then I mentioned what I posted here the other day. I like the goals that will help her communicate her needs but I basically just want her her to be involved and happy. Shelley was actually really funny about this. Yea, that's not good enough for her! She was going on about how much potential Dylan has and how she has this great communicative potential. She said she Is ready to do the augmentative communication stuff (like choices via iPad and such) but the Speech Therapist said she isn't there yet. She just said she wanted to make sure that we knew that she was an advocate for Dylan in the school. (Which we gathered after the feeding issue.) She is very kind and she just loves Dylan a ton.

And Dylan loves her too. One of the things that The Speech Therapist said is that they were trying to figure out if Dylan responds to her name or the person's voice because she is so much more responsive to Shelley and Ms. Connie, Dylan's teacher. Ms. Connie is great, I didn't know she was so involved with Dylan until I watched Dylan light up when we were saying goodbye to her once. She knows who she likes that's for sure.

I just recently posted so I don't have any new pics... Well, a few of Asher. but none of Dylan and this post is all about her. So I threw this one in for fun. Talk about an outtake! (From the family pictures I posted a couple weeks ago!)

My post for Kiko

I totally forgot my loving dedicated post for Michael!!

You see, Matthew went out of town last week... It was only a few days, Sunday to Thursday but I had a little problem. A craving. And you know how, when you have a craving and you don't really fulfill it within like, say 24-48 hours, you go a little batty? Things get a little crazy and it's all you can think about? Yea, I had one of those cravings.

And every time I got a little wacky, over two days, one kid or the other was snoozing away. What, do you wake them? And, AND, when you get there, do you pull them all out of the car to run in? In a stroller or something? NO. What to do?

Call Michael. It went something like this:

"Michael?" (Add sufficient amount of pathetic whine...) "Do you know how you are supposed to take care of me when Matthew's out of town?"

"Yes, where is he?"

(Unimportant, moving on...) "I will give you twenty dollars if you go to Papa Murphy's and bring me two tubs of cookie dough." Adding, "No rush, just any time tonight, when you need a break."

And what do you know, guess who showed up on my doorstep. Yes, YES! Craving fulfilled.

And he didn't even make me pay him four times the cost of the dough... Yay. Isn't he amazing?

Playing with a bee

The other day Duncan went out in the backyard. I let him go out back because it's all fenced in and the worst trouble he can get in requires a bath to resolve. No biggie. I looked out are a few minutes and he was no where to be found. I yelled his name, to no response... So I walked out, yelling a couple of times and then I hear him...

"I am over her mom!" He was on the other side of the house.

"What are you doing?"

"I am over here playing with this bee! He is very very nice!"

Hum, bee? Did he say bee? He did say bee! There he was holding a wasp. HOLDING a wasp. A wasp so hopelessly covered in sand it could not fly, or move too much, or, well... Sting! Thank goodness, seriously, who plays with bees?

I had to explain to him that bees sting when they get hurt or when they get scared and it's easy to scare bees so we probably should just leave them alone. My word, my kid was holding a bee.

Ian is cutting his two year molars and they are not my friend. He has this nickname that he was given by some if Matthew's sisters, The Dark Lord. He's little, grumpy sometimes (or good at giving grumpy looks!) and he seems wise... It fits. So I told them that they thought he was the Dark Lord before! Man, he is a little monster! I feel terrible for him. I shoved my finger back there and one of the four is poking through. Ouch!

We have a few appointments this week. Dylan's IEP is Tuesday. That should be... long. It wouldn't be that bad other than they read every single goal out loud and blah blah blah. I think IEP's would be more difficult for me if Dylan were almost typical. She's so far away from typical though that I just care that she is happy, having fun and involved with the kids. I want to know that someone is paying attention to her and that she isn't just shoved in the corner all day. What is the measurable goal for that?

Yea, there isn't one right?

So we sit, and do the goals with putting a peg in a peg board and whatever else they can come up with.

I did go in to take the kids into class last week and Anne, the Speech Therapist (and also the one that caused all that hoopla with Dylan "needing" to have a swallow study done last year) cornered me to ask me a few questions. She wants to work with Dylan on communication goals that will help her in life. I like where you are going with this, tell me more... She wants he to be able to communicate when she wants something, to be picked up, when she is hungry, when she wants a certain toy. We will start with some easy signs, baby for example.

The Vision Therapist called me yesterday too, she said she won't be able to attend the IEP but she would like to add Dylan on again for vision services. (Dylan got the boot last year and didn't qualify.) I am game, she said she wanted to add in some object permanence and some other type of goal that I can't remember and asked if that was okay. Let's go with yes. We will take all we can get when people offer her individualized attention, even if it is for 15 minutes at a time!

Shelley also mentioned the new OT would not be able to go because she just had a baby so she only got to see Dylan once and will add some goals within a month.

The kids also have their Dentist cleaning on Wednesday and Dylan is going BACK up to general surgery to have granulation tissue around her button taken off. I think this might be a regular thing now. Boo. I guess we were lucky not to have to deal with it for several years. I am not sure why it's a problem now, but whatever.

Dylan is also either having problems with allergies or she has a cold. We can't tell at this point but she's miserable and gooey and she keeps gagging and puking. It's awesome. So awesome when you have to pull her into the shower with you at midnight to start all over again getting her off to bed. I feel bad for her, and not really sure how we will be handling getting food in her tummy, maybe 2 ounces at a time every hour and a half or so. Or we can leave her on the continuous feed but it's no fun to be tied up all day, and it's not terribly practical with all the running around that the other kids do!

This must have been late in the day since she is missing her shirt and her hair is all wacky.


Yes, babies love iPads


He's pretty excited about it actually


And what he can't figure out on his own, brothers can help with!


We really do not have room for this huge thing in our house any more, really... we don't, but I can't seem to part with it because I know the boys will love it one day. They already do...