Halloween!

This year my darling little dudes were members of the law!  Will is just totally into policemen these days and just is in awe of them!  He is constantly keeping an eye on our neighbors (who are police officers) and making sure they are arresting all the bad people and taking them to jail!  They are definately his heroes right now!  Anyway, we knew of course that Will wanted to be a police officer for Halloween since about May, so I found him a little costume and had his name put on it and he just thought that was way cool! 

He was all about the hand cuffs and wanted to arrest everyone he saw!

Including himself??

He had his own little whistle, cuffs, baton, cell phone, and badge!

I was just glad we got him out of it at the end of the night!  He has had this on like 12 times since it came in!   It was, "Mommy, can I please put on my police officer costume? Just for a little bit?"

Will decided that he wanted Ajay to be a state trooper.  And boy was that fitting!! With his little bald head and the belly hanging over he was just he CUTEST thing ever!!!  It fit him to a T!

Although I told them both that they were not allowed to be real police officer because it would make their Mommy not be able to sleep at night!

I think Ajay was a little afraid of getting arrested himself here!

In case you haven't noticed, all of Ajay's shots are action shots!! He is ALWAYS on the go these days!  He NEVER slows down or stops!!  He definately keeps me on my toes!

This was the only picture I actually got of them standing in the same frame together!  If you can tell, I bribed them to stay still with candy!  I know, I know, not the smartest thing to do, but at least I got my one picture of my two little police dudes together!! 

And of course, it would not be Halloween if I didn't humiliate Daisy, so here she is in her "Bad Dog" Criminal outfit!  She looks kind of happy here, but believe me, she was not impressed with her costume!! 

It was a GREAT Halloween!! We had tons of fun!  We drove the kids around to the grandparents houses and then were going to do a little neighborhood trick or treating, but both boys passed smooth out in the car on the way home, so we just headed to bed!  It was still a great night!

Pumpkins!

We finally got around to actually carving some of our Halloween pumpkins Halloween afternoon!  Will helped me draw on the faces and Nelson did the dirty work! I think he turned out pretty cute!

Then at night, we lit him up!  Pretty spooky!

This is Will's pumpkin that he got to draw a face on all by himself!  I think he did just an awesome job!

And of course, Ajay had to investigate and see what all the commotion was about!

And our family pic!

I am not sure why it is hard to get everyone to look the same direction these days, but. . .still a great time and good memories carving this years pumpkin!

March of Dimes

We had a team again this year for Durant's March of Dimes March for Babies Walk!  This is a cause that is very near and dear to us and we love to get our friends and family together with us and walk for this cause!

This year our little team raised over $600 to turn in for the March of Dimes!  We had a GREAT bake sale, sold t-shirts, and got a few donations too!  I think we did super!  I think though, our goal will be a solid $1000 next year!  Thank you to everyone who helped with the bake sale (Devin and her wonderful cakes!, Megan, and all the people who bought them!)  The total for Durant was $45,000!!!  We did a SUPER job this year and just totally blessed by having such a great family and friend support system in this community!

And thank you to our WONDERFUL Walkers!!  We can't thank you enough for coming out and walking with us!

This is just a few of our team, I don't know where the others had escaped too!

Will showing off his March of Dimes T-shirt and stretching before the walk!

Ajay and Grams getting ready to go!

And here is Will standing by his March of Dime sign!  It was just way too cool to see him standing right there by that sign!  Such a little miracle he is!  The March of Dimes does do great things!!

Will's First Dental Appointment

Well, we had Will's very FIRST dental appointment this week up in Oklahoma City.  We have always had other bigger things going on that we kind of forgot about something simple like that!  We had tried to take him to three dentists here in town and all of them were like, "Umm, he really needs a pediatric specialist, we really don't want to touch him." So anyway, we went off looking for a Pediatric Specialist.  And I am sooooo glad we did!!  We found Dr Molloy in Oklahoma City and absolutely LOVED it!!  It was the greatest little dental experience we could have hoped for!

They have the office decorated like outer space and even have a HUGE rocket in the waiting room.  There are video games, a parent work room, and the staff was just awesome!  In the words of Will, "This place is soooo cool!" They even have TV's in the ceiling for them to watch while they do the work! I would HIGHLY reccommend this to everyone with kids!  It was just super easy!!

After the cleaning and flossing, Dr Molloy came in and checked him out and got a very thorough history from us and then just sat down and talked with us for 30 minutes!!  He was very concerned about Will's jaw and palate and really wanted us to check into a Dr Kevin Smith there in OKC, he said, "Don't go to anyone but him,if I had to have anything done to one of my children, it would be done by him."  That always means a lot when another doctor highly reccomends another one!  Anyway, we will be checking in with that Dr sometime soon.  But on a more positive note. . . .

NO CAVITIES!!

Will showing off his new clean teeth!  He was very proud of them and kept asking, "Mommy are my teeth still super clean and shiny?"  He was just too cute!

Dr Molloy even said, aside from his discoloration, Will had very good teeth, they were strong and solid, but wanted to make sure and keep them that way!  He also has high hopes that Will's permanent teeth will NOT be discolored since his jaundice and TPN use was over when they would have been forming!!  So we will keep our fingers crossed for that!!

We were so afraid it was going to be horrible news that we just about jumped up and down when we heard that!  It is definately still nice to have that wonderful surprise of a good report sometimes!!  We are super proud of you Will!

Lincoln Logs

Will has been really wanting to build things here lately.  His favorites are Lincoln Logs and Legos.  He really likes to sit down with Nelson and I and just build things.  I love this stage!!  The only bad thing is that these have small parts, so we have to keep them away from Ajay, easier said than done!  So we mostly have to try to get them out and play when Ajay is napping.  I am so glad he is enjoying these activities, especially since it has been so yucky and rainy here and we are trapped indoors!  I love this age!!

Here is the Corral we built the other day

Will thought it was sooo cool!

And then came the animals

That's what I call an animal farm! I sure do hope all the animals get along!

Bernie's 90th Birthday Party

This past weekend we headed up to Yukon, Oklahoma to celebrate Nelson's Grandmother Bernie's 90th Birthday!  It meant so much for us to be able to put on a big party for her!  She loved every minute of it! There were so many people there, relatives we have never even met before, it was a great time!  And of course, the boys (Will, Logan, Ajay, and Easton) had a BLAST playing together!

Nelson, Logan, and Will were in charge of directing cars and guests into the back yard for the party.  They were the official pary welcome wagon!  Will and Logan had a blast riding in the golf cart, and I think Nelson had fun too!

Of course Ajay was just dying to ride too, so we had the "welcome wagon" full at all times!

Will and Logan were just too cute!  They got together and schemed all day! One of their little tasks was to go up and sing Happy Birthday to Bernie!  They did a GREAT job and I think Bernie really enjoyed it!

Those two boys played all day!  They were going nonstop!  And hmmm, looks like here they were even trying to get their cousing Traci to join in on their plans!

Since it is a rare treat to get all of us together in one house at the same time, we took advantage of it and took a big family picture!  I am sooo glad to get another one of these with the two little boys added in (and a few dogs snuck in the picture too)!!

I also got to sneak in a picture of Bernie with her two grandsons and her four great grandsons!  This is a GREAT picture and I just can't wait to get it framed!  It will mean so much to the boys when they get a little older!

 It was a great day!  Everyone was exhausted afterward, but a wonderful day and we feel so blessed to be able to be a part of Bernie's 90 years here with us!  What a great day!

Will's Visit to Children's Dallas

Well, yesterday we headed to Children's Dallas to see if we could figure out Will's snoring problem. We found a new ENT doctor, Dr Romaine Johnson, who actually studied under our wonderful Dr Cotton in Cinci, and he came highly recommended so away we went!

First thing Wednesday morning we had a MLB (scope of the airway) so we could make sure that it wasn't anything graft related or tonsils that were enlarged causing the snoring.

Will did so good!! He was so brave!! My little man has come such a long way since his last MLB in December, which did not go very well! What a difference 8 months can make! He was ready to go that morning! One of the life specialists came into see him before the surgery. She brought all of the things they were going to do to him with her like the pulse ox, the IV setup, the probes, etc. She let him put them all over his little baby cow so she could show him that it didn't hurt! Great job on her part, because when it was his turn, he just let them do it all, and said, "See Mom, I told you it wouldn't hurt!" Then he usually throws a fit when they make him wear the hospital gown, this time he put it right on, and said, "See Mom, I told you I would look handsome!" He was sooo cute!!

This was his first time for "Silly Juice" so he was quite the character on it!! He looked at me, grinned and said, "Hey Mom, how come when I shut my eyes everything turns red?" He was giggling and acting goofy!! He ALWAYS throws a screaming fit when they bring out the anesthesia gas mask, but this time, they let him pick out a flavor, he picked bubble gum, and he LOVED it!! He just kept sniffing it! And when the MLB was over, he looks at it, and says, "Mom, I think I need to take that bubble gum with me." Thus, we have it at the house!

We got great news from the doctor!! His airway is WONDERFUL!! And his tonsils and adenoids are fine, not enlarged at all. We were like YEAH!! Then we were like. . . .so what is making him snore? Then the other shoe dropped, it is his jaw, all his jaw. This was NOT the news were were hoping for! Because of his small jaw, it is forcing an upper airway obstruction (pushing his tongue back over his airway) when he is resting. He showed us pictures of the obstruction with his jaw relaxed and then with his jaw being pushed forward. There was a HUGE difference! Not good at all! But, he wanted to get the sleep study results first before we freak out about the jaw distraction.

He woke up sooo good! When we got back there to him he was eating a rainbow Popsicle and playing with his new tractor toy he got to pick out! And this is COMPLETELY different from December when he was the kid they had 5 nurses around him trying to hold him down to calm him, yeah, that is my kid! But he was GREAT this time!! When we got back there, he said, "See Mom, I told you I was brave." with tears in his eyes! He is such a brave little man!

They had some clowns, Dr Slappy, that came around to the post op kids. Will had a blast with them! They blew bubbles at him and gave him (and us) silly red clown noses to wear! It really was a good experience at the hospital!





We left the hospital and got to run around for a while, we took Will to Toys-R-Us (for his first time) to pick out a toy for being so brave! He got a cool Viper remote control car, too cool!

Then it was back to the hospital for the sleep study. Again, Will did SUPER! He just let the nurse put all those electrodes all over him, and messed with his face and hair, and he just sat there! Man, he has come a long way! He thought he looked pretty cute!

However, once the nasal cannula went on, he wasn't as happy, but he pulled through, left it in and we went to sleep (well, he did, we didn't).

The night didn't go very well, however. The nurse came in after just two hours and said he had hit his maximum limit of respiratory events he was allowed without intervention. We were like, What??? He had had over 15 events of apnea, shallow breathing, or desats in one hour for both the hours. We didn't even know! I mean, we knew, we just didn't want to know! It is just truly scary! He was having apnea spells on average every 4 minutes, and was desating up to 5%, but never got out of the 90's (thank goodness). It is still super scary!

So the nurse tried to put C-pap on him, to see if that helped, but he would have nothing of it! I can't say I blame him, that mask is horrible and when you are an exhausted, in a new place, woken up, scared little four year old, stuff like that just isn't going to happen! So she let him just calm down, and monitored the rest of the night. At 5:00am she came back in and said he pretty much did it all night, on average 15 or more events per hour, no matter what position he was in. Thus, not good, not good at all.

So, we will wait for the official report from the sleep study and see what the doctor has to say, but we are desperately afraid, and know that the jaw distraction surgery is in our immediate future, just how immediate we will see. Please continue to keep Will in your thoughts and prayer, he is such a brave little guy and is so resilient, but we were really hoping to not have to put him through this.