Look who's eight months old:

.....and crawling!

One Word MeMe

I received this in an email and thought I would post it here:


USING ONLY ONE WORD

Not as easy as you might think! Now you try, change the answers to suit you and pass it on. It's really hard to only use one word answers!


Where is your cell phone? Dead


Your significant other? Sick


Your hair? Messy


Your mother? Lovely


Your father? Dedicated


Your favorite thing? Music


Your dream last night? Weird


Your favorite drink? Smoothie


Your dream/goal? Love


What room are you in? Basement


Your hobby? Creating


Your fear? Lots


Where do you want to be in 6 Yrs? Designing


Where were you last night? Bed


Something that you aren't? Outspoken


Muffins? Blueberry


Wish list item? fabric


Last thing you did? Eat


What are you wearing? Pjs


TV? Lost


Your pets? Allergic


Friends? Awesome


Your life? Thankful


Your mood? Tired


Missing someone? Terribly


Drinking? Coffee


Smoking? Chicken


Your car? Comfortable


Something you're not wearing? Socks


Your favorite store? Sarah's


Your favorite colors? green


When is the last time you cried? Wednesday


Where do you go to over and over? Kitchen


Five people who email me regularly? Trick


My favorite place to eat? In-n-Out


Favorite place I'd like to be at right now? Beach

The ugly gets uglier....

So now every person in our family has officially "experienced" the lovely stomach bug. It is more of a parasite than a mere bug, with an average of eight hours spent losing whatever could possibly left of one's stomach contents. You then spend the next fourteen hours with a splitting headache and every joint aching like you were hit by a Mack truck on your way from the bathroom back to bed. Don't know how I didn't see that thing and jump out it's way, maybe next time....

Randy nursed us through Wednesday, but fell victim to it this morning. At about five I felt him jump out of bed and hightail it to the bathroom. Poor guy, at least I get to return the nursing favor and let him know how many hours he has left with each "symptom". Linda was sweet enough to spend the day here playing with the kids and making toast for all of us. We sent her home this afternoon with the promise to take care of her if she followed suit.

You can bet I'll be spending the weekend sanitizing the house so as not to infect any poor unsuspecting visitor. San Diego and eighty degrees is sounding pretty good right now!

Check this out:

Click here to see our little Ashlynn.....almost famous! :-)

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.....

The Good: Ryder is doing terrific and back to life as usual. Sibling rivalry never sounded so good as it did Saturday morning hearing Ryder chase Gage for taking one of his toy cars. That's always a good indicator a kid is feeling better!


The Bad: Gage woke up at 1:00am Sunday morning vomiting. Addie did too. This is completely unrelated to Ryde's situation and apparently just some random flu bug going around.


The Ugly: The last thing Gage ate was fresh blueberries. Did you know when partially digested, blueberries resemble cranberries and cherries. Let's just say the pink added a little excitement to the cream color the sheets had. I know, you really wanted that visual...sorry Bekah. Four loads of laundry down, six to go. Good times.

An Update.

After 31 hours of testing, they released Ryder from the hospital Thursday night. The fast induced a vomiting episode and they were confident the blood draws they made over the course of the study would give them quite a bit to go from. At one point his blood sugar had dropped to 27 (Randy has no idea how he was even conscious).

Ryder looked at Randy after 20 hours with no food and said: "Dad, if I were you and you were me, I would give you some food." Totally broke his heart. He was ready to call the whole thing off and give the kid whatever he wanted, but knew they were so close to what they needed.

The clinical diagnosis so far is Ketogenetic Hypoglycemia and deficiency of growth hormone. From what I've read about the hypoglycemia, it is more than likely something he will just grow out of and will require frequent healthful snacks and meals in the meantime (thank you Lord!). The growth hormone is something we will discuss with the Endocrinologist next week and whether or not another underlying issue could be the cause that again, could be controlled by diet.

When we left the hospital Thursday night, he was in good condition and the vomiting had stopped. Unfortunately, he woke up early Friday morning and it had resumed. We took him to our family doctor who has always been so wonderful in monitoring Ryder and she was able to get the vomiting to stop once again. He still has not eaten much of anything and has been in and out of sleep ever since. Apparently the downward spiral that was created in the "controlled setting" has not taken well to his system and if we can't get more into him they will want us to bring him back in for some iv fluids.

The rest of the family is doing great and continue to pray for his energy levels to pick back up. He has been so sweet through all of this and hasn't asked for a thing or event tried to get any special treatment (though we keep trying to give it :-)!).

We know that God, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is still the same God today as yesterday and can make provisions for all of Ryder's needs. Let me be the mother in Matthew 15:28 'Then Jesus answered, "Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted". And her daughter was healed from that very hour.'

Thanks for your support and all of your kind words!

Pray for Ryder.

Since Ryder was about eighteen months old, he has had these episodes every three to four months of waking up and vomiting stomach bile. It lasts for the entire day and as soon as I can get his stomach to hold water and a little food (dry toast) it stops. Last year I put the connection together that as long as he had something in his stomach shortly before bed time (a good protein and complex carb) he would not have an episode. You guys know me and my lack of fondness for the medical industry, so I was content with knowing he just needed a snack before bed and everything would be fine. Randy was not exactly happy with this "band aid treatment" and I promised him if he had another problem I would take him in to a specialist.

He had another episode last September (Randy was actually watching the boys and put Ryder to bed forgetting his snack need), so in to the GI clinic we went. They were wonderful with Ryder and determined he had a possible metabolic disorder. Unfortunately, there are thousands of disorders and it is difficult to pinpoint one without extensive testing. The doctors and Randy and I decided to have him hospitalized overnight and have Ryder "fast" to see what his body is doing.

Last night we checked him in at the children's hospital where he will be monitored/tested until 6:00 tonight. They are drawing blood every two hours and running a mile long list of tests to see what they can diagnose. The good news came when the doctor told me most metabolic disorders can be controlled through diet (yay!) and rarely with medicine (yay!). Since healthy eating is already a priority to me for my family, I would be grateful to treat him with that action. If medication is comes in to play, we will cross that bridge when we get there.

We would appreciate your prayers for his continued safety and growth. We would also pray for amazing wisdom for the doctors who are handling the situation. That they would be gracious, compassionate and thoughtful in their diagnosis. We also pray that it would be clear what/if the problem is and Ryder would not have to endure months or years of testing for the unknown. We know the Lord is faithful to those who are faithful to Him and His promise is to be with us through it all. We have every confidence in that and are trusting for a quick resolution.

We'll be sure to keep you updated as all of this continues to unfold, thanks again for your prayers!!

Happy Birthday Mom!!!!

Happy, happy birthday Mom!! Hope your day is lots of fun and filled with love!

I love that 99.9% of the time you see the glass as "half-full". I love that you can make Randy laugh and think of you often when he sees me wearing only one sock. I love that you make everyone around you smile more. I love that we can "talk shop" all day long. I love that I can call you anytime and 99.9% of the time get an answer to my question. I love that the "fuzzy brain" I have sometimes can be blamed on genetics :-). Most of all, I love the time you took to raise us to be aware of our world, what was going on in it and what God has to say all about it!

I love you, mom! Happy Birthday!

A Big Day for Ashlynn!

Our firstborn baby has lost her first tooth!! Here she is with her new look, what do you think?

A taste of tradition:

Around our house we have a few things we try to remain consistent with. Our world renowned "Friday Night Pizza and Movie Night" is one of them. So, I know, world renowned sounds eccentric, but hey, Tyrone and Christy have partaken in the tradition. And since they hail from the land down under, I am at liberty to make an executive decision for it being known around the globe. Without further ado, here is what the pizza making entails:

1. We start out with homemade, whole-wheat crust.

2. We add the homemade pizza sauce.

3. We put them all together.

4. We always make a veggie for the girls.We just throw whatever is leftover from the week on it.

5. Fresh from the oven.

6. Gage is my big helper. He won't leave the kitchen from the moment we start putting them together and is always the first to get a piece when it is ready!

7. You want some? Just stop by any Friday night.....

Found the camera!

Here are some pictures from Christmas Eve:

Do you think they like their guns? Gage is getting ready to shoot some hoops!

Gage was excited to get some new jammies.

Addie LOVED the bows, she turned seven months on Christmas Day.

Randy and I getting ready to watch the kids open their gifts.

Randy was on shift Christmas Day so we had a wonderful meal at the fire station.

We enjoyed our time with family and friends this year. It was great to see the kids happy and content with what they received, they even felt it was "too much". We feel so extremely blessed and are excited to start another year with the kiddos!

Happy New Year.....and Merry Christmas!!

So it just sort of slipped by me to post a "Merry Christmas". Well. ok, not really. I've had a bunch of sickies since last Tuesday and they are just starting to recover. If you could only hear the coughing, sneezing, running noses and general discomfort around this house you would have to plug your ears! Randy and the kiddos are ALL sick with bronchitis, so you can imagine the loveliness of the air quality right now, thank you Lord for cool air humidifiers.

On a brighter note, we had a fantastic Christmas and as soon as my camera is removed from its MIA status, pictures will be posted. Hope you all had lots of fun and are avoiding the various "bugs" that are ravaging my gang.

Happy New Year, I pray we appreciate the little things more, the moments that make us laugh, the beauty in each day and draw even closer to the One who gave His life so we could live.