Spring Break 2015 Camping with Friends and Family

Our hard working boys like to help.

Ethan and Tyler braved the ocean waters. How convenient that the Easter Bunny brought them both boogie boards.

The rest of us preferred the heated pool at the campground.

Easter Morning snuggles.

They boys found a caterpillar during their Easter Egg Hunt 

Lightning McQueen is never far from Levi.

Time to dump them all out and count them.

Easter Dinner

Cowboy Grandpa left Sheldon a $10 bill so he could buy the camper he was asking for in the gift shop. He was one happy grandson.

Exploring Ecola State Park

 After dinner and watching the sunset, we came back to discover Dave's definition of "babysitting."

Birthday Boy

Sheldon is obsessed with trains so we planned a train birthday party. Unfortunately he was sick on his birthday so we had to reschedule his party. I quickly made a homemade cake and Annie still came over for pizza and cake. 

Singing video
https://youtu.be/q3iDcTyygwc

This video absolutely melts my heart. Sheldon asks to watch it ALL the time. Try your best to see beyond our crazy, loud family and Tyler's allergies. I love that this was completely unplanned and that Annie was the first person to read his story to him. 

Present video

https://youtu.be/UD1eclxk8mM

Sheldon loves his book. He was sitting on Chris' lap and looking at it during church the other Sunday. It was absolutely silent in the chapel. Sheldon smiled and loudly said to me "I grew in Annie's tummy." I thought my heart was going to burst. I love open adoption!

Some friends and family made it the next weekend when Sheldon was feeling much better.

This is ME!

For Sheldon's 3rd birthday I wanted to make him a book about his life. I was inspired by this quote:

So I checked out every picture book about adoption at the public library. I also read through the original messages from Blaine and Annie.  I used as much of their actual words as I could. I wanted to be thoughtful and prayerful how I told Sheldon's story. If he memorizes Go, Train, Go! and every other book we read to him, then I needed to choose just the right words. This is the first of many books I hope to make for our sweet boy. 

Updates

This video is Chris on February 21st. It is his second attempt at this new feature in the terrain park. Check out the next photo to see how he did on February 28th.

http://youtu.be/5r-U7qLKBCM

"This is me after riding that same terrain park feature yesterday. I hit this feature about three times yesterday with no issues. Until the fourth time when I stalled at the top and had to baiI. I managed to get on my edge which is not a good thing. My snowboard shot up toward the sky and my left shoulder into the hard packed snow from a height of 5-6 feet. The result, I have an AC Separation that requires me to go see the orthopedic surgeon this week to see if I will need surgery. I guess I needed the reminder that I am no longer 25-years-old."

The surgeon said he has a level 3 seperation that won't require surgery. He will be on light duty for 5 weeks. My husband is not the "sit-behind-a-desk" kind of guy, so this should be interesting. He is an amazing father and husband, but a horrible patient. I definitely don't need to worry about him getting addicted to pain meds because he refuses to take them. He also refuses to wear his sling. This makes for interesting looks at Costco while I'm loading all the heavy bulk items onto the belt and he is sharing a berry smoothie with the little ones.



And since I'm sharing medical updates, I'd like to thank everyone for their continued prayers for Tyler. Obviously they are working. It blows my mind to think that if I had followed the neurologist's recommendation instead of my Momma Instinct, he would be on anti-eleptic drugs for at least another year and suffering from the brutal side effects. Tyler has been completely off meds for 4 months now and we have not observed a single seizure. His EEG off meds in November indicated no seizures but he was borderline two different times in the 30 minutes. Exactly one month later using only Frankincense Essential Oil and he had his first completely normal EEG since he was diagnosed at the age of 7. We have been extremely blessed to have had complete seizure control with the meds all these years. So this is a bit nerve racking for me. Two more months seizure free and we will hit the important 6 month marker. Keep those prayers coming.

So what does a mom of three busy boys and stubborn husband do to keep from going crazy you ask?