Disneyland

Jaden driving Donald's Boat

This year we decided to take our older two kids and head off to Southern California to Disneyland for July 4th. It was the first trip for all of us, except for Bri (he went when he was a kid) so everything was new, and we had to try everything at least once... we quickly found some crowd favorites and Kayla and I learned really fast that we didn't like the roller coasters!! Lucky for Dad, Jaden was crazy for the Matterhorn and begged to go on it again and again. Kayla and I went the first time, but Kayla said it was dumb afterward (even though she was laughing the whole time). I was very grateful cause that meant that I didn't have to get back on!! Some of Jaden's other favorites were both of the Toy Story rides, and funny enough he loved It's a Small World (I think he dragged me on that one 3 or 4 times!) Funny story about Jaden, we were in line to go on the whale ride, and Jaden started getting really antsy, and kept asking me if we could get out of the whales belly once we went into his mouth... he even made me ask the attendant before he would get on the boat... funny kid, he was almost in tears cause he thought we would be stuck forever, I guess!!

Jaden on one of the carousels

Mikayla and I spent almost one whole day at the Princess Fantasy Faire. We watched the show so many times the cast were starting to recognize us... It was sooo fun, we got to sit with Belle for story time and then we got to meet Tiana, Belle, Cinderella, Snow White, Ariel and even Aurora from Sleeping Beauty. Some of her favorites were Sleeping Beauty's Castle, Finding Nemo Submarine and the Peter Pan ride. Funny about Kayla... she would beg and beg to get in line to meet the princesses and Tinker Belle, but after waiting in line for over an hour she would refuse to get anywhere near any of them... silly kid!! and both of them loved "A Bugs Land" I think we spent part of every day at the little water park and then the kids squished around in wet sneakers for the rest of the day. Lastly, we went on the giant Mickey Mouse Ferris Wheel, but Jaden and Brian were the only ones brave enough to go on a swinging one!!!

Jaden with Chip and Dale

One of the rides that we all thought was soo cool was the Soarin' Over California. I was terrified to get on... I hate the signs that say "Don't ride if you get motion sick or are afraid of heights"... since I am both!!! But it was amazing... The breezes blow in your face and they spray a fine mist when you are near the ocean and you can smell the blossoms and the smell of the sea... it was by far the best ride there!!

 I think that the ride we all agreed was not the best was the Grizzly River Run, but I think that was because we waited too long to get on, and we ended up soaking wet just before dark, so we were freezing!! Jaden was pretty proud of himself... he said he was the only one in the boat not screaming (although, I am pretty sure Brian wasn't screaming either!) I know for a fact that I was screaming my head off... especially when our boat drew the short straw and went through the geyser that only goes off about once ever 10 boats!!

Jaden at Mickey's House

Unfortunately there were drawbacks as well... as is customary for us!! Kayla had a pretty hard time with the crowds and the long lines. Almost every day we were at the Park, she had a seizure, which kind of made it hard to enjoy the day after that... either Brian or I would have to take her back to the hotel and stay with her. We didn't learn until we got back home that if your child (or anyone in your group) has a medical condition you can just go up to the front of the line and get on!!! now THAT would have been good info to have!! But all in all we had a great time, and the kids (yes, even Kayla) ask all the time when we are going back!!!

P.S. thanks to Grandma and Grandpa Turley for taking Addy and Jax so we could have more fun!!!
P.S.S. the pictures are all of Jaden... I found these on our video camera, all the other ones are on our forever broken old computer...

Mikayla is 8!!

Mikayla at the present table

FINALLY!! Mommy remembered to buy her some blendy pens!!

She still loves princesses... especially ARIEL!

Kayla had such a fun birthday this year... we gave her the choice of a "girl party" or going to Jump On It... yep, if you know our girl, then you know we ended up at Jump On It!! We had a great time of course... and Kayla is amazing on the trampoline now! She was doing flips and big jumps... It was awesome!!

Still no plans for a baptism... Kayla is not showing any interest and with the results from her doctors (see later post!) we think that she is just not ready... But we will let you all know when we get her there!!! We love you SO SO much Kayla... you are the sweetest darling in the whole world!!!

Videos of Addy

So, one of the bad things about getting so far behind on the blog, is that I am not sure when I took this video... I think it was in May, so Addy was about 3 months old...

Funny how I intend to get a video of Addy, and it always ends up being about Jax!! the kid cracks me up, I can't help putting the camera on him! Can you beleive I have an almost red head?!? CRAZY!! And speaking of hair... I miss Kayla's!!

Got a little more of Addy on this one... naturally the other kids can't seem to stay out of the spotlight!!

So, I let one be just about the big kids. then... photo shoot over due to a leaky diaper... darn reality!!

A Day on The Farm

For Jaden's last week of school, we got to do one last field trip. Mrs. Tawny took us to the Thanksgiving Point Petting Zoo... we had so much fun running around looking at the animals, and feeding them corn. The horses were so big and the peacocks were awesome with big huge tails full of feathers. Jaden thought it was hilarious that the turkeys we saw are what he eats for Thanksgiving!! We got to go on a wagon ride pulled by big old horses!! It was tons of fun, and a great way to top off his last year of preschool!!

Musical Hospitals

About two months after Addy was born, I got this huge horrible pain in my abdomen... I was in so much pain, that all I could do was lay on my bed crying... My poor kids! It was just me and the two babies at home... Jaden was off playing at the neighbors, and Kayla and Brian were both at school... Addy was screaming, but I couldn't pick her up... Jax was crying because Addy and I were crying... it was a mess!! I finally got to my cell and called and called Brian till he answered (in the middle of class in OREM!!) So he left class and came home and took me to the ER... Turns out that it was my gallbladder... and yep, it needed to come out. It was full of stones and already full of infection. Luckily, my mom was able to come and help out and take care of everyone while all this was going on... I literally think she saved our lives!! I know she saved mine!! I was in the ER the day before Kayla went in for her diabetes, so we put my surgery off for a week while we took care of Kayla at the Children's Hospital. As soon as she came home, I went in... I had my gallbladder removed the day after we got home with Kayla. Luckily it was a same day surgery, and I was home right away, but honestly... not feeling great!!

The reason I hurried and rushed into having my surgery was because Kayla was scheduled for a craniotomy (brain surgery) the week after and I knew I would need to be back on my feet for that!! Six days after my surgery we were back at Children's for Kayla's brain surgery. She had some kind of tumor behind her eye that was pushing her eyeball out of her head... Once the surgery was over, the neurosurgeon told us it was a massive blood clot that was pressing down on her optic nerve and pushing so hard on her eyeball... It was so hard to see her back in for surgery... Before this year we had been having quite a run of good luck... it had been 4 years since her last brain surgery and she had been doing great!! I can't even describe how hard it is to walk into the PICU and see your little girl with tubes and IV's all over her little body, with her head all cut into and swollen!! It was terrible! But we could see right away that the surgery had been a success!! And she is such a little fighter, once we got most of her IV's out and pulled the drain out of her head, she bounced back like she always does... we went home only 3 1/2 days after her brain surgery!!

Needless to say, it's been a fairly rough year for us, medically, so far!! ER for me, ER for Kayla, 3 day hospital stay for Kayla, surgery for me, surgery and 3 day hospital stay for Kayla... all in a 3 week period!!!But here we are 3 months later with no major hospital stays, and all of us on the mend and doing better than we probably deserve!! Whew!! What a year we are having... I'm exhausted just writing about it!

**Sorry no pictures of any of this.. it was all I could do to keep up, I never even thought about a camera!!**

Not another one!!

For the longest time, we have been having trouble with Mikayla... she has been so tired and grumpy!! (yes, even more than usual...) She just wasn't herself, but we couldn't figure out why!! She refused to go outside to play, she wouldn't get out of bed in the mornings to go to school... she just wanted to lay around all day. Pretty soon, I was getting calls from her school saying that she was constantly asking to go to the bathroom, or crying just after lunch that she was starving... even though she had just eaten her whole lunch! At home, she was eating massive amounts of food... she could out eat Brian!! and constantly drinking... she went from drinking half of a glass of milk with dinner to drinking 3 and asking for more... but for some reason she was still loosing weight!! She was literally skin and bones!!

Brian and I KNEW something was wrong, we just didn't know what... we started researching so many different diseases, we thought maybe she had worms, because she ate so much and was still so hungry, and losing weight... we looked up everything we could think of, but nothing fit!! Then one night I was watching TV and one of the people on the show I was watching started listing the symptoms of diabetes, and I knew immediately... that is what Kayla has!!! The next day I went to the Pediatricians office and I waited in the hall for her to come out of an exam room, and told her about Mikayla (she is awesome, and is so great with Kayla!!) she had me make an appointment for just after lunch, and I went and got Mikayla out of school and took her back to the doctor.

When we got there, we did all the usual things you have to do for a physical... it was lots of fun going in and helping her get a urine sample... she thought it was hilarious that she peed on my hand. Too bad I didn't think of asking the nurse for a glove!! Then we had to talk her into getting her finger poked... when they got her blood sample and ran her blood glucose, the nurse left the room immediately and called the doctor who was next door at the hospital doing her rounds. She said to bring Kayla to the ER immediately. They wouldn't even let her walk, or let me get the car... they took her in a wheelchair straight into the ER... It turns out the glucose monitor couldn't even read her blood sugar it was so high... they had to take another blood sample in the ER and have it processed in the lab. It turns out that her blood glucose (or the amount of sugar in her blood) was 904!!! (normal range for a child her age is 80-150!!) she was incredibly sick, and yes... she definitely had diabetes... she was transferred by ambulance up to the Children's Hospital and we stayed there for 3 days trying to get her blood sugar under control, and for Brian and I to learn how to care for a diabetic child... we had classes all day long for 3 days, learning how to count carbs, figure out her correction doses, add up her carbs and figure out her pre-meal doses, learn to give her shots, learn how to take care of her if her blood sugar got too low and she had a seizure (which is complicated by the fact that she is epileptic to begin with!!) It was so overwhelming!! And to add it on top of all her other medical issues she had anyways... I just couldn't fathom why this had happened to HER...

Now it's been 3 months since her diagnosis, and she is doing so great!! For a child that was so terrified of needles, and hated even the smell of anything medical (she always tells the nurses she hates the smell of the saline when they flush out her IV in the hospital... of course, saline solution is odorless, but the nurses tell me that a lot of kids say that!! weird!) She has really taken an active roll in her diabetes care. She sits down before every meal and writes out her meal plan, she adds up the carbs that she is going to be eating, and then goes to her chart and converts it into units of insulin. (Of course, I check her work, but she is ALWAYS RIGHT!!) When we have to check her blood sugar she sets up her kit, she likes to pick the finger we are going to poke, and she washes it with an alcohol pad, we poke her finger (this is the only step she won't do so far!) then she uses her glucometer to suck up the blood drop and she reads the number (or result, I guess) and goes back to her chart and converts it into insulin units for her correction dose... When she gets her shots, she sometimes freaks herself out and panics, but we just talk about it for a while, and I remind her that is just a little pinch and she usually just lets me (as long as she gets to pick the spot!!) Every once in a while, I have to sit on her, but she doesn't like that too much, so I usually only have to threaten it, and she gives in...

Most of you know Mikayla pretty well, and know that she is a very dependent child... she likes others to do everything for her... we are SO PROUD of her for taking the initiative with her new disease, and taking such an active roll. We believe that this is truly a blessing for Mikayla and for us... she has come a long way in such a short amount of time... it seems like treating her diabetes is even helping her cope with so many of her other health issues... somehow the diabetes is giving her a voice and a reason to take an active part in her own care. Never in a million years, when I heard that Kayla had ANOTHER health issue, would I ever have thought it would be a blessing... but it has been.

AMAZING!

Finally... a sunny day!

We finally had a day that was warm enough to turn on the sprinklers and let the kids run around and get wet. As most of you know, my kids kind of tend to resist change... when winter hits I have to beg and cajole them to put on a winter coat, and when summer hits I have to literally hide their snow boots to get the kids to stop wearing them... So I guess I wasn't too surprised when Jax came out to play with his swimsuit and his snow boots on... no matter how hard we tried, he refused to take them off!!

Mommy's Easter Bunny

I found her this cute little outfit for Easter... it has a little Easter bunny on it and the polka dots on the pants look like Easter eggs... she looked so cute, I had to do a photo shoot...

Happy Easter!!

One of her very first smiles...

2 months old

Easter 2010

This was our first Easter in our new house and neighborhood... we went to our ward easter egg hunt... although it was not really a hunt as much as a dash! They had covered a field with dozens and dozens of candy filled eggs for the Primary kids to run out and get... Luckily they let the younger kids (nursery age) have about a 30 second head start!! Once the big kids got the green light the field was picked clean in seconds! It was crazy!!! Then we got to go and have treats... cookies and cupcakes and rice krispy terats and all kinds of yummy stuff... the only down side was the weather!! The wind was blowing (as usual) and it was SO COLD!!! We opted to grab our treats and eat them at home in the warm!! Unfortunately, Kayla was feeling unwell, and had to stay home... but we brought her some easter eggs and some yummy treats to eat... We missed ya sugar! 

Thanks Point Meadows 1st Ward!!

Field Trip to the Fire Station

Jaden's preschool class had the opportunity to go on a field trip up to the Lehi Fire Station, so I jumped at the chance to chaperon... it was lots of fun to see the big engines up close. When we got there we watched a movie on a big giant screen about Elmo and fire safety, then we went outside by the fire engines and the fire fighter showed us all his gear and got all suited up. We got to ask any questions we wanted and got to look all around. When we went back inside they gave us a tour of the fire house and we got to see where the fire fighters sleep and where they eat...

It was awesome!!!

Watching the fire safety movie

The fire fighter gearing up

The class in front of the fire engine

The After Party

Just like in Hollywood, we had a party after the blessing with our family who came to support Addy... Even though we have an actual house, there were still too many people to fit inside. Luckily we have a big yard... so the kids got to go outside and eat picnic style...

Setting up the blankets... way to delegate Jaden!!

The dog pile... BOLA!!!! even the babies are getting in on the action!

Success! now... LET'S EAT!

Lots of Turleys with Addy

My pretty cousin Kenna

My awesome cousin CJ

The best uncle ever... Uncle Kell

My sweet Grandma T

I love my Grandpa T

Addy's Blessing Day

Addy was blessed on Sunday March 28th, 2010... we had such a great day with all our family and friends here to support us and show their love for our sweet Addy. Thank you to everyone who was here to make this a very special day for our family!!!

Proud to be the parents of such a sweet girl!!

Daddy and his girl...

Addy's circle... Grandpa C, Daddy, Addy, Uncle Brad, and Grandpa T

The Crabtree's (and GG Williams)

The Turley's

It's Magentic!!

She can't help it... people just LOVE her!

The Many Faces of Jax

This kid's got personality!

LOVE YOU JAX!

Addy's First Bath

...and not too happy about it!

well, maybe it's not too bad...

ok, I could get used to this!

all done and smelling YUMMY!

**Thanks to Jaden Crabtree for his photography skills...

not too bad for a 5 yr old!**

She's Home!!

We finally got to bring Addy home... the kids were so excited!

...and Mommy was so happy to be out of the hospital!!!

Kisses for baby Addy

Look at Jax's face... he is totally in love with his new sister

Addy is such a good sleeper! Some times I would have to wake her up to eat or to change her diaper.

This was one of those days...

When I laid her down she didn't even budge!

As I was trying to straighten her out and get her diaper off, she just rolled up tighter and tighter into a little ball...

This is what she looked like AFTER I changed her diaper... TOTALLY relaxed and still asleep... so I went ahead and got her dressed... she was almost all the way dressed before she woke up and started crying! Funny baby!!