Fall Break

So, what would a break be without us going to Disneyland and Seaworld?? Haha! Fall break actually started back on Oct 11th, but I am just now getting to the post! It started with a day on the beach, and celebrating our friend, Kaeli's birthday! (Sorry, no pics of that, yet. I didn't have my camera). Then Mon-Thurs we went to Disneyland with our very good friends, the Linfords. The kids had a blast together!

Lexi was FINALLY tall enough for most of the rides (with the help of some VERY tall cheerleading shoes I found! haha!). She has been looking forward to riding some of the "big kid" rides for a LONG time, and I must say, she loved most of them! Here she is on Splash mountain! I love her "nervous" face that she does. She actually liked splash Mountain! She also LOVED Thunder Mountain. She wasn't too sure of Space mountain, but I think that was because it was all done up for Halloween and had some pretty creepy monsters on it. She also loved Star Tours. We took her on Tower of Terror, but she would only go once, but she went!! What a trooper! She also loved Soarin' over California. It was fun to be able to ride all of the rides and not have to wait on the outside of the rides with a child!

Jakey's stone was IN!! We found it pretty easily. We stopped by a couple of times. Thank you so much to all of my amazing friends for putting a stone there for us! We love to visit it while we are there. I know Jake was on our vacation with us. It is very cute because we have an uneven number of people in our family, one of the twins usually sits alone, but they always say, "I'm sitting with Jake this time." It's cute. I like that they include him.

We also had lots of fun at Sea World on Friday. We love Sea World. The shows, petting the sting rays, and the water rides are all perfect when it is warm outside!

Baptism Day

I have seen lots of posts from friends telling about their children's baptism day, and always thought that I had LOTS of time before my kids were old enough to be baptized. It is amazing how fast it has arrived! I remember when Maddie and Payton were just newborns, and I cried when they were too big to fit in the preemie diapers, and now, here they are, big enough to be baptized! They were sooooo excited! Maddie got a new dress. All white with light purple accents and Payton got a new suit. They looked fantastic!

My amazing friend, Shelley, took some photos of them, and here is what they looked like!

My cute Angels!

Here is a copy of the invitations. Don't they look so sweet!

Here we are on the way to the baptism. They look so excited!

They were so excited to wear the baptism clothes, all dressed in white, with Tyler. Don't they look precious? I think they are glowing!

After the baptism, they got a photo with Grandma and Grandpa Palmer. We are so glad you came, Grandpa!

The baptism was very sweet. It had a very good spirit. Maddie and Payton kept commenting about how good they felt. I hope they always remember that feeling. I am so proud of them. They are such great kids. They try to do what is right, and I love that about them. They have sweet spirits. Congrats, Maddie and Payton! I love you!

Busy, Busy, BUSY!!

So, I know I haven't blogged in a while, and I have a TON to blog about, but I only have a little time. I will try and slowly catch up, but this was part of my week last week!

Wednesday, these two turned 8!! I can't believe they are 8 already! They grow up too fast!

Thursday was our 11 year anniversary! WOW, 11 years with my best friend and I know it will continue to fly by! I love you, babe!!

Friday was Lexi's 4th birthday and birthday party!! She wanted Dora, so she got Dora!

Friday afternoon Tyler took Lexi and Maddie to Daddy/daughter! Fun fun fun!!

Friday Evening was Payton's birthday party-all boys and all Mario!! My amazing friend, Shelley made this AMAZING cake! And, this was her first cake to make! WOW!! Thanks, Shelley. The kids had a blast playing Mario Kart and doing obstacle courses!

Saturday afternoon was Maddie's b-day party. She wanted Littlest Pet Shop. It was really cute, and all the cute girlies had fun.

So, that was only party of my week, last week. I wasn't going to do birthday parties, but Maddie and Payton won't get baptized until Oct 17th, so I wanted to make a big deal out of their 8th birthdays right now. Happy birthday, Kiddos, and happy anniversary to us!!

Diagnosis: Jake

Ever since Jake was born, MANY doctors, specialists, geneticists, etc have been wondering what he "had." At 23 weeks pregnant we had the results from our Amniocentesis come back that everything was "Normal" genetically. Even after he was born, they sent out for more genetic testing and it came back "normal." Multiple geneticists at St Joseph's had various theories about what Jake really had. We even signed release forms because they thought he had some rare bone structure disease. Here is a photo they took of him for "research purposes."

After Jake passed away, we got more results. The "rare" bone structure disease can only test for about 25% of the cases, and that came back negative. The reason they weren't all in agreement about it is because of his internal organ issues, and the one "rare" test they were testing for usually doesn't have anything but bone structure issues. At that point they asked for our permission to send Jake's x-rays and info to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center to see if they could diagnose him.

About 3 weeks ago we got a letter from the clinical geneticist at St Josephs and she had received the results back from Cedars-Sinai! We thought they might have answers, but the only thing they could come up with was spondylothoracic dysplasia (bone abnormalities, generally relating to the spine). All of their tests came up negative for genetics testings. The only thing they could say is that the geneticist should "be very careful in counseling this family from a genetic point of view." hmmm....thanks for the answers! :)

Well, Cedars recommended (as well as the geneticist) to have Jake put on the International Skeletal Dysplasia registry. (Who knew such a thing existed!) After calling the ISD, they explained that so far they have over 350 skeletal anomalies that have been categorized and only 90 of those have been linked to genetics, but as they get more information and DNA, they continually find more links. We decided this would be great research, so we included Jake. She said they might have answers soon, or we might never get any answers, but either way, they were very happy to have Jake added to their list. They take in to consideration all of his bone issues, but also the internal organs (heart, kidney, placement of kidney,etc).

Every time we have asked anyone what they thought it might be, they all shrug, and even now, the only thing they can say about him is, it is JAKE!! Way to go, buddy! Keep them guessing! Statistically, it was probably just something that happened, because we have 3 very healthy children, and no family genes that suggest anything abnormal. So, those were our answers!

Sorry, this is long, but I wanted to get this out too. 2 weeks ago we met with Jake's Dr that performed his Catheterization that went bad. They went over the autopsy results. It was very interesting. As Tyler put it, they couldn't say anything that would bring Jake back, but it was good information to know. Tyler and I were both very nervous to go in to visit with him, but it ended up being pretty interesting. They let us see Jake's CT scan, color coded, and we could see just how small the left side of his heart was, compared to his right. They also showed us scenes from his actual heart surgery (the first one!) That was amazing, and it made me tear up to see his little heart beating. They explained some really good things to us, and tried to explain why he bled out so badly at that final surgery. They didn't have all of the answers, but I really liked how they weren't too prideful to say, "We don't know!" Overall it was a good meeting, and I was glad to finally get the autopsy results.

Anyways, sorry for the long post, but I thought some of you might be interested in what I have been learning about the past month! So, our diagnosis so far is: JAKE!

Camping, Anyone??

This past weekend was our Ward Campout! Let me tell you, I have not been camping with our kids, EVER!! Tyler has taken them to Father/daughter, father/son, etc, but we have never been camping all together, so when they told us about this campout, I was VERY excited! We got all packed (Tyler did it all) and the kids had a 1/2 day, so we set out at 1pm. We got to the campsite around 2:30. It was right up near Christopher Creek, and it was beautiful! The kids began exploring, and Tyler began setting up camp.

It was a good thing the Linfords were there, so Tyler would have some help! I felt pretty useless! Lots of families began arriving and the kids began playing!

It was so fun! Then......Payton began complaining that he didn't feel good. I figured it was from the drive....until he threw up!! YUCK!!! No big deal, he threw up in the trees, no clean up. We were ok! He kind of went back to playing....then 1 hour later he threw up again!! YUCK!! Again, in the trees, no big deal, no clean up. We had dinner (Tyler cooked steaks! Way to go, they were delicious!) and Payton didn't eat much, but I didn't expect him to. Throughout the evening he threw up every 45min! He missed the fireside because he was so tired, so we had him in bed while everyone else made Smores!

Yummy!

(All the girls!)

We were by the fire when I heard him call out my name. I ran into the tent to find that he had thrown up ALL over the sleeping back and his pj's. Poor guy! Great. Lots of clean up! We cleaned him up and he went back to sleep. We got Maddie and Lexi in bed and 20 minutes later Maddie is crying. I went running and SHE threw up! All over her sleeping bag and pj's! We didn't have any extra sleeping bags, but luckily some great friends did, and they let us borrow them. That was how the night went. Both Maddie and Payton throwing up, and me trying to get it into a bowl or bag or sonic cup. YUCK!! They finally stopped throwing up around 3am. I was so glad to have the sun up and be able to get out of bed! The kids were feeling a bit better, but were SO sad to not have the energy to play with all of their friends! :(

There were lots of kids there and they got really creative and began creating Indian villages and tribes, complete with Teepees,

gardens, caves, etc. It was really cute! My poor kids didn't play much, but watched the kids.

Luckily, Lexi felt good the whole time. Now we are waiting for her to get it! Sorry to anyone who got sick from us!

I will have to think before I get too excited about camping again!

Congrats Heather and Brandon!

My cute little sister, Heather, was married on July 31st to a GREAT guy named Brandon. She looked AMAZING, he looked handsome and the wedding reception looked incredible (thanks to my very talented sis-in-law, Jenn). I cannot even begin to describe how great everything was! Heather wanted Cake, yummy slush, softserve icecream and a candy bar. We also added popcorn (for something not sweet). Everything was Green, black, white and gold, and polk-a-dots! SO CUTE!! Even the toppings and candy bar were either black, green or gold! Check out the backgrounds to some of these photos and you can see how fun it was!

Look at the BEAUTIFUL hair! Way to go, Katie! (my sis, Katie curled most of this! Wow!)



Mr and Mrs. Brandon Grissom-Just Married!



Their first meal as a married couple-Wendy's?? Hmm....

All the neices and the beautiful bride



All the nephews and the new groom-good luck, Brandon! :)
My mom made all of the dresses for the little girls. Aren't they adorable? Heather made all of the flowers for the hair and Mel made the necklaces! So cute!


Brandon and Heather and all of the neices and nephews. I love the Green!


Here are all of us sisters showing off our legs? Heather looked cute, anyways! :)


Remember, this was July 31st, IN ARIZONA, so it was HOT, but so much fun! Congrats, Heather and Brandon! We are so happy for you! Welcome to the fam, Brandon!

Angel Baby Ethan

Please say a special prayer for Ethan's family. He passed away this morning. We love this family so much. Ethan and Jake were due within weeks of each other. Heidi and I would call each other after each appointment. It breaks my heart that he is gone, but I'm sure Jake and Ethan are in heaven enjoying their "whole hearts." We love you, Ethan!