Fun time!

We had a great day yesterday!  I'll start with the fun part...

Brianna's Birthday Party!

We had just grandparents and one other family come to celebrate with us, but it was perfect-- not to big, not too small :).  Our guests just happen to have a little girl with a little extra 'something' and she will be 5 in just a few months.  We all go to church together and our kids are in the same nursery classes,  but we, as adults, don't get together all that much.  All six of them were able to come and we had a great time!

One of their daughters made the day extra special by bringing Brianna's Birthday cake!  It was BEAUTIFUL!  It was a castle with turrets and everything.  Pictures to come... but I didn't take any so I'll have to wait for them off of one of the other 4 cameras that was going :).  Brianna loved her princess cake and is right now eating breakfast with three little princesses looking at her that were cake decorations!

Since Brianna's birthday is so close to Christmas, we waited almost a week after her birthday before the party.  Last night we did pizza, cake, and just played for a bit.  Brianna had a GREAT TIME, and I think the other kids (and "big kids" and adults ;) ) had a good time too!  We enjoyed being able to spend the time celebrating Brianna and share time with other adults as well :)

Now... before the birthday party... of course there was quite a bit of picking-up-the-house, wrapping her gifts, getting the highchairs and such into the dining room... but we spent the morning doing all kinds of "fun stuff" for Wesley and Aleksa (and a bit for Lynae too).

We started the morning off at 7am driving to pick up the sweet young lady that made Brianna's birthday cake.  By 8 we were pulling up at the hospital and registering for Aleksa's echocardiogram (heart ultrasound), a C-spine complete series to check her neck (kids w/ Ds are at risk to have a bigger spacing between vertebrae around the c-1 c-2 and this could cause paralysis if untreated and injured so it's a normal screening), and a chest x-ray for Wesley (to get a baseline and see what his lungs look like, if there's fluid- he sounds rattley) as well as an abdominal x-ray to see just how backed up his little backside is.

Since x-rays are really hard to accomplish with extra kids along (they can't go in the room), I was VERY glad to have help!  We did Aleksa's series first, and after they said to me "we'll get a few people to hold her... kids like to wiggle." I replied with "let's see how it goes first.  I had a feeling she'd do just FINE!  And?  SHE DID!  She fussed a bit, but nothing major and she did it when we needed her to open her mouth, so it was great ;)  My friend kept the other two kids in the waiting room.

Next was her echo which we all went back for and even though I'm pretty sure they're not allowed to tell me this... they don't see ANY PDA or ASD!  YAY!!  Those are what were questionable before so that sounds good :)

After that were Wesley's x-rays which he didn't care for but tolerated.  They weren't too bad, though we didn't  hear results on any of the x-rays.

Since it was only 10am when we finished with all of that... we started in on the next set of medical prods... bloodwork.  For those wondering, we did a CBC (complete blood count), CMP (complete metabolic panel), TSH and T4 (thyroid function) and... maybe something else?  On both kids.  I also had 'leftover' bloodwork for Lynae since before I left for UA I was able to get only 1/2 of her labs drawn since she's so tiny.  They were just doing a CBC and thyroid panel since she's so tiny and Brianna's thyroid requires monitoring (though that's probably related to her having Ds, we still wanted to check that there's nothing 'going on' with Lynae in that area).

Lynae didn't cry!  She just sat there, let them draw, and went off on her way!  Aleksa didn't fight, though she fussed about it.  She kicked her legs but didn't move her arm a bit.  Both were good girls!

Wesley, well, he bit me.  HARD.  Then, instead of holding his upper arm, I held his lower arm and his FACE.  Since he has such rigid spasticity, we had to wait for him to relax and extend his arm, then as they did the blood draw he was only trying to bend his arm while she did the draw.  I didn't have to do much except keep him from bending.  He did great too, though it took 2 sticks for his.

After ALL of that, we drove the child wrangler (and HUGE HELPER!) back home, ran through to get taco's and went to the church.  There we ate quick with Michael then traded off cars with him-- installing the carseats that were in the minivan (with me) into the 15 passenger.

THEN, off to Wal-Mart to pick up plates and drinks for the birthday party as well as some SHOES for our GIRL (Aleksa has been wearing Wesley's shoes for the last week and between her haircut and the boy shoes, well, she didn't stand a chance of being taken for a girl even with a pink shirt on...

We ran through there and back up to the school to pick up the other 5 kiddos from school.

Then started the house pick-up and get-ready for the birthday party!

It's been a BUSY two days, but last night we folded into bed at 8:30!  And slept (mostly, despite a few child-wakings) until 7am :).

Today Michael is headed to a funeral in the afternoon, but most of the day is just going to be relaxing and playing with the kids.

A HUGE THANK YOU to April for coming with me yesterday AND for the beautiful birthday cake!  You made my day and you made Brianna's birthday extra special with the cake and your whole family by coming to celebrate with us!