Happy Birthday Thomas - From Dad

Thomas is my best little friend, and he turned 5 yesterday. It is an absolute joy being Thomas' dad, and he fills my life with absolute happiness. I tell Tyler and Thomas almost everyday to "stop growing up", and they think I am kidding. Sometimes I just wish that I could push the pause button.

These were some pictures that show me how much my little friend has grown and what a pleasure it has been being a spectator and participant in his life. He has so much love for life, people and everything exciting. It does not matter what I am doing, I can always count on my friend wanting to go with me.

Thomas, I love you and am so happy that you are my son and my friend. It has been so much fun the first 5 years, I can not wait for the next 60!

I love this picture of Thomas! He still does this today while he is watching TV or relaxing in the car.
Tyler was so excited to have a little brother "come to our family". It is hard to believe that Tyler is younger here than Thomas is now.


He was so confused why he could not just eat it and had to wait for pictures. Once he dug in, it was a sight to see.
I love this picture for so many reasons: Erin looks beautiful and Thomas is so happy being with his mom. This was a great day with Melissa and Phil at the Little America Brunch. We walked across the street to see the Grand America and Melissa took so many great pictures.

Kindergarten Check Up!

Thomas Turns FIVE this week!
So...
It was time for his Kindergarten check up. Thomas passed with flying colors.
He is healthy and strong!

The only bad part was that turning five means five booster shots.
OUCH!

Tyler's Surgery

Our last day on our Disney vacation was so great!
But...
Early, early Sunday morning, Tyler started having some medical problems.
Tyler has an internal medication pump that continuously feeds a muscle relaxer strait to his spine so that his legs move more freely. It is called a Baclofen Pump. Well, sometime during our day at Disney world the pump stopped working properly and the flow of the baclofen stopped. Tyler went onto major withdrawals. Withdrawals are painful, scary, and life threatening. Inspite all of the muscle spasams, crying, and pain, Tyler kept saying "I has fun at Magic Kingdom!"
We were lucky and got our family on an early flight back home.
Brad and Tyler headed strait up to Primary Children's.
Over the next 24 hours we had trouble getting Tyler's pain and withdrawal under control. He was being heavily medicated with oral meds until we determined what was the best thing to do. During that time our Doctor "interrogated" his pump (they basically talked to it with a computer). We didn't know it at the time, but the interrogation made the baclofen start flowing again, and so Tyler had tons of oral medications in his body, and now all of his regular dose of baclofen. All of those medications hit him at once, and he was put into a very serious life threatening over dose. Tyler was unresponsive for 26 hours. The longest 26 hours of my life. All I did was sit and watch his oxygen saturation, and his respirations to make sure they did not drop too low. There were several times that he would just exhale, and wouldn't inhale until I shook him hard enough. There was even a time when he stopped breathing. Every nurse around was at his bedside to help. Tyler was in the hospital for four days recovering from this incident.
Luckily... He came out of the overdose!! After Tyler woke up, all he could ask for was to see his brother and dad. He was so happy to be feeling better!!
Thomas, my Mom, Jenny and Carly came to see him!

The story does not stop there. On week to the day that he come home from Primary's, in the middle of the night, Tyler's pump stopped working again. His withdrawals were again very severe and painful. Luckily, everyone acted very quickly, and that same day Tyler was taken into surgery to fix the tubing to his pump.

The day in the hospital, when our Dr. Interrogated Tyler's pump, and it started working again, and kept working, I believe that was a blessing from heaven. If Tyler would have been taken into surgery that day or even the days to follow, I believe that there would have been serious complicatons, and I'm not sure he would have made it.
OR
His baclofen pump malfunction could have happened while were out in the middle of the Caribbean, and he would have had to have been life flighted to the nearest hospital.
We have been so watched over by Heavenly Father, and so blessed that our Tyler is with us, and that he is doing GREAT!

Post Surgery

Tyler has this incision on this abdomen, and one half that size on his lower spine.

GREEN

Happy St. Patrick's Day Boys!!

It is a tradition in our family to have an all GREEN breakfast on St. Patrick's Day.
The boys love all of the green food, especially the green milk!

Rays

Tyler had his first report due right after we got back from our cruise.
The report was to be done on an animal of his choice. Tyler chose Sting Rays. That was perfect, because we set up a sting ray adventure for he and Brad on Castaway Cay.
Tyler worked really hard on this report. He checked out books from the library, he wrote an outline, he even spent time on the cruise typing up the report. After he got home from the hospital, he and I made this project board with pictures of our trip, and sand and seashells from the Caribbean. Tyler even read every word of his report out loud to his class. He felt so proud!
Way to go Best Friend!!

Our Disney Cruise

For Christmas we gave our boys a Disney Cruise.
We set sail February 14the 2009!

This is our second Disney Cruise. The first time we went to the Western Caribbean, and this time we headed to the Eastern Caribbean...St. Maarten, St. Thomas, and Disney's Island, Castaway Cay in the Bahamas.

We flew into Orlando, and stayed at the Marriott for the night.
It was so warm there, and the first thing that we wanted to do was head to the pool!

Brad and Thomas were looking for ALIGATORS!!

Thomas got freaked out that he actually might see one!

Thomas taught himself to swim this night.
He was way too independent and way too inexperienced for my liking.

The next morning we headed out on the Disney Magical Express to the ship.
Happy Valentines Day Boys!
Thanks Grandma Alice for the sweet Valentine!

Look at the damage Tyler did to his arm while swimming the night before.
Tyler likes to hang on to the side of the pool and pull himself around. I guess that he kept scraping the inside of his arm, and was having too much fun to stop...OUCH!!

All Aboard!

This was an Amazing Vacation!
Disney has thought on EVERYTHING!!

As we were getting ready to leave Port Canaveral
there were several dolphins playing by the boat.
I think that means good luck!

We were upgraded to a handicap accessable suite which was such a pleasant surprise.
Most of the rooms Tyler's wheelchair cannot fit into.
This suite was HUGE and my favorite part was the incredible balcony that spanned the back HALF of the ship.

After the evacuation drill we headed up to the Castaway Party!

Then out to play shuffle board...
My boys loved this game!!

Breakfast with Mickey!

Our first morning on the boat we had breakfast with all of the characters.
What a great way to start the cruise. The boys felt so special!

A Couple of Days at Sea

After we set sail we settled in for two days at sea.
It was so fun to just be able to relax and play with my boys.

I can't even count how many times we went swimming...

or how many times Thomas went down the Mickey slide!

Thomas won the Mr. Toad's Leap Frog Contest.
He was so proud of his trophy!

We watched Bolt in 3D...

and played in the Arcade...

and best of all I enjoyed my our massive, private balcony!

Thomas played so hard that he fell asleep almost every night at dinner .

The Fooseball was also a huge hit with my boys.