A very merry unbirthday!

"If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is because everything would be what it isn't. And contrary-wise; what it is it wouldn't be, and what it wouldn't be, it would. You see?"-- Alice (1951)


"There is a place. Like no place on Earth. A land full of wonder, mystery, and danger! Some say to survive it: You need to be as mad as a hatter." --Mad Hatter (2010)


My little girl has been quite just crazy about Alice in Wonderland since last summer. That's when she decided that would be the theme of her 6th birthday party. We didn't even know, at the time, that the new movie was coming out- so that worked out perfectly (We saw the new one last week on her actual bday and she LOVE LOVE LOVED it)! We have been planning this party for MONTHS! Some of you know about me and my parties, ha. I tend to go all out! Down to the very last detail. But it's just wayyy too fun for me, especially when she and I are doing it together (and she was VERY into this one!).

So even though the wind nearly picked us up and carried us away, we had a beautifully sunny day Saturday for her Mad Hatter tea party and she had a blast. (And I will just have to deal with the fact that my "Eat Me" and "Drink Me" cards couldn't be on the table, my paper laterns and card garland didn't decorate the trees, and there were no "THIS WAY" and "THAT WAY" signs at the end of the drive... sigh... ;)







Musical Chairs!

Down to brother and sister!


Sugar cube relay races:


Team 2 wins!

Alice and most of her hatters...




Happy Birthday, Layla Paige!

Aaaannd we're back. Maybe.

Kind of went missing for a few weeks. You probably didn't notice. We have been INSANELY busy, but the main reason for my absence was our lack of internet on the laptop. Our wireless was MIA for a while and then just decided to re-appear yesterday out of the blue! I have no idea if it's here to stay so I'll update while I can and hope for the best.

I actually typed out a post or two in the last couple of weeks, but they wouldn't save and my computer froze up before I could save them to something else. Now they're gone and thanks to my memory-murdering meds, I have no idea what they were about at this point! So let's just start fresh with where we are NOW:

* Our house is officially on the market! Woot. We NEED/want space, but even more that that, we feel like God is ready to move us and make changes in our lives. And we're ready to go!

* Brynn & Cale had their evaluations with the speech therapist. It was a disaster. Oh man, I do mean AWFUL. It can really and truly be blamed on a lack of sleep and lack of food. And that can be blamed on... well, that's not important ;) Since nothing was accomplished during that evaluation, and it wouldn't be fair or accurate to score them a ZERO on everything based on their unwillingness to cooperate, we have to go back in a few weeks.

* Miss Layla Paige turned SIX!! Wow... where does the time go?! What a lovely little lady she is. We had WONDERfully fun birthday celebration. If blogger allows, I'll do a separate post, just for her.

* Nathan has gone back to work. So we are in a new, old routine. Pretty easy adjustment. We are all tired again though with that 2:30am alarm and me back to flying solo with the house and kids. No more lazy days! ha. Oh well, it was good while it lasted :)

* Also, Nathan and I will both be re-baptized this Easter Sunday at sunrise at Freedom Church! We were able to get a fresh start in our lives a while back and our excited to wash away the past. We feel like God is getting ready to do some big things with us... can't wait to find out what that is!

* Last, but not least.... T-minus 11 days until Disney!!!!!!

Cale.

My life probably would have been a *little* less chaotic had I posted this five or so days ago, but it was just chaotic enough that I didn't have time. So, here's the scoop.

Back story:
Cale had what I/we thought were seizures when he was an infant. Nathan was never home when these occurred so I was the only witness, but based on my description/experiences in special education classrooms/environments, our pediatrician agreed that it did sound like that's what was happening. However, his EEG and MRI both came back normal. After about 3-4, they stopped.

Fast-forward:
Late summer/early fall, Cale has a few behavior "outbursts" that were pretty extreme. As in, out of nowhere, his eyes would glass over and he would literally scream at me in a voice different than his own. Even take a swing at me. These were NOT temper tantrums. I have three kids, I know what a temper tantrum looks like. These were uncharacteristically violent and scary. After each one, he would cry in his NORMAL voice for just a second and then immediately fall asleep.

Then, last Tuesday night he had again what appeared to be a more typical seizure. The kind he had when he was a baby. The ugly, scary kind where his arms and legs are contracted and he is moaning/screaming in pain. His eyes are vacant, his body trembling. This time, we both watched the whole thing. I've seen him do it before, but Nathan didn't like it one bit. The worst part was afterward, it took WAY too long (probably only a matter of minutes... felt like hours) for him to be able to make eye contact or act like he ever even knew we were there). It actually wasn't until he fell asleep and we woke him back up. He was the able to look at us and tell us that he didn't want to wake up yet.

We already had a well-check for the twins scheduled for the next morning, thank goodness, and were able to discuss all of this at length with Dr.K.
He agreed, still, that they DO sound like seizures, HOWEVER, this particular type of seizure - Partial Complex - does not show up on an EEG or MRI. It occurs in the frontal lobe and can appear as a typical seizure OR as a sudden change in behavior, so Cale's outbursts/tantrums/whathaveyou... were actually seizures.

Cale IS fine now. He is his normal car-obsessed, snuggly, picky-eater self. And will be unil another seizure (of any kind) occurs, which could be today, tomorrow, or months from now. The next step is to see a pediatric neurologist. The earliest we could get in was end of April. Although we were told to call every day after March 5th to see if there is a cancellation. They might do a no-sleep study before officially diagnosing him, but since he's probably had 7-8 seizures at this point, they may not.

Most likely, we will be able to control these with meds. We are told that this particular type of seizure is very manageable and he WILL be fine. Thanks for all the prayers and happy thoughts!

And just incase you were curious, neither Brynn nor Cale made it onto the height chart yet! Still hovering well above 100th percentile! No surprise. Dr.K says they are the size of most kindergarteners, lol. If I remember correctly (it was a long,emotional day!) she was 43 inches tall, he was 44? And about 38lb, 40lb respectively.

Kid-free. Briefly.

Nathan and I just had our annual Opryland weekend; our favorite weekend of the whole year! We love to go spend a few days focused on just the two of us- walking around without a toddler strapped to our legs, see movies that aren't animated, and eat dinners that don't have to be cut into bite-sized pieces! It's so fun!

Friday night we grabbed a quick bite before catching our first movie (Shutter Island-loved it). We're big Scorsese/Dicaprio fans. Then back to our room for a glass of wine on the balcony.

Saturday we slept in (yay!) and headed to an early lunch at Chili's and the UT/UK game. A little shopping (new sunglasses for the whole fam, beginning to re-stock Nathan's closet since I got rid of most of his clothes while he was gone, and somehow I ended up with a few things too... funny how that always happens?). Another movie- chick flick!- then back to the room to freshen up before our big night.

Highlight of the weekend, Saturday night every year- dinner at Old Hickory. YUM.
SEVEN courses. And only because we passed on the eigth. We were just TOO full. (Well... for a while. We ended up ordering cookies and milk about 11:30pm while watching The Blind Side in our room later).

Chef Seth always treats us especially well and brings out extra little things for us to taste (amazing). Three of my next four meals were my filet from that night- SO much food!

Sunday a.m.- slept in AGAIN, yesss... then one more meal (do you see a theme here?!) before picking up our little piggies. Thanks to Poppy/Deda, Pap/Nonie, and Christina for keeping them happy and healthy so we could enjoy our time together! They all had a blast (we've heard LOTS of stories lol).