Conner Turned 6!!

I know I say this every time one of my kids has a birthday... but seriously.... how are they growing up so fast?!?!? I can't believe that our little Conner man is 6 years old already and about to start 1st grade! 

So this year to celebrate, we had a "mini" party while our great friends the Griggs were in town visiting us from Utah. First we went to go play at a local park that has a splash pad. All the kids loved it and had tons of fun together! Then we came home and ate some Cars cupcakes....

We all sang "Happy Birthday" to him and enjoyed the cupcakes!!

 Partying it up with the Griggs' kids!!

Whenever the Griggs are here, all the kids love to have a "sleepover" and everyone sleeps on a bunch of blankets on the floor. One night we went into check on them, and we found the Griggs oldest daughter, Bailey cuddling with Conner in their sleep. It was just too funny... we had to take a picture!

Bailey was quite embarrassed by this picture!!  hehe!!

Also me and Melis got our craft on and made some cute key chains, some flower hair bows, and this cute flag that has found a nice home in my kitchen! Nothin' better then crafting with my Melis!!! Oh and also we made the trek over to Hobby Lobby! Oh My!! It's a good thing that store is just far enough away to deter me from going there very often. We had a bit too much fun in that store too!  :)

A few days after the Griggs left was Conner's ACTUAL birthday! We had a great day celebrating with him. We opened presents....

He was so excited about this Diary of a Wimpy Kid shirt he got from Grandma and Grandpa Shumate. He pretty much tries to wear it everyday!

He chose to go out to eat at Burger King for his birthday dinner. I'm pretty sure he only chose to go there for the Transformer toys and so they could play in the play land.

 Landon made it his job to "test" everyone's food. I guess he thought he needed to make sure it was edible or something! Silly kid!

 Then of course it was off to play in the play land... Landon LOVED it!!!

 Brayden was nice enough to take Landon down the slide a few times until he figured it out himself. All the boys had lots of fun running around and playing.

Then it was back home for cake!!!

This cake was definitely an effort of love. I had to make it twice!! The first time when I went to take it out of the pan it came out like this....

 Not sure what happened! I greased the pan like I always do... so frustrating!!  So this cake ended up making some yummy cake balls that are in  my freezer! So I guess not such a bad thing! 

My second attempt turned out much better!

 I love making fun cakes for my boys birthdays!! This one took me a while, but it turned out great! Conner LOVED his Lightning McQueen cake!!!

Happy Birthday Conner!!! We love having you as a part of our family!!

Patriotic Kids

The Old Mormon Fort

This last weekend, Brayden's scout pack had an activity at the Old Mormon Fort. It was pretty fun, we all got to go. (Well Patrick stayed home, he's not quite up to big outings like this yet!) We have never been there, but they were having a big event and we got to have a pancake breakfast and do lots of activities. The first thing that the boys wanted to do was the duck race in the little stream. Conner thought this was awesome, he kept going back and doing it over and over again. I think it's a miracle that neither one of they fell in, they kept scaring me that they were going to fall in. Not because it was deep or anything, but because it was nasty, stinky water!

  

 The next thing we did was throwing hatchets. They didn't make it, but both came pretty close!

I love how if you look really close, you can see the hatchet in midair after Brayden threw it.

Took a look at a big old wagon, they boys thought it was pretty cool! Even the wheel is bigger then Conner!!

 Brayden tried his hand at the "Pioneer Laundromat" and learned how they used to have to wash their clothes way back in the day. When I asked him what he thought of it, he said it was sure tiring. I think we are all glad we have washing machines today! Landon enjoyed the view from his stroller in the background. He had a blast just watching everyone and everything. He didn't make a peep the whole time we were there. Guess there was too many good things to see!

They also got to make their own "button spinners". These have kept them entertained for many hours!

Brayden got to learn how to make a doll. He thought it was cool to learn how to make it, but didn't want to play with it. Conner wanted nothing to do with a doll because "dolls are for GIRLS!" 

They then got to try some pioneer kid toys and games. So simple, yet my boys thought they were so much fun! 

Brayden also learned how to play "Cats Cradle" with yarn. This is another game that he has played over and over again ever since. He's pretty good at it too!

 We also got to look around the fort and see inside to see how they may have once lived in there. It was pretty small living quarters.

We had fun running around playing and learning more about how the pioneers used to live. 

Lego House

The last homework assignment that Brayden had in 2nd grade was to build a house out of something. It was  "3 Little Pigs" project. They were to build a house that they thought one of the pigs in the story could've built. After lots of thought, he decided to make it out of Legos. (He is really into Legos lately, so this wasn't too much a surprise to us) He did this 100% all by himself! He even built stuff inside, and thought of the idea to leave half of the roof off so you could see inside. What a great imagination!

It turned out really great, and he got an awesome grade on it!

I love Landon trying to sneak into the picture... can't leave that kid out of anything!

Starting Our Summer Out With A Splash!

Last week the boys had their last day of school. We decided to celebrate and have a little fun! So we got together with a few friends and went to a park with a splash pad. We went last year and the older boys LOVED it, but Landon HATED it. I guess he was still a little too young to love it. 

Here's what he thought of it last time....

But this year....

He TOTALLY LOVED it!!! 

Here he was even trying to sit on the sprayer.... he thought it was hilarious!!! 

 Landon was cracking me up because after a while, he noticed that there were beads of water on his arms and tummy after he got wet. He didn't like that, and kept running over and grabbing a towel and giving it to me to get the water off. As soon as I would he'd smile, and run back into the water. Silly kid!!

I don't have any pictures of the older boys because they were running everywhere playing in the water or on the playground. They had a blast playing with their friends and celebrating their last day of school. We will have to make this a regular activity over the hot hot HOT summer.

Conner's Class of 2023!!!

This past week Conner had his Kindergarten Graduation. They sang a cute song about going to first grade.

Conner did so awesome in Kindergarten this year. He absolutely loved every second of school. He loved his teacher (he had the same teacher that Brayden had for Kindergarten) and he loved that he was "big" and got to go to school like his brother. I can't believe that he is growing up so fast.

Landon enjoyed having some treats with his big brother at the graduation too. 

They also enjoyed some play time on the playground before we headed home. This was the first time Landon was brave enough to go down the slide. He has always been a little leery of it, but once he went down it with Conner, there was no stopping him. He loved it. I literally had to drag him off of it kicking and screaming. 

Great job on your first year of school Conner!!! We are so proud of how well you did and how much you have learned! Keep up the good work dude!!

Our Latest Miracle...

These past few weeks have been sort of a blur for us. But after a really REALLY rough past 5 months, it has been a welcome change. It is so amazing and humbling to see the many miracles in the life of our little family, big and small. I can't even think about it without getting a bit teary eyed. We are truly blessed by a wonderful and loving Heavenly Father that has not only watched over our little family and blessed us in ways we never even imagined, but has given us love, comfort, and hope on a daily basis. And has answered all of our prayers!

Lets go back a bit....

I wrote about how Patrick had fallen down our stairs at the end of December here. That was just the beginning of what was to come. He started getting a bit better after a few months of therapy, but then in March, started to decline again, only things got much worse. By the end of April, he could not walk, stand on his own (or for more then a few seconds), or feel or move his legs and feet. All his doctors were at a total loss by this. When we were at the end of our ropes, and felt like we just didn't know what else to do, we called our Bishop over to give us a blessing (although we had had several). He brought with him one of his councilors who is a Physical Therapist. We asked in desperation what we should do, we didn't know what else to do to help Patrick. What we now feel was pure inspiration from the councilor in the bishopric, he suggested we go see a Neurosurgeon and get an MRI. He gave us the name of a surgeon that he felt was one of the best in town, and we made an appointment. After making the appointment, we started freaking out a bit thinking, what are we doing?? We can't afford to go to a surgeon and felt like we were missing a step. So we prayed about what to do, and the next day, we went to Patrick's Dr./therapy appointment and the first thing his Dr. told us was that he was really worried that something was going on in the spine and nerves of Patrick's back, and that he had not been able to figure it out, and that it was probably starting to get out of his area of expertise so we should go see a Neurosurgeon. Also that day we had called our Primary Care Dr. to refill Patrick's pain meds, and she talked to him about how he was doing, and she suggested we see a neurosurgeon too. So ok... we GOT it... we will go see a neurosurgeon. The only problem was that the soonest appointment we could get with the surgeon was 3 weeks away. So we tried to patiently wait. It's hard to patiently wait for something like that.

Things seemed to get worse with Patrick's condition over those 3 weeks. He pretty much was stuck upstairs, and if he did have to go downstairs to go to his therapy appointments we had to call a few friends/neighbors over to literally carry him back up the stairs. He pretty much only stayed in bed or anywhere the computer chair could roll him to (upstairs). It was a long few weeks!

I had half joked with my best friend and my sister that I was kinda praying that when we went to see the neurosurgeon he would think Patrick was so bad he would do something immediately, maybe send us to the hospital or get a stat MRI, but didn't really think that was what would happen.

So finally the day of his appointment came, and it was a big struggle to just get him to the Dr.'s office. But we did, and we met with the Dr. for no more then 5 minutes (not even joking!) before he was sending us off to the hospital to the ER and be admitted for tests. He was very concerned that Patrick couldn't feel or move his feet or his legs, and hadn't been able to for a while now.  So as we rushed over to the hospital, we called Patrick's mom in AZ and asked her to jump in the car and get up here to help with the boys. She was on the road within an hour and came to take care of the kids while Patrick was in the hospital. (Thank goodness for Grandma's, huh??!!) We also made a few calls to friends to arrange someone to watch the boys until Grandma came to the rescue.

We got to the ER and he immediately got an MRI of his entire spine and in a few hours we finally had a answer to what has been wrong! The MRI showed that there was a condition in his mid back called Stenosis (in his thoracic vertebrae, we had only had x-rays/CT scans of his Lumbar Vertebrae and pelvis, which is why we never found this problem before now). What Stenosis is, is where the opening in your vertebrae where your spinal cord goes through the middle of it isn't big enough. Basically the bones of his vertebrae were strangling his spinal cord, causing the paralysis he had been having over the past few months. They told us this was NOT caused from the fall, most likely a condition Patrick has had his whole life. (And as we talked to his Dad about what the diagnosis was, we found his Dad has the same condition in his spine.... things make so much more sense now!!) When he fell down the stairs, it probably aggravated the condition and sped up the deterioration of his spine. Usually this is a problem that Patrick would've had in 20-30 years down the road, but since he fell, it sped up the process. Which really is probably a blessing! Usually the Stenosis gradually damages the nerves in your spinal cord and by the time you figure out what is wrong, the nerves are so damaged that they can not be repaired. So the fact that we caught it when Patrick is pretty young and healthy was a huge advantage for him.... and a miracle! So the Dr.'s told us about a surgery called a Laminectomy and Patrick was scheduled for the next morning. Basically what they did was shave off part of the bones in his spine that were restricting his spinal cord and opened up the canal that the spinal cord goes through in 6 of his vertebrae.

The Dr. told us that there was a chance that the surgery would cause complete paralysis, but it was a really small chance, only like 5%, and this was his best option to fix the problems he has been having. The Dr. also said there was no way of knowing how long it would take for the nerves to regain their function and feeling, it would just be a waiting game. So we were to have him in surgery the next morning, but we got bumped because there were no OR's available, so early on Saturday morning he went in for surgery. It took about 2 hours, then about another hour until I could go back and see him. He was in the Surgical ICU for the first few days. He was not allowed to sit up more then just 30 degrees and had to rotate laying on each side or flat on his back. He was on some pretty crazy pain killers and muscle relaxers so he slept most of his time in the ICU. When the Dr. came in to check on Patrick the next morning after surgery, he was pretty shocked at how much feeling and movement Patrick had already regained in just 24 hours. Once he was moved out of ICU, he started on Physical Therapy. The first day of PT, he was able to walk!!! Just a few steps and with only the help of a walker he was able to walk... that is more then he had done in a few months!!! By the next day of PT, he was walking further and further and the therapists were pretty shocked at how fast he was recovering. After spending a total of a week in the hospital, he was finally released and sent home. We set up to get PT at home and since Patrick wasn't strong enough yet to go up the stairs to our bedroom, some members of our ward and neighbors came over and moved our guest bed downstairs for him. The boys were super happy to have their daddy home!! They hadn't been able to see him for several days while he was in the hospital. They hardly even saw me, because I would leave really early in the morning to go to the hospital and get home really late. It was so nice to finally all be home together!

Here he is about to get wheeled into surgery....

His "zipper back"... the incision is about 8-10 inches long!

So now Patrick continues to recover and progress. He is getting stronger and stronger each day. He works really hard on his PT so that he can fully recover and walk again without any assistance. He is well on his way. We are continually amazed and humbled by the love and service we have gotten from our friends, family, neighbors, and ward members. They each have been such a blessing on this journey over the past few months. We know that there is still a ways to go on this road before we have our "normal" life back, but it has been such a relief and a complete answer to our prayers that we have an answer to what was wrong with Patrick. We were guided to the Dr.'s we needed to see, and blessed with several Priesthood blessings to carry us along the way. We are truly grateful for all the phone calls, emails, texts, visits, fasting, and prayers everyone has given on our behalf. We have really had to rely on so many other people to help us through  this trial, and that is a humbling experience. 

For 3 days, Patrick shared a room with a man who was 82 years old and has suffered from a stroke the same day Patrick was admitted to the hospital. He was paralyzed on one side and wasn't able to walk or talk. We started talking with his sweet wife and chatted often with her throughout the days we were there. It brought tears to my eyes more then once when she would pray with him, lay next to him in the bed and put his arm around her, and try desperately to communicate with him. On the first day that Patrick got up and walked again and our Dr.'s told us how great Patrick was recovering, her Dr.'s had told her that her husband would never walk again, and probably never regain anything he'd lost, there was just too much brain damage from the stroke. As she was telling us this, she broke down in tears and I couldn't help but go give this perfect stranger a hug! My heart broke for her... while we were receiving good news, her world was crashing in on her even more. She was such a sweet lady. Meeting them helped us realize that we have so many blessing and we need to take the time to count them... often!

We are grateful for all the many miracles we have seen over the past few months. This experience has changed us forever, helped us gain more faith and trust in the Lord, helped us grow closer to each other and as a family, and be so thankful for the knowledge of the gospel. 

We have absolutely been blessed with a miracle!!