Michael's scan and progress

On Thursday I took Michael down to Children's Hospital early in the morning for his MRI and multi-disciplinary clinic.  Liz has been the one to take him the last few times, but these trips are already exhausting enough for someone who isn't 36 weeks pregnant.

We had a couple of hours of time to kill between the scan in the early morning and the multi-disciplinary clinic in the afternoon, so we met up with my sister Becky.  It was so great to see her and the time flew by fast.  Spending time with her really hit the spot to help ease the anxiety on a long day while we anticipated the results of Michael's scan.
In the afternoon I met with a team of doctors and specialists, including the neurosurgeon, neuro-oncologist, ophthalmologist, endocrinologist, physical rehab, and psychiatrist.  We'll make another trip in the fall to meet with some of the doctors we couldn't meet with this time.

We were relieved to hear that Michael's scan was clean!  What a miracle.  His oncologist Dr. Foreman confided that it's very unusual for someone who was diagnosed at such an early age as Michael (6 months old) to not have had a recurrence by now.  With each clean scan the chances of a recurrence decrease.  Michael has paid (and continues to pay) such a terrible price for his cancer treatments, but we're so grateful that he's still with us and thriving.

There were no setbacks or bad news this time around.  Everyone was thrilled at the progress he's made in reading, walking, and talking.  One concern from last time was that his growth hormone level was very low (a common side effect of radiation to the brain) and that he would soon need daily hormone shots.  This time around his growth hormone levels were back in the normal range, which the doctor wasn't able to explain.  So we're grateful that no shots are needed at this time.

Immediately after our visits with all the doctors we raced back to Fort Collins just in time to catch Michael's preschool graduation.  Michael has meant so much to his teachers and many of the other students these last two years, and they really wanted him there.  Michael has thoroughly enjoyed preschool experience as well and was one proud kid at his graduation.

Michael and his preschool teachers: Deann, Kris, and Carrie

Two years ago Michael couldn't stand or walk at all, and his only form of communication was sign language.  Today he navigates pretty well in his walker, can take a few steps on his own, and can talk well enough to not have to rely on sign language all that much any more.  He tries to read just about anything in sight, and although his handwriting is terrible, his ability to spell words is uncanny.  Sometimes if we can't quite understand what he's saying we'll ask him to spell it, and he's usually spot on.

Next year for kindergarten we're thrilled that Michael will be going to Zach Elementary with his siblings!  For a long time the school district tried to send him to another school with a special education program, but it never seemed like a good fit.  But we were told it would be unlikely Zach would have the resources to accommodate him.  Over time and with a lot of effort, the pieces started falling into place.  First, Spencer's former kindergarten teacher said that she would love to be Michael's teacher and specifically request to teach him.  One of the para-professionals (teacher's aides that help children with special needs) is a family friend and offered her support to help Michael get accepted into Zach.  Liz brought Michael to talk to the school principal, and she was really impressed with Michael and said she would love to have Michael come to Zach and offered to help make the arrangements with the district.  Shortly after that meeting, we received official approval from the district for Michael to attend Zach!  Not only that, the kindergarten para for next year is our family friend!  There are still a number of logistical issues to work out, but we're very excited to have 4 of our children attending the same school next year.

The other good news is that our family is finally healthy again.  We were been battling, flus, colds, and infections for several weeks.  Liz had bronchitis and pneumonia on top of all that as well.  Even less fun when you're almost 8 months pregnant and have no immune system to fight it off and have restrictions on the medicines you can take.  Fortunately I was able to work from home for a week and a half to run the household and take care of those who were sick (including myself) so that Liz could rest and recover.  Some friends from church brought meals a few of the nights which was greatly appreciated.  Liz's parents were scheduled to visit us during that time and had to postpone their trip by a few weeks until everyone had recovered.  Liz had a birthday during that time and spent most of it in bed, but did emerge long enough to open a few presents and have a bite of ice cream cake brought over by friends.  It was a crazy and unexpected couple of weeks, we're glad they're finally over!

Spring Break and Easter

For spring break we typically go to Colorado Springs for a few days.  This year the weather forecast called for wind and snow the whole week of spring break.  Not exactly our favorite weather for outdoor activities in the Springs.  So we opted for a staycation in Fort Collins instead. 

Some of the activities were simple and didn't cost a lot of money, such as flying a kite at a park followed by eating Subway sandwiches.  Might as well take advantage of the windy weather, right?

For most of the activities we were able to take the whole family.  One of the days we took the family to the Greeley Family Funplex.  They have an indoor waterpark with lots of water features and water slides.  Some of the kids were fearless on the slides, such as Michael on the kiddie slides and Sarah on the big kid slides.  Others, such as Spencer on the kiddie slides and Whitney on the big kid slides, needed much more coaxing before going down the slides, but once they did they wanted to go again and again!

Just the right depth for Brooklyn to splash around

Whitney loved taking Michael on the kiddie slides

Ready!  Set!  Go!

Sarah and Spencer chilling out in the lazy river

One of the other activities with the whole family was rollerskating at Rollerland.   They have these PVC walkers on wheels to practice with in a side area of the rink until you feel comfortable skating on your own.  The kids enjoyed the laser maze as well, where you have to step over, under, and around laser wires in your quest to press the buttons on the walls.  Even Brooklyn got a kick out of the maze and managed to avoid getting hit by every laser, although she walked right into most of them.

Brooklyn loved to push around the PVC walker, even when she wasn't wearing skates

Whitney's starting to get the hang of her rollerblades

Having a good time at the rollerskating rink

We did a few outings with just the older kids, such watching Kung Fu Panda 3 at the dollar theater and jumping around at the Fly High trampoline park.  The kids particularly loved the basketball hoops where you can bounce up high and try to make a slam dunk, as well as the trampoline diving board into a large foam pit. I must be getting old, though--it took several weeks for my back to recover from the trampoline park!

The Easter bunny came to visit us on Saturday, which he typically does so that we can have Sunday to focus on the real purpose of Easter.  So on Saturday the kids enjoyed massive sugar highs, as well as some small gifts such as wrist watches.  On Sunday Liz and I both participated in the ward choir for a special Easter program.  We thought our ward choir director was out of his mind when he announced we'd be singing some of the Easter related songs from Handel's Messiah for our Easter program.  We're a small choir and many of the members don't have a lot of musical experience.  Amazingly, we pulled it off and it sounded great and brought a really neat Spirit into the meeting.

Whitney showing off the eggs she found

Brooklyn preferred to use a Halloween pumpkin rather than an Easter basket.  Hey, candy is candy, right?

Happy Easter everybody!

February Happenings

To celebrate Valentine's Day Liz put hearts in Sarah's and Whitney's hair.  They helped decorate our table for breakfast with lots of Valentine flair.  Even cold cereal tastes better when you have great table decorations.

We "heart" Sarah!

We "heart" Whitney too!

Our Valentine's Day breakfast feast

Sarah and Whitney both participated in Junior Nuggets basketball this year and had a blast.  The Denver Nuggets are Colorado's NBA basketball team, so the Junior Nuggets are the teams geared towards kids.  After the season ended, we were given free tickets to see a real Nuggets came in Denver!  We turned it into a weekend trip with our friends the Baileys.  The dads took the older kids to the Nuggets game Friday evening while the moms stayed at the hotel with the younger kids.  The next day we again swapped watching the kids so the adults could visit the Denver Temple and the kids could swim at the hotel pool.

Sarah teaching Michael some basketball moves

Whitney loved socializing with her friends before, after, and even during games.  During one game she had a friend on the opposing team, and they spend the whole time "guarding" each other as they chatted and ran back and forth across the court.

Sarah is growing up more each day.  She got her braces put on recently and enjoyed picking out fun colors for her bands.

Sarah looks as cute as ever in her braces

Brooklyn got a scab on her chin and kept picking at it and wouldn't leave it alone.  Spencer did the same thing when he was her age, so we tried the same trick with her that we did with him.  Namely, we put gloves on her hands whenever we laid her down to sleep, and strapped them into place with duct tape.  Within a week or so her chin finally healed.

If the gloves didn't work our next step would be to use a straight jacket. :-)

Spencer was Brooklyn's age when we had to do the same thing for him.  His case was a little more complicated since he was a major thumb sucker.  We cut thumb holes in his gloves so he could suck his thumb at night.  We covered his scab with a bandaid and duct tape.  It seemed to take forever before it finally healed!

Lately we've been alternating between warm sunshine one day...

...and snow the next.

But regardless of the weather outside, indoor board games are always fun.

Twins

A few weeks ago we went in for the 20 week ultrasound of our little girl.  The ultrasound tech said she rarely gets images this perfect, that everything looked like what you'd see in a textbook.  The baby appears to be very healthy, in spite of Liz's "advanced maternal age".  That's what the doctors call it, her paperwork more bluntly listed her as "elderly multigravida".  Did they really just call her elderly?  She's still in her 30s for crying out loud!

Fortunately, and in spite of the title of this post, the ultrasound tech did NOT discover that we're having twins.  However, lately Spencer and Michael have tried acting like twins.  Spencer will sometimes try to walk like Michael by taking a few drunken steps and falling down.  He tries to talk like Michael by speaking in a halting monotone.  He likes to put on Michael's coat and backpack.  Whenever he can he tries to dress the same as Michael, including wearing their matching Sunday clothes.

Can you tell these twin boys apart?

A few weeks ago it was nice having a day off work for Martin Luther King Day.  This is the first year Intel has given us the holiday off of work.  It's one of their ways of trying to be more diverse and celebrating people of different races and colors.  That day in our bathroom I came upon Brooklyn celebrating people of color in her own way:

I'm pretty sure this is how mommy puts on her lipstick

Don't I look so pretty?

A week ago Sarah and Whitney had a school choir performance at the upscale Broadmoor Hotel in Colorado Springs.  This is the first time their elementary school has been invited to perform.  They took the bus down to Colorado Springs that morning, and the rest of us drove down later so we could spend a few hours there and pick them up when it was over.  The room they performed in was small and we weren't able to get tickets to see it, but fortunately we saw the performance a week earlier when they performed here in Fort Collins.

While we were in Colorado Springs we went to one of our favorite places, Garden of the Gods.  Although it was a sunny January day, the wind was ferocious and the dirt and sand blew hard at us.  So we didn't get to stay as long as we would have liked, but it was certainly an adventure!

Michael and Brooklyn taking shelter from the wind at Garden of the Gods

A really nice Brazilian family moved in just a few doors down from us.  They go to our church and we've enjoyed meeting them and starting to get to know them.  I served a 2 year mission in Brazil, so it's been fun to brush up on my Portuguese with them.  Right now it's summer in Brazil and winter here, so they're still getting acclimated.  We received over a foot of snow this last week, and we saw their 12 year old son out there shoveling snow from their driveway with some of his new friends from church.  He came by the next day and helped us with our driveway as well.  Our kids tried to "help" too, but mostly they just enjoyed getting sprayed with snow from our snow blower.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Years Baby

We had a great Christmas and New Years spending time together as a family.  We tried to keep things pretty low key and didn't travel any where this time around.  I think this was a real blessing as we've talked to numerous friends these last few weeks who got stranded on I-80 in Wyoming traveling to Utah due to blizzard conditions and road closures.  We couldn't help but remember last New Years making it as far as Rawlins, Wyoming on our way back to Colorado from Utah before having to turn around and drive back to Utah.  We successfully made it back to Colorado on our second attempt the next day.

This Christmas we had a special beautifully wrapped package for the children to open as the last present.  Inside they found a sleeping baby doll, with a note that they'll be getting a new baby sister in June!  Whitney excitedly asked, "So mom, are you starting to get pregnant?"  Spencer's reaction took the cake when he asked in all sincerity, "Is this (toy) truck over here Michael's?"

For New Years we were fortunate to have Tim's sister Becky and her boys over for a few days.  The cousins loved playing together as always, and it was wonderful to spend part of the holidays with extended family.  Becky's kids and Sarah and Spencer managed to stay awake all the way until midnight, but despite Whitney's valiant efforts, she conked out on the family room floor around 11pm and slept through the whole thing.

Although you could consider our baby announcement on Christmas morning as our "Christmas Baby", we actually have a New Year's Baby tradition where the New Year's Baby leaves a single small gift for each child on New Year's morning.  (This stemmed from a Bellamy tradition when sometimes not all of the Christmas gifts made it on time for December 25th!)  Almost all our children received a puzzle for New Years, which we enjoyed helping them put together over the next few days.

Our kids love the tradition of sleeping by the Christmas tree one of the first nights of the Christmas season

Our annual Christmas letter assembly line

Using the same assembly line for folding clothes.  We typically sort each child's clean clothes into their own basket.  They thought it would be fun to climb into their basket first, which admittedly makes it easy to remember which basket belongs to which child. :-)

Michael strumming some Christmas carols on his guitar to help us get into the Christmas spirit

On Christmas Eve the kids get to open one gift from Grandma and Grandpa.  Michael and Spencer were thrilled with their new Super Why and ninja costumes.

On Christmas morning it's time to line up on the stairs before heading to the Christmas tree!

Here's the sight that greeted them this year

Playing with Christmas legos

Brooklyn and the "Christmas Baby"

Let's make some noise for 2016!

After waving around sparklers in 10 degree weather, the kids warmed up in front of the fire with some Oreos.  Whitney is laying under the blanket on the right, fast asleep and unaware that it's now 2016

Fun in the Snow

Winter time is upon us.  Although we haven't received a ton of snow, there's been plenty of it to play in!  We've also had unusually cold temperatures, which has let the snow stick around much longer than usual.

Spencer giving Michael a ride in the sled

Quick--take a picture before Brooklyn takes off all her cute snow gear!

Spencer heading downhill fast!

Whitney going down face first

Sarah doing some knee tubing

Three kids + one sled = wipeout!

Harry Potter Birthday Party

For Sarah's 10th birthday in November we threw her a big Harry Potter themed birthday party.  Fortunately we had a lot of help to be able to pull it off.  First of all, one of Sarah's best friends recently had a Harry Potter party and lent us many of the props she had used.  Liz's parents happened to be in town for the weekend, and they are masters at throwing parties.  We also invited a few older girls from church to help things run smoothly during the party.

The Great Hall

Potions Class with Professor Snape (Liz's dad in a wig!)

Charms Class with Professor McGonagal (Liz)

Divination--do you possess the inner eye?  The kids had to try to guess what each of the pictures were.  They're the 3D pictures where you sort of have to cross your eyes to view them. 

Olivander's Wand Shop

Quality Quidditch Supplies

Sweet Halloween

We had 3 nights of trick-or-treating this year, the ward trunk-or-treat, Intel which was on Friday and then the neighborhood on Saturday.   Brooklyn only got to trick-or-treat around Intel, but the other kids and especially Michael had a great time going all three times.  On Saturday night when we would get to someone's door he would say, "Okay everyone, here we go!!!"  Then when he got candy in his bucket he would say, "Oh WOW!  This is so awe-some.  This is so cool," in his broken monotone voice said with as much enthusiasm as his little body could get out.  He would shake and jiggle and become very animated every single door we went too.   Now that makes trick-or-treating fun with kids!  Our costumes we kept very simple this year and used whatever we had around the house or in storage.  I just didn't feel the desire this year to put out the cash for any new costumes, and I think we did pretty well.  It made Halloween feel old-fashioned and authentic, almost a Charlie Brown kind of feel.  However, we have been blasted with candy around here with 5 kids and 3 nights of trick-or-treating, but it has been fun.

Hermione Granger, Storm Shadow, Super Why, and Ravenclaw Student #3 showed up at our house this week!

Getting ready for trick-or-treating at Intel joined by the fairy princess

Daddy needs a bigger cubicle!