What to do with Macey's Hair???

Cute little Macey, we have struggled with her hair for sometime.  While she can look really cute when we just barely do her hair, about 10 minutes later it is all hanging in her face.  

We tried curling it, which turned out cute, but it only lasted 30 minutes before it went straight.  We did get a cute picture.

We've worked with her part, and changing it from the side to the middle worked out for a little bit as it could more easily be pinned and not fall in her face.

Then we tried cutting some bangs which turned out great the first day, but soon afterward went crazy because of a callic in the front.

So, what to do...what to do.....we kept cutting bangs and then letting them grow, but then the rest of her hair was getting all stringy as it grew longer.  

 I know what you are thinking; You are thinking "What are you talking about?  Her hair looks great in all these pictures!  Well, I guess I was never taking pictures unless I spent a lot of time on her hair.  Maybe that is the problem really.  We wanted an easy, not have to work at hair do.  Yeah.

So we cut her hair in a bob and started growing out her bangs again....

And yet it still wasn't working because her hair would still fall and hang in her face unless we used barrettes all the time which wouldn't last because she would rip them out.  

So, finally we gave in and decided to cut some bangs once again.   Except this time I would try a different part.  Maybe if we parted on the middle then it wouldn't make such a big callic on the right side where the part was.  

Well, it worked!  Although it still took a bit of flat ironing or heat drying her bangs at first, I think it has worked out.  She is a cute little girl with bangs.  Her hair doesn't hang in her face too much now and if she loses her barrettes, it's not so bad.

Jewelia Had a Birthday?

It is true!  Jewelia really did have a birthday.  We are just way behind in our blog.  

Jewelia celebrated her 7th birthday!  

"Wow," you are thinking.  "What is that marvelous thing there?"  Why it is the most beautiful awesome cake in the world!

Yes, Jewelia requested a violin cake for her birthday this year.  Her oh so wonderful mom created this masterpiece:

Jewelia thought it was the best!

She had a great birthday party with lots of presents.

Lots of her family came to help eat the cake.

Jewelia was happy when she received a curling wand as one of her presents.  

We tried it out to give her some gorgeous curls!

Then she opened her last present, 

a new scooter so she could ride it to school!

We can't believe that Jewelia is really 7 years old!  She will be going into 3rd grade this coming fall!  

Musical Performances Galore!

 Micah was released from the hospital on a Thursday night, and the very next day we were getting ready for some big musical performances.  

Caleb was asked to play a concerto with a real live orchestra at the University of Utah!

He performed along with 7 other kids ranging from ages 10-17, so he was the youngest at age 9.  He did awesome!  If you'd like to see his performance you can check it out on his blog here.

Then, the very next day, Caleb and Jewelia traveled to Park City, Utah to compete in a music competition where Caleb won 1st place Concerto, 2nd Place Piano Solo, and 2nd Place Musical Composition where he wrote a song for piano and violin and had Jewelia come play her violin with him.

They were so cute!

You can read more in details and see their songs on Caleb's piano blog and Jewelia's fiddle blog.

Micah started his first week back at school since being sick, and that very week he had a Jazz Band Concert and a choir concert.  He may have still been a little weak, but he did awesome.  His poor little fingers being poked and prodded so often now could still play a mean jazz guitar. 

And that boy is such an awesome singer!

He has such fun in choir! 

To hear some of his performances from his concerts, check out his jazz band performance on his blog here, or his choir performance here. 

Jewelia wanted in on some of the action, so she performed at a little fiddle fair down the street at a music store.  

You can hear her play her piece on her fiddle blog here.

Anyway, tons of fun for our musical family!  

Life Goes On In The Meanwhile

Among all the stress and hardship of Micah developing Type 1 Diabetes and coming home from the hospital to figure things out, life did go on.  

You wouldn't be able to tell from our happy joyful pictures that anything was wrong at all.

Micah was very thin---he was only around 60 pounds, but he hid it well behind his Easter suit coat.

We worried about Easter and how events would go especially now that we had a diabetic in the family.  We had to keep remembering that Type 1 Diabetes did not mean you couldn't have sugar.  You just had to cover it with insulin.  But with all the candy and treats.....we worried we wouldn't know how much to give him.  The Easter Bunny was very nice though and cut out all the carb information of all the candy and put it in Micah's basket.  How thoughtful.

We did our traditional coloring of eggs/giant strawberry shortcake party the night before Easter.

Every year we dye eggs, and then when we're done we have hand crafted strawberry shortcakes.

Of course mine was as tall and as beautifully delicious as ever:

I don't know how this tradition came to be.  I guess it just seemed to be right around Easter time every year that strawberries are on sale and those little shortcakes as well.  

The kids just love it.  We do ice cream, whipped cream, and chocolate sauce as well.

Micah doesn't like strawberries, so he just does a chocolate sauce-ice cream-whipped cream shortcake. 

I don't think I've ever been fast enough to get a picture of his creation.  He always swallows his just about whole.  I checked last years pictures as well----he was licking the plate then I think.

The kids always have fun decorating their eggs.  

This year we did alien/spaceship eggs.

They even glowed in the dark if we turned the lights off.

Caleb even managed to not break any of his this year.

Yep, life had a little hiccup, and although some things would never be the same, we could still go back to normal life once again.  

Micah the Brave

It's been a long while since I have posted to this blog.  March 5th was our wedding anniversary, but shortly afterward, March 13th to be exact, we were faced with a very difficult new challenge in our lives.  Micah was diagnosed with Type 1 Juvenile Diabetes.

Micah had shown some different signs and symptoms of Diabetes for several months, but we hadn't picked up on them.  He was drinking a lot at night, but then going the bathroom a lot at night (of course who wouldn't if they were drinking so much at night I thought).  His hands had become so extremely dry that we thought they were chemically burned by the school health class that had done some germ experiment.  He had gotten extremely skinny, but I thought maybe he was just going through a growth spurt.  I kept trying to shove more food in him all the time.  He was often not feeling well right after school or after dance class, but then I'd give him something to eat and he'd be fine a half hour later.  

All these symptoms I missed.  

Honestly I did google the bathroom trips and dry hands a couple of times and all I got was bladder and urinary tract infections.  I thought to start him on a cranberry juice regimen and see how that went as his well child check up was only a week away.

But then he got sick.  I thought he just had strep.  He had a really high fever and his throat hurt.  Had to be strep.  So I took him to the doctor and had them do a strep test.  But, while he was there I mentioned the bathroom thing and showed them his hands.  A few tests later the pediatrician was all of the sudden telling me about "ketones" and sugar in his urine and how we needed to go right to the hospital emergency room and how he suspected Juvenile Diabetes in which I knew nothing about.  

There they did blood tests and confirmed that he had this thing called Juvenile Diabetes or Type 1 Diabetes and that he would have to be admitted to the hospital for 3 days!  

Was it somehow my fault for not catching him eat that whole bowl of tootsie rolls we had brought home from a birthday party?  How could this have happened, and what did it all mean?

They admitted our cute Micah boy to the hospital and made him wear a mask or the people who came in all had masks because they didn't know for sure that he didn't have strep or flu (although the pediatrician had already done the test and it was negative, I guess they were waiting for a more extensive test).  

This was a hard trip to go through.  While many of our friends and family didn't understand and thought that this was no big deal, this was a big deal.  This wasn't something that was going to go away or that could be cured by pills.  This was the insulin dependent diabetes and Micah was going to have to have insulin injections 4 times a day and monitor his blood sugar for the rest of his life.  At the hospital we could see how much weight he had actually lost.  While he always hid it wearing this big winter coat all day, Micah only weighed around 60 pounds as a 12 year old boy.  

The hospital stay was rough.  There was so much to learn and so much to remember.  Micah was so brave though.  I don't know anyone else who could have handled this better than he.  Here he was having to learn how to poke himself and bleed several times a day, but also how to inject himself with needles each day before he ate.  So much for a 12 year old to handle, but Micah truly has been so inspiring.  

We basically lived at the hospital for 3 days.  Macey came and visited most of the daytime,  

and Daddy and Caleb and Jewelia came in the afternoons.  

Troy would sleep over at nights while I managed the kids at home for bed and got the older ones off to school in the morning, then I would head back up to the hospital with Macey until the evening when we would swap again.  

I've been waiting to post this blog for some time now, because I've been working on another blog that shares our experiences with Juvenile Diabetes.  When Micah was first diagnosed we were at such a loss of information and so many others didn't understand as well.  I felt like it would help us share our experiences if not also help others and educate some about Type 1 Diabetes if we started a separate blog.  Well, you know me, the Blog Queen.  We have an Asperger Blog, a Tourette's Blog, and now a Diabetes Blog.  If you would like to know more details about what Micah has to go through or would like to be better educated, you can check it out at www.ourlifewithdiabetes.blogspot.com.

I can't tell you how proud we our of our Micah and we know although there is not a cure right now for T1 Diabetes, we will help him every step of the way and we know he can still live a happy life as we figure out how to manage his diabetes.  

Update!!!  We have all decided to join the Walk to Cure Diabetes this summer!  If you would like to donate to our cause, please click on the link here.

Happy Anniversary 13 Years!

Somewhere a bit ago, we celebrated our 13 year anniversary.  

Is that the unlucky year? 

13?

Of course I don't think we went anywhere or did anything.  Really, if I remember we went to Walmart to go shopping.  Pretty exciting.  Yep. (I remember last year we went to Best Buy.  Oooh, exciting.)  

Well, Troy took the afternoon off of work and we walked up to the school to get the kids.  

Of course I got us all dressed up fancy the day before for church so I could take some nice pictures.

I always find it hilarious the shots I get when I thought I was setting the timer and yet it went off.  

Then  you get the true expressions of people's faces before they are forced to say cheese 5 million times.  

I love this of Troy!

I got some stylin' ones too:

 Can I tell you I love the D.I.?

OK, so, yes, we may be all trashy because I like to find great deals at the D.I. of nice clothes we can wear without spending a fortune, but so what!?  

Sure, I could go spend hundreds of dollars on a new dress or goodness, we'd have to save up for a while to get Troy a suit, but then there we are at the D.I. and there are all sorts of hardly used fancy clothes.  

I imagine that people didn't like to wear their suit or they got too fat.  

Anyway, we found suit coats for all the boys including Troy and a fancy dress for me, and probably all for under $25.  Yep.  Love it.  

So, of course I love to torture my family by taking lots of pictures when we actually look good.  

(You know, usually we look pretty lousy!)

So, 13 years.  Goodness.  That's a long time, although at the same time it doesn't seem so long.  

We're still together and happy.  Here's to the next 13 years!

Maybe by then we'll do something more than go to Walmart.