Saturday, May 26

Dynamic duo does dentist



The most amazing things happen with our dentist.

We have been seeing her for exactly five years.... but this was the best visit.

Other than Liam having a cavity on one of his back molar crevices....

Tommy actually did a "high five and knuckles" to our hygentist when she had on surgical gloves.  Oh yeah.  For all those out there with kids that have experienced WAY too many medical appointments and fear surgical gloves like wasps.... she made it fun and relaxed and his warm little eyes wanted to high five her so bad he just up and did it. 

I explained how important that moment was to her.

She smiled and calmly said "I know".  And she does.  See she is with kids with special needs at our dental office.

In a nice big, full of light, fairly sound proof room.  Yep.  For the last eight or so visits (every six months since the twins were six months) this hygentist has helped us.  Make normal more normal for Tommy now that we have more "normal" types of medical visits.  What a gem she is.  With alot of assistance we actually got Tommy to sit in the dental chair for the first time too!  Don't ask how we usually do his dental exam, you don't want to know, ha ha. 

And our dentist is amazing too.  Her niece has Down syndrome on the other side of the nation, so Tommy's huge smile reminds her of someone she loves very much and doesn't see as often. 

Such a great dental visit. 

Two fun days at the Whatcom Museum


I really enjoyed our first day at theWhatcom Museum with just my two teens and scouting out the art plus the children's area.

I have a 'thing' about not taking Tommy anywhere that I haven't been first. 

Have you seen how fast he moves? 

So I was so excited to see that the Children's museum has only two exits, and one of them has an alarm on it (emergency exit).  Ha ha.

So the second day, Nate and the twins and I expolored the children's part to the museum.  Oh. my. What fun!

The pictures are a little blurry because I haven't perfected the indoor setting on my mobile fun.

Life is good.

Monday, May 14

Flower pot recycling


Recycling flower pots!

I started with a multipurpose sealer and painted the entire surface of the flower pot.  After washing them and convincing the earwigs and bugs to vacate.

Then I used a acrylic paint, because that's what my junk drawer had... a partially filled bottle of "Metallic Christmas Green".  And since Liam was helping me, I thought that was perfect.... it's his favorite color so we went BIG.  Big GREEN.


I only painted the outside of the container, after all .... they are hanging.  And if you can see the inside of the containers while they are hanging... well... you probably can't fit in my house :)



The last step might not be necessary but we sprayd "Gloss Spray varnish" because I thought they would look nice shiny.  Heck, everything looks better with spray high gloss shiny. 

Enjoy the sunshine!  And if you can recycle something.... use metallic Christmas green, ha ha

Monday, May 7

And the last is..... Liam

Liam is almost five and a half years old now.  He remains an amazingly sweet, gentle, and kind boy.

He is just finishing his Pre-K program at early intervention preschool.  His team of teachers is so wonderful and the weekly speech instruction there is helping him.
He goes to Connections Speech and Language every other week and has lots of fun playing games with his SLP there.

He really enjoyed his Awana program this year it was every Wednesday.  And children's church on the weekend.

He LOVES being outdoors and especially riding for miles on his bike.  With us of course, but he loves his bike!


He is getting taller this year and really likes wearing baseball hats.  He loves when the older kids are with us, just this past weekend with all six of us home he said, "I want it to be like this forever!".  Very sweet.

Liam and Tommy are both playing TOPS soccer, here is Liam (farthest right) waiting for some action with the big soccer ball.


Liam really enjoys heading to our nearby beach.  Some weeks we are there at least one day a week and he often wants more than that!


Liam loves a 'ride' on daddy's shoulders down to our nearby lake.  Which is great after dinner exercise for us.  Liam continues to be our littlest guy, but his heart is huge and is such a sweet kid.

Wednesday, May 2

Tommy's update

I haven't done so well with getting all four kids updates out in four days, but so goes planning! 

Tommy is almost 5 1/2 years old, he is LOVING his third year of early intervention preschool and is just the most animated person in our family.

He plays TOPS soccer on Wednesday evenings at our local sportsplex and although the task of kicking the ball is fairly lost on him, he enjoys scurrying around smiling and checking out his friends, the astro turf and giggling.

Although Tommy is non verbal and has limited sign language, he gets his point across and is up to three sign combinations.  In addition to his SLP time at preschool, he goes once every other week to a local Speech center to learn more.

Tommy had two procedures done this year which is far less than previous years.  The procedures were both to check his ears.  One was to verify that he didn't need ear tubes and the second procedure was a sedated BAER hearing test which he passed with flying colors.

During the procedures, our local pediatrician had asked Seattle Children's to draw Tommy's annual bloodwork and again this year his platelet count has fallen.  Since he has Down syndrome and Polysaccaride Antibody Deficiency syndrome, we are concerned he has Wiskott-Aldrich syndrome or something else (which I really can't bring myself to even say until our pediatrician mentions it more than she has already, trust me, the L word is on her radar).  So in 4 months we are having a complete bloodwork done again and assure that the L word isn't happening and make sure those platelets that he has are still large and haven't shrunk like Wiskott-Aldrich.  I'm not sure what the comorbidity with Hirschsprung's disease is with all this immunity issues, but there you have our little medical miracle in a paragraph!

We simply LOVE loving Tommy and he is just such a precious kid to us, we are so lucky!  Just like all of our kids. 

Tommy Adventures