Can you believe it's been a year?!?!

Sydney is 1!!  Can you believe it??  I can't believe it's already been a year since my sweet little baby girl was born.  She's such a joy to be with and a little stinker all at the same time.  It's so fun to watch her grow up and learn.  I can't imagine life without her and I'm so glad that I get to be a part of her life everyday.

We had a birthday party for her on her birthday (Sunday the 22nd).  We had a few of our closest friends over just to keep it simple.  I decided to go with an Abby Cadabby theme.  If you don't know, Abby Cadabby is one of the characters from Sesame Street.  She's a cute little fairy that carries around a magic wand and turns things into pumpkins.  When Sydney was really little, we went to a birthday party where one of the moms gave me a book that had Sesame Street characters in it.  We carried it around everywhere because every time Sydney would see Abby in the book she would smile.  It was my only way to get her calm when she was having a melt down.  So, ever since then, she's had a thing for Abby Cadabby.  She always smiles and gives her Abby doll a hug (and says "aww" for extra emphasis).  :)

Sydney was so excited to see all the Abby stuff when I started putting her party things out.  I got her a giant Abby balloon and she absolutely loves it.  She'll point at it and smile.  She'll just stare at her.  I'm not sure what it is about Abby, but she's got a magical touch! (No pun intended.)  Ha ha!!

Once again my amazing friend Megan stepped up and offered to take pictures for me.  I'm so glad she was there and am so thankful for such a thoughtful and amazing friend.  I was able to enjoy my daughter's birthday because of her.  Thank you so much Megan!!!  Here are some of her wonderful pictures:

Sydney's very own cake to eat!  More on that further down the page... :)

Strawberry birthday cake with vanilla icing...Delish!

Ham, cheese, and cucumber sandwiches

Fairy fruit wands

The amazingly huge Abby balloon that Sydney loves!

Cute little birthday girl

Sydney and Beth (Sydney's boyfriend's mom) 

Landon building towers to knock down with Aaron.  Poor Aaron.  He was so patient with Landon.

Ms. Heidi and Sydney

Cute little Hunter (Ms. Heidi's little man)

Sydney playing with Mason (her boyfriend) :)

Mason and his mommy, Beth

"Mason, come here, I have to tell you a secret!"

Pointing out Abby on her birthday cake

Cute little Roslyn...this girl likes her fruit!

Opening the present that brother got Sydney.  Landon was very excited to give it to her...cause he wanted to play with it.  He was asking all morning about it. 

Hunter wanted to give Sydney a hug during present time. :)

Giving Abby a squeeze

We're all a little shocked by how fun this present is. :)

Cute Landon bug

Our updated family picture...Landon didn't want to take one.  So we tried again...

Yeah, nevermind.  Sydney was wiggling and grabbing Landon, Landon was trying to get her off of him and me and Braydon are laughing to keep from crying.  Better luck next time I guess.

First glimpse of the cake...

She was mesmerized by the flame.  She didn't move the whole time we sang happy birthday to her.

Starting her off with some icing...

And off she goes!!

Hmmm...I think I need some ice cream

"Brother, do you want some?"

"This partying thing is exhausting!"

We had so much fun at the party and were so happy that people came to help us celebrate one year with our little Sydney bug!  

Playing with our new toys and having some fun!

I've taken a few pictures of the kids playing with their new toys and just hanging out at the house.  Let the cuteness ensue... :)

Sydney and Daddy at breakfast

Landon eating his breakfast

"Syd, what are you doing?"

Cute little Landon's real smile

You can faintly see them in the picture (bummer), but Landon has been working on cutting with scissors.  We made paper snowflakes and hung them in the window.  Of course, Landon wanted numbers on his.

Sydney loves Drake (our cat).  Drake isn't so sure about her.  When we say kitty cat to Sydney, we swear she says something similar back.

Landon's other awesome gift...his VReader.  This thing is awesome!  It has games and reads along with them and even has a dictionary where they explain what a word means with a video.  Landon was glued the second he opened it.

Sydney sitting in the middle of Landon's race track

Playing the piano while hanging out in the walker.  I know...walkers aren't very good for kids to have (since they slow down the walking process), but it's the only time I get to make dinner where she isn't getting into her brother's stuff or into the cat food.  It's my saving grace sometimes and I'm going to take advantage of it while I can. :)

Landon wears his new Angry Bird backpack all over the house now.  It doesn't even have to have anything in it. :)

Sydney found her reflection in the oven. :)

Sydney's new doll house.  She plays with it, but not as much as Landon.  He loves how the door opens and closes and the doorbell rings.  Sometimes I hear him ring the doorbell on it and say "Who's here?!" :)

Cute little Sydney

Cute little Sydney stealing Daddy's glasses. :)

"Who's here?  Landon's here!" 

Landon let me put his cap on his trach the other day for the first time.  We told him what it was and he resisted at first.  I asked him if we could put it on and count to one hundred (thinking he would say no, since that's all he said any other time) and he said "yes".  So, on it went.  And I counted.  To 100.  Slowly.  He helped me count and would tell me to keep going when I would stop.  He kept the cap on for a good 15-20 minutes while I made dinner.  It went well.  I didn't even here him wheezing or anything.  It was wonderful!!  I'm hoping that we can ease him into it and try putting it on him every so often and hopefully get him to where he's wearing it all day long.  Cross your fingers for us!

Christmas in Pictures

Our Christmas was really special this year.  Not only because it was Sydney's first Christmas, but because Landon actually understood about Santa and was excited about it.  He enjoyed opening presents while Sydney just wanted to climb all over them.  She really didn't know what was going on, just that new toys showed up one day. :)

Here's our Christmas in pictures:

Sydney playing with the Christmas train that goes around our tree

Our night with Santa.  Landon is smiling...not crying. :)

Sydney and her present from Santa

Landon and his car/truck from Santa

Our treats we made...lots of gingerbread men.  We had an army. :)

The gingerbread house that Landon made at school.  Notice the green M&M "door".

Sydney with her first present.  She loved the bows.

One of Landon's top presents from Grandpa Harris...What could be better than Blue?

All of Landon's presents from Santa.  He didn't wrap anything to make it easier for Mom and Dad...he's a very smart man. :)

All of Sydney's loot from Santa

Christmas Morning.  Landon is excited to open presents!

Sydney and Abby Cadabby are ready too!

Landon seeing the things Santa brought him for the first time.

He loves this mailbox.  It came with cute little wooden letters with wooden stamps that you velcro on.  Super cute.

Daddy and Sydney playing with her toys

Sydney playing with her house and pointing to brother's stuff

Stocking time!

Hmmm...should I watch Team Umizoomi or Blue's Clues?

Sydney going after Landon's stuff again...

Landon loves his blue Angry Bird :)

Sydney going after Landon's letters and numbers....again.

But she sure is cute. :)

We were busy this year, but it was definitely worth every crazy moment.  The kids were so happy with what they got and we had so much fun with them this year.  

I hope your holidays were just as special and magical as ours. :)

Landon's sleep study

The awesome horrible story of Landon's sleep study, told by Braydon:

So the day of Landon's sleep study started bright and early.  We had a genius plan to wear Landon out all day long and cut his nap extra short.  This way, by the time we hit the hospital at 7pm Landon would be so tired he would be ready to fall asleep instantly! Such a smart plan I know....if only it worked that way.

We head into Children's hospital at 630 and we really didn't have any idea where to go.  The only thing we had  received was a letter that stated "Your sleep study is scheduled to begin at 7 and if you are late, we will ask you to reschedule."  So, we went to the customer service area and told them we had arrived for our sleep study.  The lady started to check us in and low and behold, we just so happened to end up at the right place.  Buuuuttt something started to go wrong.   

Firstly, the lady behind the counter pushed some paperwork my way for me to sign.  I asked the lady what this paperwork was for and she told me it was to admit Landon into the hospital.  Dawn and I really didn't understand why they were going to admit Landon into the hospital for a sleep study but *shrug* these people are the professionals.  Maybe this was commonplace for a sleep study, we didn't really have any experience with this. (See the semi-useless letter as mentioned above)

So the lady calls upstairs and lets us know that our room was on the 5th floor and proceeds to escort us up to our room.  We gather up all our stuff and trek to the elevators with the two little ones in tow and make our way up to Landon's room.  Upon arrival, Landon's nurses came right in and started to take his vitals and doing all the normal nurse stuff.  Around about this time, Dawn asked the nurse for some details about the sleep study.  The nurse seemed pretty confused and said she didn't know anything about a sleep study.  Odd....especially seeing as that's why we're at the hospital.  So we start to ask some questions as to why they think we are at the hospital.  According to the nurse, we were admitted to the hospital for observation.  Observation? Observation of what?  The nurse had no idea either and nothing was in our file.

We then spelled out to the nurse that we were there for a sleep study and not for some oddball observation. So the nurse called down to the customer desk, where we checked in, and began to explain the issue.  Mind you, its about 815 now and Landon is beyond tired.  Remember that awesome plan of burning him out early? It was beginning to backfire, we needed to get this show on the road.  So then we get told by the nurse that she is going to take us back downstairs to the check-in desk and find out what is going on.  We then grab all of our stuff, our two kids, and trek back down to the first floor to find out where we are supposed to be.

Finally, someone from the sleep study area finds us and has apparently been looking for us.  They explain to the front desk lady that we are supposed to be in a sleep study and not in a room.  There was apparently some confusion about being admitted into the hospital because Landon was also supposed to have a swallow study in the morning.  So inquisitively we asked what time the swallow study in the morning was....they had no idea and he currently wasn't schedule for a time but they would try to fit him in.  So *facepalm* the plan at this time was to go do the sleep study and after it was over, we would go back up to our room on the 5th floor and wait for whenever someone could figure out when our swallow study was and then do that.  This was an awful plan but we had to get moving as Landon was really really tired.

So FINALLY at about 915 we make it into the sleep study room.  This room was awful.  Apparently this was a newly renovated area and there room contained zero comforts and didn't even have a single picture on the wall.  Just a bland, sterile, non-kid friendly (ironic in a children's hospital) room.  The nurse came in and proceeded to list a myriad of rules.  "Don't open the door a lot, don't walk around, don't snore(?!)"  the rules went on and on.  Anyways, we seize the moment and quickly put Landon in his pj's and try to get him ready for bed.

Around about this time he has become so tired and so cranky from the multiple sets of nurses that have been messing with him already that he has descended into madness. If a nurse even came into the room he would start crying. *sigh* The nurses needed to put a bunch of probes on his chest and on his head so we did our best to make it fun for him and laugh about it and he kinda perked up a little bit.  The nurses told me they had another item they had to put on his face.  I recommended they waited till he was asleep as he generally sleeps like a rock. Dawn had to head home about this time to put Sydney to bed so she kisses Landon goodnight and we put the cap on Landon's trach (YAY!) and I then cuddled up and started reading some books to get him to fall asleep.  He was so tired, the poor guy fell asleep turning the page of the book.  JACKPOT! ...or so it seemed.

After an hour or so, the nurses just kept coming in and out and just touching Landon and messing with oddball random items.  I really didn't think anything of it, Landon slept like a stone and I would have to put him in a rollercoaster to even attempt to wake him up.  That is untill the nurses discovered Landon's "I'm waking up right now" trigger.  Apparently the items (yes more than one) that needed to be hooked to Landon's face was a sticker that goes on his upper lip and another oxygen tube that goes into his nostrils.  I would imagine that this would be extremely uncomfortable for an adult that understood what was going on, let alone a child that doesn't have any understanding of whats happening.

The moment the stickers and what-nots touch Landon's face, he immediately wakes up with level 10 crazy and proceeds to rip everything off his face.  The poor guy got really upset and I helped to cuddle him back to sleep.  I let the nurses know to let him fall asleep again and give it another try to connect the probes back onto his face.....I had my doubts though.

So an hour or so goes by of Landon sleeping (with the trach capped and none of this non-sense connected to his face mind you) and the nurses attempt to put the sticker and oxygen tube under Landon's nose again.  This was a bad choice.  He woke up instantly and upon seeing a nurse messing with him, began to initiate a hospital equipment destroying alligator barrel roll.  He managed to completed about 4 rolls before he had removed just about every single probe that he had on his body.  I don't think the nurses were very happy but they expressed to me that those probes weren't really necessary.  *deep breath* It was now about midnight and my politeness was beginning to give way to bitter honesty.  I failed to understand why we went through all the trouble to connect these items in the first place but *sigh* I digress.  The nurses said the other probes weren't that important but its mandatory that they get the probe under his lip connected.  So what did they do?  They taught me how to put it on and wished me luck.....wonderful.  

At this point I had decided that I was going to give this my best effort.  So I cuddled Landon to calm him down and I waited till his breath started to get really deep (oh yea, the trach is STILL capped but now with no probes or anything connected...I'm assuming he doesn't need the trach *sigh*) and then I slowly reached over to the probe and lightly touched it to his face......BIG MISTAKE!  Landon really got upset and he told me "no more dada."  So at that point, I was done, he was done.  I let the nurse know the test was over and since they didn't have the equipment in the room, Landon's humidity machine, that we were going to leave and I wished her a good night.  She told me she wasn't sure if I was admitted into the hospital or not due to my room being held on the 5th floor.  I told her that when she figures it out to give me a call at my house.  I grabbed all of Landon's things and carried Landon back to the car.  It was about 1245.  I called Dawn and let her know a brief synopsis of what had happened and that we were on our way home.

Once we got home little Landon went right to bed and was so happy to be back in his room with Blue, his angry bird,  and all his books.  I told Dawn about our adventures and that the morning may be extremely interesting.  We may or may not have a swallow study, we may or may not be admitted into the hospital, and we may or may not be expected to be on the 5th floor.  After all the mess of the evening, we really didn't care.

After a few weeks I got a call from Dr. Quinlan letting me know that from the information they were able to gather from the sleep study, that things actually looked extremely promising.  I was elated as I thought the whole thing was a wash.  So now we are going to start capping Landon's trach and slowly moving him towards entire days where his trach is covered up.  In March we are going to meet with the doctor again to line up the long term plans for Landon and see if its the right time to remove his trach.  Very exciting news!

Oh...and we never did hear back from the hospital.  I'm guessing they figured it out *shrug*