Little bit of Luck!

Ok so I have to say we are typically not the people you would consider having "good luck" as far as winning things goes. So we where thrilled on Saturday when it seemed our luck had changed!


This past Saturday Caleb and Jason(hubby) went to the local MS walk with my mother-in-law who has MS we do this yearly and its for a great cause, she amazes me everyday with her strengths. Unfortunately Cami and I didnt get to attend this year since she has an ear infection and sinus infection and it was rainy that morning. So Jason sends me pics throughout the walk of different things they are doing and the last one I get is the following.

At the walk they are doing a raffle for Belks shopping sprees of $100 well they get to the last one and call out Calebs number and he has won a $500 shopping spree to Belks. Now imagine this, the ticket that he had was given to him by 2 women that said they couldnt stay and handed him some tickets one of which was the winner. So later that evening we made it to Belks and did our shopping which took 3 hours. You know $500 doesnt seem like much until you get there and learn you have to spend it all at once, we where running out of things to buy that we like. This store is huge but prices we learn are big, I often found myself not wanting to get some things because of the cost even though we werent paying for it. Weird I know but when I know I can get that same pair of shorts for $7.00 at Carters or Childrens Place I couldnt see myself paying $20.00+ for them. I got the kids some really great things though and Jason got him some much needed clothes I only bought 3 items. Jason told me after we where done that "This is my dream come true a shopping spree and I only bought 3 things". But honestly I didnt mind they needed stuff way more than I.

So afterwards we stopped over at our Avenue(shopping center) and bought the kids a cookie and a drink for being so patient. 3 hours is alot to ask of a kid in 1 store, Caleb was so over done but Cami did really well, she wanted to go up and down the escelators and heaven forbid we walk pass them and not take her.



Well the day continues and we decide to try out the lottery since its been a good day so far. So we stop at the gas station and buy 5 powerball picks. 1 I choose the numbers, 1 Caleb chose the numbers, 1 Jason did, 1 I did of the kids B-days and one Quick pick. Well have you know when we got home and checked the numbers Jasons pick had won. He got 4 out of 5 numbers so he had won $100 but because it was the x5 he won $500.00. We couldnt believe it I mean what are the odds to win 2 500's in 1 day. What made him really squirm was that he was 1 number off from the million dollar win, man that would have been nice! But what we got was plenty enough for me!

Must have been our lucky day probably want happen again for another 7 years....LOL!

Newest on Cami

Ok well here is my update on Cami sorry its long overdue, its been a crazy week.
We've celebrated her 1 year seizure free, had her 1st meeting with her OT, started her full time at school, TCAP testing with Caleb all last week I was a proctor so I was there everyday and then we managed to squeeze in another wonderful camping memory in our book this past weekend. What a way to end the busy week!!!!!

So I'll start with her party, it was the sweetest memory for her. I took her a cake and a huge flower balloon up to her school to let her friends celebrate with us. I got some amazing pics(thanks Mrs. Mandy) and they had also sang a song for Cameran called Happy Seizure Free Day Cami sang in the Happy Birthday tune! It was the sweetest! So here are those photos:

Me and Cami


Some hand over hand feeding


Trying to figure it out


There you go Cami....Look what she can do


I love this picture:


Yummy


Her class friends


I love my balloon...she kept rubbing it!


Some smiles for my little sunshine

Thanks for celebrating the day with us!



We had a meeting with her OT and PT where we discussed where Cameran is at and go over their Evaluations. Physical Therapy part went really well basically she is doing well far as her movement that she doesn't need it anymore. She is where she needs to be, super news!!!!!
Now for her OT report: She transitions well for her time with the OT. It goes on to say Cameran was able to attend to most tasks for about 15 to 30 SECONDS. She became easily frustrated when she could not complete a task that was given to her. If she couldn't attempt the task she seeked help from the evaluator and if she didn't assist Cami would get mad and start throwing the objects. She was able to follow simple one handed verbal directions with modeling. Cameran is a very bright 3 yr old and she used her eyes and body language to communicate with the evaluator. She was very consistent with what she wanted to convey and overall, she was able to cooperate with OT in order to get an adequate evaluation.

Neuromuscular and Gross Motor observation:
Camerans muscle tone was observed to be low, however within functional limits. Although not formally assessed, she has full range of motion in both upper extremities. Cameran has a lack of joint stability and she displays scapula winging. However, she is able to compensate for her instability.


Fine Motor Skills:
Cameran picked up small objects using a raking grasp and an immature pincer grasp pattern. She was not able to twist off the cap during the fine motor assessment. However she was able to pull off the top and place objects inside the bottle using an immature pincer grasp. She had difficulty demonstrating isolated finger movements. When stacking 1 inch blocks Cami stacked one block on top of the other with her right hand. She did not utilize a controlled release instead she demonstrated increased pressure with complete extension of her elbow as if she were slamming the blocks into place. Cami was able to place one shape into the correct puzzle slot using a trial error method. However she was not able to place any pegs into the peg holes utilizing the same method. She did not cross mid line when stacking blocks or when attempting the puzzle.

Pencil and Paper skills:
Cami colors with her right hand using a palmar grasp pattern. She was not able to to imitate horizontal strokes, but she does scribble. She displays weak muscle development in her hands.

Sensory Processing Tactile: Cameran is often sensory seeking needing to chew and place objects in her mouth. She does not want to touch certain consistencies and textures. She does prefer no clothing and no shoes.

Vestibular: Cameran seeks movement. She likes to run and about freely.

Hearing: Cameran appears to like noise and she makes squealing sounds to express her emotions.

According to the PDMS-2, Cameran's Visual Motor Subtest scores fall within the very poor performance range. This score translates to the age equivalent of a 2 year old. Cameran is often sensory seeking and appears to be tactile defensive.

She will have OT weekly and started school full time this week, so far she has been very clingy to me not wanting to go but once I leave they say she does pretty good. I got a call yesterday from her teacher requesting another pair of shoes because during potty time she stuck her foot into the potty with her new pair of brown leather sandals..... Ackkkkk! Today I took her and then she called me saying Cami was running temp so she is at home but I've not seen a temp yet but she does have a runny nose.



She has been playing with glue, markers, paint, beans and she loves it all. I'm working on colors with her here at home and having her point out pics of aniamls....shes doing it somewhat and she knows the sign for dog....she pats her right leg its the cutest!
Around here at home I've noticed a few changes in her. Shes become more interested in T.V. mainly cartoons that sing. Like Spongebob she just loves to watch the song they sing when its coming on and then shes done but I love how she is slowing down to pay attention. Outside she started a couple new things this week. She has figured out how to climb up the ladder on the play set all by herself(we are in trouble) and she also figured out how to swing herself on the big kid swing. She lays on her belly the runs forward then lifts her feet up and swings back and forth. I'll have to get some pics of her showing off her new talents.

Her balance has greatly improved, she can walk up stairs foot over foot motion holding onto the rail, she can kick a ball with out losing her balance and she can run like the wind and tackles her brother to the ground. She still has the no sense of fear in her in which the PT mentioned but in time I imagine that too will just be a thing of the past! Shes doing great!

Goofy boy

Oh Caleb hes at such an intresting age. Exploring, learning how to read and just all around trying to understand the world! Some recent conversations of ours makes me love being a mom all that more!



Where is In the Middle of Nowhere? This is something I hear him talk about all the time actually its every other day that I hear these conversations.

Caleb says: Momma one day I would like to go to the middle of no where to see what it looks like! What do you recon is out there in the middle of no where?
Me: There are probably lots of things like trees, grass and sometimes houses.
Caleb: well how can people live out in the middle of nowhere, how would they get food?
Me: They would have to drive to a store.
Caleb: What if in Tennessee there were no stores or restraunts then what would we do?
Me: Then maybe no one would want to live in Tennessee, or maybe we would have to grow a garden and hunt our own food to live.
Caleb: Well I think I would just like to go see that sometime.

Next day in the car on the way home from school he says will this road take you to the middle of nowhere? If you had a tornado out there in the middle of nowhere would it tear anything up?
Me: yes there are still trees out there
Caleb: well what if there wasnt anything?

I'm telling you the questions just go on and on.

Yesterdays car conversation was about Butterflys. This is what they are learning about this week along with other insects and plants.
He asked me momma do butterflys make butter?
Me: I am about to die laughing trying to explain that no butterflys dont make butter.
Caleb: But it says butter then fly
Me: I'm not sure why they call it a butterfly but thats not where butter comes from.
Caleb: well my backpack goes on my back and see the 1st word says back and thats what it does and its a pack like what you put your stuff in.
Me: I'm stuck I didnt no what to say so I changed the subject!
Where do they come up with this stuff?
Kids say the darndest things!!!! But man do I adore these conversations!

Heres a few pics of him from our camping trip this weekend just being a silly ol boy!





He must get it from his daddy....Teehee.....


I'm so gonna pay for that one...LOL!

Time to Celebrate!

On April 15th marks 1 year since Camerans had a seizure! We are so thrilled, as this is a huge milestone for Cami!!!!!!! She has come so far and has made lots of progress this past year. Just watching her play with her brother seems different she has so much light in her eyes. My goal for her last year was for her to interact with us and I'm thrilled to say she has achieved that goal. She may not be able to talk to us but she has shown a communication to us in her very own way. Just her showing interest in what we are doing is huge. I'm so proud of my baby girl!!!!




I will be bringing a cake to her school tomorrow so they can help us celebrate this mark in her life. She is doing so well in pre-school and is making progress there as well, she starts full time next week so I cant wait to see what she shows us next. We have such high hopes for our baby girl and just having her beat those nasty seizures so early was a miracle.

We love you Cami!!!

Glad....

To have that Sleep Study behind us now we just wait for the results.



We went in Monday evening to The Vanderbilt Marriott Hotel, very very nice room. Nothing like I was expecting, big room double beds. Some reason I was thinking hospital room with a roll out cot for me to sleep on. We where told that only one parent was aloud to stay and no co sleeping with the child during the study. Turned out to all be the opposite. My hubby got to stay and they asked me to sleep with Cami to keep her from getting wrapped up in all the cords.

We arrived at 7:30pm they came in at 8:00 asked about her bed routines and of her normal bed time which I told them is typically between 9-9:30. SO he came in at 9:45 she had just fell asleep he asked how long she had been asleep I said a few minutes so he said he would come back in 30-45 minutes to let her get into a deep sleep before hooking her up. He told me I probably wouldn't get much sleep that night and he was right I got little to no sleep.



I was already so nervous because now I am in full view of the camera and a speaker hooked to her bed hearing every drop of sound. Anyhow he made it in to hook her up around 10:15 who knew it would take over an hour of hook-up it was very similar to an EEG for those that have been through that torture and mess. They put about 20 electrodes around her head, face, chin and chest. They then put too straps around her chest watching her breathing. She started to wake during that part so he stopped for a minute then moved down to attempt the leg electrodes which she did not like. She started flipping and flopping in her sleep and immediately started getting tangled so he said it wasn't worth the risk so he took them off. Since she woke up a little bit and then managed to pull a few of those wires out of her hair he said he would come back when she was back asleep again. That was another 30 minutes now its after midnight and I'm exhausted and thinking how much worse it will be if I drift off to sleep because I will be snoring up a storm. How embarrassing, all I could think was them coming in to check on who was the snorer...LOL!

Anyhow he came back in and fixed the head and chest electrodes she pulled out then wrapped them all in a long braid. I was shocked he didn't wrap her head in the mummy fold I think it wold have held better. He also put the pulse thing on her toe and that was the piece that kept falling off all night long. Weird having a strange man coming and lifting the covers to fix that thing every time she kicked it off which was like every 20 minutes. She did lots of tossing and turning and crying out in her sleep so he asked that I sleep with her to keep her from getting tangled in that braid. She managed to pull out some of the electrodes in her hair so he would come in and re-glue those back on......It was a loooong night and an early morning. He came in at 5:45 and started taking the things off of her of course she woke up screaming mad because she is tired and is awaken by tugging of her hair. I immediately start thinking of Dawsons dad saying that out of all the technology out there, there has to be an easier way of going about this. It took me 4 washes of shampoo to get that glue out of her hair and 2 baths and to get all that sticky tape stuff off of her legs and chest. What a pain! But the guy was super super nice an English man I just loved his accent and they took very good care of us. He was funny because he said Cami would probably grow up speaking like an English man after all that horror! he then told us it would take 2-3 weeks for the results because it has to run through allot of people and they have to watch every second of the night with different specialists. So now we just wait and catch up on our sleep!

Autism...

For a good cause!
Since April is Autism Awareness Month, Chevrolet has decided to donate to autismspeaks.org EVERYTIME someone goes to the below site and watches the video. Heres the site just copy and paste it into your URL!

http://www.chevrolet.com/autismspeaks/?evar10=autismspeaks_chevy

Thats all you have to do!!! For every view that is logged, Chevy is going to donate money!!!! Simple as that!

What a great week....

Of Camping in Gatlinburg, Tn!

The temperature for this trip couldn't have been more perfect for our first long travel with the camper. The kids had a great time and man did we have the best spot on the campground. Set right on the edge of the creek, it was beautiful! We got to stay for 5 days at Jellystone Park which was very kid orientated it was perfect. They had their very own movie theater that played movies every night, putt-putt course 9 holes you couldnt ask for it to be any better, on 18 holes I think they start to lose interest. They had their very own game room which we tried out quite often. Me and Jason ended up playing quite a bit of rounds of pool and we even attempted the dancing machine....don't know how the kids do it, but it was funny to try it out. It was real quite around the campground we stayed in the days it rained when everyone else took the opportunity to sight see the shops and such. So we had the place pretty much to ourselves which was wonderful! The days it didn't rain we took hikes around our camping site, then took a drive up in the mountains too see all Gods great beauty! On the way up the Mountain Cameran kept saying Up Up Up it was the cutest. When we got back to the camp she came up to me saying Up up up holding her arms up at me wanting me to hold her brought tears to my eyes, her 1st real request. She did really great while we where there we thought it was going to be a constant battle chasing her but instead she surprised us and stayed right around our camper site. She played ball and if it bounced off she would only go as far as our car then wait for us to get it for her. She loved the creek also but would only go down the rocks when we took her down and she loved putting her feet in the water. The only problem we really had out of her was the fire she kept showing lots of interest in it which scared us to death.
We did get a visit from Yogi bear himself and Caleb was thrilled. He came to our site and at the time Cami didn't see him and we got a few pics with him and the kids. He came back around for a 2nd time and we couldn't get her near him she was backing up fussing. SO woo hoo for her 1st fuss at a stranger...bear that is....LOL!

Of course we took out a day of fun and headed to Pigeon Forge where its nothing but games galore! You have tons of putt-putt courses, go carts galore, laser tag, bungee and lifts for the more adventurous and shopping! Lots and lots to do, we tried out the Dinosaur boat ride which was interesting very loud and smokey but it was a neat experience but not worth the money for a 10 minute ride.

Gatlinburg is such a great spot for family time and this was our first time camping there which was so much fun. Specially with the creek it was so peaceful just listening to that water run all day. Caleb spent most of his time playing in the creek tossing rocks and sticks in to watch them wash away. I captured lots of beautiful pictures! So I hope you all enjoy them!!!!