Mason's first time skiing!!

So there is this really cool program at Snowbird called Wasatch Adaptive Sports. They do all sorts of things for children with disabilities and adapt activities for these kinds of kids to participate in something that you would never think they could do! Last week between Dr. appointments and tests we signed Mason up to participate in the skiing program they have at Snowbird!

His friend/therapist's name was Alison and Spencer said she was fabulous! Mason had such a great time.

They only go up a small lift from what I understand, but Mason went at least 15 times!

I was nervous that he would scream and get scared and cry from something so new and fast and different. I was completely wrong I guess! He had such a great time! We signed him up to go a few more times this season. I'm so excited to be able to go with him to see him ski! I never thought I'd see Mason ski! Isn't that fantastic!!

Ezra's first feast!

Tonight at dinner Ez seemed so bored! He just likes to sit and watch what's going on around him, but for some reason tonight we felt like he was bored and sad that he couldn't participate! So we fed him a delicious dinner of rice cereal!

He was pretty confused by it all and kept trying to suck on the spoon like a bottle! It was frustrating for him and he didn't really get it, but it was fun anyway!

He was so funny to watch! He couldn't figure out how to swallow or what to do with all that food in his mouth so he'd just sit there and look at us!

I guess that spitting is just a natural instinct for little boys because it's really all he learned from his first dinner! It was still just so adorable I had to keep taking pictures!

Movie Ratings and Ethan!

Ethan has this new fascination lately... Movie Ratings. I know, weird right? He goes through our movies quite frequently to check their ratings and to see if there is anything he can watch! If you ask him he's checking "what the rate is!" The hard part is that he feels like if it's a PG movie he deserves to see it. Did you know that all 3 Indiana Jones movies are PG? That at least 3 of the Harry Potter's are PG? All I can say is it is very difficult to explain to a barely 6 year old why some PG movies are OK and some he still has to wait a few years to watch! We've even started to write our own 'rating' on the movies that say they are PG, but I disagree with! Now a lot of our DVD's have a permanent marker rating on the DVD and on the case to show what the 'rating' really is!

We finally saw Celine Dion!!!

I realize that this may sound ridiculous but it finally came! February 22nd 2009 finally came and my sister Michelle and I finally got to see Celine Dion! I've told the story but it's a fun one so I'll tell it again... Mason was staying at his 2nd home (the hospital) and I was talking on the phone with Michelle. It was the first week in October 2007 ~ The TV was on in the background while we visited and as we were talking there was a commercial advertising Celine Dion coming November 21st!

Michelle immediately got online and bought us tickets to go to the sold out show! In order to buy the $150.00 tickets (that is the per ticket price) she had to join 'Team Celine!' No joke!! That membership came for the bargain annual fee of $50! She called me back to tell me she had bought the tickets for the two of us, but there was something I should know... the November 21st we were looking forward to was in 2008! Just over 13 months away! That's when it got funny.

We made paper chains to count down, we'd text how many more days it was until Celine, we've been looking forward to this for a LONG time! Well, November 21st came and if you've read my previous posts you will know that Celine got sick and postponed the long awaited show to Sunday February 22nd, 2009. Only 3 more months added to the already 13 we've waited. Can you say "LAME!" We were devastated and our husbands made fun of us for being as devastated and disappointed as we were.


Finally it came! It was all we had hoped for and more!! Sadly our 'team Celine' membership has lapsed since she bought us the tickets, but we both made it!! It was close for me with my surgery this time and if you remember last time Michelle was extremely sick and wouldn't have made it anyway, but we finally got to see her! It was so worth the wait too! She is quirky and endearing! I loved every second of it and was sad when it ended. I never would have considered myself a big Celine Dion enthusiast years ago but this journey to see Celine has transformed me into a life-long fan!

We weren't sure if we'd get away with taking our cameras so neither one of us even tried to take our big camera or Michelle's HD video camera, but here is a taste and sampling of what we saw...

(For optimal viewing, pause the music at the bottom of my blog!)

Hospital Again?!?!

On Monday (our vacation day) we had a pretty normal day to start. On Friday I had an emergency surgery done so I've been taking it pretty easy this weekend. Spen and Ethan took care of me all Saturday so they went to Sundance to ski for a few hours. Mase hasn't been sleeping so well but he napped like a champ that day. Ezra's birth mother came to visit today. We were having such a great time visiting that I didn't really notice how long Mase had been asleep. Spen and Ethan got home and visited with us.

I finally realized Mase had been sleeping for 4 hours! I decided to wake him up or he'd never go back to sleep tonight! That's when it all started. He wouldn't wake up. Not only would he not wake up, he wouldn't respond or react to anything I did. You can imagine how terrifying it would be to know your child was alive only by finding a pulse. He was breathing so shallow I couldn't tell he was breathing at all. We rushed him to his Dr. By the time we got to his office it had been about 45 minutes or so and he was a little less scary but still unresponsive. He was admitted with the diagnosis of a coma. Great.

After a full work up it was determined that he was in a medication induced coma. For some unknown reason his body stopped metabolizing his seizure med and the level had built up in his system with an obvious/ scary side effect. A normal therapeutic level for Mason is between 25-35. His came back at 65.

He's been pretty sedated and distant for the past 3 days but is starting to act more and more like our Mason. It is our 4th day here and we are sitting awaiting the news from the lab. Hopefully we get to go home to see the other 3 boys.
...
We ended up staying for 5 days this time. He had one seizure and we left with no real answers, just another thing to watch closely. He still has his pneumonia from the last hospital stay a few weeks ago, but it's slowly getting better! At least this time we got some smiles from the Masey Moose!

There were quite a few times when I couldn't get him to stop screaming at me. I was worn out and tired a lot more than usual since I was recovering from surgery while being there with Mason. When we'd get past the point of no return for him the ONLY thing that would put an immediate smile on his face was to call his 'Reg'. My mom. She talked and sang to him and he ate it right up! It was fun to see how happy hearing his grandma made him.. (here's a picture of him 'talking' to Reg.)

Mason Update!

Once again I've had a lot of people asking me how Mason is doing... I really wish I had a good answer for that question! The only thing I can come up with is that he seems stable and he's happy. We repeated his X-rays this week and they really don't show much of a change. He's not worse, but he's just going to take a LONG time to get better! He's out of school for a while. He's just too fragile to expose to much of anything still.

The other thing that we are trying to figure out are his seizures. He just keeps having them! They are called break through seizures. That just means that they are seizures that aren't normal for Mason to have and he is having despite the seizure meds they have him on. He's not having the full body seizures anymore, they are just more subtle.

He still has a long way to go to be back to normal. We see or talk to his Dr. on the phone everyday still. He will get better. At least the pneumonia part!

Thank you for all of your prayers and emails. It really is amazing to know how many people care about our Mason and about our family...

Ezra's 4 month pictures!!

I know that it's not uncommon to think that time is passing way too fast when you have a baby, but seriously? He's already 4 months old??!! For his 4 month check up he weighed 17 pounds and is 27.5 inches long! He's just growing up so fast!

I can't even tell you how happy I am that his eyes have stayed blue! I would love them any color, but I LOVE Spencer's bright blue eyes and always hoped that one of our kids would get them. This was a bit more unconventional than originally planned, but it works just the same for me!

I am so glad that his 'Ezra shirt' still fits him for one of his monthly pictures! My cousin gave it to him at his baby shower and I think it is soooo darling!

My favorite thing about taking monthly pictures with the same toy is that you can see how much they are changing and they start to play with it! Ez is really in a sucking on things phase and I got a bunch of pictures of him sucking on his 'Rocco' bear.

I had to put a picture with all my sweet boys! They are so excited to all finally be together again! I love how much they adore each other.