Five Minutes Underwater

10 Years. A Decade. 3652 Days. One Third of my Life. 

It alternately feels like so so long ago, 

yet at the same time only yesterday 

that we walked down the aisle toward our happily ever after.

The years have gone by so fast.

Being married to you has felt like only 5 minutes. 

Underwater..

Happy 5th 10th Anniversary to the man who still surprises me every day.

To my middle-of-the-night baby bat killer.

whose sophisticated sense of style 

always leaves me impressed.

To the mature, grown man who cares for us

and protects his family (note: the foot that is barley missing whacking Ella's head..)

To my husband who takes us on such adventures as whale watching

ziplining,

and horseback riding.

Who never lets his boys down

"Daddy! How high can you climb?"

Me muttering to myself: "More like, how far can you fall.."

And takes his kids fishing wherever they want

whenever they want..

I LOVE YOU! 

This guy is all those things and more. 

He is also the world's strongest dad

who is always there to help our children with their homework, 

(even when I'm not sure who 3rd grade math is more confusing for..) ;)

Who goes on the sweetest picnics with his little girl

and takes the coziest naps with his boys.

Who watches Saturday morning cartoons with the kids so I can sleep in,

reads bedtime stories every night,

and who I spontaneously see taking the kids on a walk to get them out of my hair so I can make supper

You are the best dad I know, the most supportive husband, the first person by my side when I'm struggling with something and don't want to talk about it, yet you somehow get me to. You are still my best friend and even after 10 years and (almost) 5 kids later we actually still like spending time together. 

Happy Anniversary to the guy who still picks me wildflowers from the side of the road, 

who supports all my dreams, and loves me unconditionally.

Thank you for being by my side the past 10 years, for building this crazy beautiful life 

we have together and for always, every single day, making me laugh.

Ella's Run & CdLS Awareness Day

I had a blog reader email me and ask the other day, "So.. how did Ella's Run go?" I was a little confused because I thought, "Why don't you just read the blog about it?" And then I realized..

I never wrote a blog about it. 

Oh, right.. In fact my last blog was way back in April. Oops.. Worst. Blog. Writer. Ever. 

Do you think this has any correlation with May being right in the throes of my 3rd trimester with baby #5 and also the beginning of summer break for my other kids? Quite possibly yes, absolutely YES. After the little blessings finally go to sleep at night basically the only thing I have enough energy for is sitting down on the couch and staring at the wall for awhile. Really. (The only reason I'm writing this right now is because I woke up at 4:45 with the baby pressing against my bladder and haven't been able to go back to sleep again.. Naps for all today!!) I read a blog on pregnancy the other day that said something about when the mere thought of movement causes you exhaustion. Yes, that is 100% where I'm at. 

So anyways.. CdLS Awareness Day.. Ella's Run. Right.

I know I said it last year, but I just can't emphasize enough how much different CdLS Awareness Day is to me now than it was when Ella was first diagnosed. That first year I wanted nothing to do with raising awareness for CdLS. I didn't want to talk about it, think about it, goodness gracious definitely not tell anyone my child had it. Now? I actually really love spreading awareness. I love knowing we could be helping someone find a diagnosis, letting someone know they're not alone, giving someone hope who feels hopeless. It still blows my mind that I would willingly go on live TV to talk about my daughter having a rare genetic syndrome.

I say this again because I know there are mamas (and daddies.. and grandparents) out there just getting this diagnosis, struggling to deal with all the questions and whys and what if's and doctors and therapists and it can all just be SO overwhelming at first and you might be tempted to look at our family and think "It must be so easy for them to raise awareness. They must have accepted this diagnosis so easily. Why am I having such a hard time?" I want to tell you that it hasn't been easy and it's okay to have a hard time or not want anything to do with CdLS right now. There is hope and there is a future and who knows? You might just find yourself on live TV in a few years talking about that thing you never wanted to even think about, assembling 'swag bags' for 5K fundraisers and even writing a blog over a whole month later about it.. ;) It might be easy to assume that I have the type of personality that enjoys taking charge and planning things and talking to strangers.. which, if you know me really couldn't be farther from the truth in my opinion. Just one of the many ways Ella has changed me and brought out desires in my heart I didn't even know were there to start with.

The actual run, which was held on CdLS Awareness Day, went so so good! We are SO THANKFUL to everyone who came out and helped us raise awareness for CdLS and support our Ella. I really can't even begin to describe how much it means to our family to have that kind of support. The weather was a little chilly for our fair weather girl, but she enjoyed snuggling up in Papa's coat the entire morning.

Ummm... yeah.. so totally forgot to take a picture of the starting line so here's a picture of everyone's backsides.
You're welcome.

We had a great turnout and raised our goal amount of money to donate to the CdLS Foundation and also put some away toward bringing Ella to future Conferences. We are so thankful to all the businesses that sponsored our tshirts or donated supplies. 

Ella with some of her therapists

One of my LEAST favorite parts of fundraising (okay, actually the part I absolutely despise with a passion) is calling people asking for donations, but at the same time it is probably the area where I feel the most blessed. I love when businesses owners answer the phone and hear what we're doing and without hesitation volunteer to help out. I love spreading awareness to people who might have never heard of CdLS otherwise. I love giving them our CdLS bookmarks and seeing them look at the picture of the kiddos on there and saying "Oh how cute!" I'm still working on getting all the thank you's out--I'm trying to hand deliver as many as possible, which of course requires such sacrificial acts from me such as taking the kids to Jitters (the donut shop who donated to the run) to drop off the thank you and of course stopping to eat some donuts as well. Of course. This all takes time, you know. Sidenote: If anyone in the area has not had a Jitters donut, you need to go ahead and do that like now. DE-LISH. 

So again, I can't say it enough---THANK YOU THANK YOU
everyone who helped make our 2nd Annual Ella's Run a success. 

We are so grateful to each one of you!

Ella's Run

Last year we hosted our very first 'Ella's Run' 5K Fundraiser. We were so overwhelmed with support and had such a good time.. that we've decided to make it an annual event!! 

This year we are planning the 2nd Annual Ella's Run for Saturday May 9th, 

which coincidentally also happens to be CdLS Awareness Day. :)

Our main goal with Ella's Run is to raise awareness (aka: acceptance) of CdLS-hence the correspondence with CdlS Awareness Day- and to teach others about what CdLS is and how it affects people. The more people that know and are talking about CdLS the less awkward and isolating it becomes to families dealing with it personally.

The second goal is to raise money for future CdLS Conferences-the next one being in Orlando, FL in 2016. We have had such amazing experiences at Conferences and we want to try to attend as many as possible, especially while Ella is young. We don't know what the future holds and the possibility that travel will only get more difficult as the years progress (remind me of this as I try to board an airplane with 5 small children in tow next summer..) weighs on our minds. Conferences are the absolute best place (and only really..) to be able to receive head-to-toe consultations with experts from a range of medical and educational fields, attend workshops, and connect with other families facing similar challenges. We miss seeing our CdLS family so much.. We can't wait until next summer!!

And we are very excited about our last goal-to be able to donate a portion of our proceeds back to the CdLS Foundation! The Foundation has been so good to us-from day 1 of Ella's diagnosis when our geneticist pointed out a horrid black and white picture from an outdated medical journal and told us that's what Ella had, then promptly closed it and directed us to the CdLS Foundation's website instead where pictures of kids playing and laughing popped out at us. From sending us information, answering questions, directing us to the right doctors, to always knowing our name when we call and making us feel like we're old friends. And plus.. they have a giant poster of Ella hanging in their office.. so there's that. ;) 

If you want more information on the 5K (and NO you don't have to run it) you can search Ella's Run on Facebook and join the group where you'll find registration forms. If you want to guarantee a t-shirt for the run (or just order a t-shirt!) you need to get your registration in by May 1, which is NEXT WEEK!! You can also email or message me and I can get you added to the list.

We are really excited about Ella's Run and it would mean so much to us to have a great group of people show up to support CdLS Awareness and have a lot of fun!

Story of my Life

I've noticed that sometimes when we're around other children people take extra precautions with Ella. They say things to their kids like "Be careful with her!" or "Don't get too rough around her." Most of the time I really do appreciate this. Ella does have a tendency to fall more easily or not be able to catch and protect herself when she does. Although sometimes I admit I just want her to be treated like 'one of the other kids'. Because.. really-she's not quite as delicate as some people think. I found a video that proves she can handle someone being a little rough with her. 

(Sorry for the terrible quality-the windows were too bright in the background! I think you can get the point though..) :)

P.S. Now that I've figured out this video this, I might just be unstoppable!!

GYMNASTICS RECITAL!!

Well, I did it you guys.. I spent 2 hours on the phone with tech support, downloaded a $40 program and figured out a way to upload and view my videos on my computer. Which left me with 257 random folders of videos that showed up on my computer in no particular order. Funny how most days I can't seem to find a few minutes to fold a basket or two of laundry, but this weekend I dedicated at least 10 hours to manually uploading, converting, and organizing every video from the past 5 1/2 years. That included staying up until 1am this morning, then Hudson conveniently waking up and screaming for another hour leaving me with about 4 hours of sleep. But that's totally ok.. you really don't need that much sleep in your 3rd trimester of pregnancy... (she says sobbing into her one cup of allotted coffee of the day)

But ANYWAYS.. before I go take a nap here is (finally!) the video of Ella's Gymnastics Recital. She did SO GOOD and I was so so so proud of her. Now, keep in mind when I say 'SO GOOD' I'm not talking about performing sequences of perfectly executed roundoffs and backbends with exquisite form. I'm talking about how far she has come this year. I'm talking about being out on the mat by herself without me there (something she barely even did in practice). I'm talking about following directions, waiting in line, not running off and doing her own thing. I'm talking about not completely freaking out at the crowd of people watching her. I'm talking about wearing a different than normal leotard (it's a big deal.. trust me). And mostly I'm talking about taking the absolute best Ella can do and totally rocking it. 

Here are a few pictures first and then the video, which of course my battery went dead during so I only got about half of it, but oh well. Better a little than nothing. And better late than never.. And uhhh.. better to always have low expectation for yourself apparently. ;)

Birthday Bash

I PROMISE I will get around to posting about Ella's gymnastics recital, but apparently my new computer isn't compatible with my video camera, sooooo... I might need someone tech smart to help me figure out what to do! In the meantime, we've had a pretty busy week around here. Two of my very favorite boys in the world had birthdays this week. NINE and SEVEN! How did that happen?

They got to have a friend sleepover, stayed up waaaaaaaay too late, ate a bunch of junk, played outside the entire evening/next day (I hardly even saw them), and got filthy dirty. So pretty much the perfect boys party! I seriously just love having little boys. Hand them a shovel, a sandpile, some boards and nails and they are good for HOURS, maybe even days if you throw a few sandwiches out the window every so often. 

Thank you to everyone who was able to come to their party and celebrate with them (especially the parents of their friends who probably had very tired, grubby children returned home to them)! I think we're finally starting to recover from it all. 

The morning of the birthday party (which was also Charlie's actual birthday as well) we were also excited to find out that one of our goats had her babies! Charlie is thrilled to share his birthday with such little cuties and thinks it's SO cool that one of them didn't know how to nurse so we got to milk the mama and bottle feed her. Uhhhhhh... yeah. Very cool. Until the 1am and 5am feedings!! (Thankfully she's got it figured out now!)

And the next day 2 more babies were born!

We also have been SUPER busy getting our home ready for an appraisal so we can (hopefully) get a construction loan to dig out a basement under our house. We worked way too long into the night way too many nights to get everything just perfect.. for a 10 minute walk through. *sigh. Now we wait and see what they say I guess.

It's been a crazy busy, but fun filled week with hopefully lots of good memories made. Charlie has been practicing his new scooter on the deck every day and I got to watch Nolan completely biff it on the lane this afternoon trying to figure out his new bike with hand brakes only. No broken bones yet, so all in all I consider it a success. :)

That's What She Said..

Sometimes I feel like I was jipped a little bit on the 'toddler stage' with Ella.

Since she crawled, walked, talked, everything so late, development was a little different with her. 

There's been a lot of things I missed and have been looking forward to experiencing with Hudson.

"I can't wait until Hudson is in that 'toddler stage'", she said

"It will be so nice when he can get around on his own."

"Ella was never much of an explorer. I hope Hudson is." 

"It's so cute when they start getting into things," she said 

"It will be so much fun to chase him around the house."

"I'm sure he'll be content with all the toys he has to play with."

"Won't it be great when he can get his own snacks??" 

"I'm so excited for when he's bigger and he and Ella play together better. They'll be best friends."

"That toddler stage I missed out on is just so much fun." 

 "I can't wait to do it again."

That's what she said...