A few little tidbits!

Here are a few things that have happened lately in our home:

Ryan fell in love with a puppy. OK....all of us did. Check out his blog to see pictures of him and Tootsie. www.ryanlords.blogspot.com

Bryce got glasses. Ryan & Comptyn are showing off their new ones, too. So now 5 out of 8 in our family a visually challenged! Bryce was SO excited to get his. He said everything looks bigger and the floor slopes up. I think Comptyn said the same thing when he got his.




Daniel has discovered combing his own hair. Styling hair is not in his future!



After stake conference on Sunday we took some pictures with our boys! Aren't they all cute?





Daddy and the twins took a nap later in the day. Here are the twins:

Our famous little Daniel

There was a brochure mailed out to anyone that is a member of the National Pediatric Medical Association. They went out ALL over the United States and parts of Canada. Well, paste the below link and check on page 2 for our little Daniel! One day we were in clinicals and Daniel was playing in the hall while we were waiting for the doctors to come into the room. He went by the room where they were taking some pictures of patients and I heard this lady say, "Where is this boy's parents?" I thought I was in trouble! NOPE! She fell in love with Daniel and wanted to take some pictures of him. She said he was the cutest kid she had seen so far. (Didn't surprise me!) So we spent an extra hour up there. They took some of just Daniel, some with Daniel and I, and then a bunch with Daniel and one of his nephrologists.....Dr. Grimm. That is who you will see in the picture with Daniel. Our pediatrician here in Fallon got a copy of it! She was pretty excited, too.

http://www.lpch.org/pdf/cmeBrochures/cme17thAnnualPediatricUpdate.pdf



I just LOVE the orange background....how about you? :-)

Daniel & Sammy

OK...this is another bragging email of how cute my boys are! Can I help it?

Last night for dinner I made some rolls. Daniel grabbed one and said, "Look mom! A Goofy hat!" Sure enough! They look like Goofy hats! Makes my heart proud that they 'see Disney' in life around them! :-)



Then, of course, Sammy had to put what was left of his roll on his head and have his picture taken too! Can't be left out!



The other night the twins were playing on the ground coloring. Had to take some pictures! They were just so cute!

Ryan the Scout

Ryan is really enjoying cub scouts. These pictures are from the Blue & Gold Banquet we had last month. He got his Bobcat (a little late) and Wolf badges. Also 2 silver arrows. This his him pinning the Bobcat and Wolf pins on my shirt.

His Wolf den did a little skit, which is this picture. For those of you who know how shy Ryan is, this was incredible for him to get up there on stage and do this!

The fathers and sons had to decorate a cake for judging. Ryan and Kevin won "Best Den Cake". They had fun doing it! (I think Ryan more than Kevin!)

He is now in his Bear den and has a great den mother who has the kids doing lots of crafty things, which Ryan loves to do! He can still ride the bus to scouts, too. That he was sad about leaving when he left the Wolf den.

Here he is with all his badges sewn on his uniform. He is pretty excited that he just earned his Religious Knot badge that our church gives out for completing certain things in his Faith in God booklet. It is quite a bit of work and we are proud of him for doing that.

Comptyn turns 8 in June and is really chomping at the bit to get his scout book and uniform! I better start looking for shirts! Next year Bryce joins, too!

Our Trip to California

We left Sunday at 2:40 pm to get over the Sierra Nevada Mountains before it was dark. We drove about 15 miles up into the mountains and traffic stopped! For the next 4 hours we drove between 0-4 miles per hour. For a total of 20 miles! When we got to Truckee, CA we took the first exit and drove thru town and got back on the freeway 5 miles later. We saved ourselves an hour! It was CRAZY! We drove 30 mph thru town and when we first started Daniel said, "WOW! Fast!" It was funny! But it was the fastest we'd driven in 2 1/2 hours! The higher we got into the mountains, the snow started and got harder. So we figured it must be pretty bad. The backed up traffic was every one putting on chains and then the check point to make sure you had chains on. So, we then drove 30 mph for 20 minutes and took the chains off! We could have driven with out them. I think they were just being precautious or something. Maybe it got worse thru the night. Some of our 4 hour highlights included Daniel peeing in an empty water bottle, pulling off at an exit with about 4-5 other cars and everyone taking potty breaks, almost getting hit by semis that weren't going to let us back in, etc. It was a fun drive up the mountain! But WAIT! It doesn't end there! We stopped at Colfax, CA McDonald's to use the bathroom and when we went to start the car back up....it was DEAD! So Kevin asked a guy to jump us. He had a jump pack. Didn't work. So he pulled his truck over.....Kevin hooked up his cables....didn't work. Daniel, at this point had fallen asleep because it was after 10 pm. We should have arrived in Palo Alto 1 1/2 hours ago! And we were still 2 hours from there. Anyhow, we called mom and dad and they looked up a local Bishop for us who we called. He gave us the name and number of a Brother D. Beckett. He was very friendly and extremely happy! I was worried about it being so late, but he was the cute man. He use to fix broken down semis on the highway. He is retired, now. He pulls out these HUGE jumper cables, hooks us up and our car starts right up! We think it was the jumper cables. Ours were kindof weeny ones! But we still can't figure out why it died in teh first place. No problems after that! So we were on our way, again! We arrived at the hotel at 1:23 am! 11 hours later. It's normally a 5 1/2 hour drive....it took us twice as long! Luckily we didnt' have any appointments until 10:30 on Monday so we could sleep alittle bit. Daniel's appointment went pretty good. He weighed 30.8 lbs! We finally broke 30 pounds! YEAH! He didnt' get the green light for the biopsy. But we did have his last breathing treatment and infusion done! So at 5:30 we were done for the day. We went and ate some dinner and crashed in the hotel room. Going to bed early! They opted not to do his biopsy because he has an upper respiratory infection and a HUGE tonsils. He is not an anesthesiologist's poster child for a good candidate for putting under. Since he has been having really good labs and this levels ahve been really good, they said we can do it next month. So we will go back March 16th & 17th for biopsy and to meet with an ENT there. They ahve to take Daniel's tonsils out over there because of him needing a higher blood pressure to keep the kidney profused. I prefer they do it, too! They know all about him. So we came back yesterday, instead of today. Daniel sleeps really bad at night....congested and apnea, so we are hoping things move fast on this whole tonsilectomy!
Sammy and Comptyn are doing pretty good with their tonsilectomies. It's been a week ago today they had it done. Comptyn might go back to school tomorrow, but we will see. Sammy never took his Tylenol with Codeine well. So we thought we'd get some suppositories. We thought once he had one inserted he'd prefer the meds going down instead of up!. WRONG! He likes the meds going up! Strange child! :-) Anyhow, they are both in our room, too, with humidifiers on them. We can really tell a difference in Comptyn's sleeping. We can't hear him at all. I think most of his mellowness is from not feeling too well, but he has been less senstitive to things. I think a good nights rest has helped that! I know it does me! Sammy, is just Sammy! We are glad he isn't the one who has to have labs done very week adn had a transplant. He would be a nightmare patient! But he is doing better. Ate some waffles this morning. I would never suggest tonsilectomy with a stubborn 3 year old! NEVER AGAIN!

Family medical updates

Wednesday Sammy & Comptyn are having their tonsils out. Comptyn is a little nervous about that. But perks right up when we tell him he gets popsicles and sherbet!

Daniel's labs have been pretty good. Last week his prograf level was low. We increased and were suppose to have labs done last week. But I got sick twice and Comptyn and Daniel both had upper respiratory infections. (Comptyn added double ear infections to his!) So, needless to say, we didn't get labs done. We went in today to get Daniel's 6 month, pre-biopsy labs done. Can you believe it's been 6 months on the 27th? We leave Sunday for California for a few days. Daniel has doctor's appointments on Monday and then his breathing treatment and last infusion. Tuesday is the biopsy. (7:30 am - 10:00 pm in the hospital) Then we will come home on Wednesday.

So we are hoping this biopsy comes back as good as the first one. I am a little more nervous about this time because his prograf levels have been all over the place. So we'll see!

Catching up on the latest.....

I am going to go backwards in my updates. that way I don't have to reverse my pictures. I forgot to upload them in reverse order! Anyhow, today was President's Day and so we decided to Sand Mountain. It's about 30 miles south east of Fallon. It's quite the hot spot when the weather warms up as people come from all over the west to ride their ATV's and dirt bikes up and down these sand mountains. So we decided to take the kids our out there to have them run it! Those 3 little specks on top of the mountain were Kevin, Comptyn and Ryan. They made it all the way to the top.

As you can see it was a long way to get to the base of the mountain....about 1/2 mile. Then it was about 3/4 - 1 mile UP! The 5 of us only made it about half the way up. It was a good work out and quite fun! The wind was COLD and the dirt was blowing everywhere! But we all had fun! Ended with a picnic in the van.

We then drove just below Sand Mountain to the Pony Express Station that was there. It was neat! There were walls left. Apparently the riders would ride a horse hard for about 10 miles and then find a station and trade horses. This picture below is of the area where the telegraph room was. To the left of the picture was another room the same size that was the living quarters. To the right was a room that was the kitchen area.
This is where the stables were. The walls on the top of the pictures were the living quarters, telegraph room and kitchen area. The walls are made of lava rocks.
This is the extra stable area. It wasnt' a very big station all together. But it was really fun to see.
We then went to Grime's Point. There were petroplyphs on some rocks there. Comptyn is here standing by one.
Here are all the boyz by another rock of petroglyphs.
This is Nathan with his Monster hat that slipped down over his eyes. It was funny because he'd walk with his head stipped WAY back so he could see.
Saturday we decided to take a bike ride. Ryan planned it all. (Passed off 2 things for his Bear badge in Cub Scouts!) So here are Nathn and then Daniel & Sammy in the tot carrier.
The bike-a-van is ready to move! Ryan, Comptyn, Bryce and I all rode our bikes.
Ryan's 9th birthday. He got an iPod Shuffle. He was VERY excited! With money he got from grandparents he got small camera (watch for his personal blog coming soon!) and then also a few craft things to make a replica model of his favorite planet....Uranus.
Picture of Nathan and Daniel waiting for the birthday party. Aren't they cute?!
Nathan, Sammy & Daniel singing Happy Birthday to Ryan while he gets ready to blow out the candles on his cake.