Brielle’s Birthday

Brielle requested an eight shirt the night before her birthday..{nothing like giving me lots of time to get it done.ha!} But I couldn’t let her down since she requested it and I had all the supplies on hand and it doesn’t take that long to do anyways..So when I put her to bed I told her I would try to get it done. The look on her face when she woke up and realized that I made her one..well it was def worth the extra half hour that I stayed up to do it!!!

She was pretty excited that she got a real birthstone ring and a letter B necklace..and Destiny got her a camouflage Barbie that she thought was totally cool!! 

My girls are constantly cracking me up..they come up with the funniest stuff!!  Like this for instance…Destiny gave her another present but this one she really tried to trick her..she wrapped up a huge rock in her present along with a few other little rocks.

At the bottom of the box was a necklace that Destiny made her and she had used letter beads to spell out her name.

Of course she wanted roller skates too since Destiny got some for her birthday..

and some Big Chew

Her requested meal was Monster sandwiches..{pizza dough with pepperoni, ham, salami and cheese all rolled up with a topping of a mixture of sesame seeds, Italian seasonings, parmesan cheese, and garlic powder} dipped in pizza sauce…sooooo yummy!!  I also tried my hand at fondant for the first time. Well the first time that it made it on the cake and stayed..I have made it one other time but it ended up in the garbage.  I have A LOT to learn. Yes I realize it is cracked and the pink or the brown are the right colors that I wanted but it is a lot of work to color the fondant.whew..it is A LOT of sweat and hard work to make marshmallow fondant in general!  But I will be making it again.

The girls helped put all the color fondant shapes on and her name.

Avery can write her name

We started out the year with Avery just being able to draw a circle over and over again or lines down. And now she is able to do this!!!!

Yes my friends she wrote her name all by HERSELF!!!  Woohooo!!! The first box is her name too but look how much neater she gets when her therapist drew lines to keep each letter within each box.
She can also recognize her name which is soooo awesome!! I was sitting at the table peeling address labels off to put on my Christmas cards and Avery was sitting across from me and she says “Mom, Avery” as she is pointing to the back of the sheet. So I turned it over and yeap sure enough the company logo Avery is all over the back. I am just amazed at how far she has come just being in school for a few months. There were two of her goals that we thought she would take all year to accomplish and she has done them in a few months. Way to go Avery this mama is very proud!!!

Destiny’s Piano Recital

Destiny had her Christmas piano recital today..She did wonderful considering she had a bad case of the nerves..she gets really nervous before she plays..and that in turn makes me really nervous too..my stomach is in knots right before she goes up to play..you would think I was going up to play too..ha!  The two songs that she played for the recital are" “Angels We Have Heard on High”  and “Rudolph the Red-Nose Reindeer.” Then they get to pick a favorite that they can play and she picked “Jingle Bells.”  We have been listening to these songs since the beginning of October. So its great to finally see her perfect them and play them so beautiful!!  Its amazing to see how far she has come since she started lessons. She has been playing since she was seven.

Happy 8th Birthday Brielle!!

It was Tuesday Dec 9th that we headed off to the hospital to have you. I was being induced. Overall my labor and delivery was fast and easy. Around 8:00am we arrived at the hospital. Shortly afterwards they started the drug into my IV to induce labor. Half way through the labor I decided that I needed an epidural. The nurse came back and checked me every hour to see if I was progressing any faster. At one o’clock I was dilated to an 8 and when the nurse came back to check on me around two o’clock she could see the top of the babies head. My little girl was ready to come out to meet the world. About five minutes of pushing  (three big pushes) at 2:46 pm our daughter, Brielle Candace, entered the world. I will never forget that moment when I held her tiny newly born body in my arms and looked at her for the first time. She is perfect and beautiful. She brings so much to our family..The one who is soooo much like me..{we bump heads many times} She really challenges me…She is soooo creative in everything she does..she hates to read and hates school..she likes to be different then everyone else..she didn’t want to bring cupcakes or cookies to school like everyone else does….no she wanted to bring Krispy Kreme doughnuts..so we had to go all the way down there and get some yesterday for school today..and she is a big Daddy’s girl..loves to go fishing and hunting with Jared..{on her Christmas list this year a pistol and a shotgun and camo clothes and ear plugs but she tells me don’t get me the ear plugs or the camo clothes if you aren't going to get me any of the guns! } haha!!!  She is a VERY picky eater..but we love her sooo much and we are so glad that God blessed us with her eight years ago!!!
Here is a pic of her when she was a few days old…{its not as clear..sorry I took a picture of a picture with my phone and uploaded it that way}..and then a recent picture of her..She is growing up to be a fine young woman and I couldn’t be more proud of her…

Rough couple of days and medical stuff

They say writing can help you sort out all your emotions….right??? So I have to give it a shot bc I need to get this all out of my head. It has been a rough couple of days..keep getting bad news after bad news..
My dear dear grandmother was diagnosed with stage 4 ovarian cancer on Monday. Cancer sucks! I hate, hate, hate cancer!! It has taken over both of her ovaries and has spread to the lining of her stomach and lungs. It probably wont be long before she is gone to be with the Lord. I am full of emotions bc you see  I am pretty close with my grandma..I am the baby of eight grandkids so of course I was the favorite {sshh just let me think that} I don’t want to see her suffer at all! What stinks is that I am on the other side of the country and cant really be there for her or the rest of the family. There are certain times where I hate to be away from home and this is one of those times!!! I can only dream about what if’s….So all I can do is sit here and think….think about the time she came to stay with us when I was younger and we butted heads more then once..or going to burger king many times to go eat with her bc that was one of her and my grandpas favorite place to eat at..or smile when I think of the time that she told me how happy when I had Brielle because she had brown eyes bc not many of us kids had brown eyes like her..or the many times where she told me how proud she was of me bc I quit smoking bc she knew how hard it was because she had walked down that road before and understood..or getting the giggles bc I was thinking of the birthday card that I got in the mail from her that was meant for my cousins kids birthday that she sent to me..or reading many letters that start out Dear Gaskin family {our last name is not Gaskin, its my cousins last name}..she was in the early stages of Alzheimer’s and even though some of the incidents are funny they were also so sad to see her like that..I could go on bc there are so many things that I love and want to remember and never forget about my grandma!! I want to store them memories up there and lock them up.
We are going to try to go home for Christmas this year, but how do you go home knowing you have to say good-bye to someone that u may never see again until we all get to heaven. IT stinks.really stinks that it has to be around Christmas too. I know we are never guarantee tomorrow and anyone can be gone in a blink of an eye and you need to treasure each and every moment you get with that person and I do that..but when u know someone is going home soon and u have to say goodbye it is going to be hard. Really hard. I was driving the other day to Avery dr appointment and thinking a lot about how this was going to be my grandmas last christmas then I heard this song come on the HIS radio..and I just bawled..and bawled..so then I knew I had to come home and try to find the video and listen/watch it again…Try watching this video of the song with out bawling..I dare u I bet you cant. I just watched it again and just sobbed and sobbed…so have your kleenexes ready..

One thing my mom told me the other day is that my grandma is not taking it very good and maybe the day is coming sooner than you thought that you will be going home to meet your savior..but oh grandma it is going to be a glorious day!! and we are all going to miss you terribly but I can not wait until I can join you.  Until then God will be right by your side to get you through it along with your family. We will all be praying!
Isnt that what everyone works on through out this life? If its not you need to re-adjust your life so that is your number one goal in this life. So we can all get to heaven and see our Savior face to face and live eternity in heaven. We are only here a very short time compared to our time in heaven!  I cant help to think of this song…I love it...really listen to the words..

So on to yesterday…We finally went to see the orthopedic dr about Avery’s back and her hips.  


It turns out that the bump on the back of her back is nothing at all. It is just more muscle on that side and her back isnt curved so he said he wasn’t worried about it at all.Whew that was good news but we didn’t get good news on her hips. A little background on her hips and what has been going on..Avery pops her hips in and out soo much. They are probably out more then they are in..We could just be sitting in the chair and she is popping her hips in and out..it looks and sounds soo gross!!!  I used to just think that it was normal and no biggie bc kids with down syndrome have looser joints. Well just recently Avery’s therapist told me that she isn't doing joint compression on her hips anymore bc it just freaks her out way to much. So it kind of brought it back to my attention. So when we went to see the neurosurgeon I had asked him about it and he had said that we need to go see an orthopedic dr about it. So we have been waiting for that appointment. So fast forward to her appointment yesterday…He ordered x-rays of her hips that we did right there in the office bc she hadn't had hip x-rays before and he comes back to the room with bad news..he said we have two options we can just wait it out and let it keep getting worse and then try to do something when it gets to be an emergency or we can do surgery on her ligaments to tighten them up. He said if it was his kid he would do the surgery and that when dr.s diagnose this they usually like to do surgery with in the first six months of diagnosis. We decided that we would do the surgery. So we can do it right away or wait until this summer. But we decided that if we wait until the summer she would be even more miserable bc of recovery. It would be to hot so we decided to do the surgery right away. So basically he told me that they would go in right at her hips and make an incision on both sides and then go in and tighten up her ligaments and muscles. { her hip socket and bone looked really good on the x-ray so he will leave them alone} He goes on to tell me that there is a high chance like 1 out of 2 chance that there is going to be complications. Bc she has down syndrome bc for some reason children with down syndrome bleed way more on this surgery. He said that they HAVE to have LOTS of her type blood on hand during the surgery. WHAAAT??!!! Im not going to lie this has me totally FREAKING out right now!!!!
Recovery is not going to be easy at all. It is going to be a challenge for Avery and for me. A big challenge. A HUGE challenge.  She will be in a hip spica cast for up to THREE months!!! A spica cast looks like this in case you all want to see.


She has an open spot for her to go to the bathroom and that is it. I have to find a female urinal so she can go to the bathroom. Or find some extra long poise pads. I'm not sure what we are going to do yet bc I'm not sure how she is going to do with the urinal. Ill have both on hand at the hospital.  She will stay in the hospital for at least two days depending on how she is dealing with her pain. It is very very important too that you don’t get this cast wet bc they cant change it in the dr office. They have to do it in the surgery room. When she is in the cast she will not be able to lay down or sit up. She has to be in a reclined position for that long.I have to rent a special car seat for her from the hospital.  This is also how she has to sleep. More then likely they will give me a reclined wheelchair for her to get her around. She will not be going to school during this time. What will happen is that she will have the first cast on for six weeks. Then she will have to go back for another surgery and they will do another surgery and put her in another spica cast for another six weeks. IT is very important that she is the cast so she don’t stretch her ligaments out again. If this doesn’t work we wont repeat the surgery again. We will have to do something else but the dr is really hopeful that this will work. He said that most of the time it does. We are looking to schedule Avery’s surgery in January sometime bc I wanted to wait to get  through the holidays. Ooh and Brielle’s surgery is set for Jan 23.
I went to my car and just cried. I couldn’t take ANY more. I just bawled and bawled and bawled just like a baby.and it felt good. Avery was in the back of the car saying “Its ok.it’s ok.” and that just made me cry even more!!  I am feeling very very weak. It is a lot to take in in the last couple of days. But God will see us through it bc he always does!  If u could say a prayer for God to give me the strength to get through the next couple of months I'd sure appreciate it

I have the greatest bestie too bc look what she sent me yesterday to brighten my day.

Arent they beautiful? It did brighten my day too..and when my girls came home they were wondering why I got flowers so I was telling them that I just had a really bad day. So my oldest Destiny said she would make us homemade pizza for supper. and Brielle said she wanted to give me a pedicure. So she brought the foot bath downstairs and filled it up for me and then after she painted my toes for me. Didn’t she do a good job  




I LOVE my kids they always seem to pick me up whenever I need it! My hands are as full as my heart and I love it!!  Wouldnt have it any other way!

Through it all we will turn to God to carry us through the next couple of months. To give us the strength to get through it. Without God we are nothing. He is my strength to get me through everything- the worries, the many tears that are shed and will be shed and the sleepless nights. I know he will be with us every step of the way.