Winter!

On March 2nd winter finally arrived!

We have had the best winter I can remember. It's been snow free with very mild temperatures. Did I mention it's been the best winter?

As nice as it's been, it was nice to get a good dumping of snow finally. I even had a thought of keeping the kids home from school and taking them sledding. Then I came to my senses and sent them off to school!

After the kids were off, Lu and I had the task of shoveling all the snow! It was heavy and severely drifted in some spots. I got a little done and then was saved by my neighbor with a snow blower. I was so grateful for the help!

Here is Lu "helping" me with the shoveling.

Lu is eating the snow here. It also shows how high the snow piled up!

The nice thing about this snow storm is that it looks like winter today but a few days from now it'll be spring-like again. I love it!

Recent Happenings

I haven't been keeping up on the blog very well lately. Here are a few of the things that have been going on this past month.

Abby got glasses a month or so ago. She LOVED them for the first 2 weeks and now I have to remind her often to put them on. I think she looks cute in them.

Our ward had a great Blue and Gold Banquet. It was our first year attending it because of past scheduling conflicts so I don't have anything to compare it to but I thought it was pretty great. There was a nice dinner, a cake decorating contest, and best of all a magician!

Can you tell that the kids were completely mesmerized?

Alex even got the chance to go up and assist the magician.

Have I ever mentioned how much Abby like to play with Ferby(our dog)? She loves to sleep with him and dress him up with dolls clothes and bows in his hair. She also likes to put him in our play shopping cart and push him around the house. Today she topped it all.

The best thing about this picture is the contrast in facial expressions. Abby is so proud of herself and loving the new idea. Ferby looks less than excited. It was pretty funny.

Those are a few of the happenings around our house this past month.

Happy Birthday Abby!!

Abby turns 7 years old today!
On her birthday I always think back to the crazy night she was born. The short version of the story is that she came 2 weeks early. Nate had left that very morning for a week long trip to Atlanta. I went into labor on the evening of the 9th, called my mom, she took me to the hospital, was admitted around midnight, called Nate at 1:00am (3:00am his time) to let him know that I was in the hospital and we were having a baby! While on the phone the doctor came in so I told Nate I would call him back. When I called him back 10 mins later I was holding a little 6lb 8oz Abigail Sara Arnesen. Nate caught the first flight home and was at the hospital by 10am. It's such a fun story to share with Abby. She loves it!

She had a friend party last weekend. We had a rockwall climbing party at the city recreation center.
Here's the birthday girl on the wall and then all her cute little friends that came to the party.

Here's her cake that ended up looking like a big pink donut.

Here are some of my favorite things about Abby.
1. She is my best eater. She will try anything and likes most things.
2. She is a great reader and she enjoys reading. (Wish I had a little of that in me!)
3. She is just like her Aunt Sara. She hates getting her hair brushed, she is very smart, and she loves to have her arms scratched (lightly). It's exactly what I hoped for when I named her after my favorite sister!
4. Abby is so creative and has LOVED spending time with her Dad creating things lately.
5. Abby makes a bed for Ferby (our dog) on her bed each night. It's cute to see them asleep together.

6. Abby is a perfectionist (again like Aunt Sara). I'm very impressed by her desire and determination to get things right.
7. She's my little buddy and even when she's driving me a little crazy I still thank my lucky stars that she's mine. (Well, not while she's driving me crazy!)
Happy Birthday Abby!!

The after party...

After Christmas we took a day off and did NOTHING!!! I don't think I even got out of my pajamas that day. It was wonderful.

Tyler got a huge Alien Invasion Lego set that he spent almost the entire day doing. Here is the before and after.

Did you want to see that closer up? I thougth so, otherwise taking so many pictures of this lego set would've been silly!

Well after all of that Alex couldn't let Tyler steal the show so he got out his Lego stuff and we took pictures of his things. They are not new from Christmas but hey, why not take a few shoots of them.

Alex spend some quality time with Nate making paper airplanes out of a kit he got from Grandma and Grandpa.

I'm not sure where Abby was all day but this is what Lu did all day. She's pretty skilled with the IPad.

We ended up running some sort of errand that evening so we loaded the whole crew up to get out of the house for a while. Nate ran into Walmart to do our semi-annual cereal stock up while the rest of us waited in the car. Here's a view of us waiting in the car.

What would I do without the phone and DVD player to entertain?

Outside the car I caught a beautiful sunset.

It was a perfect ending to a nice relaxing day with the family.

Christmas 2011

We had a great Christmas this year. It was pretty relaxing and low key.

My favorite part of Christmas is the Singleton party. It was always held on Christmas Eve until a couple of years ago when we moved it to the 23rd. It's always been at that party when it really starts to feel like Christmas. This was our first Chirstmas without Grandma Singleton and the party just happened to fall on the 6 month anniversary of her death. It put a little sober feeling over the party but it was still a very enjoyable time.

As a kid I always remember having a little talent show at the Singleton party. All of my cousins would play amazing piano pieces and my family would do things like put nylon stockings on our heads and sing Jingle Bells as we pulled the stockings off and our faces were smashed and funny looking. Good memories....

This year my cousins Shannon and Brooke played Sleigh Ride on the piano. It was the only talent of the night but it brought back great memories. It is a seriously difficult piece and they played it wonderfully. They are amazing!

On Christmas Eve we had Adam and Megan over for our Arnesen party. We are the only Arnesen's around so it's a pretty small party! We always love getting together with them but don't do it enough.

Megan made homemade ice cream for dessert. The kids loved the toppings and especially loved crushing the oreos.

Here we are with the spread for our ice cream.

After the party we got ready to put the kids to bed and read The Night Before Christmas by the Christmas tree. The kids actually went to sleep pretty good this year and Nate and I got to work! We give one gift to each child and Santa brings one gift. At 11pm I realized that the one and only gift I had for Alex was no where to be found. To this day we have never found it. After a bit of panicking and some quick thinking we turned an extra gift that we were planning to give to all the kids into Alex's gift.

Here are some of the Christmas morning pictures.

After opening presents at home we drove to my parents church to attend with them. I LOVED having a few presents in the morning and then off to church to enjoy the spirit and remember exactly why we are celebrating.

After church we headed to my parents house for breakfast (for lunch) and then more gift giving and recieving with cousins. I wish I had gotten a picture of the pile of presents there. It was massive!

Here is Abby almost getting lost in her pile of gifts from Grandma and Grandpa (they love to spoil the grandkids!)

Here are Tyler and Alex with a favorite gift from the day. And one of Lu because she stood still for a picture and almost smiled!

And one last picture because I love it! It's my Grandpa Singleton who must be the most perfect man on earth! I love him dearly.

It was a great Christmas!

Santa

Tonight the older kids and I went to a Christmas party. It is put on by one of the special ed teachers at the school. It's for all of his current students and former students. He is so kind to have the party every year. We've been going for 4 years now. It's always the same....the kids play the same game each year, sit on the stairs and sing songs, and then Santa comes in with gifts for each of them. The kids really enjoy it. Here they are sitting with Santa.

In this last picture Santa is asking Tyler what he wants for Christmas. Tyler said a remote control car. I was a little surprised because I hadn't heard him talk about one of those this year. After we got home Tyler requested some help from me to write a letter to Santa.

Now I wish you could've seen this next part because writing about it just won't do it justice. I told Tyler he didn't need to write a letter because he just told Santa what he wants. At this point he throws his hands in the air and shouts "I panicked!" I wasn't following what he meant so I asked him to explain. Again he throws his hands in the air and says "I panicked with Santa. I don't want a remote control car!" Thus the reason for the urgency to write a letter to Santa with his more thought out request. I wish you could've been there. It was great!

Hopefully Santa will get that letter in time to make any needed changes to his previous plans!

NIH

Last week Tyler, Lauren, my Mom, and I flew to Bethesda Maryland to the National Institutes of Health. We were able to participate in a study they are doing on Bardet-Biedl Syndrome. I have been working towards going on this trip for over 10 months now. I have had soooo much anxiety over many aspects of it. The travel made me nervous, navigating my way around a new place made me nervous, trying to make the kids do all of the procedures and tests that needed to be done made me nervous. I was a nervous wreck by the time we left. My biggest worry was that I wouldn't be able to get Tyler on the plane. He has been known to refuse to get on things before like trains or buses so the plane made me worried. If he refused I didn't know what I would do. I considered medicating him and Lauren to make things easier but the medication made both of them dizzy and that made me worry about them getting sick on the plane. Do you see a general theme here of me being nervous. Seriously, I cannot think of a single event that I have worried about more than this! Nate gave Tyler and I blessings the night before we left. I felt a nice calm feeling come over me and I felt like we were going to be ok.

I was so proud of Tyler and Lauren on the plane. They were so good! Tyler got a little nervous getting on but he kept telling himself that he was brave and he was strong. It was really cute.

The plane ride was uneventful and we caught the right shuttle to NIH from the hospital and we arrived at the Children' Inn around 6:30pm sunday. The Children's Inn is a place for families to stay while they are patients at NIH. It is a great place. Tyler was very excited to find the game room he had seen online. He also LOVED this super mild therapy dog.

Lu loved the playroom. It had a treehouse in it where she loved to play.

She loved the "Woody hat" and this fun life sized light bright thing.

We started our appointments on monday morning. Tyler was amazing. He was calm and so willing to do whatever we asked him to do. He was able to do every test that was scheduled for him. I was certain there were a few he wouldn't be able to do but he surprised us all and did them. Between monday and thursday he had a physical exam, blood draw (13 viles to fill and 3 different attempts,it was not fun!), DEXA scan to measure bone density, Abdominal MRI and brain MRI, 2 different ultrasounds, x-rays, EKG, Psychological testing, Audiology testing, Opthamology appt, and a couple of other appts that I went to and he had to wait in the waiting room with Lu and my Mom for hours! I am so proud of him and what he did there. I know that he was strengthened and calmed as a result of so many prayers on our behalf. It really was amazing. Here he is waiting for an appointment.

He loved that some of the offices had complimentary drinks!

Then there was Lu. Wow, was she the opposite of Tyler. She was scheduled for all the same appointments as Tyler but I think the only thing she did was the psychological testing. She threw a royal fit anytime anyone tried to touch her. Luckily we had scheduled for her to be sedated for her opthamology appointment at the end of the week. We decided to do as many tests as possible while she was out. She ended up having her eye exam and ERG, MRI's, blood draw, and physical exam while she was sedated. It was a wonderfully calm and relaxing few hours for me while she was out! (Is that wrong of me to say?) Here she is just before the sedation.

Did I mention that she watched a Bugs Bunny movie about a million times on the IPad? She called it "carrots" and she watched it all the time!

We got some great news that Lauren's eyes seem to be fine. She doesn't have Retinitis Pigmentosa as of yet. The opthamologist said he would love to do an exam in a few years and see how things look but for now she is just fine.

Lu recovered from the sedation just fine for a couple of hours but then she seemed to struggle. She started shaking really bad and she could not stay awake. It was a little concerning but it was also really cute to have her cuddle and sleep on me and my mom.

Even the day after the sedation she seemed really out of it still. I am counting that as a blessing because we flew home that day and she was an angel through it all. We had 2 flights and I don't think she even said 2 words or moved off my lap during either. By this morning she seemed to be back to her normal self so I'm not worried anymore.

The entire week was so exhausting for my Mom and I. The days were long at the clinic and then trying to entertain the kids in the evenings was draining too. My Mom was a fantastic travel partner. She and Tyler were buddies and I took care of Lauren most of the time. My Mom was a great support to me and I loved being able to share this experience with her. She was our navigator and found ways for us to get out for dinner or get to the grocery store. She was so great to entertain the kids in waiting rooms when I was meeting with different specialists. I really enjoyed getting to spend the week with her.

I also have to share these pictures because they are perfect representations of the week. These are their security badges they had to wear all week. Tyler didn't go anywhere without his elephant. He even held it during his MRI's. And Lauren, well the picture says it all!

Even though the experience was very exhausting and difficult I am still so glad that we had the opportunity to go. I thought I would come home with tons of new information about the syndrome but I don't feel like I did. I did learn some things but I found out that I already know most of what there is to know about the syndrome in general. I realized that I need to shift my focus from general information to more specific information about what is going on with my kids. That is what I did find out this week. I found out the Tyler is already showing some pre-diabetes signs. I feel a real urgency to change some things in our diets to make sure he is healthy. I also found out that generally my kids are doing really well. Their hearts and kidney's are fine. Lauren's eyes are fine. And although Tyler does have the eye disease his vision is quite good still. I learned more about genetics and how the syndrome was passed on too. We didn't get the result of the genetic testing yet. That could take a few months to get.

The most important thing I learned this week was something that I already knew but was reminded of many times this week. I re-learned that I have been guided and directed by the Holy Ghost so many times as a parent to these special kids. I was able to think through our journey from the time Tyler was born until the now and was able to recognize that my mind has been enlightened by the Spirit. I've been lead to different things at different times that have been beneficial for us. As I've looked at the past 10 yrs it's so easy to see how blessed I've been. I feel really grateful for the renewed appreciation for the gift of the Holy Ghost.

On the flight home there was a beautiful sunset somewhere over the midwest.

I was so excited to get home and see Nate, Alex, and Abby. I was also very excited to sleep in my own bed without Lauren!