Holy Cuteness!!

Scoliosis Brace Update

Ari had her first check-up with her Ortho doc yesterday since wearing her brace. He wanted to get an X-ray of her spine with the brace on after she had been wearing it a couple weeks. The X-ray looked good, and the brace is doing what it should at this point. It's not that the brace is correcting the scoliosis at all, they are just hoping it will slow down her progressive scoliosis. Wearing the brace straightens her spine while it's on, however, if we were to take it off, and get an X-ray, it would show her curve back to what it was...if that makes sense? Overall I felt good about the appt. It's all we can do now is hope the brace does the trick and avoid surgery. In my honest opinion, and I'm not being just a pessimist (we all know that's not me!) I think she will eventually need the surgery, but having it when she is grown more, and a bit older is much much better! Oh, and the Dr. came right in and let us know that her MRI results were all good! Yay! So we know there are no other issues that are causing progressive scoliosis, just CDH.

As far as her brace goes, Ari is doing really great with it. I won't say she loves it, but she is doing better than I thought she would! I guess EVERYONE is right, these things are harder on the parents than the kids.

Shout out to...ME!

I weighed in this morning at Weight Watchers...lost another 4.7 lbs! (over 2 weeks I missed last weeks weigh in). For a total of...37!! whoo hooo! I was/am hoping to be at 40 lost by my birthday party, so I may just be able to pull it off!!
I celebrated with a Krispy Kreme RIGHT after my meeting. (literally right after, I brought it with me and left it in the car, lol).
Anyways, I'm feeling good and today should be a fun day! It's Auntie Sarah's birthday and we're all going to Ride The Ducks, then to the Cheesecake Factory (I think?) for lunch! And it's sunny again...it doesn't get much better than this!

Reunited and it feels so goooood...

Lilly & Juno were reunited Saturday night for Greg's big birthday bash after two long days apart! I wish I would have had my camera on me when they were playing outside, it was so cute. Minus the fact that my little Lilly may be a tad bit overzealous...every 10 seconds Juno was on her back being attacked by our little precious Lills. Sorry Juno if your sister scarred you for life. If I had to guess, Lilly was born before Juno because she definitely has the big sister gene.
How cute are these two, they slept like this for a good hour 1/2 or so during the party! Even with 5 little tykes all to anxious to wake them up!

Ari had a blast at Greg & Jessica's! Not that she doesn't always, but it's not very often there are other girls there for her to play with. She met little Audrey, who I must say puts all other kids to shame with her smarts & wits! She is only 3 and if you told me she was 7 I would think she was a little bit short, but believe you. I asked Ari later if she was having fun with the girls, and she said "ya, Audrey is really fun, and really helpfull to everyone. And a friend always helps". Hopefully we'll see the Sekora's at another Zevely function!
Before the party I took the kids to a free little truck show thing called Touch-a-truck at the Everett events center. There wasn't a whole lot to see, but for being free, and close to home, it was worth getting out for a bit! (nothing is ever free!) D got to climb in all the big trucks and there was even a free bouncy house there!
The kids in front of the Rockstar Monster Truck. Which was fitting because Ari told me her outfit made her look like a rockstar.

She may not be into trucks, but she was into showing off her new puppy. Taking a 1.5lb new puppy anywhere will guarentee you a lot of oooh's and aaaah's...she loved every minute of it.

Big D in the bouncy house:

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We are dog sitting our neighbors puppy Jack this week too! Yes, my house is a bit of a zoo, and I think Anna is considering running away, but it's all fun!

Jack says "what about me? I thought I was the only new puppy in town??"

No worries Jack, it's nearly impossible to out-cute a Puggle!

A few more cute pics from the weekend:



Still lot's of loves left for Anna...still the worlds best dog!

Our newest addition has arrived!!

Miss Lilly joined our family yesterday! She is a 8 week old Maltese girl! For anyone who didn't know, here's the scoop:
She was actually a surprise to Ari! After we found out about her brace I really wanted to do something for her. Something fun and exciting. About a week later Jess called and said she decided to get a Maltese puppy from a friends mom who breeds them and had just had puppies! I sort of joked around and said maybe I should get her puppies sister. About 10 seconds later I thought seriously about it and realized this could/would be the best surprise for little Ari! Somehow we managed to keep it a secret from her for over a month!
Finally the puppies were old enough to leave their mama, so Jess (thank you) drove to Enumclaw and picked up the sisters last night for us!
We told Ari about 4 days ago that Thursday we had a big surprise for her..she has been going crazy!! Never guessing a puppy, but Lot's of other random things!! (note to self: next time maybe save some money and get her the Twinkle Toe Sketchers she's been wanting, lol)
OK, back to the story. Jon got home with Lilly and we had Ari close her eyes, Jon put her in a little bucket (again, courtesy of Jess) and set it in the front yard. Ari walked over and tried to grab her from her head. She just kind of stood there, she thought it was fake! When she realized what it was, she got really excited, I think mostly in shock though! It seemed unreal! On the video at the very end you can hear her say "is she real?".
Anyways, she ran up and gave Jon and I both the biggest hugs and said thank you thank you!! It was really sweet. She kept just petting her saying "oh I love you Lilly". And then there's Darren. He calls her Willy. :)
It was hard to get a good video. Her first impression was confusion, and as usual all the good stuff you can never catch on tape with kids!!




Ari was being the best mommy last night to Lilly. When she was ready for a nap, Ari layed on the couch right next to her for over an hour to make sure she didn't get up and fall off.









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And then once again, there's my Darren:





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Happy Birthday Sissy!

Happy birthday to you,
Happy birthday to you,
Happy birthday to Ari,
Happy Birthday To YOU!

Seems like just yesterday when...
You were letting me be your maid for the day!
You let me be your student for the day and let me do real work.
You'd squeeze my arms in the hallway and tell me "mom and dad will never believe you if you tell them I hit you".
You let me help you clean out your desk, and though I wanted everything, you KNEW it was best if it got thrown away while I watched, but sometimes you'd let me keep a pencil or two.
We'd walk to Martha Lake Foods and you told me if I fell and got hurt you would leave me. I fell, you left, and I promised not to tell mom!
You would let me be your prisoner which just entailed me getting tied to a chair and put in the closet for a while!
You told me I was an accident.
You told me I looked like a boy.
You told me I looked like a monkey, so I tried to tape my ears flat.
You told me I looked like Boy George and started calling me that.

The list goes on and on...Somehow I still had the best childhood ever with the best sister...! Happy Birthday!

Fun in the Sun

Ari finally realized that you can put a sprinkler under our trampoline and jump on it while getting all wet. I was hoping to get one more summer of her not knowing about this! Makes me a little nervous (mom, stop reading now) since D doesn't really ever pay attention while jumping and Ari doesn't have the best balance in the world! But, they saw our neighbors doing it and there was no saying no.
Turns out they are "pretty" careful on it...and it's tons of fun!!