Sunday, January 24, 2010

Giggling girls....

Hannah celebrated her 10th brithday in true girlie-girl fashion!  She had a roller skating party with 10 friends and family.  It was complete with the limbo, hokie pokie, pizza, and of course, cake and ice cream!  She really had a fun time.  It is so nice to see her laughing and having the time of her life.

Taking a break from skating and having lunch....



Singing Happy Birthday to Hannah....

  Once we left the skating rink, 6 girls headed back to our house to spend the night!  Whew!!  They were all really good girls and we only had a couple "tiffs", so I think we faired well.  The girls played games, watched movies, ate more cake, and did LOTS OF GIGGLING!!!!   I am not sure how late it was until they actually  went to sleep.  I fell asleep before they did!  



                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        
opening presents....(a karioke machine from mom and dad!!)



Look at all those smiles!!!!



Having a blast... and believe it or not, no one got hurt!!!!



how cute are they?????


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2 comments:

Danielle said...

Oh great. I have Bristel hangin' over my shoulder declaring that 1) she wants to meet all those girls 2) someday she's going to have a sleepover! lol

I hope Hannah had a wonderful birthday!

...danielle

January 25, 2010 at 4:35 PM
Anonymous said...

Danielle- TOO FUNNY!!! Believe me, your day is a comin!! It wasn't that bad, just have to keep the girls busy.... they had a really fun time! And we had a nice, BIG nap on Sunday!
Glad to hear things are going well with Trevy....
Marcia

January 25, 2010 at 5:18 PM

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Beautiful Hannah...

How this journey started....

Hannah was born prematurely at 34 weeks gestation. She was a relatively healthy preemie; initially having difficulty maintaining body temperature and needing to grow. She weighed 4 pounds 9 ounces at birth. When she was four months old she began to drool, non stop. We were told the first year she was "teething." At 18 months old, we really started searching for reasons of why her shirt was always soaking wet. We saw various specialists who always sent us to another specialist, saying "everything looks okay." She spent years in oral motor/feeding therapy to help her not to drool. It wasn't until she was four years old and in preschool that we started to get some answers. Her preschool teacher commented one day that she wasn't reponding when her name was called. I took this information to her pediatrician who then orderd an EEG, "just to rule it out." Much to our shock and amazement, the results showed, she was having seizures. That is the day our journey REALLY began. Once she began taking seizure medication the drooling almost stopped completely. (She will still drool to this day when she is having seizure activity). Since then, it has been a roller coaster; countless medications and medication changes. She has never really reponded well to any medication.

About two years after she was diagnosed with epilepsy, the doctors noticed that her blood pressure was running high. After many tests, she was diagnosed with hypertension. We still are not sure why, but her cardiologist feels her blood vessels are thicker than normal.

About this same time, we also began looking into why Hannah was such a horrible sleeper. She would thrash, talk, move every which way, during her sleep. The sleep studies revealed that she has alveolar hypoventilation sydrome, which means she has too much carbon dioxide in her system when she sleeps. To help this, she wears a BI-PAP at night. This has been monumental in giving her more effective and quality of sleep.

Every day is a challenge for Hannah and our family as a whole. Blitzen has been an absolutely wonderful addition. She calms herself sometimes just by petting and loving on him. He has been trained in behavior disruptions and will sometimes be able to stop a meltdown from getting out of control.
It has been extra hard on the whole family since daddy is deployed to Iraq. He has been gone since January 09 and will gone until Jan 2010. We get to talk with him by phone and on the web cam; which is nice, but not the same!! Blitzen has helped to make his absence go just a little smoother....