JD & Amie pics

I tried to find some pictures of Amie from about two years old that could be compared to JD's pictures. On the computer - most of my pictures start in April of 07 - with many of the prior pictures not loaded on there....so - this is the best I can do right now. This picture of Amie was actually taken with a phone camera - so not real good resolution.

Some of the features that are part of the syndrome is the wide nasal bridge. JD's is wider than Amies - hers is more "sunken" - part of the reason they struggle to get the nose bridges to fit her real well on the glasses. They both have been documented to have "low set ears" - I'm not super sure exactly what that is supposed to mean...they look pretty cute to me!! JD definitely has his Mom's chin!! It's an adorable chin!!

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I don't know - I just think they are both adorable kids!! I am going to try to keep putting their pictures together of them at the same age over time - just to see.....
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Amie turned 4!

We didn't celebrate a birth"day" this weekend - it turned into a birth"weekend".

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The fun started on Saturday! In the morning - we let her have her main Birthday gift - we did find the Harley edition of the Ford F-150 electric truck!

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This was as we brought her out - she saw it "hiding" behind her playset!

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First we have to check out how we look! Just kidding - in the mirrors are pictures of motorcycles (as if they are driving behind the truck) - she named the three riders as "Daddy, Amie & Mommy" -- Yeah right!!!

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Of course - Tiger had to check it out as well!!

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She climbed in and away she went!!!!

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And is this a future forcast for her driving skills as a teenager?? Hope not!

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Once Amie took a spin around the yard - Kylee got a chance to test her driving skills!

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She's so long legged - she had a hard time sitting comfortably!!

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Kylee got Amie her first soccer ball & she loved it!!

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Kylee has a little passenger!

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Time for a break!

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Then our new friends arrived! Heather, Mark and little JD!! They drove all the way from the Dekalb area! JD is the little guy that has the same genetic syndrome as Amie!! He's about 20 months old!

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He wasn't real sure about this wild little girl!! (He got used to her later!)

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JD did a little better with Kylee giving him a ride!

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We all went out to lunch - then Aunt Janet & Kylee had to take off. Amie took a nap, JD resisted taking one (he had slept coming down - so I guess he thought that was enough)!

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After nap - they enjoyed each other & got to know each other more!
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Amie really loved being the "big" kid! Poor JD - I thought he was going to get whiplash the way she was starting and stopping! But he seemed to enjoy it much better now that he knew her better!

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After dinner - we went to their hotel & took a quick dip in the pool! Amie was estatic! She did so much better with holding her head up & not choking! She asked to be dipped under water once, but swallowed some water - so that was the end of that!

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The only other thing was we kept having to tell her she couldn't run - she fell once and got a burn looking mark on the side of her leg from sliding sideways! But I guess it could have been whole lot worse!!!

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Sunday we got gussied up & had her 4 year old pictures taken - I'll get those on here in a few week when they come in! She did soooo good this year! They got some really cute poses!

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We then drove to the Quad Cities to a place called Bounce Town! It was soo cool! It's all these blow up play things for the kids to run around and have a ball! The kids all had so much fun!
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Here's JD!
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And here's Carly - she turns three in two days!! Happy Birthday Carly!
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There's Amie!

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What a gorgeous smile Gracie!!

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Here comes Darrien!

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And Reese is nothing but a blur!!

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The place was sooo crowded!! But we had a good time!

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After hours of playing (can't you tell by the hair & sweat!) It was time for presents and cake!
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We could only get Amie to eat ONE bite of pizza - the rest of the time she was tooo busy playing!

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Of course - she had to get a leather jacket to go with her Harley truck!

. Kylee was such the helper - reading her cards & helping her with her presents!
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Amie's cake was AMAZING! It was done at a local grocery store - Grandma Miller is the one that found it & of course Amie wanted it! "Amie have castle cake" -- "Amie see castle". Every time we drove by the grocery store for the past week or so - "Amie castle cake"!!

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Happy Birthday Sweet Girl!!!

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"And Many More!!!"
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We're all Pooped!!! When we got home tonight - Amie ate (I kid you not) - FIVE helpings of spaghetti!! I guess she was making up for not eating lunchy & burning so much energy!!!

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My Birthday

Last Weekend was my birthday - the kids gave me beautiful dozen red roses! I had to take a picture of our "redneck" vase!! We had gotten rid of all of the vases under our sink when we moved from Foosland to Galesburg!!



Darwin got me a bike - so Amie and I went for a bike ride!! She loves riding her bike!

I hadn't had a chance to even take a picture of my roses until this weekend (thus the look that they are getting old!) - guess that's fitting!!

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Anyway - the week wasn't fantastic - I was sick the first part of the week - Amie then came down with a UTI (wetting constantly day and night) - we had to have washed every pair of underwear at least 3 times!

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So this weekend is Amie's birthday - I'll blog about it tonight to tomorrow night! Such a fun weekend so far!

Ready to Roll!!

Amie definitely likes her new helmet to go with her new bike! Now if we can just get some new weather!!

March Madness.....

So another day has come and gone....but there's new updates!

1st - Tim has not had a headache or thrown up since Sunday. He had his follow-up appointment and his blood pressure was normal!! 110/70! We're going to leave him on the blood pressure medicine, since the timing correlates with the medication working. So...if he has more bad headaches and throwing up in the future - we'll re-assess whether the headache gave him the high blood pressure, or the high blood pressure gave him the headache! In the mean time, he's been told that when the weather gets better out - he needs to get out walking more!

2nd - The weather here has begun to dry up!! YEAH!! Because it is flooding so bad in the area it is not even funny! Our basement got water in it for the first time that we know of & certainly the first time since we moved in! We've shop vac'd it, we're running the dehumidifier & fans!! It's still wet today, but not sloshingly wet!! Unfortunately where the water is coming in is the room with carpeting! Hopefully we saved everything!!

3rd - We got the official word from Make a Wish today!! Amie's trip is scheduled for next January to DisneyWorld!!! We're so excited & Janet & Kylee are coming with!! It is going to be a blast!!

And finally - Grandma Miller got a new laptop today & Darwin is setting it up.....it is a mighty powerful little system!! And it has a webcamera! Here are some pictures we took! It was fun! I think I like the web camera better than I ever thought I would....just might have to get one for our system!!

Of course Darwin had to do the tongue out picture of us!! But on the other hand, sticking her tongue out is part of her therapy!!

Tim update & pictures

First the update! Tim's headache has finally let up! He even played X-Box yesterday - you know it's bad if he's not up to playing X-Box!!

So - now on to Tim's pictures of memories!!

Tim came to us at 8 pounds 2 ounces. He was taken two weeks early by c-section. Here's Chris getting his first look at baby brother. After the initial shock - he was an extremely protective big brother!!




Everyone has to have a naked baby picture of themselves as a baby!!



Tim was a major thumb sucker!


I adore this picture - the snow is still falling - I had set Tim on the deck to get a picture - he was soo adorable!!

Tim really enjoyed his first birthday cake!!

Tim was slow to learn to crawl - when he first began to roll (around 7 months) - he rolled every where he wanted to get. Then around 11 months he learned how to do the army belly crawl. It took a lot of effort for him to pull himself forward!!

Speech therapy - trying to desensitize his mouth and face (he had a HUGE gag reflex!)

Around 3: Tim got a walker - it didn't take him any time at all to begin whizzing around in that thing like he'd had it for years! He didn't really walk - he ran!!!

Before he was 3 1/2 he was walking!!

Tim could fall asleep anywhere!!!

Here's a pair of his orthotics.

You know what Big Brother's are good for? Getting little brothers to do things they typically wouldn't do!!! Chris thought it was hysterical to have a mud fight with his brother. I suppose it is because a neighbor boy had been the instigator in a similar incident years early! I really wasn't upset - because Tim really never wanted to do anything different - so for him to have participated in a mud fight was really a milestone!! And he was so cute covered in mud!!

When Tim was around 13-14, he went through a huge growth spurt & had a hard time walking upright. His knees were bent to at least 45 degrees & both feet were turned in quite a bit. He was complaining of pain all the time & we were pretty much told locally that he would need surgery. We found Dr. Sarwark at Children's Memorial & began an intensive weekly serial casting process - the results were amazing!!! This was post casting - Tim had a "gait analysis" done. They hooked up all these reflectors to his body & the computer took that information & gave a stick figure type of analysis of how his gait was functioning!! It's the same technology that was later used in the movie "Polar Express"!!

I'll post some pictures of the brother's growing up together on a later blog!