Happy Birthday Heather!

So Sunday Feb 12 my little sister turned 30! To celebrate my older sister whom my younger sister lives with planned a big surprise party for her. I think most of the readers on this blog know our family and understand Heathers disabilities. In case your a reader that happened across this blog and don't know our family she is slightly mentally handicapped. Not real bad but enough that she can not live on her own or support herself and still has some very child like qualities about her. She's one of the sweetest people I know and she just LOVES her little nephew and niece.

So my older sister planned this party, both sisters and my dad and step mom live about 3hrs away from us and the rest of the family. So it was arranged that the whole Kansas City family would travel to Ashland MO for a big surprise party. Heather's favorite thing in the world is to bowl so the party was set to take place at a bowling ally. Then after a few hours of bowling it was back to Dad's house for the "party" part. So here's our adventure of taking the kids and partying with my family.

We set our alarm for 8:30 to get up and ready to leave, since we didn't have to be at the bowling ally to meet family till 2pm. Willa woke up at 7:30 so that gave me some extra time to feed her and get her things packed. One of the things I had to take into account was that she hadn't had a poopy diaper in over a week and I was just SURE she was going to have a massive dirty diaper on the way to or from Ashland MO and have a major blow out. So in the planning I packed several outfits and I put her in a sleeper for the travel and then packed her cute dress that I was going to have her in to change into when we got there. Around 8 Casey and Eli got up and ate breakfast while I finished packing things for the kids. Among LOTS of diapers and change of clothing for both kids I also packed sleepers for them to come home in. The plan was to go have fun and then at some point Sat night return home. So the thought was have them in their sleepers that way if they fall asleep in the car when we get home we could just lay them in bed. OR if we decided to just stay the night (was an option) we had night clothes for the kids as well.

Around 10am we hit the road, we had Casey's GPS with us so we could find the bowling ally. It was pretty uneventful, stopping to get gas along the way like we always do. Willa fell asleep pretty quick and Eli was coloring and playing with his stuffed monkey that he has gotten attached to and carries everywhere.
When we were about 20min away from our final destination I was trying to pass a 18 wheeler and sped up a little. The speed limit was 70 and I went up to 75, thats when I saw him..... A Cop! I zipped past him and then cringed as I was SURE he was going to come after me. He didn't, I breathed a sigh of relief and slowed back down. A couple miles later I spotted another cop! I was then worried that they were working together and that the first one was getting the speeds on cars and the 2nd was pulling people over. After all it would be hard to miss my car what with it being yellow and all. But thankfully that one didn't come after me either, between the 2 cars it hit me that I had let my wallet at home and I was driving without my license. OOPS! Thankfully I didn't get pulled over so no harm done and when we stopped we decided that Casey was going to do the rest of the driving.

So we make it to the bowling ally at about 1:15, the party wasn't supposed to start till 2 so no one else was there. I decided this was a good time to feed Willa in the car so she will be nice and happy for awhile. After feeding her we get the kids out of the car and head inside. Everyone else (except the birthday girl and older sister) had just gotten there. I took Eli into the bathroom to change his diaper then took Willa and changed her diaper and her dress. Still no poopy diaper so the fear of a blow out wasn't realized. I had brought this CUTE dress that was red and had little black dogs along the bottom of the skirt. Attached to the end of the skirt was this black trim with white polka dots and the shoulders had black ribbon with white polka dots. The rest of the dress was covered in black dots. Was TOOO CUTE! I topped it off with a large dark pink bow.

So I get done changing her and my Dad tells me that this bowling ally wasn't going to let us rent a couple of lanes like they had said over the phone when my sister was planning it. They had told her she could rent a few lanes and bowl for 2hrs but they wouldn't let her reserve ahead of time because they weren't going to use the "party" room. We get there and there is a tournament going on, now my sister had talked to them just 2 days before and they hadn't said anything about the tournament even though she had told them what date and time we were planning this. My dad also said they were very rude to him at the counter. So he called another bowling ally and they said to come on over and they would be happy to work with us. So we headed over to that place instead. It was in another town about 20miles away but it wasn't a big deal. When we get there the owner was really nice and told my dad we could have 3 lanes for our large group for 2 1/2hrs unlimited games in that time with shoe rental included. I think my dad said he charged $9 per person. What a deal!

During this whole time my older sister and the birthday girl were at a friends getting their hair done. The friend came with them to bowl afterwards. While waiting for them to show up my step mom handed out "Mickey Ears" headbands they had made. They were really cute, the theme of the party was Disney since in Nov both sisters had gone to Disney world and Heather had LOVED it. They decided on Mickey because she had wanted the Mickey ears hat (when told to choose whichever hat she wanted) and it was easier to plan then say a Princess party. So we all get a headband, Eli and Casey wouldn't leave theirs on but I put one on Willa and she just looked SOOOOO cute! Turns out the dress I had picked for her to wear (I didn't know about the Mickey theme) and the big hair bow made her look a little like Minnie mouse! Was so cute! Finally the birthday girl arrived and was so surprised! She had a huge grin on her face and she came rushing over and took Willa from me.

The birthday girl and her favorite niece! Willa has Micky ears too but its hard to see them.

 Finally we all go get our shoes and get the bowling going. We weren't sure how Eli would do with the bowling and such but figured since Dad had paid one big rate that he could bowl with us, I don't think they charged for Eli and Faith (4) because they didn't even have shoes that small and just told us to keep them in their shoes. They had a little ramp that you can set the ball on for them to roll down so it gets all the way down the lane without stopping (remember the good old days when they would have to walk down the lane and push a sluggish ball the rest of the way down?). Casey, Eli, Libby (10) and Justin (8) were on one lane and I was on another with my sisters and their friends. Since there were so many people there we decided to take Eli's little doggie back pack that has a leash on it so that he can walk around but not wander off on us. Worked like a charm and he didn't really notice it there except when Faith would try and "walk" him. Haha. Faith was on the lane on the other side of Casey and Eli so her and Eli spent a lot of time playing together. Eli loved bowling, he actually bowled through 2 1/2 games! He won the first game even on his lane! Casey would take him and the ramp up to the lane, Justin would bring a ball and set it at the top of the ramp then Eli would push the ball. He'd stand there and watch the ball till it got to the end and knock down some pins and then if it did knock some down he's yell "Yay!!!" and clap his hands. Was so cute!

Bowling is fun!

Attempting to pick up a spare.

Even Willa got in on the action of bowling once or twice.....

Really was more just for taking a picture!

Finally we were done and headed to my Dad's house. It was around 5pm and we were getting hungry.

At Dads house Heather opened her presents which we neglected to take any (we have stuff to give her too!) And seemed to really enjoy all her stuff. My older sister had made some cute Mickie decorations and such. After she opened her presents we all had dinner. Taco's is a good meal to fix for so many people and is a common meal at our big family gatherings. Eli and Faith played almost non stop all evening. Eli did very well of listening to Mommy about not getting into things that he shouldn't. Every now and then he'd need reminders but he did a good job for a toddler! Then it was cake time! After that everyone kinda sat around and visited for awhile. Finally around 10:30pm we decided we'd better head home, we decided it would be best to just go ahead and drive home because there were so many people staying the night at my Dad's and sisters and we didn't get the air mattress from my mother in law this time and didn't want to sleep on the floor. On the way home Willa started screaming almost right away and finally after an hour (I kept thinking she'd fall asleep) we pulled over and I nursed her for a bit. Snuggled her and then put her back in her car seat where she fell asleep. Eventually even Eli was asleep and it was a quiet ride home. Once we got home I fed Willa again, both kids were happy to see their beds and fell fast asleep. It was a good weekend, we had fun and the kids did a good job considering there was so much stimulation for them. All in all we have GREAT kids and I wouldn't change them for the world!

P.S I started typing this up last week but got busy getting ready for an upcoming bridal show that I'm going to have a booth in for my photography that I finally was able to finish it and post it.  :D

Casey's grandma

So its been a few days since I've posted, We've had the pleasure of having Casey be home all week due to no work. So we've been doing fun things all week like going to the park and stuff. But this week has also been a hard week on Casey's family.

Last Sunday, Casey's grandmother (Mimi) went into the hospital for low oxygen. She's been living for the past few months in a nursing home. When she arrived and they did the work up they began to suspect she had a hole in her heart. Now I'm going to pause here to state that what we've heard has been passed down and passed down and passed down again. SO some of the details well actually a lot of the details are very fuzzy.

At some point they did a scope by going through her thigh and up to her heart, I guess they also went in through her throat. Anyway, apparently when they did the scope through the thigh they nicked an artery and she was bleeding internally.  I think that was um Tues? I forgot the dates, anyway they were having to give her blood transfusions and she was still bleeding out faster then they could pump the blood in. At one point she coded on them, they were able to revive her. My mother in law was actually with her (her mom) at the time and said it was very scary. She started screaming for someone to help her mom and about 50 people rushed in and someone pushed her out of the room telling her she couldn't be in there. She said she thought Mimi was gone at that point. They were able to revive Mimi however at that time.

They finally went in and were able to fix the torn artery and stopped the bleeding, Mimi was in the ICU for a few days, just before she coded she had told Steph she wanted to see Willa 1 more time before she died. She had at this point only seen Willa once, but being as how she was in the ICU we couldn't take Willa to see her because they didn't want babies in the ICU. The following day my mother in law got a lawyer because of these infections Mimi has had on her legs. Apparently the nursing home had not taken care of these 2 injuries on Mimi's legs and now they were badly infected. The lawyer wanted photographs of the injuries that day to begin working on his case against the nursing home for neglect. So I took my camera equipment to the hospital and took pictures. Lets just say it wasn't very pretty looking. But those are separate from the um heart of the issue with Mimi which seems to be her heart.

When I was there Mimi looked terrible, I have never seen anyone so pale before, she looked like a talking dead person seriously. I took my toshiba thrive (tablet computer) and showed her pictures of Willa. Then took the pictures of her ankles and visited for a bit then left.

The next day she was moved out of ICU which we thought was a good sign, we took Willa and Eli to visit Mimi for a little while before going to my mother in laws for Dinner like we do every Fri. I had asked Stephie if she needed a break from Cooking and if so we could eat before coming to visit. She said no she wanted to cook dinner for us still. We visited with Stephie for a long time before coming home with 2 exhausted kiddo's.

So last night I was at the Grocery store getting things I needed for our weeks worth of dinners and had a question about one of the recipes I was using. I knew she would know so I called her to ask her, when she answered and I asked her how everything was going she told me that Mimi was being moved back to ICU and the Dr's have told everyone to gather and decide what to do for Mimi. I guess its not looking good, Mimi is in danger of coding at any time and the Dr's are recommending they NOT try to save her if she does code again. They said her quality of Life wasn't going to be good if she survived and that she is in a lot of pain and there is nothing they can do about it. They said each time she codes and they have to revive her it will just get worse and worse and harder on her body till eventually they wouldn't be able to bring her back. So it doesn't sound good at all.

Through all of this Mimi has insisted that she wants to live, she is scared to die. She wants them to do everything they can to keep her alive even if it means being on life support in a vegetative state. Which is so sad, when I was there and the subject of a Power of Attorney came up she was very insistent she did NOT want one and she wanted to LIVE... Every time the nurse came in she would insist to him that she wanted to live. We are praying for peace for her and her family as well as peace from all the pain she is in. So for now we wait and pray. If its her time we know its going to be a hard time for the family to go through.