Great Grandfather's Violins

Lately I've been learning about my family history. My Aunt Pam (who is a fantastic genealogist) has put together a lot of information to dig through. I focused my attention to my Great Grandfather, Lee Roy Parsons. He was the owner of the San Luis Obispo Lumber Mill . I also learned that he would make violins and give them to poor children who couldn't afford to play. He would cut down local trees for wood, carve out the pieces, and build violins (appox 1900-1920's).  Little did I know that some of the violins were still in the family. After visiting my Grandmothers house I was given one of the violins that he made. 

Lee Roy Parsons carving a violin

The violin I was given was in pretty rough shape. It was basically just the main body missing all of the other  pieces. The picture below is similar to what it looked like when I got it (though lighter in color). Inside the body of the violin there is an old sticker that has the signature, "Lee Roy Parsons"

As a family heirloom, we decided to have the violin restored. We took it to a "Luthier" (repairs stringed instruments) to see what he could do. I told the Luthier the story of the violin and its history. He informed that if the violin was made for poor children "it was made with an act of love" because the quality of the piece was really good. He said it was an interesting piece because the wood was not wood he was familiar with, the mid section of the violin is thicker than most, and it had an unusual support bracing the neck. We decided to move forward with the restoration and have him make it a playable instrument, one that we can keep in the family. Here are the results:

It turned out great! Everyone (except Brooklyn :) is excited to make some music!

Pinewood Derby Race - No Rules - 2/25/14

Elders Quorum no rules pinewood derby race - Some pretty cool cars showed up ~  mine is the black one with the campbells soup can on top.

The Show

Family Video #1 - "The show"

Family Video #2 - "She gets it from her Mom"

SUPER DUO!

Just when you thought the world was running out of super heroes, comes along "The Super Dog" and "Amazing Star Girl!"

Apple anyone?

I asked Isaiah to get an apple for me~

This is what showed up!

Bon appetite!

Going down the slide!

Park with Kids

Happy New Year! We have so much to blog about (about a years worth :) Our kids are growing up so quickly. We are trying to enjoy them while they are still cute :)

Nothing finishes a day at the park like french fries and tacos from our favorite mexican shop.

The Amazing Isaiah!

Magic Trick #2!

Mystery at it's finest.....

Welcome to .... The Magic Show!

by the Great and Mysterious Isaiah

Brooky's 18 month old photos (a little late)

I am so far behind on this blog but I figured I better start somewhere. :) I also wanted to do a quick update with how everything is going with Brooklyn. I need to capture some of her sweetness on here that I have been taking so long to get around to.

Brooky turned 18 months old over a month ago so she is now 19 months coming up on 20 months, but I am going to post her 18 month photos that my friend took for me and tell you some of the new things she is up to lately. I think she did an awesome job of capturing all of Brooky and her sweet personality and her not so happy self...and her goofy faces. I love them all! :)

Sweet blue-eyed girl

She was not happy about this setup! But I love it anyway!

Still a little unhappy

funny face

Still mad! :)

Zaya wanted a few shots too! He is growing up so big!

Love my handsome man!

After we stopped and took a break and ate lunch she was super happy and all smiles again! :)

She liked playing peek-a-boo with the plates! Love it.

I just love these!

One of my favorites.

I love this face she does! She has been doing it a lot lately and it cracks me up! 

It makes me smile every time. :) I sure love this silly girl!

She is learning a lot of new words and will try and say different things when we say them to her now. So if we say "A" she will say "A" and copy the things we say. She doesn't pronounce everything the best, but at least she is trying! She loves to say hello, thank you (says this all the time, but will not say please) , hi, good bye, mama, here mom (whenever she hands me things), where's Isaiah?, and here I come. We have been playing a lot of peek-a boo and hide and seek. :) She is adding new words to her vocabulary every day now it seems.

She is starting to get around pretty good now, although I am getting anxious for her to be walking. Now that she weighs 23 lbs she is getting so heavy to carry everywhere! She does scoot on her bum all over the house! And she is really fast. It cracks me up! She is starting to crawl a little bit, but doesn't like it very much yet. I think with a bit more practice she will be crawling (as long as she makes up her mind that she likes it). She will get into crawling position and crawl forward just a bit and then revert back to scooting! She is now putting a little bit of weight on her legs, and will actually stand on them for about 30 seconds. And she is starting to pull herself up onto her knees up next to things. Her legs are definitely getting stronger and hopefully it won't be too much longer before she is walking.

She loves music and singing. Her favorite song that she sings is Twinkle Twinkly Little Star, but she only says, "Up above da world so high" and she sings that part over and over and over. :) She also loves doing the actions to Popcorn Popping and If You're Happy and You know it clap your hands. She loves dancing to music. She also loves watching movies and is constantly pointing to the TV saying Play or Push Play. That means she wants me to turn a movie on for her. :) Her favorite movies are Cinderella, Toy Story and Cars, although she likes lots of different ones.

She also loves to tease her brother and just yesterday she got a hold of the fly swatter and was swatting him with it. Well she could tell he didn't like it and she kept on getting him with it. He would get so mad and say, "Brooky I'm NOT a fly!" So she kept doing it because she was getting a raise out of him. She also likes to scoot over to him and say kick and then she will kick him while she is sitting on the floor. They are just soft little taps, so she isn't really hurting him, just teasing him! Too funny! She loves her brother and they have lots of fun playing together now that she can scoot around the house!

As far as the medical side of things she is doing well. We haven't had any more seizures although we came close again on Feb 20th. We are pretty sure now that it is low blood sugar that is causing her seizures, but only time will tell for sure, and more testing of course. So when she started showing the same signs that she was going to have a seizure we were able to get her blood sugar back up by forcing sugary apple juice down her with a medicine dropper and then luckily that brought her blood sugar back up enough that we escaped a seizure. I am convinced that she would have had another one had my mom not been here to help me syringe that juice down her! So scary. Oh and because she was sick at the time her MRI ended up getting canceled so that is put on hold while we explore the hypoglycemia to see what those results show.

We met with her pediatric endocrinologist today and she thinks she has some form of hypoglycemia...can't remember exactly what she called it. The only way to diagnose her with it though, is to rule out all the other things, and in order to do that we have to do the tests while her blood sugar is low. So it may be a little tricky. So now we get to monitor her blood sugar levels daily and make sure they don't get too low. If they drop below 65 then we have to take her to the ER so they can do the testing. And as crazy as this may all seem I am glad that it is something that seems like it can be controlled and we hopefully won't have to put her on her seizure medication! YAY! Keeping our fingers crossed! And at least we are getting somewhere with all of this. 

We sure love this little girl! She is growing up way too fast!

The start to 2013!

I am way behind on this blog. My camera battery has died and I can't seem to find our battery charger anywhere. So that is half the reason I am so behind. SO I decided I just better start with a few posts and try and go back and catch up with Thanksgiving and Christmas later. :) That way I don't get too far behind. Sorry for the lack of pics. I may have to buy a new charger.

So our year started off with a bang. On the 1st of January we had our own kind of explosion. (Not fireworks, but diarrhea.) Brooky got it bad and got it all over the carpet. So right off I thought we are really off to a good start to the year! At first I just thought it was a big diaper since she had bad gas the whole day and then finally got it all out. Well the next day she had a few more explosions and then at that point I realized it was diarrhea and it wasn't clearing up. So I started her on pedialite to try and clear things up. Then on the morning of Jan 3rd she woke up really cranky. I thought it must be because she wasn't feeling well. After changing her and feeding her breakfast (which she didn't eat a whole lot of) she was still really cranky and acting tired. She seemed a little cold so we were just taking things easy and snuggling in the warm blankets on the couch while watching a movie. Then all of a sudden she started seizing in my arms. Her eyes go all crazy and she drools a lot and her body shakes. Instantly when this started happening I knew something was terribly wrong and I instantly had a flash back to about a month before on (Nov 28th) when something similar had happened, but at the time I didn't realize what it was. Anyway it all came together for me in that instant and I knew that she was having a seizure and I knew it was now the second time, so something serious must be wrong. Each of the seizure only lasted about 30 seconds to a minute. And afterwards she gets really cranky and falls asleep. This has been the pattern for every one. So after calling Casey, I called the doctor, who told me I needed to call 911 and have them come in case she were to have another seizure on the way to the hospital.

So the ambulance and firetruck show up at our apartment, and right after that Casey got home. After checking her blood sugar levels they found it was really low. So we gave her some apple juice with a few spoonfuls of sugar in it and headed to the emergency room. I rode with Brooky in the ambulance and Zaya came with dad. While waiting at the ER she started getting cranky again and I thought maybe it was because she didn't want to be held anymore. So I set her down on the hospital bed. Just a moment later she tipped over/passed out and began to have another seizure. We immediately called the doctors and nurses to come in. So even though I am not glad she had another seizure it was good that she had this one so that they could see firsthand what I had been trying to describe to them. Anyway since she had now had more than one seizure they decided they better transfer us to Rady's Children Hospital in San Diego. So one of my good friends took Isaiah for us and I rode down with Brooky in the ambulance that transported her there.

Casey later met up with us there after gathering some of our things. He brought us dinner and we were starving from not having a whole lot to eat the whole day. Well the food didn't settle to well in either of our tummies and I started to feel a little sick. It didn't help that I had a headache as well. So Casey went to find me some Tylenol or something. While he was gone Brooky had another diarrhea explosion all over my lap this time! At this point I had about had it. I felt queasy and the smell  wasn't helping at all. I called the nurse over to help me get Brooky and all her wires and poopy mess taken care of. Then Casey shows up and then I ran to the bathroom and started throwing up! Great! Now I have the stomach flu!

So our room smelled terrible. I felt so bad for the other people that were sharing a room with us. Well I knew I wouldn't be any help if I was sick and I couldn't stay there! So Casey had to take me home and while they did they switched us to a private room (thank goodness). On the way home I called my friend and told her that we would be picking up Isaiah for the night since I was sick now and was coming home. That way he could sleep in his own bed. Before we reached their home to pick him up she texted me saying that, "Zaya just threw up too!" Great so we were all coming down with the stomach bug on top off all the rest of this.

So Brooky was taken care of really well by the awesome nurses at the hospital there while she waited for her daddy to return. But that night was a long one for Casey because he had to keep Brooky awake most of the night to ensure she would be sleepy for her EEG then next morning (which only work if they are sleeping.) So she was only allowed to sleep from midnight until 4:00am and then she has to stay awake the rest of the time until she got her EEG done. So they watched a lot of movies and took strolls in the car wagon through the hospital halls to keep each other awake. Well the EEG came back negative and from all the other tests they did they were not able to determine what was causing her seizures. So they released her to come home from the hospital.

After they got home Casey came down with the stomach flu. Luckily it was only about a 24 hour bug so Zaya and I were already starting to feel better. What a start to our new year! Since then January has flown by. In the beginning I was really worried about her and overly cautious and I couldn't sleep well at night until we got a video monitor so we can keep an eye on her when she sleeps now. That helps so much with my peace of mind. January has flown by and she hasn't had any more seizures that we know of. We are still praying for her and watching her closely.

So from here on out the only thing we have left to do is an MRI. So we will be having that done then end of February. Other than that we watch to see if she has more seizures or not. Hopefully she won't. If she does then she will be put on medication to help control them. Her neurologist said that because she is otherwise healthy there is a good chance that she will outgrow the seizures. So that gives us comfort that if she does continue to have them hopefully they won't last the rest of her life. The hard part is not knowing. Not knowing what is causing them? If there will be more? How long will all this last?

But despite all of this we are so grateful to have our sweet Brooky in our lives. She brings us so much joy. She just turned 18 months old, which I will have to do a separate post on that. She is so sweet and growing up so fast. We enjoy every day with this sweet girl and are so very very thankful for all the wonderful family and friends who have been praying for us and our family. It has really made a difference.

Here's to a better rest of the year and hopefully no more seizures.

Cast Free Brooky!!!!!!!!!!

Well my sweet little Brooky has always been sweet, but let me tell you how much I am enjoying this sweet girl now that she is out of her cast! Yes! You read it right! Brooky got her cast off on Thursday November the 15th! After being in her spika cast (3 different ones) for 6 1/2 months we were more than happy to finally be getting off her final cast! And even more excited when the doctor gave us the news that her hips look great and he thinks we have nothing to worry about! Everything is looking as good as it could be at this point. So we didn't end up having to wear the brace again or anything! So we just have to go back in 8 months (when she is about 2 years old) and have another check up to make sure everything is still good. So now Brooky doesn't have to wear the brace, cast, or anything else! She is all free!

Needless to say I am so excited to finally be able to cuddle and squeeze and tickle and bathe and dress my baby in cute clothes after not being able to do these things for so long! Who knew giving kids a bath could be so much fun? Well after not being able to bathe her in the tub for 6 1/2 months it sure is fun to soap her all up and let her splash and play. And it is so much fun that she can wear tights, and leggings, and skirts, and pants and all these cute clothes that I haven't been able to dress her in before. Even before she had the cast on she was wearing the brace, so I haven't been able to have a "normal" baby since she was 5 weeks old. So I am so happy that we are FINALLY done wearing the brace and FINALLY done with the casts. From 5 weeks old to one week short of 16 months old is a long time! And we are now finally done!  And now I get to hold and cuddle this sweet girl. And it is SO FUN! I am just soaking up every second, because she is so much more cuddly now and I just love it! It really is hard to believe that we are finally to this day, because at times I wondered if we ever would be.

I have felt very blessed through this whole experience though and know that I have had extra strength to deal with things, which I think came from all of those people who were praying for us. I feel so grateful that I was given such a sweet girl who has handled each step of the way with such patience and resilience! I really couldn't have asked for a more happy girl than Brooky! She has been so happy through this whole experience and has really taught me a lot. Just makes me love her even more!

So to celebrate Brooky being cast free, we decided to take the kids to Chuck E' Cheese for a fun night out. We have never taken them before, and they both loved it! Brooky loved riding the little rides and trying out the little kid slide and trying to put the little tokens in each time. Zaya loved it too! He keeps begging us every day to see if we can go back. :)

So far Brooky is doing well. Her skin looks really great for having been in the cast for so long. There was a lot of dead skin that had built up of course, but other than that, was really not bad at all. She is relearning how to sit up. She can do it, but she likes to throw herself back on purpose because she thinks it is fun. I could tell that she is really used to having support helping her sit up, so she is having to re-learn her balance of things without the cast on. She is still pretty stiff, but that is expected for the first little while. She also was a little scared/unsettled or something  (can't think of the right word) because now when I would go to pick her up to hold her, it was such a weird feeling to her that she would grab her arms around my neck and hold on for dear life. I would just have to calm her a bit and reassure her that she was fine. This happened a few times, but now she doesn't seem to be doing it any more and is getting accustomed to what it feels like to not be in a cast anymore. She loves to be thrown up in the air! And all the other fun movements that we get to do with her now that we can actually lift her above our heads! She is also starting to realize that she can move her legs and has fun just wiggling them around. It is really quite funny though, because she still tries to do all the same kind of movements that she did while the cast was on. It's like she doesn't know how to move her body any other way. It is also funny for me, because in a way it seems like I have a newborn, but in another way it seems like she is her actual age. It is just so funny that she can't really move her legs much at all. They are like rubber and she hasn't learned how to control them and they have hardly and muscle, so they are like trying to dress a newborn. It is hard to put pants on her. And now we are relearning how to diaper. It actually takes me longer to change and diaper her now than it did when she was in the cast. But I am sure once the stiffness and everything goes away, and I get used to dressing those floppy legs, we will get faster. :)

Well this post is getting too long, so stay tuned and I will post lots of pics soon. :) Just wanted to let everyone know our exciting news! So happy to have our little girl without all those things strapped around her and that her hips are all fixed, at least for now. :) But hopefully for good.

Brooky's cast is coming off!

I finally was able to get the Orthopedic department to call me back and schedule us in to get Brooky's cast removed! We have been on the waiting list for over a month and we were supposed to get her cast off sometime around the 14th of November. Well after calling and calling and leaving messages and still not getting anyone to get me an appointment I was starting to worry that we would end up having this cast on even longer! I was really hoping to have it off before Thanksgiving! Well today I called again, and this time they finally called back with an appointment! I guess the Dr, finally opened up some slots or something. Brooky gets her cast off on the 15th of November! That is in 10 days! I seriously felt like a kid on Christmas morning after I got off the phone! I am so thrilled that this day is almost here! I can't wait to give Brooky real baths again and squish and tickle and cuddle her without that heavy thing on! It is going to be so nice! Although I'm sure we will have some adjustments as well. I just can't wait! I am so excited! We finally know when we are getting the cast off, so I can officially start my countdown. We will find out when we go in if she has to wear the brace again or not and how everything looks. Wish us luck. Especially Brooky because she hates the cast cutter saw thing that they use to take the cast off! It will be totally worth it to get it off though! She just doesn't know that yet. :) We couldn't be more excited. I am truly thankful!

Fall Fun and Halloween!

Our first fall activity was going to a little pumpkin patch and picking out a few pumpkins. It was a little rainy so we didn't stay long because we didn't want Brooky's cast to get wet. Plus all the little rides were all wet. We decided to pick the odd colored ones and then later bought a regular big one and two little ones to carve as well. I don't think I ever got any pictures of these ones carved. Woops.

Pumpkin Patch

Zaya loved pulling around his wagon full of gourds/pumpkins or whatever they are.

I was cleaning some dirt or something off of her cheeks when Casey snapped the photo. Looks like I am squeezing her cheeks though! lol

Posing by the pumpkins

Finally got all of them to look. :)

Zaya by the pumpkins

Pulling his load back to the car.

Ward Party

My cute little fairy princess and cowboy. Brooky was a little cranky since she was waiting to eat dinner. :)

I couldn't talk Isaiah into wearing his bandana or letting me put a mustache on him.

So precious.

Handsome cowboy.

Sweet smile.

I think she looks so pretty!

A flying princess! It took me all day long to paint her nail. Won't be doing that again for a long time!

Love her pretty blue eyes.

Our trunk partially decorated for the trunk or treat. It was hard to get a good picture with the full effect. The ward party was overall a big success I think. There were a lot of people that came. We had a dinner and then the kids went around and did the different booths. Zaya's favorite was the cake walk because he loved running around and around hoping to get his number drawn to get a treat. Even after he won, he just kept wanting to run around! While I was helping Brooky finish her dinner, Casey took Zaya to play at the different booths. Well there was a mad hatter dressed up really scary with his face painted and everything. I guess he sprayed silly string right in Isaiah's face and it scared him pretty bad! Then when I showed up Zaya was coming unglued every time the mad hatter was even close. He was so terrified that he was going to get sprayed again. It made me a little mad because the guy was scaring him on purpose and it ruined the rest of  the night for Isaiah. He went out to the car with dad to help him prepare the trunk for all the trunk or treaters. He was so afraid that I couldn't even get him to come back inside for the costume parade. He did do the trunk or treating though. Then that night he woke up screaming and I'm sure it was because he was so afraid of that guy! He ended up sleeping in our bed the whole night, which never happens. Then on our way to church on Sunday Isaiah was afraid to go because he was afraid that the scary guy who sprayed him was still going to be there. Poor boy has never been so afraid of anything in his life! On a happier note though, they both loved getting candy in their buckets at each car they visited!

Halloween Night

Since Zaya couldn't decide what to be he went with fireman this time. Here he is with one of his best friends Gabi who was dressed as Rapunzel.

Here I am as a cowgirl with my little fairy princess.

Here you can see me a bit better.I need to get the other pics from my friend who has one of all of us dressed up. 

 So on Halloween night we went over to our friends across the street and had a little halloween dinner before trick or treating. I brought these:

Mummy dogs

And Jello worms. These were kinda fun to make, but also a lot of work. People just don't really like the thought of eating worms. :)

Then we went with our friends to their neighborhood to trick or treat. It was a lot of fun and the kids had a blast. Zaya loved being able to get big handfuls at some of the doors. He filled his bucket clear to the top. He loved dumping it all out and counting it with me after we got home. Brooky loved searching through her bucket while we went around the neighborhood. She would reach in, pull out a candy. Taste it with the wrapper on, decide it was no good, then throw it off the side of her stroller! She kept doing thing (both at the trunk or treat and the night of Halloween  So finally I didn't let her hold her bucket anymore and had to just let her such on a lollipop until we were done. That seemed to suffice her just fine. And she loved getting all sticky each time! She got into trick or treating more than I thought she would!

Oh we also made Halloween sugar cookies one day. They turned out super cute, but I totally forgot to take picture of them. We made pumpkins, bats, and candy corn shapes. Here's to a happy rest of fall, even though it still feels like summer here most days. I just love it when it cools down at night, or when it is rainy because then it really does seem like fall.