Las Vegas or Bust!

Did someone say VEGAS!  Yes!  Thanks Marisa for getting married in Vegas, which allowed us to pull the girls from school and go to Vegas Baby!

 First night in Vegas - Heading to . . . . . THE MICHAEL JACKSON SHOW!!!!

 And yes, that is Juliana asleep at the show.  But you see, sometimes Juliana likes shows and movies just fine, and sometimes she doesn't.  And when she doesn't, she will cry and yell until someone walks out with her and then she's fine.  So before the show I told her, "Look, we all really want to see this show.  I hope you do too, but if you don't want to see it you are not allowed to scream or cry.  It wouldn't be fair if one of us have to come out with you, so please don't do that"  And guess what, she didn't want to see the show, so she fell asleep for the entire show.  And the music was so loud they actually hand out ear plugs if you want them, and even with all that noise she slept through the whole thing.  And I said Thank You Jesus - because the show was AMAZING!  Wish she would have watched but happy no one had to miss it!  (Well except Linda, Efrain, Micki and Gabbi - so sorry - that is a whole other sad sad sad story.)

Days at the Ranch

Every spring and fall we have the pleasure of attending horseback riding at Spirit Horse Therapeutic Center in Corinth, TX.  It is actually therapeutic for all of us.  It gets us into the country for a few hours, they are teaching the girls how to care for the horses, Juliana rides for about 45 minutes (which is a great exercise to work on her core!) and then at the end they allow Olivia to ride as well.  It is a very special place and they provide all of this at no cost to the riders.  They rely completely on donations.  Click the link above for more information or to make a donation.

This is our friend Marisa and her instructor Crystal

 Olivia's turn

And this was our last ride of this season.  Thanks Crystal for another great season, and helping Juliana get stronger each day.  And of course - thanks Peter Pan for always toting Juliana around and always being so gentle.

 And we were so glad that Tante Monica and Uncle Alfons got to go out for our last ride.

 So we asked a mom to take our picture, and after about 2 shots with her finger over the lens, 5 blurry shots, this is the best we got.  Juliana looking up and . . .

 Does my face look a little annoyed?

2013 Fun Run

Good Times with Chloe Bear

Chloe has been such a wonderful addition to our family.  We already love her so much.

She sleeps on our laps

 She watches tv with us.

 She loves bedtime stories

 She just loves to cuddle

 She even takes naps with us.

We heart you Chloe!

Halloween

This Halloween was the year of the Super Hero.  Both girls decided to be Wonder Woman this year.  And I love making home made costumes, so here is what we came up with.  I think they looked amazing.

Yes, those are hand painted shirts, foam belts and crown and duct tape boots!

And then our Germans agreed to play along.  So we showed them to the dress up trunk and this is what they came out with.

And Chloe went as a hot dog, although I don't think she was very excited about it.

Kind of looks like David Bowie in The Labrinth

And we thought Monica kind of looked like Charro.

And this was Olivia's pumpkin she carved

Dressing?

Conversation between Liv and I: 
Me - what kind of dressing do you want on your salad. We have ranch or Ceasar
Liv - ooh. No thank you I don't want seizures. I'll take ranch.

EEG

This girl is a trooper.  So it was time to do another EEG, and since school was reporting that she "zones out" they recommended that we do a mobile EEG.  The Pro's of the mobile EEG:

1. You get to sleep in your own bed with your own stuff rather than be in a hospital or facility for 48 hours.

2. You get to see what's going on on a normal typical day.

The cons to a mobile EEG:

1. You have to maintain your regular schedule of school and therapy all while wearing at gauze hat with 1 million little wires coming out of your head.

But Juj didn't mind a bit.  Okay, maybe she minded a bit, but she got through it with her beautiful smile.

And since I'm so behind on the blog we have now long since gotten the results.  And it turns out that yes, some of the times when she "zones out" at school are seizures.  We kind of knew this.  The other interesting thing is that she is not getting quality sleep at night.  So despite the fact that she is in bed with eyes shut and little to no movement, she is not really sleeping.  So we will modify her meds a bit and hope for the best.