A Couple Prayer Requests, Please

Next Wednesday, February 8th we are heading to St. Louis for several appointments.  Brooke will be seeing her Genetics and Pulmonary doctors.  She has been off the ventilator for over eight months and is eating like crazy!  I will get to her eating during her update blog.  I am hoping that we continue to talk about possibly getting her trach out.  Please pray that her doctors will be pleased with her progress and give us the news we long so desperately to hear!  Hadley will be having an ultrasound of her kidneys done, blood work taken and will see the Nurse Practitioner with the Nephrology department.  My hope is that the kidney cysts are gone, but because that is unlikely, we are praying that they have not grown and that we can just continue to monitor her.  Thanks for keeping us in your prayers.  We really appreciate the continued support. I will keep you posted when we get back.

Having Fun With Daddy!

One day (don't exactly remember when) I was working on putting our DVD's into a big case so I could get rid of the individual cases.  When I asked Brian and the girls to pick up the cases for recycling, this is what happened.  They made a ramp and were trying to jump the Barbie car onto the chair.  They were all having a blast!  And, it was pretty funny to listen to Brian try to explain the scientifics behind the jump.  Needless to say, the girls could care less about that, but were just having fun with their daddy.

 Please don't look at my messy house ;)

 You must have the proper safety gear!  And, as usual, Brooke is naked!

Hadley's First Hunting Trip

For those of you that don't know, Brian is a hunter.  He has been hunting for most of his life.  It's something he really enjoys doing with his dad and his brother.  Mostly, they hunt deer and turkey, but they also enjoy being out in the woods.  Brian jokes that he is going to make at least one of his girls his hunting buddy.  I am not a hunter (surprise, surprise).  I did go one time, but wasn't asked to go again.  All we did was sit in the deer blind and wait.  We never did see anything and I'm glad we didn't.  I told Brian that if I did see a deer, I would probably yell so I could scare it away :) I do enjoy walking through the woods and "exploring" which doesn't happen very often anymore. 

Brian has been bugging me to take Hads hunting.  When she was younger, I set the age limit of five.  "When she's five you can take her out there.  Just wait until she turns five."  That sounded great until she actually did turn five!  He absolutely was not allowed to take her during shot gun season.  He absolutely was not allowed to put her in a tree stand.  I had quite a few rules.  I know that Brian would keep her safe and wouldn't let her get into danger, but you never know who else is out there.  Granted, this is their property and no one should be out there, but rules are broken and it makes me nervous.  Hadley on the other hand, was ready to go.  She got to go shopping with Daddy to pick out her camouflage outfit and her orange hat.  We even found her some boots.  Here she is all decked out in her hunting gear, binoculars included.  Isn't she a cute little hunter?

 Daddy and his little girl

Grandpa Tweryon went went them too.

Grandpa Tweryon and his girl.

Hadley actually did better than I anticipated.  She lasted about an hour sitting in the deer blind.  I had to laugh when Brian told me that as Hadley was going through her hunting bag she called her stuff, "her hunting accessories."  Hehe!  I guess there's always Brooke and Kami! :)

Merry Christmas, Part Two

On Christmas Eve Eve we took the girls over to Nana and Papa's house to spend the night.  Because baby Olivia was just a week old, Stuart and his family were not coming home for Christmas this year.  We decided celebrate Christmas with my parents on Christmas Eve day.  With the girls gone on Christmas Eve Eve night, Brian and I took advantage of the quiet house to finish some last minute wrapping.  We headed over around 9 a.m.for yummy breakfast casserole and coffee cake.  After breakfast we opened presents and had a nice calm day.  Here are a few pictures from our celebration.  We ALL opened some very wonderful presents! A few of the highlights include a new doll house, an adorable little puppy that Kami named "Cookie Monster" and a CD player with a microphone. 

After opening Christmas presents, we had a little birthday party for Jesus.  My dad made a cake and we sang Happy Birthday before the girls blew out the candles.

Mom and Dad... Thank you once again for such a wonderful Christmas!  We are so blessed to have such wonderful, caring parents.  Thank you for being such an important part of our family.  We love you!

Christmas 2011, Part One

The Friday before  Christmas we had dinner at Grandma and Grandpa Tweryon's with Granny, Uncle Billy, Aunt Kathy, Phil, Stephanie and Mike, and our families.  Phil and Stephanie were going to be with her family on Christmas so we celebrated a little early.  Dinner was delicious and we all opened some wonderful presents. 

 We got Granny a sweatshirt with each of the kids names embroidered on it.

Again, my pictures (or lack there of) are not very good.  I was sitting by Kami so she gets the most pictures for present opening, part one.  The big girls were sitting with their backs to me, so I didn't get many of them. 

Aunt Kathy and Uncle Billy's present was wrapped with bubble wrap.  When she pulled the bubble wrap from the bag, she yells, "Thank you!"  It doesn't take much to entertain this one! :)

And, here is Ryker enjoying the box that one of the presents came in.  Bubble wrap and boxes... pretty easy presents!

Phil and Stephanie got each of the girls a remote control light up car.  I'm pretty sure that the big boys had more fun with the cars than the girls did.  As you can see from this picture, Kami did not like the cars at all.  Well, let me re-phrase this.  Kami did not like when the car was coming at her.  She would run away and scream.  It didn't help that there were four of them going, and not a lot of room to run!

Thanks for the wonderful presents!  We had a great time visiting with you all and our girls are so lucky to have you as part of our family. 

A Visit From the 'Real' Santa Claus!!

Santa Claus himself took time out of his busy schedule to visit the Tweryon children again this year.  He came to Grandma and Grandpa Tweryon's because we were getting ready to celebrate Christmas with the Burke side of our family.  When he came to the door, the looks on their faces were priceless!  They had no idea that Santa was coming to see us, so they were quite shocked.  Brooke cried and took a few minutes to calm down.  Each year, however, we get a little more brave when it comes to Saint Nick.  Hadley sat on his lap this year.  Brooke gave him a high five and well, Kami didn't want much to do with him, but at least talked to him.  Santa gave each of the kids a special gift and asked each of them what they wanted for Christmas.  The girls think they are pretty darn special because Santa comes to visit them and "they don't have to wait in line at the mall" (per Hadley) :) 

Santa... Thanks again for taking time to visit with our girls.  They look forward to it every year and we really appreciate your kindness!

Brooke and Kami needed a little bit of moral support from Daddy to get close.  She was doing fine until we asked her if she would sit on his lap, then she started crying again. 

 We couldn't get a picture of just the kids with Santa, so we had to sit with them. 

After Santa left, the kids were playing before dinner.  Kami was playing with Ryker and he tried to take her paci.  Let's just say she was not very amused! 

Hadley's Christmas Program

Hadley had her Christmas program at Preschool and we did not miss it this year!  In fact, she announced "I made it!" to her teachers when she walked into the classroom :)  If you remember last year all three of the girls were sick on the day of Hadley's program.  She was determined to make it to this years.  When strep throat was going around the week before, I was convinced that we would have it.  Not this family!  We were all healthy and enjoyed a wonderful performance by the morning four year old class at Good Shepherd Preschool. 

Before the program, the class enjoyed cupcakes for snack.  They each had a candle in their cupcake and sang happy birthday to Jesus.  As Mrs. Monari was lighting Hadley's candle (she was the first one) she told the children NOT to blow out their candle before they sang.  Who blew out their candle?  Yep, that's right.  Hadley did!  She and the little boy next to her both blew their candles out.  I didn't catch who blew first, but I was not happy.  Seriously!?!  I was actually surprised that she would do that and she knew I wasn't very happy with her.  We are really trying to work on our listening. 

We had a few minutes to wait before the program started.  Brooke was being quite the entertainer. 

The program was wonderful and you could tell that the children and the teachers all worked really hard.  As the class was walking out of the church, Hadley stopped to give me a kiss!  It was so sweet.  I think she was trying to butter me up so I would forget about the candle incident ;) I still can't believe that my little girl will be in Kindergarten next year.  Wow! 

Again, trying to get a good shot of Brooke

What a sweet little girl!  I didn't even try to get her to the tree!

Christmas Pictures 2011

I've said it before, and I'll say it again.  Picture day gives me serious anxiety!! I try not to get so worked up, but it's hard.  I want good pictures.  I want my children to smile at the camera, well sometimes I want them to just look at the camera.  I want them to stand still long enough to get a few good shots.  Is that so hard?? Don't they understand that they will appreciate all these pictures when they are married and have children of their own?  It sounds simple to me, however, I have to remind myself that they are children.  Here are our Christmas pictures from this year.  I divided the shoot into two days.  The first day, I took the girls down to the old stone house (in Rochester) myself and thought we would try to get a couple good singles shots.  We were kind of testing the area because we were going to take pictures with Ellie and Ryker that weekend.  Here are the good (and a few not so good) pictures from the two days. 

 This first picture was the one we ended up using for our Christmas card.  I love it!  If you look close you can see the tears in Kami's eyes.  She was crying until I put my lens bag on my head and started dancing around.  That got them laughing and what do you know looking at the camera at the same time!  Yahoo!  This is the picture I printed for my Mom and Dad for Christmas.  It's also the pic I have sitting on my entertainment center.  It makes me smile every time I see it :)

 Ahhhh!  Look at me!!! :)

We gave Grandma and Grandpa Tweryon a picture of the five kids.  We never really got a great one this summer, so we tried again.