Happily Ever After...

We took Celia to see a new geneticist last week. She, just like every other dr. who has ever seen her, is puzzled by Celia. Basically, Celia has Mitochondrial disease complex 1. Since she doesn't have the brain eating lesions (THANK THE LORD!) she is way too severe for just complex 1. Most kids who present like she does have Complex 1 and 3 OR complex 1 and 5. I know that means nothing to you, but she is a medical mystery because she only tested positive for complex 1. She feels that Celia is in one of 3 categories: ~She has complex 1 and the tests were skewed and she also has complex 3 or 5, which would explain the severity of her presentation.  Her plan is to retest for 3 and 5. ~She has mito complex 1 AND another neuro-degenerative disease that has yet to be discovered. Her plan is to match Celia's symptoms with rare genetic disorders and test the DNA strands for each of those to see what we find. Basically, it's a field of rocks and we have to look under each ra...

.......Must be vermin. I'm sure of it. You see, we are in our own personal nightmare that began last Thursday. Greg woke up at 5 AM to the dog barfing up a Wii remote cover he ate on Sunday. In his haste to rush him outside, he forgot to turn off the alarm. Yeah. Then the security company called my cell phone (not the house) and said they had already dispatched the police. You know when you JUST KNOW it's going to be a bad day? Then Ryan comes up and says that there are mice in their apartment that woke him and Chelsea. OR it was the alarm blaring at 5 AM when the back door opened. I can't remember which. Anyhoo, Greg marched right off to Home De-pot and bought traps and came home to put them in the walls. As he was removing an access panel, he stuck his head in, and guess what greeted him? Just guess. Nevermind. I'll tell you. A SNAKE. So the barfing dog at 5 AM kinda pales in comparison. When he called me and told me, I calmly told him...

 First it had to be primed and sanded.  Our garage doubles as a workshop at times like these.  Then we had to find lacquer paint. Believe me, it sounds easy but it wasn't. We finally found a cabinet maker that would make it specially for us.   Finally the fun part started and Daddy and RyRy brought it to her room The girls were SUPER excited for Celia. They were literally standing there with cameras in hand.  The men meticulously put it together. The women watched, provided water and snapped photos. And got in the way. We're helpful like that.  We're almost there.  This thing is GINORMOUS.  The time finally arrived.  We put the tiny Princess in her royal bed.  Let's get this party started! All four girls could EASILY sleep in this thing. And I think she may request a flat screen to be mounted on the back wall. HA!  To give you an idea of HOW HUGE it is...

 Once upon a time there was a little girl named Cristy who played the violin. It lasted for maybe 12 months. Give or take 6. One of her favorite memories was screeching out "Baa Baa Black Sheep" for her great grandmother. I think she got hearing aides shortly after that. Anyhoo, Cristy did not stick with the violin, although she had a deep seated love for the instrument. She met and married the love of her life, a man who also played the violin for a very short period. It was obviously meant to be. Unbeknownst to their children, it was in the fine print of their life's plan to make  encourage AT LEAST ONE of their children to take violin lessons.  Aria was our first willing victim, participant. Her eyes are closed just relishing the idea of playing "Baa Baa Black Sheep" for her parents. Over. And over. Annnndddd over again. Our Maggie came with us, since she is the violin expert.  She actually moved past the initial six months of playing,...

Okay I have a really good story for you..... Greg was cleaning out the garage last weekend and found a box FULL OF BRAND NEW CLOTHES from Old N@vy and G@p for girls. It was addressed to someone else, but was delivered in Jan 2010 (before we ever knew we had twins waiting in China) Neither of us remembers ever getting a package delivered, and if we had, we would have definitely returned it.  No seriously, we would have. Side note: For YEARS, Home De.pot thought our address was for the 3.M company. We had box after box of returns sent to us and we always took them back to Home De.pot and tried to get our address out of their system. It took 5 years, but the deliveries finally stopped. But we returned every single box. Thankfully, we stopped the UPS guy before he unloaded 200 lbs of scotch tape. No joke. So yeah, we would have never kept a box of clothes. But now, 2 years later, I am sure that  A) The lady got a refund or another box of clothes and B) The stores no lo...

Hmmmm.... Where have we been lately? It has be a crazy few weeks, mostly in a good way. Shopping for dresses for the wedding for 5 of us girls. Shopping for a beach house to stay in for the week Add school in to the mix and we are really busy. Oh, and did I mention..... MY SON IS GETTING MARRIED IN FOUR WEEKS?!? So exciting.  In other news, guess what we learned about Miss Celia on our way out of a restaurant?  She is a kleptomaniac. She steals spoons. (Or whatever her sisters slip her on the sly) And was quite proud of that fact. HA! Gianna got new glasses. We have learned that having no bridge to your nose can make holding up glasses quite difficult. The last pair would NOT stay up which drove me crazy. These seem to be faring much better and she looks so grown up. Sniff. In other news, the twins has their first "movie night" in Celia's crib. They were SO EXCITED. As you can see, we have no room left in her crib....