christopher is 2!

Our Christopher is 2! Can you believe this? This last week has been filled with so much reflection and it is very hard for me to keep the tears in. This little boy is such a blessing to our family. He had quite a tough entrance into this world 2 years ago, but with the help from his Heavenly Father he is such a bright adorable little two year old now.We are so proud of him. He is actually stepping up 3 steps on his little slide and then sliding down on his tummy. Which all of you mommy's with cuties like mine know how truly hard that is for him....but he does it. And it is so amazing to watch. He will do it 15 times in a row, and yes it's tiring, and yes it's difficult but he loves the fact that he can now do something his big brother does.... and that's the fuel that keeps him going.
I guess one of the biggest lessons We as a family have learned since the moment we found out about Christopher's Condition is that time passes by. You can get through anything with the help of our Heavenly Father, no matter how difficult. It seems like when you are knee deep in your trial you feel like you are never going to get out of it, but you will...just have faith and you will I promise. And you will not believe how much stronger a much stronger you will be!
Thankyou to everyone for all your thoughts and prayers for our Christopher, we will forever be grateful

Sorry...I'm gonna make you leave a comment!

Since I have professed over and over again how much I love to cook and find and try new recipes I need your help! Which means you may actually need to leave a comment if you don't mind. I want new thanksgiving recipes! Especially new ways to bake my Thanksgiving turkey! I know we all have our "Must Have's" every year, so I want to know what those are for you. My sister julie (You can find her blog link on the right) has already posted on her blog 2 of our family must have recipes, Banana salad and Mom's yummy yummy rolls! I will post a few more recipes tomorrow as well to share with you!
Thanks guys, I hope you all have a fabulous Thanksgiving Holiday.This year we are by ourselves no family with us, but they are surely with us in Spirit, and I know that Our Thanksgiving tables will all look pretty much the same...Holidays are all about tradition!

Love, Becky

you gotta check this out!

If anyone wondered anything about Christopher's Disability please check out this fabulous website. Thanks for finding this Adrienne. I actually remember reading about this family in People magazine last year. I love what they are doing for our cause. This Will bring on some tears though I'm just warning you.


http://sophiesvoicefoundation.org/home.htm

or you can just type sophies voice and it will pop up too!

Fun family visitors

Robert's sister Susanna and her super cute family came and visited us last week. We had such a fun time with them here. They stayed a week... but that week went by way to fast. Our kids were so excited for them to come they were having a countdown to their arrival. Spencer the night before they came started crying because they were going to leave in a week! I said buddy they haven't even gotten here yet....as you can see we don't get our family out here near as much as we would like. I'm glad susie Jeff and Natalie finally got here because now they can officially go home and report that we do not live in the land of OZ after all. I think people imagine us living in a large field of corn rows. Really it's just as cool or even cooler than southern cal. (where we are from).
I think we were able to acomplish everything on their list. Their list consisted mainly of church history sights and bbq joints. We got all of that done and then some. The greatest part of the trip I think was just watching the kids play together and just chilling out and having great conversation!
Natalie is about 6 months older than Christopher, and as I have mentioned before it is always hard for me to watch all the kids Chris' age and even some younger running circles around him while he just sits there and watches. I don't think that will ever be easy for me to see. But my sweet niece Natalie one night really wanted to play with her cousin Christopher so she started crawling everywhere with him. Christopher had soo much fun. Everytime he stopped...she stopped. Then Christopher would motion to her "let's go", and they were off again. So precious. As small a moment that was I think that was the highlight for me, seeing the pure joy on my son's face was priceless!
Here are a few pictures from their trip here(thanks susie for posting them)! And thanks Dottl family for the visit. We are excited already for your next visit!

Spina bifida clinic

Well, We have been a little crazy around here so I have been a little neglectful on my blogging. I will try to catch up though. Christopher had his Spina bifida clinic last week that we go to every 6 months. On a whole it was a pretty good day. We were there though from 7:45 to 1:30. Chris was not a big fan of that. The nice thing is that we stay in one room and all the doctors and specialists come to us. He is almost 2 so the challeng there is christopher having the whole "stranger anxiety" thing going on. But, we worked it out and we got everything done. Robert was able to work from home that day (thank goodness) so Spencer got to stay home with Daddy!
We saw so many cute kids there that we haven't seen before. Lots of little boys. We saw one adorable 7 yr. old boy who was in a wheel chair ( he had no mobility in his legs at all) he was the funniest thing. When ever Christopher started crying he would play peek-a-boo with him to make him happy. Christopher love it. He was just a happy easy going kid. It's cool seeing boys that are older than Christopher with SB it kinda helps me imagine what he will be doing a few years down the line. Another little boy we saw there was 4 1/2 and he was cruising around with crutches. He had a little more mobility than the other little boy. I can see Chris kind of being like that. Although they say Christopher may be able to at some point walk with just his AFO'S (braces), which would be awesome. Anyways, I talked to this mom quite a bit, it's always nice to talk to mom's that are going through the same things you are. But, this mom's story started out a lot different thatn mine. She went into labor with her little guy without knowing he had Spina Bifida Or Hydrocepholous! Could you imagine that? Not being prepared at all!?! She gave birth and it wasn't until a few hours later that SHE not the doctor's noticed the lesion on his back.... WHAT? How does that happen? So of course he ended up with Spinal menengitis because they didn't protect his spine from infection at birth. What a great mom though, she is just making sure her little guy has the greatest future possible.... and he is such a happy little boy too.
The last mom I met was a new mom of a 4 mo. old little boy. This was her first child. You could tell everything was al little new for her. But, with all these mom's we have one thing in common..... We will fight to the bitter end to make sure our son's have everything they need to have the brightest future. This mom was getting ready to have her 4 mo. old have his 3rd shunt revision surgery. Bless her heart, that would be so hard to handle. I hope and pray this shunt takes and works perfectly for him. We talked a while, and I just felt like giving her my email so that we could get to know eachother.I feel like I have a little more experience with all of this so if I could help in any way I would love too. I knew no one that went through this before me. It is a very lonely place to be I will tell you that!
Anyways, So Christopher's bladder is looking a little worse than last time. He still has reflex on one side and a little swelling. We will just monitor a little closer and in 3 months if it is worse we will have to go back on antibiotics or maybe start cathing. We shall see!
Also they casted his feet for new AFO's which he hated!!!! Last year the AFO's cost us $1,700 after our insurence paid their portion. This time we were a little nervous to get the total.... but our new insurence ROCKS!!!!!!! Our portion is only $300 and some change! We could not believe it. So exciting. Then we also got a prescription for a reverse walker and therapy to learn how to use it. it's going to look like this

It is so tiny and so cute! The greatest thing about it is he can be on the same level as all the other kids. He never plays with the other kids because he is crawling and they are walking. That really breaks my heart, so I am really excited for him to be able to start walking. And we know he can do it because of the walker his daddy made him for home. Which by the way all the doctor's thought that was awesome. My husband is amazing!!!!
Well, I'll stop for now but that's our update. I have alot more to talk about so I will post again soon. To all you mom's that have kids with Spina Bifida that may read my blog... let me know who you are! I would love to get to know you and share stories with you all. I think you are all amazing women! Every mom is an amazing woman though :0)

another thinker

We women have a lot to learn about simplifying our lives. We have to decide what is important and then move along at a pace that is comfortable for us. We have to develop the maturity to stop trying to prove something. We have to learn to be content with what we are."
— Marjorie Pay Hinckley

yah... chew on that one for a while. :)

I think we as women need to take it easy on ourselves. We have way too much on our plate to worry about what the rest of the world is doing and how we can keep up with it all.
We need to be happy with the talents and strengths we do have, and enjoy sharing that with others. We also need to be accepting of others talents and strengths and learn from them. Gosh, if we could do both of those things wouldn't we be happier and just more relaxed. I think so!

I just love Sister Hinkley.