Friends are Family

We watched the LEGO Batman movie again for probably the 100th time on a Saturday night and the lyrics to the ending song got to me, “your my best friend and friends are family.” And boy has God blessed me with the best friends in the world - I can’t even begin to express how grateful I am for the friendships God has given me to the most awesome women of God!

But I will have to highlight a friendship of at least 20 years because my friend Lydia came to visit me! We had an absolute wonderful time and all our kids got on famously! The boys asked if they were cousins and I said sure, "friends are family!"

See the fun times we had:

 Popsicles on the sandbox in boots.

 Asher, Julia and Eric playing with the Millennial Falcon. Julia told her dad, "and they put star wars stickers on the wall because they know we love star wars" lol the put star wars stickers on the wall because apparently thats where they believe stickers go - they do not belong there.

Age order: Jude (7), Julia (5), Shiloh (5), Asher (3), Eric (2), Ezra (1)

 Lydia helped me perfect the positioning for baby wearing Ezra and we happily walked around the zoo.

 Asher enjoying his carousel ride.

Chetah? or Leopard?

 Lydia with Julia on some kind of animal and Eric on the Panda.

 Shiloh and Julia - big buds only 2 months apart!

 I love Lydia's mom what are you going to do face as we try helplessly to keep the boys out of the water and on the front for a picture. 

 Shiloh and Julia on the rhino.

 Shiloh and Julia with elephant ears.

 Climbing like monkeys to see the monkeys.

 Snake pose.

 Our crews at the zoo! Ezra is on my back...

Age order: Jude (7), Julia (5), Shiloh (5), Asher (3), Eric (2), Ezra (1)

Milestones

Well is was a crazy busy January and I didn't find/make time to write any blogs. There were plenty of things: birthdays, Texas closing (there was snow and ice y'all), school, MDO, therapy, and much much more. But the time has passed for me to touch on those subjects because I probably won't go back to them and if I wait to write all that stuff down it'll never happen.

Anyway I'm going to pick up with an update on Mr. Ezra.

There are lots of little things to celebrate: Ezra is crawling (started in January at 22 months), he is cruising on furniture and all around the house, he has now eaten dog food (a rite of passage in our house apparently) he has not went out the dog door yet (which is wonderful), he has found the bookshelf and ripped up several books (he found my bible and tore out the section about wives respecting and obeying their husbands - that's ok I can live without that - just kidding y'all) and he has started to take a few steps!

Ezra is getting all of his therapy (PT, OT, and ST) with pediatric therapists who all work together at the same location and it has been wonderful. Ezra is making lots of progress with his therapists help.

I am so thankful for how wonderful he is doing.

Ezra had an MRI in December. We've meet with his neurologist to go over the result and there are no real causes for concern based on the MRI. According to Dr. Jones his brain looks wonderful, with the exception of the temporal lobes. It appears that they may not be as "folded" (she also used a big scientific name that I can't remember) as the rest of the brain. Dr. Jones said that there are folds and that on the dark area and folds are still developing and will continue until about 4yrs of age. So there is still time for his temporal lobes to get all the folds it needs. If Ezra still has lingering delays at the age of 4 we would repeat the MRI, and if the MRI results showed the same picture we see now with it being less folded then we would have a roadblock in the delays that are connected to the temporal lobes. But at this point in time there is nothing more to do except therapy and let time tell how Ezra will develop. Dr. Jones is very optimistic that Ezra will do wonderful in reaching his milestones and catching up, she said, "no limits on this kid." So for now we will do as much therapy as we can and continue to pray that God will heal Ezra and let him develop and catch up.

P.S. - Still not on Facebook call, text or email me because I won't be checking FB -Destiny