About Us

This blog is changing, just as our family is changing. It was originally started to keep in touch with family and friends far away, but when you face a life altering disease EVERY aspect of your life is changed and in some way effected by it. Now I need a place to vent, to share, to help people understand the struggles that we face as a family with 2 children that are struggling with the Disease Eosinophilic Esophogitis, and with all of us having multiple food allergies. So this blog is becoming my journal so to say, an outlet for me to express my frustrations, share my joys, and put all information into one place for those that want to know. Why share something so personal, and often too hard to bare? Well...so much of this disease is silent. We work so hard to help our kids lead a normal life and no one sees the struggles faced daily, and I think it is important to let people know and understand.

What is Eosinophilc Esophigitis?

What is Eosinophilic Esophogitis? Also known as EE, or Eos, or EoE.

First let's start off by saying, there is NO CURE! There is NO FDA approved treatment. And often the only form of successful treatment are large doses of steroids and/or elimination of "trigger" foods, which sometimes as in the case of our 2 boys is an elimination of ALL foods. Forcing them to be on an Elemental Formula ONLY diet and water.

Second let's start with the layman's definition as I know how to explain it, and then I will add links with better medically explained and more in depth definitions. Eosinophils are a form of white blood cell, and in persons with this disorder these eosinophils attack food as if they are a parasite, causing damage to nearby tissue in any part of the digestive tract (in our case the Esophogus). This causes reflux that often does not respond well to reflux meds, vomiting, pain, aversions to food, rashes, diahrea, constipation, and many more symptoms like leg and joint pain, headaches. All of which these symptoms lead to more and more problems from which many you will learn about by reading my posts.

One of the bests places for accurate up to date info go to: Apfed, http://apfed.org/drupal/drupal/index.php

And of course this blog reads most current posts first, so I'll do my best to label important posts to help you catch/keep up.

Monday, April 26, 2010

Isabelle's Birthday Celebrations

Isabelle is finally 4!!! And let me tell you she is SO EXCITED about it. We had a party to celebrate. I was very proud of ourselves because the entire party only cost $25, and that doesn't include the fact that we have a ton of forks, plates, and craft items left over for future use. So Yeah!!! It was a Dress Up Party, originally was supposed to be a Princess party but she has too many guy friends so it evolved. :o) The fun thing about a dress up party is that they use their imagination without me having to plan a game. These kids were locked in the tower by an evil queen, and Super Man was coming to unlock the door and save them!
My kids love Balloons!!!! We had a meltdown when they came home because Abinadi couldn't figure out how to take one balloon so he could play with it. Wonderfully Isabelle was in a sharing mood and choose to cut a balloon off so Abinadi could have one. I was so proud of her at that moment! Abinadi would just stand their and look up at the balloons. Then he got stuck, hee hee, and of course I'm the mean Mom that made him wait to be untangled so that I could get some good pics...
One of our games was playing with balloons, they were supposed to have a contest to see who could keep it in the air longest, but they had more fun playing balloon fights, and shooting the balloons across the room. It was a lot of fun to watch them. Isabelle got a lot of wonderful princess presents from her friends! It was so nice of them because I make it a point to tell guests that gifts aren't needed (I don't believe gifts should be what a birthday or party should be about), but they were all the sweetest friends and brought presents anyways. We also made masks (of course since it was a dress up party) this is Isabelle showing of her great mask. Abinadi wanted to show off like Isabelle, he didn't have a mask, but he rarely smiles for a picture so I couldn't pass it up!

Isabelle told me that Abinadi was eating crums from the cake and I assumed she meant just off the table, I walked in to find that the "crumbs" was actually a BITE out of the cake.






I loudly called Abinadi's full name and he proceeded to walk out and put himself in time out, which of course he didn't like. But it was adorable!






We called the cake her fairytale cottage so that it could be for whichever character she chose for the day. She called it her Cinderella Cottage. :o) I was quite proud of this cake! It came out so much better than her last bday cake!











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Monday, April 5, 2010

Easter Celebrations
Of course you have to get dressed up for pictures on Easter, even if it is General Conference and all you are doing is having a quiet day at home! Our day was filled with coloring Easter Eggs, hiding and finding them, and enjoying our new trinkets, all in between conference.
I believe this is the first and only picture we have where both kids are smiling naturally! Aren't they just Adorable! I just LOVE this picture!
Another cute picture! It is so difficult to get Isabelle to not have a goofy look on her face, and for Abinadi to have anything but a blank look on his. There is no denying that they are turning into two amazingly wonderful kids!

My little photographer!


We found the Easter Bunny!
I am going to have to make Uriah relinquish his photographing privileges, I found he didn't take many pictures because he was waiting for them to hold still, or look nice, instead of just taking a million so that a few come out good. I'm certain you other mothers out there know what I mean when I say that kids never hold still for the perfect picture! I'm just giving you a hard time Uriah. ;o) I love you!!!!

I made this Easter cake for the YM/YW desert auction fundraiser. I am still working on figuring out how to cover a cake with fondant. The whole design ended up this way to cover the flaws I had. But I'm learning that sometimes covering the flaws can turn into a beautiful cake. One day I'll figure out how to do whats planned, it's nice in Alaska though. Everyone and their dog I knew in Colorado could decorate cakes, so it was never anything special or it would end up a competition instead of enjoying everyone's efforts, here everyone is shocked that this is even possible so I never hear comments of "I can do that better" or "did you see the cake so and so made? It's much fancier than yours." I'm not trying to say I'm better than anyone, or that I don't want anyone else to make cakes either. I'm just trying to say that it's nice that it's not a competition up here. I'm not big on competing over talents I just enjoy doing and improving on and wish everyone was the same way.
I'm working on a couple smile boxes of pictures of this kids, so keep watching, I hope to have them finished soon.
We love and miss you all, and hope you all had a wonderful Easter!





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