Rylee and Brown's Syndrome

Yesterday Rylee was finally officially diagnosed with Brown's Syndrome in her left eye. In a nutshell it is a condition that affects the mobility of the muscle attached to the top of the eyeball (there are four muscles attached to the eye, Brown's only affects the top one). You can see the affect perfectly in the picture we captured last fall. When Rylee tries to look far to the right or extreme upward her left eye goes down and to the right and when looking up it stays midline while her right eye looks where she intended it to. After several different doctors and appointments and lots of waiting, we finally were connected with Dr Gamm, a pediatric opthamologist in Madison. He is just absolutely wonderful and we fell in love with him right away. His knowledge on the topic far surpassed any doctor we had seen thus far or internet research that we were able to do. He was able to do the first fully complete eye exam on Rylee - her vision is fine. There are lots of variables and other little bits to the story but basically, Dr Gamm will follow Rylee for the next 1 1/2 years and if there is no change or her condition worsens she will have surgery in summer 2010 to help alleviate some of the tightness that muscle has - allowing her left eye to work the way it should. We are so happy to finally have some real and good answers.

4 Teeth PULLED!

Elizabeth had to have her four bottom teeth pulled out today - to make room for her permanent teeth. The dentist called it "wiggled out" but it didn't take her long to know that it was the same. Over winter break she came to us and said she had teeth growing in but her front ones weren't loose. Sure enough her baby teeth were still completely intact and her permanent teeth were coming quite a bit behind them. Elizabeth wasn't too thrilled about her new growth until Uncle Judd told her she was like a shark - then she loved it!

Previous to the procedure she was pretty nervous but afterward said she did not feel a thing. Daddy's blessing helped a great deal. One dose of motrin and she was fine - even eating popcorn that night and school the next day.

Brooke turns 1 year old

We celebrated Brooklyn's first birthday today. Hard to believe but true. Brooke's personality is really taking shape and she is such a joy to have around. We are so fortunate to have her with us everyday (OK, her Mom and Dad too!). She has been walking for 2 months now and picked up basic sign language in a couple of days. Brooke mimmics just about everything you do and makes us laugh every single day. In the last couple of weeks she has grown more attached to me and recognizes me by name - which I just love so much. I just have to say, she is still the CUTEST GRANDBABY IN THE WHOLE WORLD!