Gale Munchkins

My cousins were recently here visiting...we took this picture of them while they were out playing with the kiddos...btw...they are not talking to each other.

The girls have enjoyed swim lessons this year. Kassi will even put her head under the water...and is brave enough to swim a few feet...she learned to float on her back and dive for objects, although she doesn't like to open her eyes in the water. Kiera continued to develop her skills, learning the butterfly kick and brushing up on breathing and using her big arms. She really likes to "pencil" dive off of the diving board so she can touch the bottom of the pool. Kaylee was able to participate some of the time. They look forward to next years lessons!!

Some of you may know about one of my mom's plant that has these beautiful flowers. When she received this plant, she was told about how beautiful the flowers were, but that the plant rarely bloomed. (they had only gotten 1 flower in years!). Well, needless to say, she tried different fertilizers and wa-lah...flowers flowers flowers. Now, the plant itself isn't a beauty, but the flowers are. She said these two that opened up recently were in celebration of Mikenna & Kiera's birthdays coming up. Oh, and the flowers are only open for a few hours in the evening, before dying. There were about 8-10 flowers over the 18 months my parents were gone, but we only discovered them after the flowers wilted :(

I uploaded my pics from camera to computer yesterday, and found these plus a few others, courtesy of Kiera :)

This was a great laugh shared by Ted & Stacy...Kassi loves watching it :) The best is listening to Emma and Adam singing it!! I haven't gotten to book 7 yet, currently am reading book 4...need to locate book 5 (can only find the book jacket :S Aunt Audrey and I did read the summary of book 7 online :)

These past few days have been... hair pulling ... here is a rough synopsis... Wednesday & Thursday ...both were relatively good days. Nights were restful; mornings Kaylee is up and about; by mid-afternoon achy legs and ankles; by evening, swollen ankles to the point that she can't walk. Plus, with her 3rd round of spots barely beginning to clear on Wed. afternoon...she had round 4 spots appearing~on top of the still very visable round 3 ones and spreading to her upper thighs and arms, plus her ears. Friday ...Kaylee wakes up and has a tummy ache, so we give her meds an hour early...Mike calls doc to discuss the continued spot break-out, achy/swollen feet and the am tummy aches...he says to add another dose of meds through the day...which we do, thinking we were "on top of the symptoms." Mike and girls & Aaron and fam. camp out in the backyard again...We give Kaylee her 3rd dose of prednison at 12:30 am... 2am arrives, Kaylee has major tummy cramp s ...coming and g...

Sunday~ July 22, 2007 These past few days have been rough. We thought we were in the clear with the whole HSP thing...but Thursday night Kaylee was up from 12 mid until 6:30 am with major stomach cramps. Michael and I were managing well, thinking it would last only a few hours, like the night before...but when 4 am came along, we were tired...her cramping just kept going and going...with maybe a 5 min break here or 10 min there...by 6:30 am, we finally gave her the next dose of prednisone (which was 3 hours early) and she finally slept. We didn't want to go through that again, talked with the doc, came up with a plan...but her cramping started up again about 7 pm, and by 9 pm we knew it wasn't working... So, here we are, Sunday...with a plan that works much better (doubling her dose of prednisone ) especially now that we figured out that the concentration levels between her 1st and 2 nd prescriptions were WAY off...Hopefully we won't have any more problems and Kaylee W...

Here is the latest pic of Mikenna and her cousins...you can visit this post from when the boys were just little, but as you can see, they no longer are (I re-up the pics)...in fact, they look like they're practically the same size, if not bigger!! So, we have May 2006, Sept 2006, and then July 2007!!

Mikenna is talking a lot more now..."see!", "HEY!", "NO!", "cereal", "swimsuit", are some of her newest phrases...the other day she declared "I TAN TO I(T)!!" She loves to dance with her sisters and is humming and singing her own songs everywhere she goes! I can't believe she'll be TWO soon!!

Well, this is what the Doc told us today...we should probably limit Kaylee's activities to "around the house" type things through Sunday, and then perhaps after that only one "major" activity/day. He doesn't think that all we've done this past week brought on this 2nd round of HSP, but it didn't help either. We'll "up" her meds (prednisone) and then Kaylee will have to go in each week for the next 6 weeks for blood workup and other tests. He is positive about it resolving itself...but for now we need to "take it easy." He said in his years of practice, he has only "managed" 2 other cases of HSP...one was recurring and finally resolved after about 5 months...and the other within a month...hopefully Kaylee's body can be back to full health sooner than later... BTW...she woke up last night about 2:30 am, with major stomach cramps...threw up abouts 4 am, then again at 8 am...slept the morning away and woke up with a ...

After a fun day of swimming, dancing, more swimming, bike rides and a walk~~Here was our home at 9 pm last night :)

It was Great Grandma Gale's birthday this past Sunday. We decorated a cupcake cake for her. I'm not sure how she figured this out, but you add up all of the ages of the people in my family and that is her age this year!! (83) Of course it will only work for one more week because Mikenna's birthday is next week!! We spent the afternoon with her...the girls were yarning plastic canvasing...for those of you who don't know...Grandma and Aunt Gloria love making crafts and etc. from the plastic canvas that you count and yarn...Aunt Gloria is going to sponsor a "Craft with Aunt Gloria" day here in the next few weeks. The girls will begin their collection of magnets and "squeezums." For some reason Grandma got a real kick watching the girls and just kept laughing and laughing. The big plus was that the girls were so QUIET!!

Michael's sister Lisa had her 2nd baby on July 14th...Tanner Scott. We are glad he has arrived safely and that Lisa is doing well. Jessi loves her new baby brother!! (BTW...check out her lashes!!)

So...We've been busy with swim lessons and dance camp...but perhaps it's been too much for Kaylee because her legs are spotted AGAIN!! I read up again on HSP and I guess the symptoms will last 4-6 weeks!! (I found another site with info on the HSP in case you're interested.) We have a follow up with the Dr. tomorrow...we'll have to find out if all of her activities have brought on this latest "spot" attack or if it's just part of the illness. BTW...spots are the result of vasculitis...which is a result of the HSP. I'll post a pic later...beware...it's not pretty :( You'll have to click on the pic to get the full effect...the red light is a cold laser that helps with cellular healing...or something like that...

Henoch-Schönlein purpura (hen-awk shern-line purr-purr-ah)...that's what Kaylee was finally diagnosed with. The cause is unknown, but they know it's triggered by "bacterial or viral infections, medicines, insect bites, vaccinations or exposure to chemicals or cold weather." So, we're thinking it was this spider bite Kaylee had a few weeks ago (her arm swelled up and was tender...) or maybe a bit of the flu she caught from the Family Reunion in Idaho. Her rash started off with a few very tiny spots on Thurs. or Fri. (5th or 6th)...we thought were some type of bug bite. But by Sunday night, you can see what those little spots turned into. Her right foot was all swollen, left one was beginning to. Her knees and elbows were very tender and achy. She started having stomach cramping and was throwing up by Monday afternoon which continued over the next few days until we decided it was probably best to admit her to the hospital. We didn't want Kaylee to get totally ...

we have a sick little girl in our home...our Kaylee is sick...she has an odd rash on her arms and legs, (giving her some groovy spots) which the doctor believes to be a strep infection (which has also caused an ear infection)...and on top of that we also think (the Dr. and us-parents)she has the stomach flu which has gone out of control: cycling through stomach cramps, throwing up, stomach cramps, throwing up... your happy thoughts and prayers are welcome and needed...

The 4th of July, with it's hot weather and sunny skies left our fair ones some unsightly and tender skin. Kiera was outside most of the day with her daddy, washing cars, random yard work and then of coure swimming. By the time we got the sunscreen out, it was pretty much too late. In the larger picture, Michael told the girls he would read them some stories in exchange for help to shed him of his itchy layer. Mikenna's reply was, "UCK!!"

We celebrated our Fourth of July with family and friends swimming, BBQ-ing, and watching the fireworks!!

We left Blackfoot Monday morning and made our way to Boise. We floated down the Boise River (which Mike and I had done with our friend Alyce 9 years ago.) We brought our 4-man raft from home and some tubes, but ended up with all of us in the boat since the river was so COLD !! (Mike said there was NO WAY he could sit in a tube. His feet had "headaches" in less than 2 min of standing in the river.) The ride down the river was a bit longer than we'd remembered...Mikenna was DONE 20 min into the trip (1:45 min trip total) There were very small "rapids" along the way...the first set didn't faze her too badly, but after the 2nd...she wouldn't move, kept saying "go" and "all done" fell asleep with a hat on her face but was then rudely awakened when watered splashed in when we went through more "rapids". She was VERY happy when we got out of the boat. (Pics to come later) We spent the evening/night with Mike's cousin Nathan ...

We joined up with many of Mike's cousin, aunts & uncles for the annual Glen Wells Family reunion. The last time we were able to attend was 3 years ago. It was fun seeing everyone and hearing about everything that has happened over the years. The girls got to wade on the "beach", they shot off the water rockets, and had a yummy BBQ. The next day we hung out at Grandpa Wells'. Uncle Jeff fixed up the motorcycle and the girls all got rides on it. They checked out the chickens and cows, had fun swinging and hanging out with cousins. Uncle Trent set about blowing up various items with his fireworks. The girls loved watching to see what would happen next.