Lupey Lauren

Welp, as some of you may know, Lauren has been struggling on and off with a barrage of weird symptoms like fatigue, joint pain and swelling, muscle pain, chest pain, hair loss and rashes...just to name a few.  It seemed to start right around the time that she miscarried her second pregnancy (between Blake & Wyatt).  Anyway after completing the gauntlet of doctor's visits over the past couple years with her general practitioner, rheumatologist, endocrinologist, dermatologist and neurologist, we've reached a diagnosis of moderate systemic lupus erythematosus (what most people mean when they just say lupus).  The criteria the rheumatologist used to make the diagnosis are:  photosensitivity, oral ulcer, arthritis, positive antinuclear antibody test, chest pain, malar rash (lupus "butterfly rash") and a punch biopsy of the skin that showed 3 of the 5 proteins that can be seen in lupus (which alone equates to about an 86% chance of having the disease).  So, we're pretty comfortable that the rheumatologist is correct, not to mention the fact that Lauren's Grandpa Brune had lupus.  Some recent blood work showed that Lauren's CK levels were really high, so she just finished up with the neurologist today.  After the EMG, we are happy to report that there is no muscle or nerve damage - YAY!!!  He did tell Lauren that she has the beginning of carpal tunnel, though...good to know, but that's the least of our worries ;)  Lauren will probably be on plaquenil for life and is taking azathioprine, meloxicam and a 20 day dose of prednisone to try to get this current flare down.  We should be able to eventually omit most of those meds...here's hoping anyway.  The rheumatologist kept expressing that the quicker we could get the disease activity down the better off things tend to go, so that's why we're treating it a little on the aggressive side right at the moment.  Good news is that all is going pretty well for now, and the prednisone has seemed to take nearly all of the pain and swelling away.  Sorry to get the word out this way, but since the blog is sort of like our kids' baby books (we have them printed off...it's pretty cool, actually); it's a great way for us to document the information for them to have.

We sure wouldn't just post some crappy medical information, so here's the good stuff...

Wyatt practicing walking

 Princess Blake

 Wyatt hooping it up

 Our cute little man who happens to be 15 months old today.

Easter Fun

Hopefully everyone had a wonderful Easter.  The kids had a blast digging through their Easter baskets and coloring & hunting eggs.  There's not a whole lot going on right now, so we'll just get to the pics.  Here's Wyatt playing with an egg.

CHEESE!!!

 Blake digging through her stash

 showing off her princess pens

Wyatt got a little bug catching net, but unfortunately he was the first one that got caught.

Wyatt loves to stand up against things.  He's walking more and more every day, but he still likes to default to the crawl when he wants to go fast.

Blake just loves the dogs.  She can often be found playing ball with Copa or, as seen below, cuddling with Maddie.

 Our two posers...Blake had accessorized herself this particular morning.

Lauren took the kids over to a friend of our's house the other day.  Heather has tons of flowers, and Blake was in heaven smelling them and looking at all the different colors.  Heather let Blake pick one to take home.  As Lauren was driving home Blake says, "You wanna see a cool trick with my flower?  This is what you can do and dance."  Lauren had to pull over to take a picture with her phone - HILARIOUS!

A very belated Happy Easter to all!!!

Walking Wyatt

Here's a quick video of Wyatt walking with some assistance. He looks like a little old man with a walker ;) Those are shorts that he's wearing. His length hasn't quite caught up with his width yet.

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March Madness

Well, we have been slacking...plain and simple.  March was full of fun times, and we really only captured it through pictures off of our phones.  At least we have that, I guess.  Blake loves to help out with her little brother.  She is such a little momma!  Here she is feeding him some applesauce.

The kids' bedroom turned out really cute (pictures were posted some time ago).  Blake really needed another blanket for her bed, so this is what Lauren came up with.  We had to show it off because Lauren got the yellow blanket and the sham for $10.58 at Target - SCORE!!!  Gotta love a good deal ;)

Wyatt is still quite heavy for his age, so he gets packed around sometimes to help save Lauren's arms from falling off.  Here's the little man playing with one of Blake's princess wands and just chillin' in the pack.

It's been no secrect that Blake was our "good baby" and Wyatt is our "fussy little man".  Wyatt still likes to wake up and scream in the middle of the night (thankfully, Blake usually sleeps through it).  One night last month, Lauren finally just slept in bed with Blake instead of getting up multiple times throughout the night.  This is what she woke up to...

...Wyatt screaming, Blake playing the tamborine and Copa begging to be rescued.  Ahhh...the joys of motherhood!  Even though Wyatt is most definitely a fuss bucket, he is pretty darn entertaining from time to time.  He likes to put Blake's crowns and necklaces on.  He also likes to brush his own hair with her doll's hair brushes.

Wyatt is also expanding his vocabulary.  In fact, he actually said, "Wy don't" the other day.  So, I guess he is listening to us...just not obeying.  Another cute Wyatt story:  Blake was correcting him for something.  She was explaining to him how he shouldn't do something and Wyatt totally "shhh'd" her...without hesitation.  It was HILARIOUS!!!

We have a neat park here in town where Blake likes to go play.  The weather has been really nice here lately, so we've been out quite a few times.  Here's the queen herself.

Blake continues to enjoy dressing herself.  She actually went outside with this outfit on!  We're pretty sure that the neighbors probably think we're a little strange.

Blake doesn't just use her own wardrobe.  Here she is wearing a pair of Wyatt's jeans - NO JOKE!!!  She fits in these better than he does!  Wyatt can't really get his rear end and thighs into these, but Blake refused to take them off and actually ended up wearing them to preschool this particular morning.

Speaking of Blake, we'd like to share a few Blake stories from the past month.  First story:  Nick Jr. (TV channel) was doing a pirate theme last month.  Lauren was in the kitchen fixing lunch when she hears Blake screaming at the top of her lungs, "You ho ho...LOUDER...YOU HO HO!!!"  Of course, she wasn't repeating it correctly as they were saying "YO ho ho" on TV, but it was quite entertaining.  Second story:  One day Blake said to Lauren, "I want grapes."  Lauren replied, "I want a million dollars."  Blake then dug into her pockets pretending to pull something out and hands it to Lauren and says, "Here you go.  Now, can I have grapes, Mom?"  She's showing signs of having inherited her daddy's wit...not necessarily a plus for Lauren ;)  The final Blake story of this post:  Blake plays out in the back yard with the dogs sometimes when Lauren is doing laundry, dishes, etc.  She is constantly in and out of the house gabbering about what she's doing and trying to sneak toys out to play with.  A few weeks ago, she came in the house saying, "how cute is he, Mom?!"  Lauren turned around to see that Blake had brought a dead mouse into the house - SICK!!!  She was convinced that he was sleeping and was just "SO CUTE".  We're totally blaming Cinderella for that one.  ICK!!!  And finally, we have to share the best Blake quote to date:  "Just a minute...I gotta get my panties out of my bottom, first."  YES, she actually says that!  Lauren is on the verge of just teaching her to call it a wedgie, but there is just something so very innocent and entertaining about how she describes things.

Wyatt is growing like a weed, and he acts more and more like his sister every day - scary.  It's very interesting to watch how he does whatever she does.  He is doing a lot of activities at a younger age than Blake did.  But, Blake seemed to talk much earlier than Wyatt did.  It's just so neat to see how very different they can be.  Here's a picture of Wyatt playing in the sandbox.

Wyatt is still not walking on his own, but he can.  He has walked almost all the way across the living room.  He's just quicker at crawling right now, so he tends to drop down on all fours when he wants to get something in a hurry.  He doesn't prefer to walk, but he does raise his sippy cup and say, "CHEERS!"  Gotta love that :)

Grandma came and visited us in March over her Spring Break.  As usual, it seemed WAY too short, but we had a lot of fun.  We didn't get any pictures, but the kids LOVED getting to hang with Grandma and I think Wyatt finally got more comfortable with her as well.  He's sort of been a Grampy's boy up to this point.

Surely we missed a few things over the last month or so, but we'll leave you with a few more pictures of our little princess (who loves to pose for the camera).