And oh what a year it has been. This year has been an action packed year for us to say the least. Anytime you have one child living with Infantile Spasms and another child diagnosed with Type I Diabetes.. Well that's a lot to have to deal with in one year. The only thing that got us through to where we are to day is by the complete grace of God. He has been so good to us and has shown us so many things this year. 2008 has certainly been a turning point in my own personal life. God has shown Allison and I a lot about faith, trust, and being obedient to his will this year and has used situations like Dawson's and Katelin's to teach us so many things.
This exact time one year ago our lives were filled with such uncertainty and turmoil. Exactly one year later there is nothing but pure unadulterated joy as we watch Dawson continue to blossom in a world that doesn't involve seizures. He is healthy, smart, inquisitive, and social. He is everything you could ever want in a 15th month old toddler ( and then some.)
Katelin continues to be resilient and brave, faced with numerous blood checks and multiple injections of insulin everyday. I am so proud of these strong kiddos. Madison started pre school this year and it must be hard for her knowing something is wrong with her brother. She is such a great caretaker of him and her ability to adjust to these different scenarios as they come up is admirable. I am so proud of all four of them.
I believe in 2008 our family came under spiritual attacks. I believe that the evil in this world wanted to use these things to tear apart and break down a family that believes the word of God.
We turned to him in our time of need and he alone turned those bad situations into a situations that glorified him and continues to do so to this day. Through him we are victorious over the enemy.
We can't wait to see what 2009 will bring. We want to thank all of you who have kept up with us on a regular basis. Thank you to those who were prayer warriors in our darkest hours, and thank you to our family who didn't stand behind us, but beside us this past year.
God bless you and know that we love all of you
Jeff and Allison
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Saturday, December 27, 2008
Some Christmas Pics
Dawson at Grampy's house
An artist at work maybe??
The Barnard clan
Dawson and his cousin Bryce
Mom and Dawson
nothing better than a Christmas Day kiss
Dawson and Grandmom
ALWAYS running ( seriously. ALWAYS!!)
Sunday, December 21, 2008
New progress
It just dawned on me that it has been a while since we have posted any pics or video of Dawson on here lately. I promise to work on that this week. He is just growing so big and doing so many new things now and as always we cant wait to show him off.
A few things we have learned this week.... Climbing onto the sofa all by himself, and stepping up onto the hearth on the fireplace. Definitely all boy! And you should see what he can do to all the ads in a Sunday paper WOW!~! its really impressive. As always, we are so glad to see him hit developmental milestones such as these
The other day he signed to Allison the sign for " More" and then immediately did the sign for "Bite" so needless to say he is picking that up pretty well and his speech is starting to take off again after a little lull in the action.
God continues to bless this little boy that we call a miracle. He is still to this day is showing no signs of developmental delays of any kind. Keep it up Dawson were proud of you!!
Thanks for your support and prayers we love all of you
Jeff and Allison
A few things we have learned this week.... Climbing onto the sofa all by himself, and stepping up onto the hearth on the fireplace. Definitely all boy! And you should see what he can do to all the ads in a Sunday paper WOW!~! its really impressive. As always, we are so glad to see him hit developmental milestones such as these
The other day he signed to Allison the sign for " More" and then immediately did the sign for "Bite" so needless to say he is picking that up pretty well and his speech is starting to take off again after a little lull in the action.
God continues to bless this little boy that we call a miracle. He is still to this day is showing no signs of developmental delays of any kind. Keep it up Dawson were proud of you!!
Thanks for your support and prayers we love all of you
Jeff and Allison
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
All is well
Well I think we are all over our colds/ear infections/gross green stuff in the sinuses & non stop coughing and hacking. Everybody seems well and I think I'm going to ban my family from getting within 20 feet of anybody who even has the sniffles..
Seriously the kids are doing better and we are certainly thankful for that. Dawson is absolutely 100% walking now and its been near a week or more since I have seen him crawl anywhere. We are very very thankful he has completed this milestone and can't wait to see what he is going to accomplish next. He is repeating more and more words now and I can't help but think his speech skills are going to just take off. He's getting the hang of signing what he wants and has mastered the most important one of all..... eating. He has always been and continues to be a good eater. Oh and by the way, his sleep this week has actually been pretty good ( knocking on some wood) yeah, hes not waking up nearly as much as he has been and it feels really good to get more than a couple of hours sleep at a time. We hope the trend continues. Infantile spasms and seizures continue to be a thing of the past for us and Thursday will mark being seizure free for 200 days!!! Praise God He has now been seizure free longer than he was having seizures by a month and we are so thankful and blessed... Way to go Dawson!!
I haven't updated lately on Katelin so here goes....
It appears that she is out of her " honeymoon phase" She is back to requiring Insulin for almost every meal now. She is getting a half of unit of insulin for every 20 carbs and what her blood sugars will do next is a complete mystery. The challenge as always remains being ready for whats going to happen next and the amount of insulin she needs can change on a dime. She seems no worse for the wear and this brave little 7 year old who gets poked in the fingers/arms/stomach numerous times a day continues to " WOW " me with her bravery and no big deal attitude.
Thanks for looking in on us to see how we are doing. We appreciate each and every one of you
Jeff and Allison
Seriously the kids are doing better and we are certainly thankful for that. Dawson is absolutely 100% walking now and its been near a week or more since I have seen him crawl anywhere. We are very very thankful he has completed this milestone and can't wait to see what he is going to accomplish next. He is repeating more and more words now and I can't help but think his speech skills are going to just take off. He's getting the hang of signing what he wants and has mastered the most important one of all..... eating. He has always been and continues to be a good eater. Oh and by the way, his sleep this week has actually been pretty good ( knocking on some wood) yeah, hes not waking up nearly as much as he has been and it feels really good to get more than a couple of hours sleep at a time. We hope the trend continues. Infantile spasms and seizures continue to be a thing of the past for us and Thursday will mark being seizure free for 200 days!!! Praise God He has now been seizure free longer than he was having seizures by a month and we are so thankful and blessed... Way to go Dawson!!
I haven't updated lately on Katelin so here goes....
It appears that she is out of her " honeymoon phase" She is back to requiring Insulin for almost every meal now. She is getting a half of unit of insulin for every 20 carbs and what her blood sugars will do next is a complete mystery. The challenge as always remains being ready for whats going to happen next and the amount of insulin she needs can change on a dime. She seems no worse for the wear and this brave little 7 year old who gets poked in the fingers/arms/stomach numerous times a day continues to " WOW " me with her bravery and no big deal attitude.
Thanks for looking in on us to see how we are doing. We appreciate each and every one of you
Jeff and Allison
Saturday, December 13, 2008
Walking tall
We hope everybody is having a great weekend. We have had an unusually quiet weekend so far which is just fine with me. We got out and did some shopping this morning but other than that we have just kind of hung out around the house together.
I did want to just do a quick update for everyone who has been keeping up with Dawson's walking progress. He is now at about 95% walking every where he goes. As a matter of fact, I cant recall a time in the last three days that he crawled anywhere. God just continues to bless us with this miracle and Dawson continues to triumph over I.S.
We hope you guys have a safe and happy weekend and thanks for seeing how we are doing
Jeff and Allison
I did want to just do a quick update for everyone who has been keeping up with Dawson's walking progress. He is now at about 95% walking every where he goes. As a matter of fact, I cant recall a time in the last three days that he crawled anywhere. God just continues to bless us with this miracle and Dawson continues to triumph over I.S.
We hope you guys have a safe and happy weekend and thanks for seeing how we are doing
Jeff and Allison
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Lots of things today
Today Dawson woke up with a little fever so I decided I would stay home with him today. First of all, it got me out of having to go to work, and secondly its been a while since Dawson and I have gotten to hang out alone without a bunch of silly girls around us. We had a lot of different things going on today which made it a lot of fun.
This morning Dawson had his speech evaluator from Early Intervention come by. It was a good session and we got to talk about what all has been going on with Dawson developmentally and some speech concerns that I had. She agrees that he needs to be seen at least once a month just to make sure he continues to progress but said there was no need for us to be concerned with his speech. She said he is doing what a 15 month old should be doing and feels that his speech will continue to develop just fine. She did recommend that we start some basic sign language with him. She said it will help bridge what he is wanting, with being able to say it. She brought out some bubbles to blow and we taught him in about 10 min how to sign for " More" ( which is bringing all the fingers together) Not only was he able to sign it, he would point at her and said "more" a few times.
Tonight Allison and I were working with him signing for "bite" After a few times he would point at his mouth and would say " bite bite." This kids a smart one and so far the signing is going really well.
After a little nap it was time for occupational therapy and he did really well just as he always does. One full hour of therapy with no fussing.
Then to cap off the day, It snowed tonight. Allison and I have been planning on going out tonight and doing some Christmas shopping tonight for about a week now. While we were out it started snowing A LOT!! and within an hour there was a couple of inches on the ground and roads. It was kinda neat to be out Christmas shopping during the snow. It never snows here and it really added to festive spirit. We managed to get a lot done and had the stores to ourselves this evening which was really nice.
Dawson has been feeling a lot better the past couple of days and its nice to have our sweet little boy and his good mood back.
We hope everyone is doing well and thanks for looking in on us.
We love you
Jeff and Allison
This morning Dawson had his speech evaluator from Early Intervention come by. It was a good session and we got to talk about what all has been going on with Dawson developmentally and some speech concerns that I had. She agrees that he needs to be seen at least once a month just to make sure he continues to progress but said there was no need for us to be concerned with his speech. She said he is doing what a 15 month old should be doing and feels that his speech will continue to develop just fine. She did recommend that we start some basic sign language with him. She said it will help bridge what he is wanting, with being able to say it. She brought out some bubbles to blow and we taught him in about 10 min how to sign for " More" ( which is bringing all the fingers together) Not only was he able to sign it, he would point at her and said "more" a few times.
Tonight Allison and I were working with him signing for "bite" After a few times he would point at his mouth and would say " bite bite." This kids a smart one and so far the signing is going really well.
After a little nap it was time for occupational therapy and he did really well just as he always does. One full hour of therapy with no fussing.
Then to cap off the day, It snowed tonight. Allison and I have been planning on going out tonight and doing some Christmas shopping tonight for about a week now. While we were out it started snowing A LOT!! and within an hour there was a couple of inches on the ground and roads. It was kinda neat to be out Christmas shopping during the snow. It never snows here and it really added to festive spirit. We managed to get a lot done and had the stores to ourselves this evening which was really nice.
Dawson has been feeling a lot better the past couple of days and its nice to have our sweet little boy and his good mood back.
We hope everyone is doing well and thanks for looking in on us.
We love you
Jeff and Allison
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
Anybody seen our sweet little boy??
The past few days have been a little rough for Dawson which in turn always makes things a little rough on all of us. Not sure whats bothering the little guy but he has definitely had a mood swing this past week. He had an ear infection last week that may still be bothering him. He's had this terrible cold ( which we are all still fighting) lots of coughing, constant running nose and his appetite is down quite a bit. And sleeping......... well that's just a joke and always has been. It's been much worse for the most part this week. The only thing that seems to satisfy the little guy is mommy. As long as mommy is holding him and he can feel her skin then things are ok. Anything other than that just won't do. Were hoping that this crud that has invaded our house will soon be gone and we can all get to feeling better.
We have finally gotten a day set up for a speech therapy evaluation to see if he qualifies for therapy services. It will be this Thursday and we both feel he needs some help in this department. He has words that he says but he doesn't necessarily say them with what they mean. Example, He says the word Da Da but doesn't call me Da Da. He only repeats the word of you say it. The only things he associates with words is" Dog" ( when he sees one) and " bite" when hes being fed.
His vocabulary started off really well but he just hasn't built on is like we think he should. We just hope the evaluator sees these things too so he can get therapy.3
So were just working hard right now trying to get the kids over this bug and back to feeling 100% again. Thanks for your prayers and support we so appreciate it!!
Our love to all
Jeff and Allison
We have finally gotten a day set up for a speech therapy evaluation to see if he qualifies for therapy services. It will be this Thursday and we both feel he needs some help in this department. He has words that he says but he doesn't necessarily say them with what they mean. Example, He says the word Da Da but doesn't call me Da Da. He only repeats the word of you say it. The only things he associates with words is" Dog" ( when he sees one) and " bite" when hes being fed.
His vocabulary started off really well but he just hasn't built on is like we think he should. We just hope the evaluator sees these things too so he can get therapy.3
So were just working hard right now trying to get the kids over this bug and back to feeling 100% again. Thanks for your prayers and support we so appreciate it!!
Our love to all
Jeff and Allison
Thursday, December 4, 2008
Cough-a-thon
Everybody around here is still under the weather a bit. Me and Allison and Dawson and Madison have entered a Cough-a-thon, and so far I think Dawson is winning. Poor thing, he seems to have gotten the worst of it. Yesterday he felt so bad and you could see it in his eyes too. Besides the fact they were all weepy and matted, they just looked really bad. So this morning Dawson made a trip to the Doctor and he has an ear infection. Both him and Madison got their flu shots while they were there, along with a good antibiotic to clear up the ear infection.
Hopefully in a couple of days we will all be strong and healthy again, and all these head and chest colds will be a thing of the past.
Last night, Dawson was doing his usual " I'm going to wake up ever couple of hours or so just to let you know I don't want you to get more than 2 hours of sleep at a time thing." Anyway, at his 3:00 am wake up call I look over and Allison is missing. I didn't think a lot about it until the 3:30 wake up call from Dawson, and Allison is still missing in action. Come to find out...
Apparently, when I have a bad head cold, I snore a lot more than usual. Poor Allison couldn't take it anymore and abandoned post to go sleep in the kids play room just to get away from it.
Sorry sweetie, tonight Ill go back to the breath right strips....
So were all hanging in there, puny, but hanging in.
Oh BTW, the other day we went out to eat for lunch and Dawson started drinking from a straw.. Hooray for Dawson! We celebrate every new thing he learns to do.
God bless and we love you all
Jeff and Allison
Hopefully in a couple of days we will all be strong and healthy again, and all these head and chest colds will be a thing of the past.
Last night, Dawson was doing his usual " I'm going to wake up ever couple of hours or so just to let you know I don't want you to get more than 2 hours of sleep at a time thing." Anyway, at his 3:00 am wake up call I look over and Allison is missing. I didn't think a lot about it until the 3:30 wake up call from Dawson, and Allison is still missing in action. Come to find out...
Apparently, when I have a bad head cold, I snore a lot more than usual. Poor Allison couldn't take it anymore and abandoned post to go sleep in the kids play room just to get away from it.
Sorry sweetie, tonight Ill go back to the breath right strips....
So were all hanging in there, puny, but hanging in.
Oh BTW, the other day we went out to eat for lunch and Dawson started drinking from a straw.. Hooray for Dawson! We celebrate every new thing he learns to do.
God bless and we love you all
Jeff and Allison
Monday, December 1, 2008
I cant believe our little Madison turned 4 today. What a joy she is and those of you who know her know how special this little girl is. She is a constant ray of sunshine in our lives and there just aren't words to describe her or how we much we love her. Happy Birthday Madison!!! we love you so much
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