Ellany's 8th Birthday

April 20th is a double holiday for our family...Ellany's birthday and our wedding anniversary! This post is going to be all about Ellany's birthday.

She requested a blue elephant cake this year.
It wasn't my best cake, but Ellany liked it! :0)

She was very excited about the puppets Grandma & Grandpa gave her. She had picked them out of a toy catalog, and when she opened them she cried, "Happy Kids Puppets! Page 55!"

She also really liked her new Little People toys...

Since we took her to Disney World for her birthday 2 years ago, Ellany has assumed that we will always go to Disney on her birthday. (She loves patterns and things that are predictable.) So we are very grateful to have friends with connections who can get us in free!

At the start of our big day, I asked Ellany to say the breakfast prayer. She said, "Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for our Disney World because I get to ride on Cinderella's Carousel. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen." How sweet is that? Normally Ellany repeats the standard "thank you for our food" prayer - very short and to the point. It was exciting that she composed her own prayer about something personal!


Because Ellany has sensory processing disorder, Disney presents some major difficulties - a barrage of sights, sounds and smells. The first time she went, she had a crying meltdown by lunch time. Even though it was fun, it was just SENSORY OVERLOAD! (For this same reason, we left Ryker at home with Grandma Carol this time.) Ellany's tolerance has progressed over time, and she can stay a full day now. There are moments when she talks about going home, but what she really wants is quiet time to decompress.

Ellany's shortage of impulse control has also created some memorable moments on our Disney visits. On her 6th birthday, she jumped in a fountain fully clothed! On her 7th birthday, she threw her shoe in the moat around Cinderella's castle! I am assuming she wanted to see if it would float. (No, we couldn't get it back but a cast member saved the day with a free pair of Mickey crocs!) This year we managed to navigate the day without any major "Ellany moments"! ;0)

Ellany's favorite game is Disney DVD bingo. Each Disney character is assigned a letter and number, like G42 or B25. The second time she played, she had all of them memorized. When she sees or talks about a Disney character, she likes to tell you what their bingo number is. So imagine her being surrounded by all the characters at the Magic Kingdom!! Her running commentary was something like this, "Peter Pan B12......G47, O59 and O49 are Winnie the Pooh, Tigger and Eeyore!".

Ellany wore her "Birthday Girl" shirt to Disney. I loved watching cast members wish her a happy birthday. When I would prompt her to say thanks, Ellany would read the person's name tag and say, "Thanks, (insert name here)!" and then shake their hand! They would look surprised that she called them by name and then smile. :0)

And one little note about Brynn...we discovered that she is an adrenalin junkie! She LOVED those nauseating spinning teacups, which she rode by herself because we refused to go on it. She also rode Splash Mountain 4 times and begged to go more. Check out her excitement on Thunder Mountain Railroad...

We are so glad Ellany got to have her day at Disney again this year. She is our wonderful little angel and we love her!

The Sleep Study

For several years now, we have known that Brynn always snores. More recently we realized that she always breathes through her mouth, because she "can't get enough air" when she breathes through her nose. She also constantly sounds congested. So, I took her to an ENT specialist who confirmed that Brynn has "HUGE tonsils". This implies that her adenoids are also enlarged, which would explain her symptoms. The doctor was concerned about the possibility of Brynn having sleep apnea, so we scheduled a sleep study.

Brynn & Adam arrived at the sleep clinic at 8pm. There was an extra bed for Adam to sleep in the room with Brynn. She was attached to 25 electrodes and a couple other devices to monitor her brainwaves, eye movement, oxygen level, air flow, and muscle movements. Brynn was so brave!! I can't imagine how she managed to sleep with all of that stuff attached to her. But she slept until 4:30am...long enough for them to get the data they needed.

The results of the study will determine if Brynn will have her adenoids AND tonsils removed, or just her adenoids. Apparently these organs are like the appendix...you can live just fine without them! We should be scheduling surgery soon. Brynn is excited about the prospect of eating lots of ice cream after surgery!