New beds!

We finally got Reese's birthday present all set up for her this weekend...her new queen bed!  But before we get to those pictures, here are few from earlier in the week.  Reese can still miraculously fit into her doll's stroller...haha.  She likes to sit in it and wheel herself all over the house.  Here, she was backing up all the way to the kitchen cabinets and then racing forward.  She has quite the imagination :)

These are from earlier last week before we did the bed switch.  Reese always likes to take things to bed with her.  Well...as you can see, the pink pony and the doll stroller made it into the bed with her.  I thought it was funny, and she kept looking at me like, "what?  what's the big deal?"  Of course, I had to take pictures :)

Saturday pool time...Paige played with the hose for a little bit while Reese went on a leaf hunt.  Paige is VERY into splashing and making messes these days.  I don't know why I bother putting her hair up for pool time or bath time.  It's soaking wet if there's water nearby.

Reese enjoyed herself by walking around and looking at the plants.  She did get in the pool, but only for a second to cool off.

Ummm...yeah.  Danger is her middle name.

Okay...new bed pics!  We showed Reese her bed last night before her bath, and she immediately loved it!  She had to jump on it and bounce around.  She buried herself underneath all her pillows and just had a great time.

Then, after bath time, she did more bouncing and jumping and hopping and burying herself.

Now that Reese has a queen, Pip now has Reese's twin.  We decided to do like we did with Reese and start with the mattress on the floor...mainly for safety reasons.  It worked really well with Reese.  So last night, Paige wasn't too sure at first...but once she got in it and realized how big and soft it was...she loved it!  Back for her birthday in February, I got her a new bed set with these cute horses.  She decided to throw out all her blankets & pillows just for fun...and I'd put them back, and she'd throw them back out.  She cracks me up!

****Those pink paint smudges on the wall are test paint spots.  I am planning on painting Paige's room this week and I wasn't sure what color.  I've since decided on blue, so hopefully by next weekend, the room will not be pastel yellow.  I'm very much over pastel baby nursery colors!  We will also be putting together Paige's new drawers & cubby shelves.  Bye-bye baby furniture!

This is what Reese today...played in her bed!  I'm so glad she loves it :)  She even lugged a couch cushion in there for her library time...haha.

This is what Paige did today...play in her bed by hanging upside down!  The story of my life...haha.  Silly kids!

Both girls slept great their first night in their new beds.  The hardest part is keeping Paige IN the bed.  She can get in and out now, so she thinks it's a game after she's supposed to lie down.  She gets right out and runs around her room like that Chucky doll.  She's so fast...a blur here and a blur there!  And she's laughing the whole time.  I literally laid her down earlier tonight, and before I could turn around and take two steps from her bed, she hurled a pillow at me!  She thinks it's a game and keeps throwing everything out.  Last night, she eventually wore herself out and fell asleep.  After that, it was very quiet the whole night.  We shall see how the rest of the week goes...

That's the news for now.  Thanks for stopping by!

Blood Work & Metals Update

 It's already time for another blog entry!  I can't believe that three months from tomorrow is Christmas Eve.  What?!  It seems like we just finished last Christmas.  Time keeps ticking, that's for sure.

I have news to share.  Wednesday Marshall and I met with Dr. Berger, the girls' autism doctor, to discuss the findings from their summer-long chelation and recent blood work.

We found out that the toxic metals (lead and mercury) are significantly down in both girls.  Yay!  So the chelation worked.  All those suppositories and creams and mineral capsules really worked.  We will do another single dose & urine test in six months to make sure the levels are still down. 

Paige's lactic & pyruvic acid levels are down, which is great.  Before they were borderline high, so we started giving her B2, Biotin & CoQ10.  These acids have something to do with your mitochondria, which move cells where they need to go.

Reese's zinc & copper levels were near perfect.  Paige's copper is still high, so we're adding zinc to her daily intake.  Apparently upping the zinc will help bring the copper down.

Reese's iron level was a little bit low, but that's because she stopped eating steak.  She decided she only wanted chicken for the longest time.  We've added steak back into her diet and she's eating it up.  She just goes through phases.  We're also upping her fish oil to six a day!  Ugh...as if our house doesn't smell like a fish camp already...haha.

The biggest thing we found out concerned one of their blood tests...the Cerebral Folate test.  This test determines whether or not the girls have auto-immune blockers, which prohibits folic acid from working properly.  Both girls tested negative, which  means they don't have the blockers.  The bad news is that the test also showed that Paige's "switches" that turn on her folic acid are both bad.  This is like your house having electricity, but the breakers are broken, which means you can't turn it on.  Reese has one good switch and one bad.  We also learned this is a gene that is passed from us.  Every person has these two folic acid switches...one from the mother and one from the father.  In a typical person, both switches are good, and everything is running smoothly.  This is very eye-opening because it finally sheds some light on why both our children have these autistic issues.  The issue now is finding out if Marshall or I are carriers of both bad genes.  People with both bad switches are at a higher risk for heart attacks, blood clots, anxiety, etc.  So this means that one or the both of us has passed this freaky gene on to our girls.  We will be getting a blood test to see what's going on.  This is the first genetic finding we've had, and it makes sense as to why they are so delayed.

Now, what do we do to help fix this?  Well, we are going to start the girls on a folate capsule and also B12 shots.  According to Dr. Berger, B12 is perfect for this type of thing, and he thinks that we will definitely see some positive results from it.  The shots are given once every three days, and the needle is super teeny and the actual liquid in the syringe is minimal.  The good thing about B12 is that you can't absorb too much of it; whatever your body doesn't need, you get rid of it in your urine.  I'm looking forward to giving this a shot...it just may be the key.  I'm not looking for my girls to be valedictorians...I just want them to be able to focus, connect and communicate.  I'm still waiting on a real word in real context from either of them.  It has been a long six years...it would be so amazing to hear one of them say something.  Anything!

We'll do the B12 over the next three months and observe them.  Hopefully we'll start to see some improvements.  So keep your fingers crossed!

I have lots of cute pictures from the weekend...so here they are.

Here's Reese after school on Thursday, feeling the corners of her book.  It's what she does...

Paige looked so cute when she came home from school on Thursday.  Her hair started out in pigtails and she came home with them in braids.  It was adorable!  They suit her...especially in her "I'm a Wild Child" shirt :)

Paige's new thing is to throw the ball.  She likes to get on the couch and have the other person at the other end.  And she hurls the ball at you...she just started doing this, and I am amazed at how well she throws it.  She gets this look on her face...and it's just so cute!  She loves it, and she laughs the whole time.  And you know, even though both of her "switches" are bad, there is something going on in that little brain.  She self-taught herself how to build a tower with legos, she taught herself how to stack and unstack the stacking cups, and she just started throwing this ball out of nowhere.  Reese never did any of these things, and she still doesn't.  My kids have some very interesting (yet confusing) ways of thinking!

Reese's new "thing" is to grab a couch cushion and stick it on the table or the kitchen counter or the tv stand...or wherever, and put her book on top of it while she's flipping the pages.  She likes to have it up high where she can barely see over the top of it.  Who knows why?

I found this yesterday morning.  Paige is back to rearranging the living room furniture and toys.  I found her lounging beside the easel while watching Dora.  Perhaps it needed a nap?

We had lots of pool time this weekend.  Paige's new bathtime & pool thing is to splash as big and as much as possible.  I don't know why I even bother to put her hair up anymore!  Oh, and she is still licking & tasting everything.

Reese started out looking like this...and then decided to take the top part of her suit off.  This is one of her old ones and it's on the verge of being too small.  So once the straps were off, she was happy. 

More pool time on Sunday...

That's it for now! Have a great week :)