Sadie's Legs Update

Hey All :)I will start with the bad news first..Sadie still has to wear her braces :( But the good news is the braces ARE working and they told us when we come back in six months we will more than likely get to get rid of them! Yay! Her legs in November were at a 21 degree angle but today her left leg is at a 15 degree angle and her right is at a 19 degree angle!! Woo hoo! If you'll remember they told us that we would not see any changes in the first 6 months BUT what do they know anyways?! Haha GOD is good! :)We were also told that we can take them off of her for bedtime, when she's just laying/sitting down or swimming. Before they had said only take them off at bath time. Which I will admit we didn't follow the rules all the time :/ Its hard sometimes but even with our 'cheating' the braces have worked tremendously!Then we visited the shop for some adjustments (her legs have grown a lot) and some pressure points were bothering her so they had to make her braces a bit longer and push them out. They told us in six months at our appointment in November we should be able to get rid of them!!! Then we dropped off some toys/coloring books for Shriners patients (we have been collecting stuff since February for a part in Hearts for Hannah..you can go here to read about it:http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/hannahgracecrumby).

Here is a picture of her legs in June 2009 (at our family reunion)

Here they are today (June 12, 2010)

PRAISE GOD!!!!!!!

Thank you all so much for your prayers!! You do not know how MUCH they mean to us!!

Last day of Preschool and graduation

Laney's last day of Preschool was May 22nd and that night in the church where she attends Creative School, they held a program/graduation. They all sung songs from each month of the school year from September to May. Then they called each child up for a 'diploma' certificate and showed a slide show of pictures from the whole year! It was so neat! I think Brandon and I both teared up a little when they called her name! She is so big :( Kindergarten here she comes!! We are so very proud of you! You have learned so much this year and had so much fun meeting new friends! You loved your teacher, Ms Trisha too! Way to go Laney! We can't wait to see you excel in elementary!!

Laney walking with her friends from school on their last day

Laney standing in front of her "cubby" Laney and her teacher Ms. Trisha

(she made these collages of pictures for all the kids)
Sadie LOVES Ms. Trisha too!!
All of the kids singing!


Getting her diploma *sniff-sniff*

We are so proud of you Laney Beth!!

Catching up...Laney's Preschool Graduation

Laney's PreSchool program/graduation was held on May 22nd at 6 pm at her school. They all sung songs from each month of the school year from September to May. Then they called each child up for a 'diploma' certificate and showed a slide show of pictures from the whole year! It was so neat! I think Brandon and I both teared up a little when they called her name! She is so big :( Kindergarten here she comes!! We are so very proud of you! You have learned so much this year and had so much fun meeting new friends! You loved your teacher, Ms Trisha too! Way to go Laney! We can't wait to see you excel in elementary!!

Walking with her friends on her last day of school..

Standing in front of her "cubby"

Laney and her teacher, Ms. Trisha

(she made all of the students a collage of pictures from the entire year!)

Six Months!

***UPDATE: Cade weighed in at 15 lbs and was 25 and 3/4 inches long! His weight was in the 10th percentile and his height was in the 25th percentile. Dr Lovell said, "Cade doesn't look good, he looks GREAT!" He got 3 different shots and the rotovirus "drink". He did so good at his appointment!! :) ***

Sweet Baby Cade!! I love you so much! You are SIX months old today!! Where in the world does the time go?! You are growing up so fast!

Here's what you are up to these days:

*You can sit up all by yourself now! You like to move your feet a lot though so you topple over sometimes! :)

*You roll over (back to front and front to back!) You never lay still. The other day I put you against the pillows at the top of our bed and you put yourself on your belly and turned completely around and scooted (on your belly) all the way to the end of the bed where Mommy was sitting! I was amazed!

*You are getting 3+ teeth! You are normally a very happy baby and always sleep through the night but the past few weeks you have cried so much and wake up all night. I was a little worried until I seen the teeth coming up and now I understand why you are cranky! Poor thing!!*Your brown hair has turned blonde! You have the whitest eyelashes and they are SO long! My little blue-eyed blondie!!

*We have given you rice cereal, bananas, and applesauce. You like them but you never eat too much. But your getting some good practice in! We also gave you a 'biter biscuit' a few days ago and you chomped that thing down to nothing!

*Uncle Dustin taught you to say 'ha ha ha' You will mock everyone that does it! It is too cute!* You LOVE Mommy! If someone is holding you and I walk by you get whiny and start crying! Ha Its so sweet.

*You also love your big sisters! They try so hard to take care of you and make you laugh! Your favorite thing is when they yell 'BOO' at you! You will laugh so hard! Laney has also started saying 'I see a duck in the sky made out of clouds' to you and you giggle really hard. She will name other animals (elephants, turtles, etc) but you laugh the hardest about a duck!And Sadie has started playing peek a boo with you and you REALLY laugh when she does that!!

You have your 6 month appointment tomorrow so I will update with all of your "stats" and you have to get shots too :(

We are so proud of you, Son! You make our family complete and we are so blessed to have you in our life! Mommy and Daddy talk about how blessed we are with the prettiest/cutest babies in the world! We love you, sweet boy!

He's here!!

Cade Mackenzie Stein

November 24, 2009 at 12:53 p.m.

6lbs 9 oz. 19 1/4 inches long




**Will post more info and pics soon! **

**Mommy's still not feeling too well..**

Sade-Sade

So, we finally got Sadie an appointment with Shriner's Hospital! We went on November 5th to St. Louis! Had tons of fun sightseeing and spending the night with Brandon's cousin Jami and her husband David! We only got to stay one night though so it was kind of a fast and exhausting trip! Ha

Brandon and the girls had never been to the St. Louis Arch

so we decided to take them up in it!

Sadie kept saying "Me look, Me look!!" She had a lot of fun

collecting leaves and rocks outside for Pepaw too :)

Laney LOVED the arch! She said it was like riding in a dryer to the top and

she just smiled the whole time!!

We decided to try Shriner's because Sadie's pediatrician was not at all pleased with the treatment we were receiving from the Tulsa specialist. They were basically just having us come up there for nothing and each time we went it was the same old "let's wait and see" story.. They didn't even do x-rays last time and we were basically in and out within 5 minutes. Seriously. Grr.

So anyways, the doctors and staff at Shriner's were awesome! They took special care of both our sweet girls and the nurses played with them and they even got stuffed elephants! The had a lot of fun! Best of all, Shriner's is free! Which is a GREAT thing for us right now since Brandon got laid off back in August. Helped us out tremendously!!

They took x-rays of her legs and even regular pictures. And they also watched her walk several times up and down the hallway. They told us that her bones were now at a 21 degree angle. If you'll remember last year (in October) they were only at a 10 degree angle. They didn't "officially" say Blount's disease but they talked a lot about it. Back last year at our first orthopedic appointment in Springdale, we were told that after the legs get to a 15-20 degree angle, they consider it Blount's disease...so we're not really sure. The doctors recommended leg braces for Sadie OR we could come back in 6 months and re-do the x-rays again. It was totally up to us but she recommended that we went ahead and got her fit for them. Of course, we know that her legs have gotten worse and the longer we wait the harder it will be on Sadie so we went ahead and had her measured and fit for the blount's braces.

This is just an example picture I found on the internet of the way Sadie's legs look.

The doctors also noticed her knee popping out of place as well..

She will have to wear these braces anywhere from one to two years. They will go from her hips down to the UGLY boots she will have to wear. I know it's totally dumb and "earthly" of me but I just like my girls to be stylish and these boots are FAR from stylish..it has really bothered me. A lot. They pretty much lock her knees up to allow growth in her growth plates. Her tibia bone is shorter so basically this will allow room for the bone to grow like it should and straighten things out. She will have to wear these day and night...at all times (except for showers, etc.) The reasoning behind that is because a child grows at different times and there is no way of knowing when Sadie's legs will grow so for the braces to be effective she HAS to be wearing them when she grows..

We were also told that there is still the possibility that she will have to have surgery when she is 4 or so. She has a few things in her favor such as she is not African-American (evidently Blount's is more dominant in African-American children) and she is not overweight so that is good but there are a few things working against her too: She is a girl (boys have better success with the braces) and a few other things that I can't recall at the moment. BUT we know that God is able to do anything. So if it is His will that her legs straighten without surgery then He can and WILL do it! We are praying that her legs show significant improvement before her next 6 month check in May (we were told by the doctors we wouldn't see anything by then-would LOVE to prove them wrong! ha)

We've (me more than Brandon) have had a hard time with it because obviously we don't like the thought of Sadie having to go through all this. I have cried so much over it. Sometimes I can't stand to think about it! I know parents go through MUCH worse things than leg braces but it's still hard on us :( God will help us through though. He always has and always will. She wants to be like Laney so much and do everything that Laney does so it's hard because she wants to play soccer and do ballet, etc. but we will probably more than likely have to push that back a few years. So that's hard and it breaks my heart for her. But hopefully all will straighten quickly and correctly!

Please be praying with us for our sweet girl! That she can run and play and be normal in these braces and that they don't bother her at all. She hates wearing shoes as it is, so I can't imagine making her wear these ALL of the time! But we've gotta! So pray for us to be strong for her as well and most importantly please pray that her legs will straighten fast!

Love you all!

Sadie