Jordan and Arica Allen: Just a little catch up

So it's been 6 months since we finally moved into our new house. Wow that 6 months flew, yet went slow too. We have accomplished so much! I'm so proud of all the work we have done, and so grateful for all the help we have had! Our families are amazing!

There is so much still to do but I at least feel like we have made it to the top of the hill. Hiking downhill is a little easier, but it still takes effort :) there's still plenty to do. I'm slowly starting to organize all the stuff (decorations, food storage, etc). We are super close to finishing the outside of the house and it will be complete!!! We finished putting up the rock this week and it made all the difference! It looks like any other house now!!! :) and the majority of what we have left is some "little" (big) things left. Cabinets, inside of the garage, and the yard. Ok so those are all huge things, but for some reason I'm more relaxed about getting those done. I'm sure the stress will come back :) in the meantime I'm going to just enjoy what we have accomplished!

The kids are doing great! Garrett is loving preschool again this year. I also have enrolled him in the Utah Upstart program. I cannot believe how much he has learned since we started in August. He is reading!! Ok so truthfully I thought he'd get to this point maybe January at the best, but he's such a smart kid. (Takes after Jordan) he is also getting good at his math facts! Our conversation into town the other day was

G- "mom what's 15+ 16?"

Me-"Ummm 31"

G-"wow that's a lot"

Me-" what's 2+3?"

G-"5"

And so it went on for 20 min.

I'm just so amazed at how fast he picks it up. Here's the garrett moment of the day... (At the last Aggie football game)

"Dad they just threw a banana on the field" (the penalty flag)

He's also taking his big brother roll very serious... Including the teasing part. Of course he doesn't get away with much because Audrey's figured out that a good set of lungs to scream is the winning trick.

Now for the Audrey update-

Audrey turned 2 recently and has started to excel in her development. (Basically she's normal, with maybe a little ocd) Audrey loves a routine, no matter who's it is. Every time we leave home she asks if garrett is going to preschool. It's so funny because she is so smart directionally. So if I turn a certain way, or don't she lets me know where/ or where I'm not going. For instance... If I turn left onto 1400 n, she knows we're going to see grandma Linda at work. If I turn into Sams parking lot, and doesn't want to run errands that day, she says'" no pop today". (Who can go to sams without a pop?)

Audrey has been doing great as far as her seizures. In July, she had a week where she had a ton of seizures again. Unfortunately , poor Jordan had to do it alone because I was out of the country. (Another post to come) We switched one of her medications from zonisamide, which did good for almost a year, to Topamax. We quickly saw a change in her mood from being kind of sedated and onry to our happy joyful tease of a girl. I was so excited to see that little girl I knew before all of this started. I have been so grateful for the change. It gave me hope for the future. Since switching in late July, Audrey has only had 2 seizures! I'm hopeful to see if we can break the 4 month seizure free record! Currently at 2 months, but going strong.

We also have great news regarding genetic testing! We have submitted a sample to Spain, after some glitches, and we should be getting results sometime around March I think. Also we are going to be doing another genetic test which is a genome sequence. This one is more advanced and looks to see which of her individual genes have abnormalities. The hope is to be able to pin point what the cause is. We are about 99% sure that this is a lifelong thing for her. There will be challenges ahead for her, but we will take them as they come. There are also great advances in epilepsy treatment, such as the cannabis oil, and many others that give us hope for the future of treatment.

Well other than a super long post to get sort of caught up... Here is a quote I heard this week that has stuck with me.

"When you get to the end of your rope, tie a knot in it and hang on tight".

*** update since I wrote the initial post. Audrey has had 2 more seizure days a month apart from each other... Alas what can you expect with sickness season and holidays. We had a great Thanksgiving and Christmas!

And we are officially done with the outside of the house!!! Yea! (Picture to come later)

Also... Garrett got glasses.