Zachary is the TOP EAGLE!

This week Zachary was selected as the Top Eagle from his class. As the Top Eagle, Zachary got to each lunch on the stage with the Assistant Principal, Ms. Draper. We are so proud of Zachary for working hard and always doing his best.

Mrs. Mott selected Zachary because he is a kind, respectful student! She pointed out that, "Zachary wants to learn and is excited to know new things!"

Way to go Zachary!

Zachary's Pre-OIT Appointment for Eggs

Today we met with Dr. Jones' medical assistant, Jennifer Bunker to discuss Zachary's next round of OIT treatments. It was mostly an informational meeting with a quick physical to check that Zachary is healthy and ready for Day One of Egg OIT on January 8th.

I was a little nervous because Zachary had a reaction at school yesterday. Just as the day was about to begin, Zachary knocked on my office door with red eyes and tears pouring down his face. I immediately thought he was hurt, but as I opened my office door and heard the sneezing, I knew that he was struggling with a reaction. I gave him 10ml of Zyrtec and whisked him off to the Sick Room in the Main Office.

Within minutes, Zachary's face began to swell as welts developed around his eyes, on his forehead, behind his ears, and on his neck. Before we know it, his right eye was swollen shut and he started to have a bit of a wheeze when he inhaled and exhaled.

After monitoring him for about an hour and a half, I decided that the reaction was passing and not progressing, so I sent him home to rest with my Dad. We are forever grateful to Papa for his willingness to step in and help us out at a moments notice.

I am so grateful that my little man is doing okay and that we were able to get him his medicine so quickly. I feel so blessed to be able to work at my children's school. I love that I am so close and that my kids can run to me in their times of need. I appreciate all the love and concern that each of my co-workers showed towards Zachary and Me. Although it was scary, I felt my Savior's love through this entire ordeal and I am so grateful to know that no matter what, families can be together forever!

Back to today's appointment...

Fortunately, Zachary passed the physical with flying colors and he will be able to begin next week. Jen feels that Zachary's reaction was due to being overheated within an hour of taking his morning milk dose. I am thankful that this recent reaction did not derail our plans to begin OIT again. We have been waiting for a little over a year and are extremely grateful to be able to begin again!

Now we begin preparations and say our prayers that things will go smoothly on Tuesday!

Another One Bites The Dust!

Zachary lost another tooth! They are seriously dropping like flies! This is the fourth tooth to fall out, and his third since June 10th. He has been losing one a month for the past three months!

His toothless grin is stinkin' adorable and I cannot get over the little lisp he has developed with the loss of his front teeth. Every once in a while he whistles when he talks...and it is the cutest thing ever!

Man, I love this little boy! He definitlely has me wrapped around his little finger. When he smiles at me, it melts my heart. It is so great to see him reaching all of these milestones...but it makes me a tiny bit sad that my little guy is growing up! 

OIT Updose Appointment #14--Dairy

Today, Zachary had another successful up-dose appointment. He was able to up-dose from 10ml of whole milk to 15ml of whole milk. There was a little moment of hesitation when Zachary saw the nurse with 2 syringes full of milk...but after a snuggle from mom and a little pep talk...he swallowed the entire dose in an instant. I am so proud of my little man. He continually amazes me and gives new life to the words "I can do hard things". I don't know anything harder than looking at a syringe full of "potential death" and willingly swallowing it each and every day!

Zachary is the bravest boy I know!

Toothless

Zachary has had a loose tooth for a couple of weeks...and today it finally fell out! I went into his room, this morning, to wake him up and as he stretched, his tooth popped out and landed in his bed. His little tooth is so tiny...I am glad that he could find it.

He is so excited and cannot wait to put it under his pillow for the Tooth Fairy! He immediately wanted to wake up Elizabeth to show her, but since it was only 5:15am, I made him wait so she could sleep.

 

My little Zachary is growing up. This is just another milestone that reminds me that he is not a baby anymore! I love him so much and I am so grateful that I have him in my life. Even though he is growing into a little boy, he will always be MY baby!

My Heart is Full

While at school today, I noticed that Zachary's class had some new artwork hanging in the hallway outside of their classroom. The theme was "My Heart is Full" so I searched for Zachary's. I was really interested to see what his thoughts were around Valentine's Day.

Zachary wrote...

"My Heart is full of Video Games. Angry Birds is my favorite video game out of all of them.

By Zachary"

Seriously... I love this kid. He has such a fun, silly, and sweet personality. 

Marriage

While Zachary was at school today, I received a text from his teacher, Mrs. Hind. She included the above photo and explained, "Zachary had a free journal write today and his entry was cute and made me laugh". I am so grateful that she decided to share this with me. His journal entry made me smile!

His entry says,

January 31. 2017

I am in love with Rowan and when I grow up I will marry Rowan and get one hundred dollars.

If that was not cute enough, as we left school today, a girl was calling Zachary's name and running after him. Zachary stopped and said hi to her before proceeding to the car. When we got in the car, he says to me, "Mom. That girl running after me was Ava. I am going to marry her when I grow up." I said, "Oh really!" and he states, "Well, I might marry her, or I might marry Rowan...or even Brooke. Mom, it is so hard to decide. I wish I could marry all three of them...but there is not a guy in the world that can handle 3 ladies."

Seriously. He is too cute. I don't know where he comes up with all of this stuff. I am so grateful for my little man and for all of the sweet things that he shares with me.

Rocky Mountain Allergy Seminar

For the past year or so, we have been hearing about a new treatment option for food allergies. I have been a little hesitant to try it since it is so new and only one allergist, Dr. Douglas Jones, in Utah is currently offering this treatment option. At the end of January, this allergist opened a new location in Murray, Utah which is about 20 minutes from our home. When I discovered his new location, and found out that Dr. Jones was just recently added to our insurance plan, I decided to check it out.

Matt and I attended a seminar with Dr. Jones tonight. He discussed his revolutionary treatment and how it works. There were also a few "graduates" and their families there to discuss their experience and how their lives have been changed.

Dr. Jones began his career as an Allergist and always hated the times he would have to face a family and diagnose a food allergy. The standard protocol was to give the family a list of ingredients to avoid and a prescription for an Epi-Pen. He would then send them into the world with a "hope" that nothing bad would happen. During the seminar he discussed how he hated these conversations and felt so bad that there were no other options. As he began researching more, he took the idea of vaccines and of environmental allergy shots and began experimenting to see if there was something more that he could do. For 8 long years he researched and studied. Then in 2011 he launched the Oral Immunotherapy treatment plan with his patients. It has had unprecedented success!

Oral Immunotherapy Treatment (OIT) is a treatment in which the allergic patient is fed the allergen in a very diluted amount in a control environment. For example, the first dose amount for a person allergic to peanuts is 1/250,000 of a peanut. As each dose is tolerated, the dosage amount is increased until the patient is able to eat 24 peanuts a day. This may take anywhere from a few months to a couple of year to desensitize to the allergen. Once you reach what Dr. Jones calls your maintenance dose, the patient will need to consume the maintenance dose of the allergen every day for the rest of their lives. If they do so, they are able to eat unlimited amounts of the allergen as often as they would like. Sounds to good to be true, right!

Well it is not. After Dr. Jones presentation was over, we heard from many patients and their families. As we heard story after story of success and gratitude, my eyes were filled with tears. We heard the story of a 10-year old boy who was allergic to 24 foods. His story was so similar to Zachary's and his little personality reminded me of Zachary too. He now can eat all of the foods he once had to completely avoid. His eyes lit up as he talked about all of the food that he can now eat and how he doesn't need to fear food anymore. I cannot image what a weight has been lifted off of his little shoulders. It made me long for the day that we could share all of our favorite foods with Zachary. Next we heard from a 18-year old boy that was allergic to peanuts. He graduated from the OIT program in December and feels so much better about being out with friends and dating. Then we heard from a young girl who recently attended a friends birthday party for first time. In the past her friends would tell her, "My mom won't let me invite you to my party because she doesn't want to worry about what to feed you." We heard so many stories of how OIT has changed peoples lives.

After the seminar, we were able to mingle with the families and with Dr. Jones. Matt and I are extremely interested in getting Zachary started with this treatment. We are encouraged by all of the success and hope to be able to share our success story in the future.

We are currently on the wait list for the Oral Immunotherapy Program. We are looking at around 8 to 10 months before we will be able to begin. While we are a little sad to have to wait, we are grateful for the time to do more research and to prepare Zachary for what is to come. While we wait, we plan on starting immunotherapy treatments for Zachary's environmental allergies. Dr. Jones feels that if we can eliminate Zachary's environmental allergies, he will be able to work through the food allergy treatments a lot quicker and with less reactions.

I am so grateful for this new option. I am hopeful that Oral Immunotherapy Treatments will work for my little Zachary. If OIT works for us, it will not only open up so many food choices for Zachary, it will improve his quality of life and make it so we don't have to live in fear every single day.

What a blessing that would be!

Swimming at Uncle Bill's

Today we were able to go an enjoy an afternoon of swimming at Uncle Bill's swimming pool. We haven't been to his pool in years so this was a special treat! I forgot what a beautiful pool area he has at his condo complex.

Elizabeth and Zachary absolutely love to swim, and splash, and play in the water. Elizabeth especially... she is truly a little fish. She mentioned how she wanted to put up a tent and live on the pool grounds so that as soon as she woke up she could go swimming.

Zachary is adorable in all of his swim gear. He is more timid in the water but always has a great time as long as someone is right by his side.

Elizabeth is definitely more adventurous. Once she realized that she could not go under the water with her swim vest on, she was all over the pool.

She loved to kick off the side wall, turn around, and then swim across the pool until she made it to the other side.

Zachary is more like me and would much rather hang out in the hot tub!

Kinda looks like Uncle Bill and his friend, Alyce like the hot tub too!

I am grateful for the opportunity to spend a day in the sun with my family. We are so glad that Uncle Bill invited us to enjoy his pool. It was a great day spent with great people!

*Did I mention how much I love the fact that the water and the sun completely wipe out my kids and they always sleep so great!

Ant-Man

Matt surprised the kids with a night out at the movies. Elizabeth and Zachary (especially Zachary) have been begging to see the new Ant-Man movie so Matt decided that it would make a perfect activity for them to all do together. As they loaded into the minivan and I waved goodbye, Zachary exclaimed, "Wait. We are going somewhere with ONLY daddy!" The look on his face was priceless!

The movie was great and the kids had so much fun with their dad. Once they returned home, they had to describe all of their favorite parts of the movie to me. It was seriously all they could talk about...even the next day!

I am so glad that Elizabeth and Zachary were able to spend some one-on-one...on one time with their daddy. Matt is such a great dad and loves Elizabeth and Zachary so much. I am excited that they were able to enjoy some time together doing something fun!

And as a bonus...I got a Girl's Night Out! Thanks Matt!

FHE- Nephites

Tonight during Family Home Evening, Matt was discussing some things with the kids when he mentioned the Nephites. Now for those of you that don't know who the Nephites are, they are one of four groups of people that settled in the ancient Americas. As the discussion was moving along, Matt asked Elizabeth and Zachary, "Why do you think they were called the Nephites?'

Zachary immediately answered, "Because they are Neph and they fights!"

Seriously, is he not the cutest. I have no idea where he comes up with this stuff. Zachary says the funniest things and definitely keeps us on our toes! 

Last Week of Summer--Chuck E. Cheese

Today we are kickin' off our last week of Summer with a trip to Chuck E. Cheese. Elizabeth and Zachary absolutely love Chuck E. Cheese and always have so much fun. Elizabeth loves all of the different games. Now that she is a little older, she is able to play more of them really well. She always does great and wins a lot of tickets!

Zachary loves this bicycle game but his little legs are not long enough for him to be able to ride. Elizabeth is such a sweet sister and plays it for him. She always gives him all of the tickets that she gets when she is playing on his behalf!

Zachary always has fun running from game to game. He is really thoughtful and looks at all of the games before he decides which games to actually play. It is fun to see the personality differences between Zachary and Elizabeth. She is wild-and-crazy and spends her tokens in 5 seconds, while Zachary could play on his tokens for hours!

The kids love a game called Deadstorm Pirates. Zachary and Elizabeth are able to play together. They get so excited and keep feeding those tokens in each time their characters life ends. I really believe that they would play this game the entire time, if I didn't force them to stop. It makes my heart so happy to see them enjoying something together.

One of my favorite things to watch is the Chuck E. Cheese parade. Every couple of hours, Chuck E. Cheese comes out and invites all of the kids to join him in a parade around the play area. It is so cute to see all of the little kids light up as Chuck E. Cheese waves and walks around.

After parading around, Chuck E. Cheese leads a little dance party near the back. They usually do the Hokey Pokey or Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes. Once the dancing is over, Chuck E. Cheese throws a bunch of tickets in the air and all the kids scurry to pick up as many as they can get their little hands on. So cute! Elizabeth and Zachary love this part of our visits to Chuck E. Cheese.

Before leaving, we had to enjoy some of the rides. Elizabeth is getting a little bit old for the rides but Zachary cannot get enough. Elizabeth likes one that when you petal it raises up really high...it almost touches the ceiling.

Zachary loves the little carousal and usually rides it 4-5 times. Elizabeth is a good sport and rides it with him. Elizabeth is such a great big sister and does a great job of protecting and taking care of Zachary!

There is one ride that Zachary loves that once you are done with the ride it takes a photo of you with Chuck E. Cheese. Zachary is such a ham and was making crazy faces once it told him to get ready for the photo. He really is a crazy-kid. He is so full of life and joy. We cannot imagine our lives without him and his crazy self! Man, I love this kid!

I am so grateful that we have such a fun place to come and make memories together. It is great to be able to get out of the heat and head inside to play.

I cannot believe that there is only one more week of Summer. We are going to make the most of it and play all week long. Tomorrow we are heading out to the Discovery Gateway Children's Museum!