EUREKA -- Denton and Clayton Stapleton were nine weeks premature when they were born six years ago.

When the twins were about 1, Joni and Travis Stapleton learned their sons had cerebral palsy.

"You have a mental picture in your mind when you're having children they're going to do this and they're going to do that, especially when they're your first," Joni Stapleton said. "And then … we were told that he might not be able to walk -- ever."

The first-graders at Davenport Elementary School recently had surgery at Gillette Children's Hospital in St. Paul, Minn. Surgeons cut their femur bones, rotated them and fastened them with an "L" bracket and pins.

Their leg muscles were cut to lessen torsion on their leg bones as they grow. They have casts to their hips. Denton and Clayton will be in wheelchairs for three to six weeks.

Their bedroom has been moved to the main floor, and workers have installed a wider front door, built a wheelchair ramp onto the new front deck, and their dad is remodeling the garage into a family room.

Travis and Joni's youngest son, Houston, is 4. "Because he does do so many things, they want to keep up and do what Houston's doing," Joni said. "It's a blessing in disguise that we did have him."

"They'll keep trying and if they can't do it, they'll try it tomorrow," Travis said. "Go another step. It took Denton three days to climb the steps after I lowered that hand rail. He went up like three steps and quit. The next night, he went up two more. It took him three days to get to the top. Now he goes up and down. I didn't help him."

Travis has medical insurance through his job as a laborer for Stark Excavating. Joni is employed for her father at Jake Bauman Trucking in Eureka.

They expect to be left with about $5,000 in bills from the surgery and stay at St. Paul, and significantly more expenses from traveling to and from therapy and follow-up appointments, and back to Minnesota for surgery to remove the plates in about a year.

A benefit will be Oct. 3 at Eureka Church of the Nazarene and a fund for the twins at Heartland Bank and Trust. To help with the fundraiser, e-mail Linda Pyles at klpyles@hotmail.com or call (309) 696-1988.