Party!!

Two posts in one day!! I must be really bored! Not really, I am just trying to get some pictures on the blog before I forget and get really behind! We had a birthday party for L and he had a blast!! He always like to have a party hat!!

Eating dinner with the grandparents!

Singing Happy Birthday!!

Blowing out the candles!

That sweet smile!!

Opening presents!!

Iron Man and Buz Light Year all at one time!!

Checking out his wings!!

L to the rescue!!

Being a stinker and shooting people in the house with the water gun!

Watch out Mr. Trevor!

L with Nanny and Pepaw!

L with Grandmother and Granddad!

L with Grandma and Grandpa!

Trying to spray the camera man!!

Happy Birthday to my sweet L!!!

On My Mind

This little girl has been on my mind all morning. I found these pictures on one of the therapists blogs and stole them! She is in an orphanage in the Ukraine. She also has the same diagnosis as E. In six years she is the only other case that I have heard of.

She has been swaddled in a bed, laying by herself because the workers were scared of what she had. They thought that it might be contagious. As you can see from the pictures she cannot even hold up her own head because she has never been on her tummy and had the chance to build up the muscles in her neck.
As I said, she has been on my mind all morning. I know that I will be lifting her up in prayer all day long.

Miracle League of Northwest Arkansas

We have some wonderful people in Northwest Arkansas that really care about kids with special needs. A few of the people that are involved with E's therapy clinic are helping to get the Miracle League started in Springdale. We have asked E if he wants to play and he is not really sure about it. He loves to hit the baseballs but he is not able to run the bases very well. We will just have to wait and see what he decides!!

My Favorite Food

I love to go to the Pesto Cafe in Fayetteville. It is kind of expensive so we don't go very often. But when we do, I love to get Caprese. (Not sure about spelling??) I was really wanting some the other night so I decided to try and make some at home.

First I started with making homemade pesto. I looks gross but it is really good!!!

This picture really bugs me because it was blurry, but it was the only one that I had. Not sure why I only took one picture. ANYWAY, when you take the pesto and add it to a baguette, top it with tomato soaked in balsamic vinegar and olive oil, and then top it with a slice of mozzarella you will think that you have died and gone to heaven! It is wonderful!!! I will definitely be making this again!!
Obviously this was not a kid recipe so that night I made the kiddos Baked Ziti. It was also yummy, but it does not compare to the Caprese.

I used the pesto recipe from this month's Taste of Home magazine. I only wish that all of the recipes that I tried turned out this good!!

Happy Birthday!!

Happy Birthday to my baby!

You used to be so tiny!!

But you grew !!

From early on we knew that you were a funny little guy!

You like to make people laugh and to be silly! When you were little you only did this for a select few! Now you will do it for anyone who will laugh!

You have also always liked to dress up!!

And get into and under things!

You love birthdays and presents and hats!

You love silly things like big fly swatters and underwear pants!!

You will always be mommy's cuddlebug!

And my super strong boy!

You love to go and climb and jump and throw! You are all boy!!

L you are loved much!! You make us laugh everyday. You are also a wonderful little boy that has never ending energy! We cannot wait to see all of the great things that you are going to do someday! Our prayer is that you will grow up to love the Lord and fear Him always. We hope that you will pour your life into things that please Him.

Rain, Rain, Go Away!

Well, it feels like it has been raining forever! E is done with school and I had big plans about keeping him busy this summer. We were going to see and do everything that we could.

But all of that changed when the rain came. I am not about to run 2 kiddos around town in the rain. Plus most of my activities were supposed to be outside. Days that included going to the park, library, farmers market, playing at the farm, etc.

So how do you keep from going crazy in a house with two kids all day?? Well, you look on facebook and find out good ideas from people who have the same problem! I read an idea about doing an indoor scavenger hunt. So we did that this morning!! I told the boys to go and find something and they would run off to see what they could find!

I sent them off to find a piece of fruit and L came back with the box of fruit snacks!! I also sent them to find something that they could wear. E came back with a hat and L came with a Pull Up. They found something that was special to them, something red, something that started with the letter C and something they could ride on. There were several other things and they had a good time with this! Then we had a race to see who could get all of the stuff put back where they found it because I was not about to put away all of that mess!!

That activity only took up about 20 minutes so of course we needed something else to do. We read through E's Clubhouse Jr magazine about spiders, cats that live in trees and did some puzzles and told jokes. If you know my kids you know that they love jokes! They love to hear them and then try and make up their own jokes. The boys jokes are horrible by the way!! Another project in the magazine was to make these magnets. E could do most of this by himself so I just had to help L.

E decided that he needed to draw a picture on the white board for our "bird" and "bunny". He loves to draw.

We read one more story out of the magazine and now it is almost lunch time! Hopefully we can come up with some more things for them to do this afternoon! I will be singing this song for another few days acording to the weather man...."rain, rain, go away, come again another day!!"

Old Oliver

We got Oliver last fall and he has been great! Over the winter he got really shaggy and gross looking. We could not even see his eyes!

He was looking pretty bad! So we decided that he needed a hair cut!!

We were just not expecting him to come home looking like......
This!!!!

My shaggy pup is now a prissy pup!!

And he is thin! With all of that hair I thought that he was getting fat and I was not feeding him his full amount of food. He is actually a little guy!!

For some reason I feel like my Oliver has changed. He is not just some mutt that we brought home from the farm.

I still love him though! I just might not take him on any walks until he grows some of his hair back!!

SWAGGER WAGON

I am stealing this from a blog that I read, but I thought that it was to funny to not share this!!! Enjoy!!!

Happy Mothers Day!

I forgot my camera yesterday! One thing that I love about my blog is that it forces me to take pictures. The bad thing is that when I forget to take my camera, I have to use someone else's camera and then steal their camera card!

Mother's day was yesterday and since I didnt get any pictures on here earlier. Here they are. My mom, friend, giver of advice and the one I love to talk about my books with! We love to read and mom is the only one that understands when I call and tell her how proud I am that I spent the morning cleaning out my laundry room!

Cale's mom. She is also good at giving advice. We ask her alot about health questions and of course she is our wonderful babysitter that allows us to have a life without our kiddos sometimes!

Cale, his mom and the boys on Mother's day!

I thought that this would be a neat picture to have too! Teresa with her mom. Don't they look more like sisters than mother/daughter??

Happy Mother's Day!!

Graduation

Well, my firstborn graduated from Kindergarden this past week. He is so big and it makes me cry to think that we made it through his first year of school.

I love this picture! Little brother is always watching and looking up to big brother!

Inside the building waiting on the ceremony to begin.

Mrs. Bowen's class before the ceremony.

E with his teacher, Mrs. Bowen.

During the ceremony Mrs. Bowen presented each child with a character award. These were things she had noticed in each child or a character that she had seen the children develop over the year.

E was presented with Enthusiasm.

This is E getting his diploma. Notice that his hat is on sideways. I am think that he must have taken it off while he was sitting down and when he put it back on it was turned the wrong way!!

Mrs. Russell gave each child a flower to give to their mothers. Moms have to work really hard to teach their children in this kind of environment!!

This is how L spent some of the ceremony. He was up and down quite a bit. Nanny had M&M's so that helped to keep him quiet.

This is the class after graduating!!

Class of 2022!!