Children and the Arts

Ethan's school has a wonderful program for the kids that encourages parents to expose them to the arts. At the beginning of the year we sign up for different productions that we would like to take our children to. The tickets only cost $2 so it is pretty cheap to go and it is fun!

In December we saw The Best Christmas Pagent Ever and then in March we went to a Winnie the Pooh show. It was only about an hour long and the boys really enjoyed it.
After the show we got to take a picture with Rabbit!

This is L being silly while we are waiting on the show to start.

This is E waiting on the show to start. We were at the show with other families from Providence. I asked E if he knew the little boy that was sitting beside him. He answered by saying, "No, but I think that I have played with him before!" He can be such a shy little guy!

Overall it was really fun and I am anxious to see what shows we will get to see next year! E has been doing the standardized testing at school this week. We have all had to be up at 6am to get him ready and to school on time. It has been quite a chore and we are ready for this week to be over!!

This horrible thing!

Can you see this?? This horrible thing came out of my hair this morning!!! I know it is unbelievable, but it is true! I have a gray hair and I am still in my twenties.

The sad thing is that this is not the first one. And for sure not the last one. What is a girl to do?? Do I leave them and just go gray gracefully?? Do I pull them out?? Do I start coloring??
I know that some women start highlighting their hair when they get grays. I have only added color to my hair one time and I did not care for it. It made my hair dry and stringy looking. And then there is that whole growing out thing. When I highlighted my hair several years ago, I ended up cutting it off SUPER short! I dont think that I will ever do that again.

I guess I will just wait and see how many I get and how fast they come.
It stinks to get older!! :-)

My Dad

My dad has been taking up new hobbies as he gets older. Not that he is old by any means, but you know what I mean. One of these new hobbies is a motorcycle.

He is not crazy on it, except that he does not wear a helmet all of the time, but that is another conversation for another day. He likes to drive around for fun on it though.
He stopped by the house the other day during one of his drives. The boys loved getting on the motorcycle for pictures. ( He won't take them for rides, and I probably would not let him even if he would.)

He will take me for rides though. We dont go very far, just around the block. But it is fun.

Anyway, it was a fun way to get out and enjoy the beautiful weather.

Thanks Dad!!

Easter Weekend Part 2

Well, we started last weekend in a lazy way. I went to Rick's for donuts and Cale and E started on a Lego project. Cale used to do these all of the time when he was a little boy and he wanted to share that with his boys.

The pieces are so tiny that E has to work hard to get them on just right.

This is the completed model. It's a helicopter in case you could not tell.

E had a fun time doing this and is ready to do another one soon!

After the model project we decided to go out to the farm and play. We took the four wheeler to the slate banks and had a picnic. Needless to say, the boys were not sitting down eating for long. They were up playing in the water as soon as this picture was taken. Usually they had a sandwich in one hand and a rock in the other.

We did a little "hiking" or maybe you could just call it roaming around in the woods. But it was fun!

And we took tons of pictures! I am really being kind and not using all of the pictures that we took!

We went to one of several ponds and threw some rocks in the water. The boys were having competitions to see who could throw in the biggest rock. The look on L's face is hilarious as he is trying to throw this rock in the pond. It truly was to big for him!

E is lifting the same rock, that L could not quite throw in the water. He is always camera ready.

We went across the road and threw the mud so Cale could test out the four wheel drive and then we ended up on the Calico rocks so we could take some more pictures!

It is very tough to get L to look at the camera. Thank goodness for digital cameras. We would go through tons of film trying to get a good picture of L. He is such a busy boy!

Me and the boys on the rocks. This was not my favorite place that we visited. I was worried about snakes the whole time!!

The last place that we went to was to the "old house place." There used to be an old house on this part of the farm and you can still see several parts of the house. There are alot of pretty flowers growing around that area and so we took some more pictures. The funny thing is that of all places this is where we found a snake! So we did not stay long once we spotted him! We got back on the four wheeler and headed back to the house.

This is how we rode around the farm. It was a little tight, but it was fun. The boys took turn riding up front with daddy.

And we had to stop by and get some chocolate from Grandmother and taste some cookies that she was making.

That night we went to the Whiteley's for dinner and an Easter egg hunt. It was a busy day, but we had so much fun. We will definately be doing this again soon!

Easter Weekend Part 1

We had a very long and very busy Easter weekend. I had so many pictures that I could not put them all on this one post. It will have to be another day! On Saturday night we started the Easter fun by going to Grandma's house and hunting eggs and eating dinner.

I think that E hunted eggs a few times that night.

Cousin A helping L get an egg out of the birdhouse.

L having to take a sausage break in between finding eggs!

E running up the hill to find more eggs.

Getting a picture of my boys is getting harder and harder these days. They want to say silly things before the picture is taken and that just makes them act more silly!

Getting a picture with some of the cousins.

Family picture out at the farm. Not sure what L was doing in this picture!

On Sunday morning we went to the egg hunt at our church. L was so excited about actually having something in the eggs! He would pick up one egg, shake it, open it up and want to eat the candy before he would move on to find another egg!!

E knew just what to do!

Family picture at church before Sunday School.

My boys!

After church we hurried home to change clothes and then we went to the Razorback baseball game. They were playing Kentucky and they won!! This was L's first game and E's second game. Needless to say, L was not able to sit still for very long, so I took him on a walk. We stopped and got his face painted.

Cale and E came up and we got a picture with the Razorback.

One of the ushers gave E one of the team balls.

Me with my boys!

Happy Easter!!

My Wish

I usually dont like to write long paragraphs on my blog. My thoughts are usually all over the place and I have trouble sitting down and getting them to make sense to anyone but myself. So I use alot of pictures and very few words. Today is no different. I have so much on my mind right now. So please just bear with me or just look at the pictures of my handsome first born and just ignore my ramblings.

We got these new knee splints for E recently. He has to wear them for four hours a day. They are supposed to help stretch his knees. His therapist, Ms. Christy, says that he needs the extra stretching because right now he only gets a few minutes every week. This week we also received the news for the first time that E's range of motion in his knees has not improved over last year. He has always improved every year, so this is hard news for me to hear. He has held steady with where he was last year and has not lost any range so that is a good thing. But it does make me wonder what did I not do for him this year? We did cut his therapy down because he was starting school and it was going to be an exhausting schedule to do the school requirements and the therapy requirements. So maybe that was it. I dont know.
I remember when E was just a baby. We really didnt know much about his diagnosis, and to be honest we dont know a whole lot now. But at that time, we just knew that stretching and therapy might be the way to go. So we did it. He started physical therapy at 2 months old. I also massaged and stretched his little arms and legs every day, three times a day. He got little casts for his legs that we wrapped with ace bandages because his feet were to small to have braces made. I have precious video of him smiling some of his first smiles with those little casts on. He was always such a happy and content little baby.

I think that the hardest thing about this is that E is getting older. He notices the difference in himself and other children. He does not want to play games at AWANA because he knows that he cannot run fast enough to compete. ( and he got his mother's competitive gene!!) And it bothers him at the playground when he cannot do certain things that the other kids are doing. (climbing rock walls and ladders) It bothers me when I see his little brother doing these things so easily and I know that E cannot do them.

I know that E will get through this. He will adapt like he has always done and we will all move on to the next thing. Life and all of its distractions will happen. I also know that there are alot of children out there with problems worse that his. The most important thing that I try to remember is that we are not made for this world. God is molding us into the people that He wants us to be, and our lives and our problems are to bring Him glory and honor. When I pray for E my prayer is not that God will heal his legs and that he will have a "normal" life. I pray that he will come to know the Lord, the All-Powerful Creator of the universe, and to call him Father and Friend.

But my wish, my wish is that kids would be allowed to just be kids. To not have problems and worries and appointments and therapy. That is not the life that E will have in this world. But maybe someday in heaven I will see E running at full speed and kneeling at the Fathers throne and what a day of rejoicing that will be.

My Soapbox

There is one thing that really drives me crazy and so today I am going to use my blog as my soapbox and tell you about it. It is ADULTS PLAYING ON PLAYGROUND EQUIPMENT!!! Now I understand when there are NO kids around that it is tempting to race down the slides or do the monkey bars, but come on, YOU ARE AN ADULT!!! But when there ARE kids playing on the playground and you, the adult, come over and begin playing, I think that it insane!!

The main reason being that you scare the kids away. They dont want to play on the playground with adults and they are to small to challenge you about this. So what do they do? They STOP playing and get off of the playground. I know that you are not trying to scare little children, but please realize that you are doing just that. And you are not making friends of the parents either! Please remember who the playground is designated for.....the children!!

And yes, I was to chicken to get a picture of these people actually playing on the the play ground equipment, but trust me, they did.

****I will say this does not apply to parents and grandparents that are playing with their children or grandchildren. Sometimes kids need help and I understand that.****