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!!!