When the Cat is Away....

The mouse will stay up all night sewing.

I realized that I had forgotten to buy the girls Valentine's Day t-shirts and was not up for a Target run. Dee is out of town and three clothes hungry girls in Target is NOT my idea of fun. So, I took two shirts that had stains on them. I let the girls pick three Valentine-y fabrics out of my stash. I used Wonder Under and fused them over the stains. Then I sewed along the edge of the applique. The girls were very excited to wake up to these. Yes, this is exactly how her hair looks in the morning.

Carly is not even awake.

After breakfast, a comb and brushed teeth, this picture is just for you Mom.
It is proof that I don't send my children to school with that messed up hair.

When the Bottom Drops Out From Under You

My dearest friend called me last Thursday to tell me that her oldest daughter had been to the doctor that day for an MRI. She had been limping and my friend's husband was going back in for a follow up from shoulder surgery. They wanted to kill two birds with one stone (Don't we all?) The orthopedic surgeon had found a tumor on her knee. She is nine years old. Over the last couple of days we have found out more information. It is a form of bone cancer called osteosarcoma. It is localized in her just her knee (Thank God for little miracles.) She starts chemotherapy tomorrow. She is such a beautiful, strong, intelligent, giving, loving little girl, just like her mommy. We think of her everyday and wish her luck tomorrow. She isn't in any pain (another little miracle) and we hope it stays that way.

We love you!

Here We Go Again

Jensyn finally had her speech evaluation. She has hypotonia with high sensitivity in her cheeks.

Whatever could they mean?

Don't these jowls cheeks just scream of toned muscles?
And she just loves to have you dig around in her mouth!Carly also had low tone (with low sensitivity.). Apparently my babies need some major cheek workouts.

She was seen by Denise Hamilton, CCC/SLP who also saw Carly when she was 3 or 4 years old. She was amazed at Carly's progress and didn't even recognize her. After working with Jensyn for about 45 minutes, Denise also said this, 'I think we are dealing with a little perfectionist here.' Umm-What?

***Brag Alert***

Denise went on to explain that Jensyn is incredibly bright and understands that what she is saying is not what we are saying. So, Jensyn is not going to say it until she can say it right. Hence, the perfect Mama, Dada, Uh-oh, Yeow, but NO OTHER WORDS. There is no Ca-for Carly, La-for Leighton even though she can make the L sound. This will be a little harder to treat, but we believe in Denise. Jensyn's expressive (what she says) language is around a eight to twelve month old, but her receptive (what she understands) language is near a three year olds.

Jensyn will have therapy once a week, and we have a call into the Early Intervention Team to try to get her set up in that system. Carly used it and it was wonderful. In my opinion, a great use of our tax dollars. We might even get our old case worker, Karen Troutner-Watkins.

So, now it is back to picture signs on everything, nuk brushes in every drawer and not missing any opportunity to work on speech.

Oh Leighton, you were soooo easy.

But, I am paying for it now and I think it is only going to get worse.

What Five Days in the House Can Do to You....

Where is Carly, you ask?

Can't you hear the Wii music in the background?

She was in video game heaven.

Valentine Crafting

I have been crafting the last couple of weeks. Here are the fruits of my labor:

Hand sanitizers for the girls' teachers.Treat jars for the girls' teachers.Look closely at Ms. Small's jar. It is a Bertolli Pasta Sauce Jar. I used all recycled jars; an applesauce jar, two salsa jars, a salad dressing jar, and a cheese dip jar.

Dee kept asking me why there was 'trash' in the dishwasher. The lids are Mod Podged paper. I just printed the labels, cut out a circle and taped them on using packaging tape. Then, we filled them with Hershey's Hugs and Hershey's Kisses.I opted for homemade valentines this year and the girls picked out last year's popular iLove valentine. Carly and Leighton chose their own playlists.Some people commented that the earbuds get tangled when you put them all in a bag. When the child tries to pass them out, the string or earbuds come off. This would send Leighton into a downward spiral. My handy-dandy Food Saver to the rescue. I made bags out of several very large plastic bags from work. I put the iLove inside.Sealed the top.Cut right above the seal.And ended up with this great little package.These are Leighton's all ready to go.

Carly's looks the same. So no need for a picture right?Yes, she has a very large class, 22 children.The girls were out of school for three days. So, if you add the weekend it was five days of total togetherness. We crafted to pass the time. Leighton and I made heart garlands out of shredded crayons and wax paper. She helped me with this display in the entry. Not too bad for five.She helped with this one too. All the hearts on the windows/sidelights are the melted crayon hearts. We had a great time making them. Carly had a great time playing Wii without being disturbed.

There's Snow Way!

We got snow!! The girls have been praying and wishing for snow all winter. It started snowing on Friday night and snowed all day Saturday. The girls woke up at 6:30 and wanted to go out immediately. I had them wait until 10:30 and it nearly killed them. They didn't want my help with dressing and were not dressed properly. They went out and played for about 15 minutes and then came in freezing. I stayed in and took pictures. Jensyn cried the entire 15 minutes, she wanted to go out with girls so bad.





We got up Sunday and drove to the girls' school to sled down the hill. This time I dressed the girls and they were all toasty warm.

(Leighton is starting to sneeze in this picture.)

Jensyn went down with Dee and LOVED it.

She signed more, more, more as soon as she got to the bottom. I didn't get a picture of either Leighton or Carly going down. But, I did have plenty of time to get this picture of Carly coming up the stairs. She was distracted at everyone going down the hill. It took her forever to get back to the top. Leighton went down ONCE. Then strangers came and she was too embarrassed to go down again. While we were trying to convince her to go down, Jensyn climbed onto to the tube wanting to go down. It was a good thing I had my foot on it. Dee and Jensyn went down one more time and the tube popped.

We headed home on snow-packed roads. (I felt right at home)

The house on the corner.

Our front yard, note the footprints. Leighton couldn't leave one square foot untouched. The girls made snow angels.

The angels didn't turn out since the snow was on top of 2 inches of ice.