My smart girl

Okay, they’re both smart.  I mean, how many two year olds count in Spanish and English, knows all her colors and is recognizing letters.  She hears something once and gets it.  That’s Chelsi.

Kaelin has drive.  I always knew she was smart, but she wants it.  I knew she’d do well when she started school this year because she wanted it.  I asked her tonight if the teacher makes them work hard and she said “yes”.  I asked her if she liked that and she promptly said “I want to learn so I can know everything when I grow up”.  How awesome is that!

 Lisa

My baby got her hair CHOPPED!!!

for Locks of Love.

Kaelin’s been growing her hair for Locks of Love for the past year.  It started getting so long we’d thought about getting it cut, so I told her about this.  She grew it out for the donation.  I took her in tonight to get the ponytail cut and my it looks cute!  She looks so grown up.  Someone is now going to have her beautiful hair and she can always grow more if she wants.

Should I?







Here’s the ponytail.



Never really had a professional cut before, so enjoying the perks.  This is my favorite picture.  Why you ask?  Because her face, in this picture, looks so much like the face of the little girl we met in airport 6 1/2 years ago.  My, has it been that long?



Here’s the final do.  What a beautiful cut for her beautiful face.

Happy Birthday Binah!!

It was my Binah’s birthday Sunday.  She got so much stuff.  Not that day, but slowly everyone’s been dropping things off and well, as usual, Aunt M and Uncle B spoiled her rotten.  But, she enjoyed the evening out with M and A at the movies, dinner and shopping, but boy was she a grouch when she came home.  

 Here are pictures from my baby’s birthday cake.

Happy Birthday baby!

Off she goes...the newest kindergartner

No sniff sniff. It doesn't make me sad, it makes me proud to know they're doing well going out in the world and watching them mature. Now ask me in 3 more years when my baby goes....another story I'm sure.

What can YOU do with an old curtain valance??

What I decided to call a bunk buddy. :)

The two middles sleep in lofts and they get so aggrivated when they have to get down from their bunks to get something small, like Chase's MP3, etc. So I had an old curtain valance that didn't sell at last year's rummage sale and thought I'd try to make something.

I bought each of them some ribbon for $1.97 each, $2 worth of velcro and some $4 permanent fabric glue. That's right girls, no stitching!

Here's what I came out with after about 1 hour's worth of work.

Kaelin's


Chase's

Minivacation....detoured

We planned to go to a water park a few weeks ago.  We thought since Cole didn’t get to swim or do any waterpark stuff in FL like we’d hoped (due to his surgery) we’d do this before school starts.  So the plan was to go tomorrow….on a Friday.  Just for the afternoon so it wouldn’t overwhelm Chelsi.  Well, then they put rain in the forecast and the temps were only going to be 70’s.  Too cold for me….Chase too.  :)  We decided we’d go today instead because the rain wasn’t supposed to start until tonight.  Well, they were wrong!  Imagine that.  It ended up raining after we got there.  So we opted to pay a little more and go to the indoor park instead.  It was a lot smaller, but at least the kids still got to do what they were initially planning….waterslides!  It was their first time at a waterpark, so it was probably just as well.  They really didn’t know what they were missing.  They had a great time and were not ready to leave, but Chelsi was.  Poor baby was exhausted.  She slept on the way there and the way back. 

She’s so funny.  On the way there I told her it was nap time.  She, so politely, closed her eyes and promptly went to sleep.  On the way back, after dinner, she just kept blinking her eyes.  You know the “if only I had toothpicks  to hold them open” blink?  And then she was out!

 They were ALL ready for bed tonight!  So am I. 

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More good news..

Brian went to see his surgeon this week.  It’s been 7 months since the accident and he said the film looked great.  He said it looks like the graft is taking really well.  He has to go back in 6 months to see him and in 1 year to see the physiologist.  He seems to think that in another year he won’t be able to tell he had an accident.  That’s truly amazing!  I mean right now his fine motor skills are still behind and his strength is just over half way to full power….80 lbs in each hand.  We were told normal male is 125 lbs.  Since he’s construction, she said he was probably more originally.

Even if he’s never perfect it’s all so amazing how well he’s done.  I’m in awe at what God, prayers, luck and hard work can do.

Lisa