Fun on the farm and ENT appointment

On Tuesday we went to Deanna Rose farmstead and enjoyed a beautiful, cool, summer day.

Now that Alayna is signing and making the sounds for many animals I could tell that she really enjoyed seeing all these farm animals.

She loved petting the calves and watching Aidan feed the goats but, her favorite animal was the chickens. She giggled as she watched them scratch and chase each other around and was saying bak, bak, bak.


Here is a little clip of her at the end of our visit (her bak, baks weren't as clear as they were early on.)

This morning Alayna had her ENT appointment to follow up on her flat tympanograms from the ds clinic in April and follow ups with our pediatrician and another audiologist in May.

Thankfully her eardrums looked clear, although the doctor had to clean some wax out of both ears. Her hearing registered today in the normal ranges but her tympanograms were still more flat than the doctor would like.

We have a follow up appointment with her in 6 weeks to recheck the movement of Alayna's eardrums and hearing. If it still isn't perfect Alayna will then be scheduled for tubes.

My only new bit of information from today's visit was that Alayna's tonsils were huge. The doctor wasn't concerned and wasn't suggesting a tonsillectomy or anything drastic right now but we will definitely be keeping an eye on them to make sure they aren't impacting her breathing etc.

Family pictures...

Saturday morning we had a great photo shoot with Sophia Theodore here are just a few out of over 100 that she took.

Alayna warmed up to Sophia immediately and enjoyed having her picture taken.

Thanks Sophia for making us look so good.

Thankful Thursday

~A great family day on Sunday celebrating Jason and my dad!

~Adding Sempala to our family.

~England made it through to the next round in the World Cup (seriously, I could care less but that handsome guy I live with is MUCH happier!) Oh yea I better throw in the US making it through too for all you football fans!

~Jason, Aidan & Alayna's sense of humor! At anytime during the day one of them is laughing and making us all laugh, life is sweeter with the sound of laughter...

~Homemade applesauce Aidan & I have made from our very own little apple tree in our yard.

~That Monday didn't end up like last Monday, even though Alayna fell and nearly bit through her tongue to start the day off it was a great rest of the day! (Next week we are skipping Monday so we will meet you on Tuesday =) )

Hope you are having a terrific week and have a thing or two to be thankful for....share if you like.

Rockin' Wednesday...introducing the A² band...

Live, on stage, appearing all summer folks it's the A² band!

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Now you see why I never get anything done around here? These two are way too entertaining!

Addition to the family...

Jason & I have talked about adoption for a while. We have talked to many families who have adopted and prayed about what God is calling us to do in regards to adoption.

While at this time we don't feel God is asking us to adopt a child we did feel him strongly urging us to continue to help children.

We prayed and the Amazima Ministries seemed to be where God was calling us to sponsor a child. If you want to be uplifted please follow the link to Katie's blog, where this 21 year old amazing young woman has moved to Uganda, welcomed 13 beautiful children into her home and started a food, education and spiritual ministry for the people there.

Today we received this beautiful child, Sempala, in response. We are thankful for the blessings God has given us and are truly happy to "adopt" this child.

Now I am off to a date with a handsome young 7 year old that I love endlessly....A 9 year old at our church, Neva is putting on a talent show fundraiser to raise money for the Global orphan project. She is going to build a whole orphanage in Haiti.

I am in awe of how God calls and inspires everyone to serve him!

Thankful Thursday

~Baby steps by Alayna...she has taken 1 baby step several times this week.

~A successful first attempt at co-teaching the Network spiritual gifts class at my church last weekend.

~My mom & dad who come and play with Aidan so that I don't have to drag him to Alayna's therapies. (Grandma is also pretty good at putting Alayna to sleep after her therapy, should have included a video as Alayna was snoring really loud!)

~Plums by the plenty hanging on our tree...time to make Jam!!!

~Beautifully sunny days that make us spend way too long at the pool and the peaceful slumber that follows.


~Belgian Chocolate, mmmm...


Hope you have had a great week, come on share a thankful, you can do it just hit the comment button! =)

You know it is Monday when...

1) While wrangling your toddler into her cute little skort you accidentally pull up a little too hard and her sweet little face lands on the hardwood floor and said toddler cuts that little connective tissue that holds top lip to gum (ouch) then bleeds like a stuck pig all over your shirt.

2) Your 7 year old gets all teary and worried when said toddler is crying and bleeding everywhere and keeps saying mom she has never cried this hard then gives you that "oh yes I am voting for you for mother of the year look"! (It was very sweet how concerned he was though).

3) Immediately after arriving home from 1 1/2 hours of baby class in which you are more worn out than your toddler (although she was heading down for a nap) you hear the doorbell ring only to hear the sweet neighbor kid tell you that both your dogs are running wildly down the street. AHH!

4) You quickly hand off tired toddler to grandma who quickly puts her to sleep (thank you) and jump in your van to find said dogs (truthfully hoping they have been picked up by some loving person and taken away for good!) only to find said dogs in the middle of a huge intersection, blocking all traffic in both directions and are too confused (stupid) to come when called. Ugh. Thanks to two good Samaritans who stopped and helped me wrangle them into the van.

5) On way home notice said dogs~ STINK! I think they must have travelled through the sewers on the way down the street. Give both dogs bath, ahh much better.

6) Take hammer and fix the fence board that said dogs somehow knocked down. Neighbor two doors down hears crazy woman hammering and comes over to see if he can help because truly craftsmanship is NOT one of your spiritual gifts!

6) Go to grab a glass of water and sit down for a minute before said toddler wakes up and to have a quiet minute with said 7 year old...too late giggles coming from the baby monitor.

7) Husband calls to say he will be really late, probably just in time for you to hand off the kids and run to a 7pm leadership meeting at church.

Aidan felt so bad he made dinner for us last night (with hardly any help from me). Meatloaf, mashed potatoes and steamed carrots. He was so proud of himself and I was super thankful!

8) As husband walks in you are running out the door to said meeting you forget your cute sweater, get to said meeting and notice the chocolate pudding kisses you have ALL over BOTH shoulders of your white shirt, hee hee thanks Alayna for that giggle!

I was fearful to go to bed last night as I thought of the movie Groundhog Day....didn't want to wake up repeating that day! =)

*Please note that no toddlers, dogs, self esteem, 7 year old, husbands, grandparents, neighbors or anyone else was truly harmed in the making of this day. Thankfully! :)

Alayna's lip swelled up immediately but before I could even get a picture of it, it was back to normal and she was happily playing notice her peekaboo picture at the top was immediately following said accident!

Thankful Thursday

Summer has started out with a bang for us, we are truly enjoying spending time together everyday. I think Alayna and I will be very sad in August when Aidan has to go back to school. But for now we are so thankful for all our family time to enjoy each other.


~20 months with Alayna (yesterday!) So thankful God chose us to be her family. What a wonderful gift.

My Bible verse for the day was: Children are a gift from the Lord, they are a reward from him Psalm 127:3.
How perfectly fitting.


~I am so thankful for Aidan being such a great big brother!

He can get Alayna to giggle like nobody else, she will climb, follow, play, mimic, lift toys, roll, stand and crawl as fast as she can to keep up with him. He is the best motivator and OT/PT we have.

~Rainy summer days filled with so much fun that the living room is destroyed and both kids are resting on cushions by 5pm!

~Finally, I am thankful that my parents are here and celebrated their 48th wedding anniversary this week.

Please share a few of your thankfuls from this week...

Going green.

Has anyone seen Aidan?

Jason & Aidan took on the project of building us a rain barrel this weekend so we can store up rain water and use it to water our plants and yard.

As you can see they did a great job and with the rain we received this morning we should be able to water for the rest of the week. The parts cost about $10. I know we will save way more than that on our water bill.


Way to go guys, one more way we can help our environment.

As it was in the 90's Alayna & I decided to hang out inside and just check on the boys every now and then.

Success, Aidan didn't get stuck in the barrel but, we won't tell you who did!

Thankful Thursday

What a great week we are having, so many thankfuls...

~While we LOVE all of Alayna's therapists and know God truly had a hand in choosing each of them for her we are super thankful for NO THERAPIES this week!!!

For families who have a child with ds or other special needs you know what I am talking about (or maybe it is just me that gets giddy for a nowhere to be week).

A few weeks a year we have breaks from therapy and we soak in every minute of family life.

~Season passes to the pool ... I think Aidan, Alayna & I could live there! The giggles that come from Alayna as she sits in the wave pool and anticipates that next incoming wave are priceless! And watching Aidan go off and happily swim with his school friends and be tall enough to go down the big slide is super fun too.

~Aidan has turned into a bookworm :) He is voraciously eating his way through a myriad of chapter books and loving them. Alayna is creeping up behind him loving any and all books too and sometimes chewing on the book covers :)

~Alayna is initiating using utensils at mealtimes.

~A great evaluation conference for Alayna today at her school. She continues to do really well and mastered all her goals that were set for her this year. Yeah Alayna!

Please share what you are thankful for this week...