S is for Sunflower

Thursday evening the first graders put on their "S is for Sunflower, A Kansas Alphabet" music program.

They sang eight songs including Home on the Range and We're off to see the Wizard.

An awesome part of the program was that EACH child had their own speaking line.

Aidan's line was about Maurice Greene, the world's fastest man who was born right here in Kansas City. Grace talked about the cities that begin with the letter C. They both did a great job.

It was amazing to watch 100 6 year olds come together to sing, do choreography and recite their lines perfectly.

What a proud parent moment for everyone.

Speech & language please

Besides going to the Lee Ann Britain center for weekly baby class (music, pt, ot and speech therapies)and individual physical therapy, Alayna has been receiving home occupational therapy for the past 8 months bi weekly with Magen. As she is doing so well meeting her motor milestones we are going to pursue home speech and language therapy every other week instead of the home OT.

We hate to not have Magen see us every other week as she has been a huge wealth of information and suggestions for us but, she will come once a month to check in on Alayna and help us with an issues that may arise.

Alayna is using 10 words consistently (speaking and signing) and is trying to make a lot of word approximations so we really want to continue to guide her to keep her on this successful path. Her speech therapist Valerie is very sweet and Alayna really likes her too. I look forward to seeing her speech blossom.

Sleep babies sleep!

I should have blogged about this last week because as soon as I wrote down that my normal great sleeping kids aren't sleeping guess what? They went back to sleeping through the night. I only heard one cough out of each of them throughout the night. YAHOO! I am sure it was blogging about it eh?

Well OK maybe not. I think both of them are on the tail end of their drainage situation so hopefully we will be back to great nights again every night. I know I am blessed as many of you experience sleep issue all the time. My prayers go out to you because although in college I could stay up all night at 40 I am too old to party that long, even when I have sweet smiling babies looking at me!

God knew what he was doing when he gave me my kids. They are great eaters, great sleepers and laid back like Jason. Thank you, thank you, thank you God for Aidan & Alayna being wonderfully and perfectly made by you for our family.

Now if I can get myself from waking up at 3am we will be in business. Sweet dreams everyone~

Oh sleep interruptions

I am thankful that Alayna is such a sweet spirit and is never grumpy even when she isn't sleeping well (unfortunately you can't say the same about her mother...dark circles don't become me). The past week she has decided to wake up from about 2-4 am thinking it is time to play. She has been in a great mood all smiles and giggles, so much so that all I can do is laugh at her.

I thought the culprit might be a molar coming in but can't feel one yet. Trust me with those 8 teeth I don't stick my fingers in there for long. I do think she had another growth spurt she looks taller again.

But, now with her lack of sleep she has caught a cold. Nothing big just the runny nose and cough when she lays down. Thankfully no fever. We stayed away from baby class today as to not spread it to our friends or pick up anything else while her immune system is down. As she slept through the night last night hopefully we are on the mend.

We are good with Aidan's ears although he has some residual drainage so sniffles constantly... he has always been a great nose blower but nothing is coming out. The doctor thinks his sinus' are swollen making them feel like he needs to sniff or blow but there is nothing there. It is driving Jason and I crazy! Hopefully this will go away soon too. He woke up at 2am last night (yes the ONE night Alayna gets back to sleeping through the night) and all we heard from down the hall was sniffle, sniffle, snort, sniffle, snort. It was very comical.

I am thankful for my kids even at 2 am. They always find a way to make me smile even when I am exhausted.

Fly paper

Aidan is back up and running again today. Although he really wasn't down and out, no fever etc. He isn't a complainer especially when it comes to not feeling well. When he said his ear was bothering him again I knew that the infection hadn't gone away. We kept him home just to give the antibiotics time to work and him some rest time.

We had a fun day playing together and Alayna loved it that the bus went by but Aidan didn't get on it.

In the afternoon we played with some contact paper. Aidan stuck things to it and tried to get Alayna to take them off, or to rip the tissue paper and stick it on the contact paper. Great idea eh?

She had a blast but, was more interested in sitting on the contact paper like a big fly stuck on fly paper. Oh well we got the idea of sticky down for sure and she enjoyed Aidan teaching her!

She is chasing Aidan all over the house as fast as she can crawl. He is such a good motivator. She also squatted down to pick up a toy with one hand remaining on the couch. Normally, she keeps her legs straight and tries to pick things up but ends up on her bum. But, not this time she figured it out to bend her knees and she can go up and down.

She is cruising well to the right, definitely not as fast going left and is holding on with one hand then looks to scout out where she can go next with that proud I did it smile.

It is so fun to watch them grow and learn each day.

Urgent care junkies

Yep, we love hanging out at urgent care, 4th trip this month.

Aidan came home from school yesterday saying his ear hurt like it did a couple weeks ago.

I looked in his ear and sure enough it was completely red again. So off to urgent care we go. We figure the ear infection from January 4th didn't completely go away with the antibiotic he was on so he is on another round of antibiotics. No fever, doesn't feel bad so we are home enjoying a day together and having him rest up so he can go back to school tomorrow!

A great reason to drink coffee...

When I was an assistant principal I had one of the most dedicated Christian, young women work as a special educator on my staff. She was a blessing to all who came in contact with her. Through her awesome walk of faith she has impacted numerous lives, mine included.

She and her husband Cameron have 3 children of their own but are feeling God's call to adopt a little girl from Ethiopia.

They have set up a coffee fundraiser to help them with their adoption fees.
If you love coffee (or maybe need to buy a gift for someone who does) and want to help an orphan find their forever home. Please visit their website and help their cause. You can also follow their family on their blog.

We are all called to help the widows, orphans and less fortunate than us...maybe this is where God is calling you to help today.