Making Memories. Choosing Joy.

Simple Things Sunday

After a day of bad attitudes, Zach came downstairs with a Superman cape he had found. Glad that after a tough day, he showed a glimpse of the sweet young boy that's still inside.

Link up here:

Ramblings

I'm warning you now, it's going to be a scattered post...

• I was helping Z study for his science quiz about Hypothesis, Independent Variables and Dependent Variables. When I asked him to give me a hypothesis, he said "If I feed Jasper 3 pieces of pepperoni, it will increase his poop rate." I really don't think I need to finish the story. I did ask him to not use any kind of example that has the word "poop" in it on his quiz.
• Jasper was chewing on something dark yesterday afternoon. When I got closer to see what it was, I noticed a tail. Yes, he brought a mouse in from outside. And yes, I started screaming that it was a mouse and for Z to get him out of the house now. Thankfully Jasper carried the mouse back out the door with him. And yes, Z is still teasing me about my squealing.

• Both boys started Open Gym for Basketball this week. Just as I about had the stink gone from Football, it starts up again. :::sigh:::
• As much Christmas music as I have been listening to, you would think I'd have some gifts bought. But I don't. And even worse, I don't have any ideas.
• My office is closed on Friday. Yea for a long weekend for me! I picked up 9 years worth of Christmas photos that I got developed today. Yes, I have high hopes. 

Have a terrific day! Make it count!

Project Life Week 5, 6, and 7

While I haven't kept up with posting my completed pages to the blog, I have kept up with the photos and completing the pages!

Week 5

I'm still working on Nicholas' birthday pages to insert after this week.

Week 6

and Week 7

We are all well. Zachary's basketball ends this weekend with the last of the tournaments. While they don't have a good record, they have learned a lot and I think they are doing a fabulous job! Isn't that all that matters...what your Mama thinks?

Nicholas' speech, reading and writing continue to improve. He has become accustomed to his hearing aid and doesn't ask to take it off anymore when he gets home from school.

We promised Nicholas two things for after his surgeries were finished...a dog (which Jasper continues to be a good dog, and hopefully even better after we have our first session with a dog trainer on Sunday) and Walt Disney World. This summer we will be taking the boys to Disney for a week and I'm so excited to see them experience it! Nicholas is worried that there won't be enough to do for a whole week!

I'm planning to enjoy every second of March. A month of no practices and no games. April we start back up with baseball practice. Oh please let the month of March go slow!

Welcome 2010!

I couldn't let 2010 come without one last post in 2009, especially since it has been forever since my last post! We have all been doing well and busy living life. I can't believe I haven't even posted since school began!

Zach is doing well in school and is becoming more and more obsessed with sports. Saturday will be his first basketball game for his 4th grade team and I have to say that I think they look pretty good! It will be fun to watch it all come together (or not!) and hope that they enjoy this learning experience.

Nick has struggled a bit in reading and spelling, and after his last hearing test we knew why. Unfortunately, his hearing in his right ear now has a moderate loss (and with a severe loss in his left ear, he was really struggling). Fortunately, we were able to get him fitted with a loaner hearing aid right away until his brand new hearing aid arrived and was fitted on Tuesday. He is thrilled that he has a blue aid (blue has always been his favorite color) and while we noticed a dramatic improvement while he had the loaner aid (at school and at home), we are even more excited to see what the Oticon Safari will do for him! This aid is brand new to the market, and I'm sure before we know it Nick will be bugging us to get the "blue tooth connectivity" set up for him!

His left ear continues to heal and we see more definition weekly. I believe that he'll still need another surgery down the road, but for the time being I have been cherishing not having any stress of surgeries. It has taken a long time to heal emotionally, and I still get anxious at times when I look at his ear. The beginning of December we took him to a craniofacial clinic and they want to see him once a year to keep track of his jaw growth on the left side (hemifacial microsomia). The orthodontist would like to see our local orthodontist put some bonding material on his right side to promote growth on the left, in hopes that he won't need jaw distraction some day. Jaw distraction may push me over the edge!

That's the short of it. A quickie update to bring you into 2010 if there are still readers out there. I hope you all had wonderful Holidays and wishing you all a safe, healthy, happy and prosperous New Year!

Christie

On Second Thought...

Since the boys will be starting back to school in 9 days (and 3 hours, 6 minutes) Jasper's days of having buddies to play with during the day are numbered (but who's counting?). We've begun the preparations, and gotten him a kennel for while we are away, while the weather is still nice out, anyway. Winter is TBD. Zachary, Nicholas and Pipi but the kennel up effortlessly on Wednesday, and after I had the dinner dishes done, I went outside to find this:

 

 

Is it wrong that I paused to rethink who's home this should really be? And is it wrong that I had wished we had gotton this the day school was out for the summer? This, my friends, could have been a terrific "time out" area! I kid, I kid! or not.

Whirlwind.

As I sat down to post this entry, I realized that tomorrow will be one month since my last post! Thanks for your patience...if any of you are still checking in!

Nicholas' ear continues to heal...we had a little "bump in the road" a couple of weeks ago. A layer of skin peeled off his ear (nothing major, just a real thin layer) and then the next day some boys got a little rambunctious with their wrestling and it got bumped, and was bleeding. To say I was sick was an understatement. It scabbed over, and the waiting game began. And the anxiety each time he put on his baseball helmet quadrupled. Last Saturday the scab came off and underneath was beautiful, pink skin! I still get anxious when I come home from work and see his ear for the first time that day, wondering how it will look. Part of that is habit from months of worrying...almost nine months...and part of it I'm just not too sure yet. There are still a couple of tiny tiny spots that I wonder about. I still have not been able to say "We're done." More like "We think we may be done." It's still quite red in some areas, and still pretty swollen. Here are a couple of pictures...I realize I never posted any!

[Stop taking my picture!]


[Last time, Mom]

So between healing lots of ball has been played. A typical week is Zach having games on Mondays and Thursdays, Nick having games Wednesdays and Saturdays.  Since school has been out they've been busy in the mornings with baseball camps. The difference in just a few short weeks is amazing, especially with Nick. Zach's team is doing much better than we thought (their first year with kid-pitch/stealing bases) and the improvement with Nick in just the past two weeks is terrific. This is his first year at machine-pitch and once he got the hang of it, he's been hitting great ever since. His whole team is improving and learning where the ball needs to be thrown to, etc. So...as busy and hectic as the schedule is, it is fun to watch them. I could bore you with a bunch of pictures, but after about 5, they start to look the same. Instead, I'll just share my favorite so far of each of them:

[Ready at First Base...my lefty]


[Not necessarily my favorite, but this show's him "whacking" the ball...as he tells me he's going to do before every game]

Swimming lessons and library started this week. At the end of the month we go on vacation and then when we get back we'll have about 6 weeks of summer vacation left...but who's counting? I can't believe how fast it's going! We are all looking forward to vacation and spending time with family. It will definitely be a treat.

Oh...and guess what I started doing again? Reading! I hadn't read anything for at least 8 months and I finally finished the Twilight series last week (hmmm...that could be part of the reason it took me so long to update the blog!). So, if anyone has any good book recommendations, I'd love to have them!

Have a great rest of the week...make it count!

Almost Home.

[Taken this morning as they waited for their flight to ATL]

The boys have landed and are on their way back home. I expect them to be home around 6:30. It's been a long day for them. They left the house at 5:30 this morning and I can't wait to give hugs and kisses when they return! It's always hard saying goodbye to Nicholas. He has always cried...I think mostly because it is so early and he is just so tired. Scott said he ate breakfast while they were driving and was asleep soon after, until they arrived at the airport.

Scott said his ear looked good, but there is a spot that was a bit "crusty." They had just arrived back at the airport when I talked to him, and it was hard to hear him, so I'm not too clear on what exactly "crusty" means. Dr. Jones thinks it may be a dissolvable stitch and Scott said he took some of it off his ear and it already looked better. Scott said it didn't look anything like his failed skin grafts from last time, so I guess that is good. Dr. Jones wants us to leave the bandage on until Monday evening and restrict activities (gym, recess and baseball practice) until the beginning of May. I'm all for being cautious if it means closing this chapter of our lives! Your continued prayers of healing will certainly be appreciated!

Zachary and I played a bit of basketball after he got home from school. He won. We ran a race. He won. And then I got some pictures of him practicing his pitching skills. I hope Spring is here to stay!

And my cutie-patooties from Easter:

Memory #31

The big brother. You were so sweet with Nicholas and loved to hold him and feed him. While these days there seems to be more fighting than loving, I know that your bond is deep and in those moments of being hurt or scared, you each come through for the other. You are his protector, even if you don't like to admit it right now.

Memory #30

Your first Halloween and Grammy made your costume (the first of many). You were quite possibly the cutest little clown ever! Surprisingly, you even wore the hat more than what we thought you would.

Memory #29

You loved driving the go-cart last summer. You would have spent hours on it if we would have let you. Unfortunately, my nerves could only take so much at a time! Maybe one of these days I'll get used to having crazy boys doing crazy things...