It's the Mayor!

If you're a little on the portly side, clean-shaven and wearing a suit coat, Sparkles might refer to you as "The Mayor".

We've run into 3 "mayors" in the past couple of months and THIS seems to be the missing link...

"Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs"

The Lord says...

Emily was playing with a toy microphone and announced, "the Lord says in the Bible 'Liberty and Justice for all..... Thank you!'" 

 We may need to continue our discipleship studies.

Toothless Tess #3!

Can't believe I forgot to tell you guys... Sparkles, who is not yet 5 years old, has lost tooth #3! It came out Sunday night at suppertime with no problems at all!

The tooth fairy visited that night and left some shiny coins for Sparkles in her tooth fairy pillow.

Scary

Earlier this morning, Sparkles was plugging her EARS while watching a movie. When asked if it was too loud she simply responded, "No. There's a scary part coming up and I don't want to see it."

Hmmm. And did I mention kindergarten screening is next month?

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Ethiopian Children Need Your Help

Last week the Ethiopian Ministry of Women’s, Children's, and Youth Affairs announced their intention to reduce inter-country adoptions by 90% beginning March 10, 2011.

The Ministry’s plan for a dramatic reduction is apparently based on two primary issues;

1. the assumption that corruption in inter-country adoption is systemic and rampant and;
2. the Ministry’s resources should be focused on the children for whom inter-country adoption is not an option.

I would like to encourage you to sign a petition in support of the orphaned children in Ethiopia and the families trying to bring those children into loving homes.

For information and to sign the petition, please visit the Joint Council Emergency Campaign for Ethiopian Children Petition.


This adoptive mom thanks you!

Left You a Note

Sparkles has been a bit camera shy lately so no pictures today.

However, this weekend we got to watch Seussical at the local high school and although very tired due to a missed nap, Sparkles was intrigued.

Highlights of the afternoon:

1. Met Mayzie LaBird coming out of a bathroom stall and picked up some rogue tail feathers.
2. Found Thing 1 and Thing 2 lingering in the lobby during intermission and gave them the aforementioned tail feathers so Thing 1 and Thing 2 could return them to Mayzie so she could fly.
3. Watched The Cat in the Hat talking with people in the orchestra from afar because she feeling a bit shy.
4. Talked to the lady playing the keyboard in the orchestra and asked what she was doing.  (She was erasing all of her pencil marks in her score since we were the last show and books had to be returned to the company afterwards.)
5. Horton listened to her clover flower to see if he could hear the Who's in it.

IN OTHER NEWS:

Sparkles was supposed to be taking a bathroom break prior to her nap but I didn't see her in there.

"Emily, did you go to the bathroom yet?"

"No. (As she puts a post-it note with writing on it on the bedroom door.) I was writing you a note."

"Oh really?  What does it say?"

"I don't know.  I can't really read yet."

Happy President's Day!

A special little patriotic treat from our Kazakh kiddo...

Happy President's Day, y'all!

Snow Days... Snow Play!

We've had a little bit (okay... a lot!) of snow lately and we were out of school 4 out of 5 days last week.

Over the weekend we actually had some decent weather and were able to get out and play in it.  Here's another video montage of the past week!

Be Blessed!

Of Cakes and Furry Mammals

Sparkles just informed me that TODAY is her kids' birthday and she's decorating her room for their party.  She has 14 kids.  Oddly, all 14 seem to share the same birthday.

What's a grandmother to do?  The cake isn't baked.  The presents aren't bought OR wrapped.  And, the kids are nowhere to be found. 

I feel so unprepared.



IN OTHER NEWS:

Yep, you guessed it.  (You did guess, right?)  Buckeye Chuck is supposed to make an appearance tomorrow.  Any Marionites worth their weight in something (?) will de-ice their vehicles tomorrow morning, partake in Spam sandwiches and watch to see if Buckeye Chuck has spotted his shadow or if he's iced in.

I was trying to explain the odd holiday to Sparkles and when her dad stuck his head in the room to see what we were up to, she began jumping up and down and shouted, "Daddy!  Daddy!  Know what's this week?!?  It's Hog's Ground Day!"

Or something like that.

I'm a manly girl... yah...

Last night, Sparkles and I were sitting in the car while Daddy ran into a store.  The conversation made an interesting twist when I started asking questions...

Me: Is Daddy a manly man?

Sparkles:  No.

Me: Is Daddy a girly man?

Sparkles:  Yes.

Me:  What makes him a girly man?

Sparkles:  He spits.

Me:  So and I am girlie girl or a manly girl?

Sparkles:  A manly girl.

Me:  Really?  What makes me a manly girl?

Sparkles:  Because you talk like this, "Blah, blah, blah-blah, blahhhhh."


Dually noted.  SOOoooooo, do I need to start spitting more?  Or talking less?

It's almost time!

Here's a little somethin' we've been working on this weekend!

I Spy

The other morning Emily and her Daddy were playing "I Spy" in the car on the way to preschool.  It went a little something like this:

Em:  "I spy with my little eye something gray." 

Dad:  "My car?" 

Emily:  "No." 

Dad:  "The road?" 

Emily: "No." 

Dad:  "I give up." 

Emily:  "Your hair!"

 

 

THIS is cool.

We've gained some new followers in the past month or so and I feel it might be helpful to give a little background to explain what's so cool about this post.

The New and Improved Hypes Family
(minus big brother, Ryan)

Our daughter, Emily (or "Sparkles" as she likes to refer to herself occasionally), was born 10 weeks premature in Uralsk, Kazakhstan.   I didn't get to formally introduce myself to her as "Mom" until she was 8 months old and we traveled to Kazakhstan to adopt her.  

We lived in Kaz for 4 weeks while we bonded with her and went through the official adoption process.  In February of 2007, Emily came home with us to Ohio.

In the years since, Emily has grown to be your ordinary 4-year old girl that happens to have a mild case of Spastic Diplegic Cerebral Palsy.  As a result, she has high/tight muscle tone in her calves and ankles and also in her hips and waist. She goes to physical therapy twice a week to help with this and we do stretching exercises on a regular basis now.  Last year, Em received botox injections in both calves to help weaken the muscles so her other muscles become more developed.  Along with those, she also wore AFOs on both legs during the day and a DAFO on her left leg at night.  (These are leg braces made of molded plastic that basically fit like a boot.) 

Above is a sample of the braces she wore during the day.

Like any kid, Em loved to play outside on the swings and slides at an early age.  (Still does!)  Now, with that being said, there are a couple of differences between Em playing on a swingset and most other kids playing on a swingset.  Em is a tiptoe walker when she's not wearing her braces.  Standing on your tiptoes all the time make it very easy to trip and/or get knocked down.  With her tight trunk muscles, it was difficult for her to sit at anything close to a 90° angle... which also made it very difficult for her to sit safely in a normal swing.  :-(   

We kept her in baby swings for as long as we could possibly cram those long legs of hers down through the leg holes.  We also hovered around her when she climbed the ladders to the slides because it didn't take much for her to get distracted and lose her balance and fall backwards.

Finally, when she was about 3 1/2, the day came when we felt she was gaining a little more independence and would be ready to start trying to tackle a small playset on her own... 

Can you feel the excitement?

It's been a little over a year since that video and she's doing great!  We don't have to hover any more unless she's going up a really tall slide or attempting to traverse some sort of obstacle course that some of the doohickeys have on them.  Em is no longer getting botox injections this year, she doesn't have to wear AFO braces during the day but still wears DAFO braces on both legs at night.  She loves running and playing and sliding AND SWINGING.

And now, something related but, slightly off topic:

Why is that swinging part so important?  That part is so important because of the next video I want to share with you.  Do you remember the freedom you felt as a kid flying through the air on a swing?  Do you remember how fast and how high you could go?  Do you remember your hair blowing back and forth in the breeze and your stomach leaping a bit when you'd reach the really high part?  Yeah?  Ok, now, imagine you're confined to a wheelchair with cerebral palsy or for any other number of reasons.  What are the changes that you're ever going to get to sit in a swing and experience that thrill? 

Look what I ran across today.  Wouldn't it be awesome if every town in America had one of these? 

iScream, uScream... and other merriment

Guess what!??!   Yep, here's another lovely video!

Enjoy!

Have a great day and be blessed!

Clean off the cobweb... another video!

Here's another video I found of Emily from this summer.  I'm gathering from her attire that this was done the same day she was telling me all about Princess Pea and the Bad Wolf.  :-)


Happy Birthday, Daddy!   (in July... just a few months late... or early.  Yeah, we're going with Happy Early Birthday, Daddy!)

Have a great day and be blessed!

Princess Pea and the Big Wolf - by Sparkles

I was sorting through files on my laptop last night and doing a little spring cleaning and I ran across a short video clip of Sparkles telling me a story in the car this summer.  Enjoy.

Have a great day and be blessed!

Noises

This morning at breakfast and again at lunch I had to ask Sparkles to stop testing out her bodily noises.  Yeah, she's turning into a teenage boy and finds it quite amusing...

The Stink Monster

While brushing Em's hair yesterday morning she asked me if I had just tooted... After inhaling my next breath, I winced and said, "No. Did you?"  To which she proudly declared, "Yep, I did!" (And we promptly evacuated the bathroom because it was one heck of a doozy and has hereby been dubbed "the stink monster"!)

According to her, that was her favorite part of her day yesterday.  I think we need to get her more involved in extracurricular activities.  What do you stink, errrr, think?

Note to Self

Photo courtesy of photl.com

NOTE TO SELF #531:  The next time you hear "Mommy, mommy.... mommmmmy" coming through the baby monitor at 3:52am, pressing the snooze button on the alarm clock will be futile.

She's an Absolute Angel

Yesterday was Emily's Preschool Christmas Program.  She was an angel...  no, really.

The program was really cute... wish I could include some video of the program, but I want to respect the privacy of the others kids and their parents.  I'll hold onto them for the archives!

I have to say, my favorite part of the program (aside from Emily) was the beautiful little angel that delivered the news to Joseph that his soon to be wife was going to have a baby... she scratched her Holy Hiney all the way across the stage and back!  Too cute.