VBS

Our church has been experimenting over the past couple of years with different types of Vacation Bible School. We've played with a week's worth of VBS in the evenings, played with VBS over the course of a few week days and a weekend and this year we did just a few hours on a Friday for the toddlers and simultaneously covered the elementary school kids. The following Saturday was devoted to the Jr/Sr High kids and it was done similar to a day at church camp. From what we've heard so far, all 3 groups went well and the kids had a great time and learned quite a bit!

I (Jenni) led the toddler group... here's a sampling of our day.

We started out by coloring animal
posters as the kids were arriving.
Here's Emily and her good friend, Kael.

We kicked things off with some singing. Here's
their version of This Little Light of Mine.

After singing, the kids told me about the
story of Noah's Ark while I turned the
pages in the book and helped them out.

After our story time, I had them help me
tell the story again, this time we made a
picture of it as we told the story. Each kid
got to put several things on the picture.

While we were learning about Noah, Emily's
"Cowboy Daddy" aka Tom (who was really
dressed as a jungle safari guy), was teaching the
elementary school kids about Moses and the
Israelites... and glow sticks... and puppets...
and pillars of light... and snacks... and bookmarks.

Here are some of the girls adding their animals
to the ark... with the help of Abby's mom, Katie.

After story time came crafts. I believe in drilling
a story into the kidlets heads. Hehehe... Guess what?!?! The girls
are making a craft with rainbows, clouds, arks,
and animals, along with a Bible verse that reads:
"The Lord is faithful to all his promises and loving
toward all he has made. Psalm 145:13"

Hey, we're sticking to a theme here... For snack
time, we had nilla wafers (arks) with
icing (rain clouds) and rainbow sprinkles!
The kids got to make their own snacks.

They decided it was quite yummy and
highly recommended the icing...
and LOTS of it!

(Here's Emily with her cousins, Gracie and Abby.)

While we don't normally allow this at home,
when Emily asked if she could lick the icing off
her knife I told her, "Go ahead, that knife isn't
sharp... just don't do it when Nanny's around."
Let's see if she keeps her side of the pact and
if Nanny's still reading our blog.

After the kids wrapped up their snacks, I told
them they could make another craft or keep
coloring. I went over and turned the music
back on from earlier in the evening and what
ensued was a mob of 2 and 3 years olds
(okay, 5 of them) having an impromptu
dance party!

At the end of the evening, when all was said
and done, Emily said she enjoyed the night.
And then she proceeded to show her Daddy
how she's going to earn millions.

The Big Tease: Answer

Here's the answer to what Emily was doing in the last post that gave her goofy hair:



This was at one of her physical therapy sessions. Emily was in a large inflatable "Fun Roller" and it gave her especially fabulous hair on this particular occasion.


Emily also got to experience a new swing at PT a couple of weeks ago. She was working on a puzzle with the shapes at one of the mat and the actual puzzle at the other side. This was a good workout for her. She had to move around with her hands, but also had to keep her body straightened out so she didn't go all over the place. Here's a video of her first time in the swing.




A few of our faithful followers have asked about the status of Emily's braces. They are still coming, but the process has been caught up in paperwork. I made a lot of phone calls recently and we should be getting closer. We are waiting on approval from our insurance company and BCMH before we can proceed. There are so many parties involved to make this happen and there are a lot of steps that have to happen in a certain order. We'll get there. The perk in all of this might be that it will be a little cooler out when Emily starts wearing her gear so it won't be so uncomfortable.

The Big Tease

Just teasing you today... you really want to know what's going on in this picture. Don't you?


What's your guess?

Who Wants to Volunteer?

I hate to be the one to break it to her...

...but this morning, Emily was looking for these:

(mountains)

In Prospect. Ohio. Where it looks like this.

(no mountains)

Does anyone else what to be the big meanie today and tell her the bad news??

Oh, Dear

Here's Tom's version of what happened a few minutes ago..

"My 3 yr old daughter was saying she does not like Spider Man (who she saw on a lunch box earlier. I asked her "Who do you like?" She said "I like bad boys" Dear God, help me........"

Vacation in the Smoky Mountains

We took off last Friday for a quick trip down to our favorite spot in Tennessee -- The Smoky Mountains. We took a planned detour through Nashville on the way so that we could meet our niece for supper and hang out briefly while we were in the area. Unfortunately, I don't have any good pictures on my computer at the moment but am hoping to round some up that dear hubby took.

Some highlights of the Nashville loop of the trip:

• Emily got to eat at The Aquarium, a restaurant at the Opry Mills mall in Nashville, while sitting beside swimming sharks, stingrays, a bunch of smaller fish, and a diver.
  
• Emily got to eat ice cream with her new best friend, Anna-Vija.
• Emily told me she had to go potty while at the restaurant, but made a QUICK u-turn as soon as she discovered they were scary (read: automatic flushing) toilets.
  
• Emily got to ride on the carousel about 5 or 6 times in the Opry Mills mall in Nashville.
• Emily got to pet stingrays in the same mall.
  
• Emily got to spend the night with us in our king-size bed at the hotel and repeatedly told us, "I love this room!"
• Emily got to eat continental breakfast at the hotel -- including a mommy-made waffle (ok, so I just poured the waffle mix from the cup into the waffle iron, flipped it over and waited for it to beep... but you theoretically you could mess that up, right?)
  
• Emily got to ride up to the top/3rd floor of the hotel in a glass elevator and I stopped to let her run a lap around the inner square hallway on each floor before we got back in the car to head to our next destination. I think she actually ran 2 laps on the second floor... but whose counting.

We spent the week in our favorite rental cabin in Townsend, TN. We enjoyed rainstorms from the front porch nearly every day and experienced some torrential downpours toward the end of the week that we heard dumped 8 inches on us in a 24-hour period.

Prior to the trip, I gathered up some materials so I could spend some time learning a little more about my Nikon D50 camera. I'm ready to start learning to do a little more with my camera so we can get away from using the automatic setting the majority of the time. I didn't get a lot of time to read up but spent part of a morning playing with the aperature and shutter speed settings. I still have a LONG way to go.


We did Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg in one day and took in the aquarium there. We like it because after you walk partway through the exhibits you can hop into a slowly moving sidewalk and it takes you under and beside the huge tank that houses a bunch of sharks, sea turtles, and a wide variety of fish. I couldn't think of the best settings to use on my camera and recommended that Tom use a nightime setting because it was fairly dark in there... bad choice. Most of the pictures came out blurry and I should have had him set it back on Auto.



This kind of shows the size of part of the exhibit. That's a shark in the center of the picture and the bottom-left shows people on the moving sidewalk going around one of the bends.


A closer look at one of the sharks in the tank around us.



Emily is NOT camera-shy like some of her cousins. As soon as she sees you holding a camera, she immediately whips around with her "C-H-E-E-E-E-E-S-E!" pose. As soon as the picture is snapped, you get bombarded with an excited, "I Wanna See! I Wanna See!" Hmmm... seems my generation missed that aspect of photography.


Our cabin comes with a hot tub on the wrap around porch. Emily and I took advantage of it nearly every day. There were a couple of times when a shower came up on us all of a sudden and much to Emily's chagrin we had to head inside. On one such occasion, I just deposited her directly from the hot tub into the bath tub and let her keep playing in the water. This was her first chance to play with her special bathtub crayons that she picked out. Yeah, we vandalized our rental cabin's shower... we're just mean like that. No, actually, these are pretty cool and similar to some I remember playing with as a kid. Emily had a blast taking the bathtub through the "carwash" when it was time to clean it all up.


Check out the hair! When she first came home she had NO hair. Then it came in blonde and straight. It's VERY slowly getting longer and is still very fine but she's got little ringlets when it gets wet. (And weird frizzies when it doesn't have mousse or gel on it.)


Late in the week, we had the really have rainstorm come through. Somehow, we managed to leave an outdoor light on at the back of the porch and in the morning the outside cabin wall near the light was speckled with over 3 dozen different moths. Only 2 of them had similar coloring and shape! There was a pink and yellow one not pictured below and two looked like rolled up dead leaves until I looked more closely and discovered they were moths. Here are few of the specimens that I found really interesting. The green one is worth clicking on the pictures to see a larger version! I'm sure they were drying their wings or whatever it is that moths do, but these things were on the wall at about 7am and they were still over 8 hours later and didn't look like they had moved the tiniest bit. They were gone by dark and none were there the next day.






I love watching sunsets but the view from our cabin has never revealed any cool colors or anything like we see at home or when we travel to Michigan's U.P. I did set my camera and tripod up one evening though and over the course of an hour took about 10 photos of the changing evening sky. They don't call them The Great Smoky Mountains for nothin'! Be sure to click on the triangle/play button to view them. Enjoy.



Vacation is over and it's back to the grindstone this week for me. Stay healthy and be blessed y'all!

-j

Oops, I forgot a July post!

I just realized that I took a bunch of pictures off of my camera around the middle of July and then forgot to post them to the blog. I just went back and fixed that faux pas! You can find that entry here!

The Apple Witch

After informing my daughter that I would be cranky in the morning if she continues to wake us up several times in the middle of the night, she very kindly called me the "Apple Witch".

... those of you who know Em's fondness for the "Apple Witch" in Snow White might get a chuckle out of that.

Love, The Apple Witch

The Fair and Other Fun Things!

The county fair is always held at the beginning of July and Emily was excited to go this year. She spent at 2 days at the fair this year. One day we watched her 3-year old cousin, Abby, participate in a sheep lead class. The following night we walked around the fair and listened to our friends Keith and Jessica perform in one of the entertainment tents.

One of the highlights for Emily were the junior fair animals. She got a kick out of finding some eggs in with the chickens, got to pet a couple of sheep and though a bit intimidated at first, she did muster up enough courage to pet a calf.

Here's Emily after our cousin, Brenda, took her for a walk with a young calf. (I think it's name was Mr. T and I'm pretty sure Emily was trying to climb over Brenda's shoulder to get away.)


That is until sweet, lovable, child charmer, Grant came along....


With his help, she was willing to pet the calf on the nose and be near it... well, until it started mooing and moving around and then she started squirming again and got to heavy and squirrely for Grant to keep holding her....

She had so much fun at the fair and I was feeling like having a little fun so she got to eat chocolate ice cream for and early supper and then we ate real stuff when we got home.

Have I mentioned this girl loves chocolate ice cream!?!?

- - - - -

Fast forward a week or so and you'll find us saying our farewells to our sweet friend and helper, Nickie. Nickie has been with us since shortly after Emily came home. She works with Help Me Grow and has come out for visits several times a year and helped us with Emily's assessments and placements for therapies and such. She's been a great friend and has reminded me that we are really blessed in so many areas of our lives. Now that Emily is 3, she has outgrown the Help Me Grow program (and a ton of her clothes!) and will be moving up to receive some early intervention services this year. We love you Nickie and truly hope you stay in touch!

- - - - -

Later in July, we took a quick trip to the zoo with Nanny and Papa. It's a tradition that we nearly always stop and visit the petting zoo if it's open... not so much a tradition that we jump on the goats.


Seriously folks!?!? Did you really think I would let my daughter jump on a goat? It's an optical illusion. Breathe in, breathe out and hang up on your phone call to PETA!


Peace out!

Toilet Trauma

Yea! for the clever folks that invented the automatic flushing toilet. BOO! for the folks that decide to buy them for major public restrooms at places like Wal-Mart. Despite trying to cover up the sensor, they really suck when you're trying to potty train and your kid is terrified of loud noises! It almost scared the crap outta her... would have been a good thing if it had succeeded prior to her jumping off!

Emily's also crossed the bathrooms at BW3's off her "tolerable toilets" list a long time ago! It's a "no-go-zone" for sure. Those toilets will suck you in and if they miss, the hand dryers will blow you across the room!

- - - - -
(The following day...)

Toilet Trauma Day 2: Despite the fact that they flush manually, Emily dramatically added the toilets at Red Lobster to her intolerable toilet list. Seriously folks, the chef in the kitchen had to have heard her screaming from all the way in the bathroom.

More Info on Splints

Emily had physical therapy on Friday afternoon and our therapist was kind enough to invite Mr. Blue, the orthopedist, along to meet Emily. Em was still very leary about taking her shoes off for him and she never did go along with the idea, but he saw what he needed to be able to see and we had a very good discussion.

I was able to learn more about the bracing that was prescribed for Emily and feel more informed now about the process of getting Emily sized for these and how and when she will wear them.

Emily's prescription is for Bilateral DAFO 2, Left DAFO 9 and a Knee Immobilizer.

Pictured below is a sample of what the DAFO 2 might look like. Bilateral means that they will put one on her left AND right legs. These are hinged and will allow Emily to kneel into a crouching position and lean forward in them, but they are essentially locked so she won't be able to walk to tiptoes or sit with her feet flipped back under her. I believe we will likely start out wearing them a little at a time and then eventually she'll be wearing them all day.




The next picture is a sample of what the DAFO 9 will look like. (These pictures are both from the Cascade Dafo, Inc.'s website.) The DAFO 9 and knee immobilizer are supposed to be worn at night for light stretching of her heel cord and muscles. I haven't been able to find a good picture of what the knee immobilizer will look like but it's very similar to what athletes wear after a knee injury. It's a brace that goes from ankle to thigh and are sometimes hinged. Mr. Blue thought it might be easier to see if they can combine the knee immobilizer with the DAFO 9 so it's all one piece. I believe it would be made of the same lightweight, white plastic that you see below.


When Emily goes in to get fitted for her braces we will hopefully take a video along that she enjoys watching. They won't have to put her in a cast, but will wrap her feet/leg with a lightweight material that will harden in about 5 minutes. Mr. Blue will simply cut it off with scissors when it's done.

I'm not sure when all of this will be happening. We have to get a few formalities worked out with BCMH so that she qualifies for braces. Right now I think her approval letter says something about orthopedic shoes or something like that, but doesn't cover bracing. Dr. B. is supposed to be taking care of getting that added in.

That's all I know for now. I'll keep you posted!

Conversations with Mommy

Today at lunch, after telling her she was over 3 feet tall Emily assured me that she in fact only has 2 feet... not 3. It went a little something like this:

Emily: I eat, and tall, tall, tall.

Mommy: Yes, if you keep eating your lunch you will be tall, tall, tall. You're already getting really, really tall. You're already over 3 feet tall!

Emily: Nooooo, not 3 feet, 2 feet!

Mommy: No, you are over 3 feet tall.

Emily: Not mine feet.

Mommy: No, about 3 of my feet.

Emily: Not 3 feet. My 2 feet. Mommy 2 feet.

Mommy: Ohhhhhh (Mommy slowly catches on....). Yes, you do have 2 feet and Mommy only has 2 feet.

Emily: Doggies, Kitties 3 feet!


We still have a little work to do... and we'll be putting our growth chart up soon!!!!

Today at Children's Hospital

Emily had another botox follow-up appointment today at Children's Hospital. Our last several appointments have been a bit traumatic for Emily and she's getting to an age now where she understands what's going on and what's going to be happening.

Last week I started giving her a heads-up that she was going to be meeting with Dr. B. I simply told her that we were going to visit her again and that she wouldn't be getting any shots this time and then I carried on a dialogue from there and answered any questions she had as we talked.

This weekend I mentioned it one or two more times and then yesterday, I started telling her every step of what was going to happen at this visit.... Emily would be staying at my mom's in the morning and then I would pick Emily and Grandma (Nanny) up after Emily's nap and take them for a long drive to visit the doctor. We would play for a little bit until they called her name and probably our friend, Renee, would take us back and weigh her and measure her. It wasn't going to hurt and it was just like getting weighed at home and she would be measured just like Em's buddy, Miranda, measured her height the other day. After that, we'd go sit in our special room where we could read books, play, and color until Dr. B. came in. We'd probably take our shoes off while we were waiting (because Dr. B likes to feel her feet and ankles without her shoes on and Emily REALLY prefers to keep her shoes on) and Dr. B could help put her shoes back on before it was time to leave. I would talk with Dr. B for a bit and then if Emily was really nice during her visit and let the doctors and nurses do everything they needed to do that we would go for ice cream afterwards.

Today, I'm praising God that with lots of prayers and preparation everything went as planned!

Emily marched back when we were called and walked straight into the first room and right over to the scale. As soon as Renee said she had the numbers, she told Em she didn't need to get her height today. Em walked out of the room like the confident little girl that she is and walked right into her exam room and proceeded to help me dig her books and crayons out of our bag. The nurses came and went and all of our shoes came off as we played in the room barefoot. A new doctor came into the room, admired Em's drawings and played with her a bit before asking some questions and then she very smoothly played with Emily on the exam table and tested her range of motion in her ankles and legs while I distracted her with "This Little Piggie Went To Market". So far, Em's scored an A+ for cooperation during her exam!

After a few minutes Dr. A left the room to confer with Dr. B. (Seriously, those are their initials -- convenient, huh?!?) They both came back into the room a little while later and Dr. B graciously eased her way onto the scene. Emily continued to play the part of the perfect patient and cooperated with all of their requests!

Overview of the adult conversations:
1) The botox injections only seemed to work for the first couple of weeks after they were given and then Emily went through at least one growth spurt that really limited the end results.
2) Emily still has extremely high muscle tone in both legs, but especially the left.
3) Emily doesn't mind doing activities in PT and at home to work on mild stretches of the muscles, but she really doesn't like us to hold onto her legs, knees or ankles to help stretch them.
4) Emily's stance and gait (the way she walks) has started to change more over the past year because she's grown and she's finding other way to do what she needs to do. She walks on tiptoes ALL the time unless we remind her to "walk with flat feet". She stands with her feet farther apart than normal and her knees are starting to turn inward. (This is typical of kids with cerebral palsy.)
5) It appears that Em's physical therapist and Dr's A & B are now finally all in agreement that it's time to put Em in braces to help train her legs/knees/feet into the right positions.
6) We took home prescriptions for three different braces... yeah, I know, she's only got two legs, right?!?! I don't know all the details yet but will know more after we see our physical therapist at our next appointment. My understanding at the moment is that there is a brace for the right leg, a different kind of brace for her left leg (because it's tighter and needs a different type of correction) and another type of brace for her to wear on her left leg at bedtime.
7) The benefit of having a prescription for the braces is that we can work with our therapist's team to have the braces made and tweaked... right in Marion... in the same building where we have therapy instead of having to drive back and forth to Columbus for that.

Our next appointment with Dr. B is 8 weeks from now and it's a follow-up to see how the braces are working. A couple of weeks after that, we'll have another botox appointment and then three weeks after that we'll have another botox follow-up appointment like we did today.

Hopefully the end results at that time are better and Emily will have another A+/Ice Cream Reward appointment!

Oh, and by the way, Emily DID earn her ice cream today and she chose to get ice cream at Bob Evans on our way home. (Yeah, I know that comes as a big surprise to some of you!) Yes, it was supper time and yes, she had ice cream -- and a few bites of blueberry bread, applesauce and some milk -- for supper. But ice cream was her main course! Hey, I promised. I couldn't help that her appointment was over at supper time!

Thanks for the continued prayers and be blessed!

A Porch, The Bucketheads, & A Kangaroo

Once again, we've been certainly keeping busy the past couple of weeks... but not too busy to take some pictures for the fan club!

1) Our new front porch was finished up the week before last and we've been enjoying some beautiful summer evenings hanging out there. It's a great place to read, surf the web and greet our neighbors! We love it!

If you look closely, you'll see my prize-winning weeds to the right of the window air conditioner. I worked really hard to nurture those and my husband was kind enough to pull them this week for me! (Thanks!)


To finish the look and make the porch a tad more enjoyable (and usable) we went shopping for some nicely padded chairs and tables. Well, the tables aren't padded but you get my point! We still need to get a few little things to finish it off, but we have furniture!


We love our new porch. Emily has really taken to helping water the plants and we love being able to sit out there when it's raining. Great family bonding -- in the shade!


For Father's Day, we were invited to Aunt Shell and Aunt Laura's house for a pool party and supper. As always it was a hit! We even got to meet their new synchronized swimming team, the Bodacious Bucketheads! They still have a LOT of work to do on their routine but they might sign up for the kiddie pool olympics in the near future!


We were able to get our pictures taken with them, but they weren't prepared to do waterproof autographs just yet!


Last Wednesday, a friend of mine invited us to the zoo for ADOPT Day. It's when families that sponsor an animal at the zoo get some special privileges at the zoo and get to do some behind the scenes things that you don't normally get to do. (Thanks, Terri!)

We were able to go behind the scenes at the aquarium and got to see their choral reef project and then they took us to the other end of the building and we got to see the holding tank for the nurse shark and got to see the upper level of the aquarium when the fish are fed and the divers get in and out. This is a picture of the top of the huge aquarium that we normally stand and look at. There were fish, sharks and rays swimming beneath us while we were on the tour.




We got to enjoy a free ride on the carousel. I have a cute video to upload another day, but here's a sneak peak!



The kangaroo walkabout was open later than normal too so we were able to walk through that and see some kangaroos up close and personal. By this time, Tom and Emily were feeling a little wiped out and weren't too highly impressed that they were that close to the kangaroos.


We also got to walk inside the koala habitat with the koalas. It felt like we were on exhibit because there were people on the other side of the glass looking at us. We weren't allowed to touch them or take pictures of them but they sure were soft and cuddly looking!

We shared a $900 bowl of Dip'n Dots. (Okay, it wasn't really that expensive but they sure seem like it.) This was Em's first taste. She wasn't too impressed with her first spoonful but once we explained what it was and she got past the idea of eating little frozen balls she became a big fan.

There were a lot of other things to do that night too. Baby Beco (the new baby elephant) was on display. We could have met with the gorilla and tiger keepers and toured behind the scenes in their facilities. The boat and train rides were also free. There were inflatable games/rides there for family night, etc., etc.

Thanks for inviting us Terri! Our family had a great time! We loved the short lines and all the extra things we don't normally get to do at the zoo!

A Bit Distracted Lately

I apologize to our fan club... we've been a bit distracted lately.

Two weeks ago Emily started to get a little tickle in her throat. I got an early call from her babysitter saying that she was really warm (cheeks like tomatoes) and was extra tired and had a cough. Whatever she had - she shared with me a few days later. That weekend I tried fixing her supper while she was watching TV... but,s when supper was finally ready and dished out on our plates, this is what I found...



If I'm remembering correctly, she slept here from about 6pm until 8:30pm. I fed her a little supper, let her play for a while until Tom came home from his church meeting and then she went right back to sleep around 9:30 or so and slept until morning.

Last week, Em had her 3rd set of botox injections at children's hospital. I started preparing her for them that morning and told her that she was going to be seeing the doctor and that she was going to get 2 shots. She would also need to hold really still and if she did it would go faster. My mom went with us to help hold Em down so I could talk to her and attempt to comfort her. If you remember this post you'll recall that our last visit to children's didn't go over so well. I made a point to let the nurse know our concerns and asked that Dr. B. please make sure she spend some extra time with Em before she just starts working with her and that it traumatized Em for over a month afterwards. The nurse made the note in Em's record and I figured that would be the end of that. Surprise! Within 2 hours of my chat with the nurse, I received a call from Dr. B. at home. She was very genuine and apologized for any problems our previous visit caused and that she must have been having a bad day, etc., etc. I was very surprised she called and it really felt like she understood what happened and would try to see that it doesn't happen again. Our next appointment for a follow-up is in a couple of weeks... we'll see how it goes!

On the way home from children's I set up an appointment for Em to see her pediatrician because she was still having "issues"... runny nose, cough, ear aches and a new dark circles under her eyes with goop thrown in for good measure. Once again, I prepped her for the appointment and assured her there would be no shots this time... the doctor was simply going to help her eyes, ears, nose, throat, etc. to feel better. Emily was a champ. The only struggle we had was the death grip she put on her carseat while I was trying to get her out of the car. I carried her inside to the elevator and from there something changed and she was an angel. When I signed her in, I let them know that she had a bit of "White Coat Syndrome" and they picked up the clue and let all the folks know that would be dealing with her. She ACTUALLY ALLOWED THEM to weigh her, take her temperature, listen to her heart, look in her ears, nose, eyes and throat. She was the picture of the perfect patient. I have no idea what changed, but I keep bragging about it in front of her hoping for a little positive reinforcement. (A mom can hope, right?) The final diagnosis... Emily was dealing with allergies and had a mild "smoldering ear infection" that would easily be cleared up with a little Zyrtec and Amoxycillin. So far, they've worked wonders!

Last week, Tom spent quite a few days/evenings at the house on the church property getting it ready for our new worship leader and his family to move in. I was able to chip in partway through the week to do some trimming and painting. I helped out over the weekend and again some more this week.

We were greeted by this lovely face on Saturday morning when we went to start painting the living room... I believe this is Keith's artwork. (The white parts of the eyes are actually open port holes from the living room to one of the bedrooms... with the bottoms of water bottles painted for the pupils!)


Amidst the doctor appointments, sickies, painting and work, Tom and I decided to tackle putting together Em's new playset on Wednesday. Armed with the instruction book, some chalk and a plethora of power tools, we set to task.



We started around 9:30 A.M., took a lunch break at the G&R and then kept working and I think we wrapped up around 9:30 P.M. We had a good time working on the project and are marriage is still intact. Bonus points for that, eh?

Tonight we finally had some quality time to spend on the playset and Miss Em seems to be a big fan already.

Oh yeah, and on top of all that other stuff we've been adding a new porch onto the front of our house. Well, "we" haven't but we've hired someone to do it for us. Playset construction is about as advanced as we get! This week, Emily's been thrilled with "new roof!" and "mine steps!"

Flash Forward

... I had reverse deja vu a couple of weeks ago.

It was a typical Saturday morning and Emily had put in a special request for oatmeal for breakfast. When it was ready I called her to the table and she walked in with her cell phone to her ear. (It's a plastic Hannah Montana phone that looks and sounds like the real McCoy.)

The problem: She wouldn't stop "talking" on it to eat her breakfast.

Yes, folks, I had to threaten and then actually take her cell phone away so she would eat.

And I thought we would at least make it to 12 or 13 before we would have this problem...

Dear Emily

Dear Emily,

The word truck does not start with an "f". (ahem)

Love,
Mom