This Can't Be Good...

Words can't describe, so I'll just let the photo speak for itself. Notice that they cannot even sit up straight. I will also add that it takes two to do this type of damage!

 Amazingly, as bent up and twisted that these glasses were, they were able to repair them rather quickly today. Thankfully, as she just got them in January, and these are already the second pair!

Perfect Day...

What could be more perfect than dinner at Cheesecake Factory,

followed by the Broadway Musical Mary Poppins?

Nothing, if you are seven years old, or even if you are 40-something!  We were all kids watching this show. Very entertaining....

Random Thoughts...

Nothing exciting has been going on here that deserves its own blog entry, so I thought I would combine several short items that may be just slightly interesting.

The girls had a "tutu" practice last week and had a blast. Their coach is really good at teaching skills, yet keeping it fun. Maybe I should try this with my volleyball team this fall...

Next random thought....
After sending the IRS a hefty sum of money this year, we were surprised to find this in our mailbox....

Yep, that really is a check for $1.56! And we have no idea why we received it. Perhaps it's in lieu of the 1.9% pay cut our legislature just gave us (don't even get me started on that one). More likely we overpaid and they wanted to give us a prompt refund? We probably will never know why, but regardless, I cashed it quickly, splurged, and bought myself half a latte:)

Oh yeah, my insulin pump broke. It didn't completely stop working, but an important piece broke off, so they sent me a new one. So the upside is that I went from this beat up gently used one:

 to this:

without paying a cent!

See how exciting things have been around here? Actually with the rapid pace of the end of the school year, it's nice to have things slow paced at home. Mike is now done with coaching track for the season. However, things will speed up a bit next week when he and Josh both have football camp. Before you know it, school will be done and I'll by heading off for China. More on that later.

Update....

I thought I would update on this blog entry from earlier this year. Yesterday in our paper there was an article titled "Shawna Finally Gets Her New Wheels," but unfortunately I can't find it online. If you didn't read my earlier blog entry on Shawna, make sure you go back and read it. To sum it up, Shawna, a Navy wife who is wheelchair bound due to no lower extremities, had no way to get around town when her husband is deployed. The good news is that many people came forward and donated towards her cause of getting a wheelchair accessible van, and she now has a lot more freedom. I love good news stories!

Wow, five years....

So Sunday was our five year celebration of being blessed by having Jaelyn join our family! She proudly told many people at church that "Today is my Gotcha Day!" As always, she asked me to tell her stories from our first meeting, but she usually words it as "Tell me about when I was a baby (even though she was 2.5, that's the baby years to her). She chose her favorite Chinese buffet for dinner, and the whole family made it for the celebration. She did inquire about gifts, but I lovingly reminded her that gifts are not our usual part of "Forever Family" day celebrations. She graciously accepted that, and continued to soak up the attention. Just look at the proud grin on her face:)

Mother's Day Traditions....

I grew up with many family traditions, and absolutely love to pass them down to my own children, as well as create new ones. Over the past 19 Mother's Days, I can say there are traditions that I can always count on my family contributing to.

First the day begins with breakfast in bed. I had two of the cutest little waitresses you ever have seen taking my order! This year it was blueberry waffles, washed down by some delicious coffee and cream.  After church as a family (one was late, but I won't mention which one), it's out to lunch we go. Yep, more food. This year it was brunch. 

Mother's Day gifts are quite often my favorite of the year, because typically some of them are handmade. I was not disappointed this year when I opened the special towels each girl handpainted for me.  I loved the cards (three created by Kaia alone) and sweet words they wrote to  me.  An extra special gift this year was getting my grandma's wedding ring sized to fit my finger, as well as having a missing sapphire replaced. Priceless!

This is where the tradition was a bit off this year. Usually we go for a family hike, but poor Kellen was under the weather, so we all stayed home. However, the weather did cooperate enough for me to get some yardwork out of all of them. The yard was mowed, weeds pulled, and some flowers planted in the window box. Jaelyn and Kaia had much fun "saving" as many snails and sow bugs that they could find, as well as taking as many pictures as they could with my camera. I'll save you the shots of our recycling bin and my rear end, but here is the home they made this little guy....

The only regret I have of the day is that we did not get any photos of me with all the kids. Maybe the boys can teach me to photoshop some:)

Later that night, as I crawled into bed and fluffed up my pillow, I was pleasantly surprised to find an envelope beneath. There lied a simple note from my 16 year old that touched my heart so. Is it too much to wish this is the beginning of another Mother's Day tradition???

Ever since we first laid eyes on Kaia, she has sucked her fingers. Before her repair it was three (forgive me if I've used this photo on here before)...

And ever since her surgery, only two can fit in her mouth! Although she is not supposed to be sucking her fingers anymore, and we definitely don't allow her to do it in public, the first thing she does after we tuck her in at night is plug those fingers back into her mouth. I thought I had some photos, but I haven't been able to locate any, but trust me, she enjoys her fingers. Jaelyn has long since given up her blankie, but fingers are much more difficult to stop since you can't just fold them up and put them away in the closet!

At Kaia's recent dentist appointment her dentist recommended we try a football mouth guard at night. Well ever since then it has done the trick, which has been about a week now. Other than the night she flat out took the mouth guard out of her mouth, when I come in to tuck her in one more time before I go to bed, she is sleeping with no fingers in her mouth. Tonight she must have thought about taking it out of her mouth, but then thought better of it. When I went in to tuck her in, here is what she looked like, half in, half out...

Let's hope a couple more weeks of this does the trick!