Thankful Thursday- Early Intervention

Since we were at the beach last week, we re-scheduled Maggie's PT appointment for today. First, I'm thankful we have access to an early intervention program and second I'm thankful Marliese was able to fit us in to another slot. This time we went to Hand In Hand instead of her coming here. Maggie did so well, she pushed to her hands and knees and held for about 10 seconds! She's done this a couple times, but never for that long. This is a huge success for Maggie and as we discussed this feat upon leaving, Marliese's face lit up. I am so proud of Maggie's progress and grateful for God's hand in her healing.
We talked about how hard it is to watch these little ones struggle, especially when they want it so bad- like Maggie. Marliese said I seem to handle it well and I explained- and want to be clear here- that I do have hard days (some very hard days) and I have to pray all the time because I do worry and am a mess on my own. I'm also grateful I had the opportunity to evangelize a little, it's not the strongest area of my faith but should be. Marliese said she prays so she is a fellow believer but you never know the plans God has and how your testimony can affect someone.
Maggie also worked on an exercise ball, which can be difficult when you don't have control of your core/trunk. When Marliese leaned her to one side or the other, Maggie pushed up, a good sign of increasing strength and works on her balance. Marliese said it before and again today: there's a lot of technology out there to help you do a lot of things but nothing can make you think and Maggie is very bright. Praise God!
Please continue to pray for us as we go through her therapy- for Maggie's strength and increased desire, for my perserverance in her daily exercises, Will's understanding of me working with her and for Daniel's and my wisdom and guidance in parenting both children. Thanks!!

Beach Bums

My brother, Rob, asked us a few months ago about going to Gulf Shores and we were all about that since we live only 4 hours away (I know! we kick ourselves every year we don't go) and we haven't been to the beach since Will was 5 months old. My mom also jumped on board because she loooooves the beach and the ocean and pretty much never passes on the chance to go anywhere, much less the beach. So she, Rob and my nephew, Kyle, came to our house Saturday afternoon with gifts and a cake for me since they weren't  here for my bday!

Sunday was the big day, we went to church first (with a fully loaded vehicle I might add) then headed for the coast! Mom, Rob & Kyle went straight to the beach Sunday morning but were unable to check-in early so they grabbed lunch and arrived to the condo just as we were getting into Gulf Shores. We didn't do anything really fun the first day because there's unloading and grocery shopping to do and by the time we did all that and ate dinner it was time to put Maggie to bed. Mom, Rob, Kyle & Will tried to vist the pool but it was closed due to "human waste" as the security guard said....Daniel impersonated this phrase and voice (think Putty the car mechanic that Elaine dated on Seinfeld) for the rest of the trip. So they hit the beach and Will had a great time. We watched them walk to the beach from the 14th floor but could only see them for so long.

after his first swim in the ocean (he mostly rolled

along the shore as waves crashed)

We agreed to eating out the first and last nights and cooking in the middle three; we ate at a Creole restaurant called Les Roux that served authentic lunch, dinner and brunch which Daniel also found very humorous. Do we normally eat non-authentic lunch etc.? Anyway, I'm not that into Creole but Daniel is, Rob could get a steak and it was Father's Day. Monday through Thursday were spent almost entirely on the beach...well I came in during the heat of the day to eat, feed and nap Maggie and because I burn easily...and we took a group walk almost every evening around sunset. Monday and Tuesday the jellyfish were really bad and after Will got stung on Monday he was a bigger fan of the pool than the ocean. We still went to the beach but after a little while he asked to swim in the pool. They had a great kids pool- the kind that starts ankle deep and gradually declines to about five feet but most of it was 3 feet and under. The last night we ate at Franco's Italian Eatery which was quite yummy. We had a very enjoyable trip, we're already talking about going later in the year when the rates and crowds slow down! Hopefully we'll make this happen. :) I'm probably going to do a slideshow, but here's a few pics for now...

 our little beach setup...same spot every day

 we don't know this kid, but it was so cute: the

waves knocked over his castle and Will said, "don't

worry, I help you"

 Maggie and daddy in the tent...first day was the only

day we got to use it because beach patrol stopped by
and said we had to move it to the back of the beach. We
didn't want to do that and be too far away to watch the kids

 after the jellyfish sting

Father's Day

Well, I'm almost a week late posting this, but I have a very good excuse: we were at the beach! Unfortunately for Daniel, we spent part of Father's Day driving (second year in a row), but he did get to spend his day at the beach....so a little give and a little take. Daniel wanted to go to church before we headed out to Gulf Shores and since it's his day, I left it up to him. So we had some bible study, some lunch and then off to the beach! He opened his gift from the kids (Tron Legacy) before church and Will made him a sweet present in his little class.

6/30 update: I thought this went well with the

poem above...

Daniel- I'm sorry you had to drive on Father's Day, but at least it was to spend a week at the beach! Thank you so much for being a wonderful daddy!! It's your first Daddy's Day with two kids so this year you get twice the love and boy do Will and Maggie love their daddy. They both light up when you come home, or in Maggie's case, walk into the room....that baby girl loves her daddy. :) Will loves wrestling, building forts, hunting for lizards and swimming with you...mommy just can't do these as fun as daddy can! Thank you for being my partner through this delightfully challenging adventure we know as parenting, I couldn't do it without you. Happy belated Father's Day, we all love you!!!

End of an era...or at least decade

Okay, it's not technically the end of a decade until I turn 30, BUT this was the last birthday of my 20's and it's my 10th 20's bday, so the sentiment is still there. Saturday was my -dare I say- 29th birthday. For a lot of women, this is the last celebratory age, they will forever be 29. I had so much fun with Daniel's 30th but when mine rolls around next year, I'm not sure I'll be quite as excited. We'll see:)
So you wanna know what we did to celebrate, right?
First, Daniel brought me breakfast in bed....yummy and so sweet. When I came downstairs I found one gift on my computer: sewing software I've wanted for awhile and already installed on my PC! This will be very handy for many of my embroidery projects, which is primarily what I use my machine for. The kids bought me a movie and that evening we went to Olive Garden for dinner and Best Buy because I gave Daniel approval to buy another movie...he wasn't sure if I liked it enough to own it. Then home for cake! He originally wanted to go swimming or to the gardens, something to get me out of the house (not that I'm a recluse but I 'work' at home all the time) but it rained so that didn't happen. It was fine, though, we had a nice, relaxing day. I also received phone calls, texts and lots of FB birthday wishes!

haha, Pirate Will wants some cake

strawberry strawberry cake, yum



singing happy birthday



 I actually blew them all out!

I'm the youngest of four kids, so growing up there's always been plenty of laughter, noise and voices to sing happy birthday. Daniel and I often share our birthdays with family, but the years when it's just us, it's so weird to be the only person singing or sung to by one person. Will chimes in a little, but that doesn't make up for three older siblings...there's an advantage to being baby. By the time you're old enough to know the difference, everyone can and will sing happy birthday!

9 months and swimming

Miss Maggie Moo turned 9 months old on the 7th! I know, I'm a couple days behind again, but first of all I'm the Chronological Queen and I just wasn't going to post about this before Daniel's birthday stuff... 'cause that happened first. :) Also because her appointment was yesterday so I wanted to have all her stats ready with my post. I was unable to take Maggie to her check-up yesterday because I woke up feeling a little worse than I had been and decided it was time to go to the doctor- which overlapped her appointment. So my wonderful husband worked from home until it was time and he took her, along with Will, to the doctor. Sounded like he had a much easier time than I normally do, including getting in and out quickly and the staff being very nice to him. I'm thinking he should go more often. :) At any rate, first I have a prayer request: Maggie has lost weight since her last appt (not her 6 month, but I took her in last month when she wasn't feeling well.) Our pediatrician, naturally, was very concerned about this. I sent Daniel with a few questions, one concerning reflux because she still spits up alot. She gave us a prescription for reflux and we give it to Maggie twice a day. We'll go back in a month to see if she's gained any weight, so please say prayers that she does! I'm also trying to work some formula back into her diet for supplementation in hopes that will pack on a little more weight. Dr. Holt said she could still be catching up from being sick but still.
Other than the weight issue, her check-up went very well. She's growing in height (28 1/2 inches) and Daniel said the nurses and doctor were all very pleased that we're "plugged in" to early intervention and were happy to hear about Maggie's progress.

she didn't cooperate during this months' photo

shoot, but it's the first time, so I guess we can

give her a break:)

Therapy is going well; Maggie sees a physical and occupational therapist, both twice a month, alternating weeks here at the house. Of course, in between visits we work with her every day on the exercises they give us. Both Marliese (PT) and Heather (OT) love Maggie and think she has great potential as she steadily makes progress each time they see her. Her trunk is still weak, but this week Marliese noticed it was stronger and that Maggie had more control of it. She said our hard work is paying off (!). Heather recently fitted Maggie for splints to wear at night, encouraging her to keep her hands open. She doesn't want her wearing them during the day right now because Maggie will open her hands while at play, which is good, and Heather doesn't want to inhibit that movement.  My mom recently asked me about water therapy so I brought it to Marliese at this week's session to which she said absolutely and told me a few things I could do. That night when Daniel got home we all went to the pool and put Maggie in for the first time (and in her cute swimsuit!) I didn't want to put her in previously because the water has still been pretty cold. But it was warm and Maggie loved it! We may have two water babies on our hands :).

my loves

big boy, swimming away from the steps

The LAN party

The first time I met Daniel was at a LAN party. I had no idea what this was or even that I was attending one until months after we started dating. It was the 4th of July and our mutual friend, Ray, invited me and my girl friends over to shoot fireworks. But no, sparks did not fly between Daniel and I that night (if you were wondering), it wasn't until exactly 6 months later we met again at Ray's 21st birthday party when our history began. I digress...
That may not have been Daniel's last LAN party, but I know he hasn't attended one since we started dating. Soooooo I thought it was about time he went to another and I started dropping questions here and there last year and researched so I had some idea how to pull this off. I didn't want to jump the gun too early so I waited until January to contact Daniel's friends and some family to allow enough notice. Thankfully, his friend David volunteered his home to host the party so I didn't have to worry about bandwith requirements, equipments, etc.  Initially it was going to be a big turnout but as the months went by a few people had to drop off....I'm guessing this is why it's been so long since everyone has gotten together. These things become more difficult when marriage, kids and careers start blossoming. We packed up Daniel's PC, PS3 and many many games and hit the road to Murfreesboro last Thursday night (one week after his birthday...the party just kept going!) I dropped him off Friday afternoon and picked him up Sunday afternoon. They had a great time. Thanks to all who attended and those who logged on to play! You made Daniel's birthday special...it was the cherry on top, so to say. :)

setting up

I stopped by to take a few more pics:
 all by myyyyyseeeelllllffff

 just kidding...

enjoying steak dinner

You're wondering what I did all weekend, aren't you? Well, Thursday night we went to the hosptial to meet our new nephew, Benton Taylor, and chatted with my sister-in-law and brother-in-law for awhile. Benton is so sweet, ah I love that new baby smell! I wanted to see him again but half of my Friday was spent shopping for food and setting up for the party (well dropping Daniel off and taking pictures while he set up...I don't know how to do that stuff :)) and Will was just not feeling well. Saturday morning I took him to the doctor and dot dot dot, ear infection (yay!) So I pretty much camped out at my parents all weekend, we celebrated my nephew -Kyle's- birthday and then Sunday night I got sick (double yay). We're finally starting to feel better, I can actually breathe through my nose, but that's not what this post is about! And neither is this, but it's an outfit I wore as a baby, so I have to share:

Daniel's birthday extravaganza

It's no secret I'm a sucker for birthdays, particularly the milestone ones, as I stated in my last post. Plus I love surprises.....I am, admittedly, much better at giving than receiving them. :) Last week I wrote my Thankful Thursday post wishing Daniel a happy 30th, but have not yet revealed all the details surrounding his big day. Thursday morning I woke up at 5:30 to decorate the house before Daniel woke up; I almost did this the night before but Daniel is not a morning person at all and I knew this was a sure thing. Wrong. After I fed Maggie, Will woke up and they both decided to make lots of noise which actually woke Daniel up! He normally sleeps like a log. Arggg....I'm maybe 30 minutes into decorating and shushing the kids when I hear him yell "it's okay, I'm awake." Not quite how I envisioned the morning going but he was still happy to see all the decorations when he came downstairs. The living room, kitchen and computer room were covered in balloons, streamers and hanging decorations in black and blue (D's favorite colors). I wanted to make some decorations with my new Cricut but time did not allow.

I had many variations of how I wanted to pull off his birthday and ensuing weekends such as having the house decorated and his cake and present ready when he got home from work. But then I thought, what fun is that to be at work all day and only enjoy your birthday for a couple hours when you get home? That's when I decided to pick up the balloons Wednesday evening (thank God Daniel never goes in Maggie's closet) and get up early Thursday to decorate. I didn't have his gift on the table waiting when he woke up, mostly because it was hidden in our closet and I couldn't sneak it down but also because I did still plan to give that to him in the evening with his cake. But I got too excited and had to give it to him that morning. We met Daniel at Newk's for a birthday lunch then had some banana pudding when he got home.
There were two parts to his gift: 1. A Nook Color and 2. A LAN party. Mostly I was about to bust about the LAN party because I've been keeping in a secret since January when I contacted everyone. I should've thought to wrap them separately so he'd have one in the morning and one after work but alas.

 the card from the kids gave a monster-size hug :)

 wait, what is this, how did you pull this off?

I was going to send this invitation to all the guys, but didn't get anyone's address so I just printed one off for Daniel to open.

 I forgot to take a picture of the "cake" before

putting candles in it. Banana pudding...D's fav

Memorial Day weekend was full of surprises for Daniel as well. On top of the LAN party I really wanted to do a surprise party for Daniel but was having trouble with the logistics. His Granny likes to make birthday dinners and we're rarely in town for Memorial Day (usually when we go on vaca) so I talked to Granny about it and she was happy to do it Sunday after church. A birthday lunch at Granny's would be difficult as a surprise because this is a tradition. I did, however, leave out the fact that his dad and stepmom were attending that way he had a little surprise. Our families get along really well but I didn't want to leave all that work or expense on Granny for my husband's birthday so I decided to do a little party with my family as well.

Daniel left Saturday morning to workout with his brother and I went shopping for the food and baked the cake. I didn't think I could get everything together before he returned from working out but I sure was trying. I hoped he would hang at his brother's house afterward to give me some time. He did in fact decide to play some games with Edward but stopped by my parents' in between to change and pick up some controllers. He got back when I was in the middle of rolling the cake pops so my mom, sister-in-law and I were scrambling to get the evidence out of the kitchen. Mom and Becca rounded the corner just as he walked through the back door. Whew. He still knew something was up and asked who the strawberry cake was for.....I lied. Shame on me. I asked what time he was returning and he replied, "is there something I need to be back here for?" *Sigh. Since he was on to me, I decided NOT to surprise him when he returned from his brother's, at this point, him returning to no surprise would be more of a surprise. I finished the cake pops while he was at Edward's and they took for-e-ver (but they were delicious and everyone ate them up). So I texted him when we were having dinner if  he wanted to join us and he was back right on time. After we ate and cleaned up, he went upstairs for awhile and I quickly got out a few decorations, the cake pops, and everyone's gifts....we waited in the kitchen for him. My parents' friends happened to stop by- which made my earlier lie come true- so they came inside as well and when Daniel came down the stairs, surprise! He told me later he was surprised there was no party when he got back from Edward's. I got him. :) Sorta.

As I mentioned earlier, we went to Granny and Paw Paw's Sunday for lunch. I texted his dad Sunday morning to see what time they planned to arrive. Noon. Okay, gotta get Daniel there before that. Well, he was being kinda slow and when we left Donny texted that they were close so they took a long way so we could arrive first. When Donny & Pam walked in Daniel didn't even act surprised! He said he first noticed them when he was in the hallway so I didn't see his expression. He was happy to share the day with them.  Lunch was steak and baked potatoes, salad, fruit, veggies, rolls, macaroni and banana pudding (yes, he likes it that much) and boy were we stuffed! It was a nice time eating and visiting with everyone, I know Daniel had a good time. We didn't get to stay as long as we would've liked because he wanted to catch a matinee of Kung Fu Panda 2. This came out on Daniel's birthday and we thought about going, but the kids just weren't in the mood and we didn't want to deal with it. There's a 1 hour window at the theatre there where tickets are $5 each and that's when we wanted to go! The movie was very good....I stood in the entry way behind the partition wall for the last part b/c Maggie was getting fidgety but I still saw or at least heard most of it. Daniel loved the movie and it was a great way to end his birthday weekend, plus it's really cute that Maggie's first movie is Kung Fu Panda 2 because Will's first was Kung Fu Panda. :) I didn't take any pictures at the theatre, but we all know how these things work.