Holiday Give Away

Don't you love a Give Away? I sure do!!! If you do as well, hop on over to Stefanie's Blog & check out her 30 day Holiday Give aways!

Yea!!!!

Pumpkins...Friends...& Family....

Every year our church has a pumpkin patch. We sell pumpkins as a fund raiser. We turn our little corner lot into a pumpkin Wonderland. It is the only pumpkin patch around town (pumpkins do not grow in our area very well) & it is BUSY!!

Our little church boasts a regular attendance of about 100. The average age of our congregation is close to 80!!! Therefore, the girls & I spend A LOT of time WORKING in the pumpkin patch through October. We see a lot of friends, teachers, community workers during our time in the patch.

Both my brother (& his family) & my sister (& her family) came up & worked weekends in the patch this year. It takes a tremendous effort to pull it off. But the rewards are priceless.....

Of course, there are pumpkins........




And, Spending time playing with our friends.....







Finally, there is time with our family........







I love pumpkin patch time........

Birthday Parties & The Drop Off

I have a post percolating in my head about how the school year is going thus far. Overall, I'm really excited to see all resources that they are making available to the kids this year. We've been taking advantage of many of those things. The possibilities are quite`exciting.

We have been in birthday party overload. Since school started, we have had a birthday party to attend every weekend. With Jami in school now too, it's a new chapter regarding birthday parties.

In the past, most of the parties have been to were where the whole class was invited. The classes, for the most part, were the same group every year. You really get to know the other families that way. Up until this year, most parents stayed, Jami (the younger sibling) was a welcomed & expected guest. At the end of last year, I noticed an increasingly number of parents starting to drop kids off. This year, the school split up all of the previous classes, so everyone is meeting new sets of friends & families. There are (in the upper grades) no class parties & invitations are handed out discreetly or outside of school).

Our first birthday party this season was at a fun restaurant & even though it was a friend of Lindsi's, we have known this family a very long time & Jami was also invited. I stayed, along with a few other parents & family friends.

The second party was for a classmate of Jami's. It was at a gymnastic center. We have hosted a birthday party there before & I know it is all based on head count. This is a new crowd for us. There were some younger siblings there, but I dropped Lindsi with her grandparents that day, so I could take Jami & stay. Nearly all the parents stayed.

Our next party was for a friend of Lindsi's. An afternoon pool party. I thought, perfect.....I will drop Lindsi off & pick her up later. As the date drew near, & I advised Lindsi of my plans, there was a major panic on Lindsi's part. She can not hear when she's swimming, how is she going to communicate, please come mommy, please...please!! I know the mother, talked with her, & she was perfectly fine with me coming, staying, & bringing Jami. 2 other mothers' stayed, there were about 25 kids, so I found plenty to do, which eased my guilt for crashing the party & also helped the mom enjoy some of the festivities.

This week Lindsi has been invited to a slumber party. It is for one of her best friends. I'll have to drop her off, because I have somewhere else to be. I am almost positive though that Lindsi will NOT want to spend the night. Playdates for us are still pretty much adults visiting while the kids play.

Neither of my girls like to be left anywhere. I sit through dance classes & soccer practice (mostly because we live too far for me to drive back & forth). Many people tell me this time is coming to an end, but I really do not see it happening anytime soon.

It can be different

I am now what I never wanted to be, feeling like an un-cool & old mom......

We went to a birthday party this weekend for a very good friend of Lindsi's. The little girl turned 8. Our 2 girls have been buddies for 5 years. For a long time, they were the only 2 deaf girls in their grade at school. They have both done outstanding with their cochlear implants. That is what they have in common. It's a HUGE thing for them.

We have done birthday parties & playdates with the girls over the years. But let's face it, I'm not sure her parents are yet 30, so I'm at least 15 years older than they are. There are definitely some generational differences. Basically, we're just different.

The birthday cake yesterday was interesting with side by side pictures. One was of Justin Beiber. I don't GET Justin Beiber, BUT I know who he is.

And the other side of the cake was this picture:


I completely felt like I SHOULD KNOW who this guy was.....but the fact that he was shirtless & on an 8 yr olds cake was completely messing with my mind.

As I re told this story later, a friend commented that it was probably one of the Vampire guys....she was right. It's Taylor Lautner. I know who he is as well. (does it matter that I DIDN'T know who he was until he started dating Taylor Swift.....that probably says a lot about me...lol) It was funny that none of the birthday hostesses wanted to cut the Taylor half of the cake.

My friend & I were talking about kids growing up so quickly.. I'm wondering now if I should feel bad that princesses are still more in vogue than vampires in our household. The girls want to listen to their VBS CDs over anything else.

It's an interesting journey, raising kids. There are clearly some right & wrong ways of doing things....but mostly....it's just different. The lesson is to embrace the difference. I'm really glad this family is in our circle of friends. Even if at times, it feels different.

Back to School

I've been slow to download my photos. I promise my next post though will be a recap of our smallish summer adventures.

The girls started school this week. Lindsi started on Monday.....

She was thrilled to be back in the same class as her friend (& fellow CI user), Lexie. They went to preschool & kindergarten together, but have been in different classes ever since.


Lindsi drew a great a teacher this year. She seems very enthusiastic & not at all daunted to be teaching 2 (of the 3) deaf third graders. Yea!!!! The school is doing things a lot differently this year as well, & 1 thing is they have added another layer of resource in for the deaf & hoh students. I'm excited to have such great people supporting Lindsi in her education.

They do a stagger start kindergarten here, so Jami started on Wednesday, with about 4 other kids. Today, the whole class was there together. Jami talked about being nervous, but once she got into the classroom, she was really fine. After school all she could talk about was how great kindergarten was!! She also has an excellent teacher this year & in fact, the same teacher Lindsi had a few years ago.


It was a very rainy first day of school for both girls:


That ended like this:



I'd like to say that I thoroughly enjoyed my first day in a very long time without kids...but I was so busy, the day completely vanished before I could even think about it.

I did get my car serviced, went grocery shopping, cleaned out the refrigerator, put all the groceries away, 2 loads of laundry, went to the dump, put gas in the car, picked up the kids, took them to Speech Therapy, came home for an hour, took Lindsi to ballet, came home, made dinner, did baths, read books, & we pretty much all went to bed.......so ended every one's first day back to school. I miss summer vacation already.....

A Little of This....A little of That.......

It has been a pretty quiet, but relaxing summer at our house this year.

Last week Lindsi had an appointment with her ENT. He deemed her ears completely healthy at this time & said he did not need to see her for 2 years! Whoo-hoo! We had been visiting him more frequently this past year, because her Ped though she saw the start of an ear tumor. Looks like we dodged the bullet this time on that issue.

After our ENT appt we met up with our good friends K & E. E has been home from China for about 9 months. She has a form of spina bifida & uses a wheelchair. Does not slow her down at all! It was a fun play area / shopping / lunch visit with them. E's command of English is outstanding. I Loved it when she would spy something cute or colorful & say "Look at this one you guys, Look at this"!!!

We just got home from spending 5 days at the beach. AHHHHHH...relaxing. HOT & sunny, but fun to spend quality time swimming & playing with the girls. My niece joined us for the week, which always makes it more special. We LOVE our Sarah.



Jami found a crab


Silly Sarah.....=)

Ballet Anyone?

Pictures from the ballet recital a few weeks ago. Lindsi danced two dances, Ballet & a 50's Jazz tune. She was also in the finale dance of "Thriller"...their tribute to MJ. Jami did a great job with her two dances, Ballet & a Tap song called Raggedy Ann.

Lindsi's declared that her favorite part was "All of it" & Jami said her favorite part was getting flowers at the end.......=)

We are taking a dance break this summer......

Enjoy....