Workin'

We've all been working hard here on our many, many projects. Seems like we start the day going in one direction and end up somewhere else. As I said, there are many, many projects......Today, we've been working in the back yard around the pool. We've got the hot tub up and running, trimmed back some bushes and weeded some mulch areas. Yes, that's Ava working, and yes she's wearing heels and her dress up skirt. That picture is cracking me up - Dave is breaking up twigs to fit into the yard waste bags. He's breaking sticks. That's all. The pool man is coming this Wednesday to uncover the pool and open it. What will we find? Hopefully no suprises.

Easter Weekend

Had a great weekend. Did some work around the house on Sat. morning. Grandma and Grandpa came over in the afternoon. Grandma took the older girls to a snake show while the rest of us took it easy here at the house. We went to The Cracked Claw for dinner to celebrate April birthdays. We had a great dinner - Andrew enjoying his chicken tenders until he discovered he loved my crab imperial more, Amelia devouring her mussels and rating them high on her list, Ava enjoying her onions - I mean her salad, and anything to keep Jenna at our table - goldfish, coke, and chips, oh and more coke.... (BTW...Jenna's not in the group shot above because she preferred to run off into the car to play with the all the buttons - that will be a post soon - how I had to get her out of our locked minivan)......

Sunday ....the kids loved their Easter baskets. They didn't seem to be anticipating them at all. We had our egg hunt for the kids, and then the girls hid their eggs for Dave and I to find. (Nice to find 10 eggs under just one pillow on the couch :). We went to Grannie's for Easter dinner. Thanks Grannie and Uncle Jon for all the work.

Happy Birthday Grandpa!!

One more day off today for spring break and then back to the grind....

Spring Break - day 3

Today was such a beautiful day. We were outside quite a bit - above a few photos from the day.

Photo #1 - You think Dave will be smiling that much come August on his new lawnmower? :)

Photo #2 Easter Egg Coloring - "Sure.... just put your hands right in that dye!!" :)

Photo #3 - Sister time swinging - awwww

Photo #4 - Jenna and I soaking in the sun on the back deck.

Rollin

It's spring break here! Time for some bike riding.....oh and on another note I need some sleep. I rocked Miss Jenna to sleep tonight for 1 1/2 hours just to have her climb right out of her bed and run down the hall after me - MOMMA!!!. I thought nights were getting better here......

PICTURES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YIPPPEEE!!!!!!!!!!

Okay!!! I've learned how to download photos onto my laptop and I can blog again with my photos!! Yippeee!! I haven't 100% figured things out though... I can only put pictures up that are taken horizontally- not vertically. I'll get there! :) The photos at the top are from today. We had a belated birthday party for Jenna with all of our family who live close by. We had a "Wiggly Party" as Jenna is somewhat obsessed with The Wiggles and their famous "Yummy Yummy" dvd. We enjoyed hot potatoes and fruit salad. The girls helped make the Wiggly Party banner. Jenna wore her fluffy hot pink skirt - Ava style. She's always trying on Ava's skirts. She needed her own!

Yesterday I took the three oldest to see Imagination Movers and Choo Choo Soul at The Weinberg in downtown Frederick. Fun.

The photo of the trees is our beautiful view from our deck out onto our backyard. Just as we hoped it would look when we were here in the dead of winter looking at the house buried under a foot of snow. We have enjoyed our front yard and flat driveway. The girls have been bike riding plenty, for the first time! We need to find and unpack their helmets and take off those training wheels. Jenna will be sure to learn the big girl bikes just like her sisters. Drew's been enjoying his neighborhood walks and time with his friend Shain.

The last photo is move in day. Uncle Ken and Amanda were here to celebrate Jenna's birthday on April 2nd. Happy here to finally have my computer with photos back!

Hips and Spine Continued...

Today we drove to Baltimore in the rain (it's always raining on dr. appt days) to take Andrew back to Kennedy Krieger so that he could be evaluated again for his dislocated hip and scoliosis. The appt. didn't start out so good....I had to ask for the proper x-rays, and I wasn't really liking how the x-rays looked, but after all of this the appt. actually went very well. Dr. Leet was the doctor who originally diagnosed Andrew with the dislocated hip last June. This was our first trip back to her since that diagnosis. She came into the appt. and told us she was worried about Andrew's spine ( I was worried about the hip!!!!) from the sitting x-ray that was just taken. I asked the doctor if Andrew could get the spine x-ray in his wheelchair where he is more supported. She said no that they have to do the x-ray in this wooden chair that has no support. That doesn't make sense to me. He can't sit even in a recliner chair, much less a straight up wooden board chair...Anyways that x-ray shows the curve of Andrew's spine at over 60 degrees - which is horrible. Dr. Leet then looked at the x-ray of Andrew lying down on the x-ray table. This one looks so much better - almost a straight spine with a curve of 30 degrees Dr. Leet says Andrew has postural scoliosis which is when the spine bends and can straighten somewhat back to how it should be. As long as Andrew's spine is not rigid and stuck bent and worsening than we are good. His spine had not gotten worse. So good! Dr. Leet also said that Andrew does not need to wear his body jacket all day, only when his teachers are trying to position him in a stander or other equipment to give him more support. I have been arguing with his teachers that he does not need to wear this plastic brace all day long. It's uncomfortable. So, I've got the dr. note to bring into school for that. I don't want to hear that Andrew is uncomfortable or unable to eat his lunch because of this brace. Andrew's right hip is still dislocated, so we discussed pain. Dr. Leet said we would for sure notice Andrew in pain if he was experiencing pain with the hip - so that is good news too! I feel pretty certain that Andrew is not in pain from his hip. Andrew had a DEXA scan a few weeks ago to measure his bone density. Dr. Leet reviewed these results and said that his bones are weak, but that is to be expected of someone who doesn't use his muscles and bones properly and also the result of years of seizure meds. Andrew's scan actually looked better than was expected. Andrew weighed 95.2 lbs. and was just under 5 feet tall. Could my boy be thinning out? Okay, that's the latest on the most talked about hips and spine in Maryland.....

Busy Week

Dave and I were just thinking about we were doing last week at this time. We were knee deep into our move, and had just set up the kids beds for our first night in our new home. Our settlements went very nicely. Our move; thanks to Grandma, Uncle Chris, Ken, Amanda, Volunteers Sean And Junior went very, very smoothly. We did move in cold rainy weather which made things harder, but it did all get done! We learned it's hard to move with Jenna around, Uncle Chris sure knows how to pack a moving van, we have a lot of stuff, and how awesome it was to be connected with 2 very nice men who volunteered hours of their time to help with all the heavy lifting. We have a lot of little projects here we want to take care of, hanging curtains, painting and so on. Dave and I are both task masters and what to do everything right away. We've already replaced the entire upstairs and family room carpets and even had our new kitchen floor put in yesterday. I'm sure we will get to all our projects sooner rather than later. The kids have taken fine to the new house. I am so happy that Amanda could come spend the first two nights with the older girls. The girls had their very first sleep over in their new home. That was good for them. Jenna has been the most affected. She came with me to clean our old house last Saturday and ran from room to room saying "all gone". She came with me because I couldn't get her to nap here in her new room. I put her in her crib as I always do a naptime and she climbed right on out and stood at the top of the steps and yelled "Mama!". You could say sleep is still an issue one week later. I now have to rock Jenna to sleep. She will point to the rocker so that I will rock her instead of just laying her down as we have done for a long time now. With less sleep Jenna is an even bigger handful, following me around cleaning, climbing, rearranging and insists on taking her clothes off and running around in the buff, and is not to happy about our daily driving to schools - she would rather be playing with the steering wheel and all the buttons on the dash. The morning commute for us has changed from what I thought it would be at the start of the week. I cannot wait here for Andrew to be picked up or I will miss getting both girls to school on time, so I am driving all 3 kids to their 3 schools every morning. Lots of driving. Maybe I should have sent Amelia to her new school on the bus... Hmmm.. Of note... Amelia came home with her report card today... All "O's". That's my girl! - Outstanding!!! Jenna had her 2 yr appt on Tuesday and weighed in at 26lbs . She's tall and lean like me (so the doctor says!!!)...He...he... Like me... :)) Jenna is very leary of the doctor - won't let me go and won't let the nurse weigh her or come close. The nurse has to leave the room so I can weigh her privately. All else checked out great though. Jenna also started her second class Wednesday morning.."Funfit" aka "Hello School". As I mentioned......we've been busy this week!