Happily Ever After...

With a click of a button- you can ride a roller coaster..... Visit penguins in the Arctic....... Be incredibly cool..... Or incredibly silly...... Capture a sweet moment.... Get a little cheesy...... Watch it snow..... Ponder the deeper things of life..... And my personal favorite- Be whoever you wanna be! This blog post brought to you courtesy of photobooth and the hours of fun it provides.

What do you do when you have hardly left the house in 31 days? Dress up and do "shows" on the treadmill! Make music with bowls and plates! Sing and dance your heart out to your captive audience! Be too adorable for words! Home is a place not only of strong affections, but of entire unreserve; it is life's undress rehearsal, its backroom, its dressing room.  ~Harriet Beecher Stowe

We are MAJORLY ramping up for Gianna's surgery in just three short weeks. We had blood work and x -rays this week, and we are being ever vigilant to: A) Stuff her with as many calorie rich foods to help her gain, and B) Keep her from every single germ that is plaguing the South right now to keep her immune system strong. I am no expert, but her xrays looked much worse than the ones we took in July. I will be mailing them to Shriners tomorrow to get their take on how much worse.We were hoping for very little change, but unfortunately, it looks like she has digressed both in curvature as well as lung space. Very disheartening... I think the biggest thing right now that I feel the Lord is really working in me is trust. Do I trust His timing is perfect for these surgeries despite what the x-rays show? Do I trust Him to help us all get through this surgery, and the next and the next...for the next fifteen years? Do I trust that He loves her more than I possibly could? That He can keep h...

I'm FORTY.  Sigh.....I knew this day was coming, but how did it get here so fast?

Here is our family humor at it's best.... For his brother's 21 birthday card, Justin got a "Happy Anniversary to my Wife" card instead. Good stuff. Really good stuff! Even the dog got in on the pirate action (although not willingly!) Nothing like a 4 year old sister who has TOTALLY melted their hearts to get these cool, hip 20 somethings to don pirate gear and pose for a picture. True love I tell ya! Here is our littlest pirate recruit.... Adorable. Simply adorable. A lil' homemade Reese's Peanut butter cheesecake and we had the perfect ending to a very fun day! Happy Birthday Son! We are so proud of the Godly man you have become and look forward to where the Lord takes that "heart for missions" He gave you. We love you so much!

Today my sweet baby boy turned 21... Sigh. Where did the time go?!? As a rite of passage in our house, when you turn 21, you get introduced to the REAL world of laptops- you get a Mac. We tried to throw him off by telling him we got him a pony instead, but I don't think he bought it ;) Aria couldn't WAIT to show him what theme she picked for him this year!  "Close your eyes RyRy!" SUPRISE!!!! You are going to be a Pirate today!!!! "Now open your treasure chest to reveal a surprise." Pirate tattoos for the birthday boy! Gianna isn't too sure she wants a semi-permanent tattoo of a treasure map on her hand. Next stop, downtown Atlanta for lunch with our brother! Happy first part of the day to our newest pirate!! ARGH!

Homeschooling Aria has been such a wonderful treat for me. We are doing a video school and I am supplementing on the subjects she has mastered to keep her challenged. She can mark her long and short vowel sounds, count by 5's and 10's, can add up through the 7 family and is beginning subtraction problems. She is reading extremely well. She also loves to be a big girl and do her seat work by herself. I have also started(just barely) the K3 program with Gianna. She is our little "Me too" and likes to do everything her sister is doing. While Aria is doing her seatwork, I work with Gianna on sight recognition of letters and numbers as well as counting. She also really likes Art! It's hard to believe the curriculum teaches cursive writing in kindergarten, but as you can see, she is doing really well. I realized she writes much better in cursive than in print so I am giving her practice sheets in printing as well. I'm so proud of my sweet girl!

In December we found out "officially" that Aria has asthma. She had needed a few breathing treatments in the past, but on Christmas Eve she had a horrible cough and was finally diagnosed. We went to an Asthma Specialist to care for both her allergies and her asthma, and we are finally on the right track with her care. She still needs breathing treatments regularly, but she is doing so much better now that we have her on the right medications! She is such a trooper and now tells us when her chest feels tight and she needs a treatment. Gianna is under house arrest.(Which is making this mommy a tad loopy.) She isn't supposed to be around germs and so church, shopping carts, restaurants have been No-No's since mid January. There are times when we just HAVE to get out of the house -Like when Daddy's in Amsterdam and we run out of milk, or when the weather is GORGEOUS and we have cabin fever.... Anyhoo, we have found a solution for those times- her hazmat outfit. She ha...

Happy Anniversary  Sweetheart! You are the love of my life and no matter what ups and downs this year holds, we will always weather the storms together. I love you so much and am SO THANKFUL the Lord gave me such a wonderful, Godly husband. You are amazing!!!!

Gianna started waking up once or twice a night after we came home from Disney.... LAST November.  We go in, (and I say we figuratively) and find her stuffed animal, fluff her pillow and cover her and she is back to sleep for another few hours until her pillow gets flat again. Well, Daddy went on a business trip and passed the pillow fluffing baton to me, which is never a good thing. I need my sleep. I started out as all sleep deprived mommies do, by offering to reward her for sleeping through the night. I appealed to her love of Cinderella stickers. I knew it wasn't working when I tucked her in and said, " Now Gianna are you going to cry tonight?" "Uh, huh. I cry..." Hmmmm..... That got me thinking. She has our number. Big Time. I cry+ call your name pitifully= You come running to fulfill my every whim at 3 AM. I could see us being one of *those* families on Super Nanny, who needs a major intervention. Sobbing for the camera and saying, " I don't know...