wordless wednesday - me and my girl

(way blurry, but look at her sweet face!)

we're dang fancy, y'all

Derek rigged up a makeshift swing for the kids. Garden hose, two holes drilled in a piece of wood, and some kind of metal thingy securing it around the pine tree.

I wish I could swing on it. It goes all crazy in huge, swirly circles. The kids LOVE it. (And I'm a worrier, so believe me, it's very safe and secure.)

Jackson - a couple of weeks ago:

J & K - today:

it doesn't take much, y'all

Derek home roasts our coffee, so according to him, it must be made one cup at a time. I usually have my first cup immediately after rolling out of bed, stumbling bleary-eyed to the kitchen, and putting the kettle on. I'm standing there waiting for the water to boil the whole time.

But, my second cup usually comes a little bit later. I put the kettle on, run to switch the clothes out from the washer to the dryer, get sidetracked while folding the clothes from the dryer, go wipe someone's hiney, remember that I was going to do xyz, wonder who the hell moved my scissors (me)....And then, from the kitchen, I hear the wonderful whistle of the kettle, and get a little thrill...OH YES!!! I'M GOING TO HAVE COFFEE!!!

I may have been a dog in a past life.

checking in

Kam got onto me for not blogging. So, a quick check-in. We spent the weekend hanging out with this little lovely and her parents:

Oh, yes, that IS the legendary Playette. She and her parents came to Texas and we got to hang out with them for THREE whole days. It was awesome. More later.

Love you. Miss you. Mean it.

Wendy

P.S. My son is almost five. Five. When did that happen?

Hello February

Goodbye January. I think my kids are trying to see who can hit our deductible first.

Last week:

Kira - woke up at 3:30 am on Tuesday sounding like she was gasping for breath. Her lips were pink. She was sucking her thumb, but her breathing sounded horrible. Diagnosis: croup and another ear infection.

Jackson - On Friday morning, he started running a fever. By 3:00 that afternoon, his fever was at 105.1. We headed to the children's hospital ER to pick up our pneumonia diagnosis.

I think the funky virus I had a few days before Kira got sick manifested itself in a variety of ways. Derek's had a cough, too. We all seem to be on the mend, thankfully.

A semi-related kind of gross funny: I keep having to apologize to Derek for accidentally getting snot on him when I kiss him. He said, "That's ok. I've just started thinking of you as my little snail of love."

Kira in action!

We spent a good chunk of time this afternoon soaking in some sun before the weather turns cold again. I was watching the kids running and playing when I suddenly realized, "Wait a minute! Kira is climbing up the slide! And sliding down! On her bottom!"

She loves to slide, but has always needed a little help with the ladder and has always slid down on her belly. And there she was, acting like she's been doing it this way forever. She would slide right down and land with a thud on her butt. I wanted to catch it on video.

So, I started filming and then she landed on her feet!! For the very first time!! I think we were both surprised and I love, love, love the look of surprise and pride on her little face.

Jackson said, "Mom! We should have a celebration, tonight! To celebrate Kira being such a big girl!" Most definitely.

trying to be a better human and a disclaimer

So, one of my New Year's Resolutions is to try to be a better human. First up - if I don't bring my own bags, it's either paper or me carting it all out unbagged. I'm doing pretty good with this one, so far. I'm ok with the paper bags because the kids and I use them for painting, etc.

I'm also trying to creatively repurpose stuff we already have instead of buying new. That one goes hand in hand with my Out of Debt Before Christmas 2010 Resolution. We're over halfway there already! And yes, that one means you'll have to look at project pics.

And now for the disclaimer. I hate doing the dishes. And my hands are always cold. So, I run hot water while I do the dishes. I know. It's not efficient. It wastes energy and money. BUT my hands are warm and the dishes are done, man. (10 pts if you can name that movie.)

Baby steps.

Love, Wendy

P.S. A big ol' AMEN for jobs secured for my Mom and for Dave, husband to my DR buddy and all around lovely person Mary Ellen.

random

Kind of in a funk today. Kira has an ear infection. Her first in over two years. I kept her home from school yesterday and today. She's doing better today, but obviously isn't 100%.

So, I'm drowning under a mountain of laundry, toys that need to be rearranged/sorted/removed from the house to make room for the new stuff, Christmas decorations that need to be put away, etc. It's cold and kind of gray today and I'd really like to just curl up with a cup of coffee and a book.

If y'all see our fairy nanny, housekeeper, and cook, could you let them know we need them stat?

Thanks.

Love, Wendy

hello-o-o-o-o-o!

Did ya miss me? I know. I've been a bad blogger. It's not that I haven't had anything to say, just no time to gather coherent thoughts!

Quick summary of recent events:

- Kira turned three! We had her birthday party on Saturday and it was lovely. We had it at home, so it was just family and close friends (of course, that's almost 40 people right there). I think she really enjoyed it. She loved everyone singing to her and said "hooray" and "piiiiittttttty" a million times while opening her gifts. It was pretty low key and I was thankful for the chance for our old and new friends to meet each other. Pics later, when I steal them from someone else. As usual, Derek and I were too busy running around to take pics.

- Kira started school! She's in one of the blended classes. 5 typically developing kids and Kira is the third child in the class on an IEP. She's the youngest, the only girl, and the only child with Ds. The first week was a little rough, but yesterday she walked in like she'd been doing this for years. I think it's going to be a good fit for her.

- Other good stuff: We've had lots of chilling with family good times recently. Thanksgiving was lovely with Derek's parents. We spent the majority of the weekend in Shreveport with my parents and had a wonderful time. More on that (with pics!) later.

I've been busy crafting, crafting, crafting and want to share one project with y'all. I made this tutu and drawstring bag for mailing it in over the weekend:

I've donated them to the Zoromski's auction so that they can get their daughter Lily home. Lily is in an orphanage overseas. She is five years old with Ds and it is a miracle that she hasn't been sent to an institution, yet. Lily is a twin, her birth parents kept her biological sibling. You may not now it, but Michelle and Brian are also the parents of twins. Ruby's identical twin sister, Lydia, died at birth. As Michelle put it, they are a family missing a twin and Lily is a twin missing a family. Amazing.

Head over to A Home for Lily to check out all the cool items in the auction. I know Michelle, Brian, Karly, Braden, Ruby, and especially, Lily, would appreciate it!

Grab This Button

And I promise to be a better blogger. At least, I will once I get laid off from Santa's Workshop.

thanks y'all

I am so lucky to be a part of such a wonderful community of people. Thank you all so much for all of the supportive comments on my last couple of posts.

I'm getting on my own nerves with the worrying, so I'm shelving it until after the testing is done. If you're the praying type, though, could you send some our way for Kira's testing tomorrow? And if you're not, I'd love some positive energy from you.

Moving on.

Up for today: much laundry, Halloween costume construction, and some batch cooking. It's a gray day here in TX, so the kids and I are staying in. They are currently eating popcorn for breakfast. Hey, it's a whole grain.

I hope y'all have a lovely day and thank you, thank you, thank you for making a mama feel so very supported!

dangit

I missed two days of 31 for 21. I spent Saturday morning and early afternoon frantically sewing, then we headed to a birthday party and then to the in-laws for the rest of the weekend.

I'll post two extra to at least get the 31 in.

Final total on the crafting this past week: 1 tutu, 2 scarves (crochet), 3 capes (1 vampire, 1 superhero boyish, 1 superhero girlish), 1 skirt for Kira's costume that turned out ridiculous, 1 pants for Jackson's costume that were way too short

The birthday party we went to was costumes optional. I really thought that everyone would be in costume, but only like three kids were. Jackson wanted to be vampire batman (?), so I made him the vampire cape. I wanted to make a sort of jumpsuitesque thing but ran out of time. So, he wore the cape, his batman mask, vampire teeth, a batman underoos shirt, and the too short pants. He spent the whole party running around in just the underoos shirt and too short shiny lounge pants (think Hugh Hefner highwaters).

Kira ended up wearing Jackson's glutterman suit from last year and her girly superhero cape that I made. Of course she spent the party in just the lime green jumpsuit. That costume has had a hard year, so once we got to the party the seams started popping open. Nice.

No one asked what their costumes were supposed to be, because I don't think they were quite sure if they were costumes or not. I don't know how this is reading, but the memory of it is making me laugh so hard I'm crying. They looked like poor little urchins running around that playground!

Now for this week:

We have Kira's testing for PPCD. I'm so nervous. I have to call and get a copy of her hearing test to take with us. And I have to go pick up the paperwork to fill out. I'm nervous.

I need to make new costumes for Saturday. Honestly, I'm tempted to just raid the dress-up box for both of them.

Anyway, hope everyone had a lovely weekend. More later.

weekend pics and a Ds observation

We had such a wonderful time this weekend. We try to do a get together with my Mom's side of the family at least once a year, twice if we're lucky. My aunt found an awesome cabin near Lake Whitney this year. The cabin was perfect - lots of room for everyone and well stocked with anything you might need - dishes, movies, games, toiletries, etc. The surroundings were rustic and beautiful.

4 generations were represented - my grandmother, my mom and aunt and their husbands, my siblings and I and our spouses, and our kids.

My grandmother brings me to my Ds observation. I know that this isn't true of all individuals with Ds, but I do think that the chance to have a greater capacity for empathy resides in the bonus chromosome. Kira will make her grandparents crawl through fire for a smile. The second a GREAT grandparent walks into the room? She runs over for a hug. Even though she rarely sees her great-grandmothers and I know she doesn't recognize them, she knows that now is the time for a great big hug.

warning: the rest of this post is very pic heavy and probably only of interest to my family.

Mountain Man Derek

This pic cracks me up.
The guys couldn't get TV reception in the house.

This was the only spot where they could get reception for this particular game.

When the next game came on, they had to move the tv to another spot!

um...you might be a redneck if...

I'm not sure what Jackson was doing,

but based on my face he was about 2 seconds from getting in trouble.

Heading out for a walk in the woods

Our view on the walk

This pic makes me think of those shots where you see all of the paparazzi behind a star.

Jackson making rolls with my aunt

My cousin carving a pumpkin

Kira protecting her pumpkins from my cousin

She carried those pumpkins around all weekend - so cute.

cutie girl

cutie boy

Jackson learning chess from my cousin.

My sweet cousin spent about an hour and half teaching him.

Flashback Friday

Flashing all the way back to last Friday! State Fair pics! It was a cold drizzly day and we had so much fun.

What should we do first Kira?

Me eating

(fried butter - FIL bought an order and made me try a bite - gross but good)

Me eating

(shrimp corn dog with spicy sweet jalapeno sauce)

Me letting Derek know I'm tired of him taking pictures of me eating

Jackson eating

Faux eating

Cute shot of the kids while we were trying to get a pic of all the Perdue grandbabies

Jackson taking a break in the butterfly garden. We didn't see many butterflies, but we saw LOTS of different caterpillars. We were the only ones there, so we had the luxury of a tour from one of the docents.

Kira spent the day riding in style

Jackson and me.

I'm pushing the bag lady cart.

We looked like a caravan - two strollers, one wagon, and the cart.

Ridiculous.

Cotton candy and the starlight parade to end our day

Not one single shot of Derek, though. I'll have to steal some pics from the in-laws.

spoiled

That's how I'm feeling this week. I did not have to cancel one single planned activity due to illness - amazing.

We had two great playdates this week. Kids had fun. Moms had fun. Kids took naps afterwards. Perfect!

We had a lovely dinner in the new home of dear friends last night. They've only been in it five days, still unpacking, but you can already feel their warmth and hospitality settling into the spaces, making it most definitely their home. They served an amazing fall meal - roast chicken, risotto, and this yummy butternut squash recipe.

And tonight we'll be visiting with my parents at our house. If they're lucky, Jackson might even treat them to a "40 chapter puppet show."

Spoiled rotten and lucky, I tell you!

(Sorry it's not an actual Ds related post, today. That's kind of how Ds is though. Some days you completely forget about it.)

You know you're a mom when...

your daughter walks past her father, sitting on the couch, to deliver a plate to you and request "toast". You, of course, are sitting on the potty.

Good morning!

I just wanted to put up a quick post to say that after battling tonsillitis for almost a week, I'm finally feeling human again. And I'm so glad that September is here and August is finally over. I'm praying for a boring, uneventful, and HEALTHY September - join me, won't you?

Hope y'all are all doing well! I'll be posting and catching up on all my blog reading this week.

Also wanted to let you know that Down to Earth (a blog I LOVE) now has a forum, if you're interested.

Have a lovely, lovely weekend!

stuff

I'm tearing up every time I see my Ted post, so I need to get something else up here. How 'bout some random?

- Things that crack me up: The little password thingies that Google puts up when you comment on someone's blog. I swear I'm going to make up definitions for them some day. Also, the suggestions blogger's spellcheck gives me. What? couponing, scrumbled, and whatcha aren't real words?

- Jackson and I were reading a book involving monkeys, you know, monkeying around. I told him it was time for him to rest and that I wanted him to lay down, be quiet, and he said, "and not start personing around?" - he kills me, that one.

- My friend, Michele (Hey Michele!!!), very thoughtfully reserved Amanda Soule's new book for me when she was going through the new books at work (She's a librarian) - I've been enjoying it so much and can't wait to get started on some of the projects.

- This has been such a strange month for us. Lots of ups and downs. But mostly, this month has shown me how very blessed we are with dear friends who love us and who are there for us no matter what.

- And, Dancing with the Stars starts on Sept 21! I can't wait!! (Hey Michele!!)

See, random, don't say I didn't warn you.

Big week

So much has happened this week, it's hard to know where to start. Today, we welcomed Jackson and Kira's brand new baby cousin. I'm not sure if his parents want his name all over the blogosphere, so we'll just call him "Bandit" - Jackson's suggestion for his name when he was still in utero.

He's beautiful and very courteously arrived on a day that worked out nicely for everyone. Kira was FASCINATED with him. She sat and looked at him forever and even shoved Jackson out of the way when he tried to get a look. She was saying, "Baby! Baby!" Then she started cataloguing him for everyone, "Baby hat. Baby eyes. Toes" - she'd look up at us every other word to make sure that we were noticing that yes, the baby did have a hat, eyes, and toes. Then she asked Bandit, "Baby? Eat? Bites?" and "Baby bath?" - I think she wanted to make sure that he had everything he needed. When the nurse came to check his blood sugar, she started pointing out all of his assets to her, too. I hope that they end up the best of buds and give the big kids a run for their money.

Other big news this week - Jackson is reading! Really reading. He's been pointing words out to me forever, but I assumed that he was sight reading. We were at the library Tuesday night and I saw a set of Bob Books. I told Jackson that we could check them out and start working on reading, if he wanted to. He was so excited that he wanted to sit down and look at them right then. And then he read the first three books, just like that. Sounded out words, everything. There are 12 books in the set, he read 11 of them when we got home that night. Crazy. While we were waiting to go in to see the baby, he read to his grandparents and to a random gentleman also waiting. He made sure to hold the book so that Mr. Random could see it, too. That kid cracks me up.

On Thursday we went with friends to the Modern Art Museum in Ft Worth. They were hosting a kids film festival and we went to see The Velveteen Rabbit. It was a version I hadn't seen before and we all really enjoyed it. The cultural district in Ft Worth is really lovely and there is a gorgeous swath of lawn between the Kimbell and Amon Carter Museums. We had a lovely picnic and then all of the kids played in the fountain in front of the Kimbell. Very cool. I wish I would have remembered my camera. At one point, Kira was sitting on the edge of the pool, kicking her legs in the water and munching on an apple. She was so cute, just enjoying a beautiful summer day.

Also this week: Kira's first visit to the Down syndrome clinic went really well. I hit Kroger's super doubles on Saturday. And we enjoyed visits with 3 different aunts. Busy week and weekend - I think we'll have a take it easy day tomorrow.

I hope y'all had good weekends, too!

busy busy busy

Wow, be careful what you wish for, for real. That week and a half that we were under house arrest with hand, foot, and mouth disease, all I could think about was going and doing. The past couple of weeks have been nuts.

Good stuff, thankfully. I'm not complaining. I just need a nap!

We visited with AA and H today while their Mom is doing some yoga training. We had a lovely time (and hey ME if you're getting to read this!). I definitely don't know how you moms with 4 or more kiddos do it, though. I am worn out.

We visited with the in-laws this weekend and had a great time then, too.

Let's see...what else? A couple of summer movies - Because of Winn Dixie (have any of y'all seen this? Jackson and I went to it and I cannot believe he was willing to sit through the whole thing. I'm sure it's a great book, but the movie was kind of depressing.) We also saw Wallace and Gromit (Jackson says "grummit") and the Case of the Wererabbit. Cute, funny, but I could not believe the adult humor (mainly sight gags) scattered throughout it. I've become quite the fuddy-duddy in my motherhood, apparently.

Oh and have y'all seen this blog: Steady Mom - I just found it and am really enjoying it. You might check it out - you know if you just don't have enough things to do online. ;)

overheard

"Congratulations Kira! You just won the second game of Candyland. You're Queen Gumball!"