Opening Day

I made the mistake of posting the other day that nothing had happened recently. I TOTALLY forgot about Noah's Opening Day of Baseball! Unfortunately I wasn't there, because it was the same time as Livie's dance class and with recital right around the corner, I couldn't miss it. But, Pete was there and took pictures for me. :-)




Noah's on the Padres again, though he only has a couple of the same teammates from last year. He was excited to get a more realistic uniform shirt and new cleats this year. Even in the freezing cold, rainy weather, they still had Opening Day and he was happy to be there.

It was pretty miserable out (though every day has been like that for the past two weeks). But, they all got to get together with their team and get their new uniforms.

Noah even saw a couple of his friends there. This is his friend Andrew. Andrew just became a new big brother! It's been an exciting time in his life lately. :-)

Everyone got to get their name called and run across the field. All the teams lined up at the end for one big group shot, before going home. The rain kept coming, so it was a quick Opening Day and the games that afternoon were all cancelled. We're ready for some spring weather, so we can get back out there and enjoy some baseball!

Haircut

This is what happens when you post on your blog that you "haven't had anything exciting happen this week to talk about". Literally within minutes of posting that, Livie came in and said, "I got my hair caught in the basket, so I cut it." My first reaction? Horror! This caused Livie to start crying. As I inspected closer I realized (thankfully) that she just cut the front of it and not too short at that. She also cut a small section in the back, but it's hardly noticable. In an effort to even out the cut area, I had to give her bangs. Look at that beautiful, long hair that is no longer on her head now.

You can see she was still very traumatized by the whole thing. She did NOT want me to cut her hair. She is very protective of her hair, which is why I was SHOCKED that she cut it in the first place!! You can kind of see her bangs there on the right side (her left).

You can see them better when it's in a pony. She was much happier by the time I took this picture. She liked them, so the world was right again. :-)

Kindness

I know I haven't posted all week. With the weather sucking, we've just been hanging around and not doing a whole lot to get excited about. But, I wanted to mention something that happened today to remind me of the kindness of those around us. I got to church this morning and was shortly thereafter greeted by a sweet older lady in our church. She had with her a bowl of pineapple and a bowl of honeydew. She told me that she heard that one of the other ladies was making cupcakes for our SS class and she knew Noah couldn't eat them, so she wanted to bring in something that was just for him. Seriously. It touched me so much! What a wonderfully kind thing to do! This kind of thing hasn't been an isolated incident either. Since Noah's diagnosis, people have come forward to help in ways I never expected. For one of his classmate's birthday party at school, he brought in sugar-free popsicles, so Noah could participate with them. Noah was SOOO excited to see that he could have a popsicle without having a shot! Just made his day! On Friday, the kids at school made Easter baskets and everyone brought in candy. Another one of his friends brought in sugar-free candy and his teacher brought him a big bag of sugar-free jelly beans! To know that people are going out of their way to do something like that for him, really touches my heart. It's not expected or required, they just do it. And, they may never really know what that gesture means to my son or to us as well. It's so easy for him to be left out of parties and things like that, but to see others try to make sure he stays included is just so special. :-)

Looney Tunes Has Lied to Us All

http://mywebtimes.com/archives/ottawa/display.php?id=428408&query=the+write+team

Just one article left after this one. The title of this blog post is the title I gave the editor for that article, but I think it was too long. So, instead, enjoy "A Skunk's Tale". :-) Just finished writing my last article. Very proud of that one and hope it is received well. It's my crowning glory. :-)

Day at the Park

With yet another beautiful day at hand, we decided to go the park. Pete was golfing and I didn't want to sit inside the house, so we loaded up the bikes and the puppy and headed over to Illini. Unfortunately, Illini doesn't have a lot of paved trails for bike riding, so that was a little short-lived, I'm afraid. But, it was fun while it lasted!! The dog was soooo excited to be out! He walked along with his tongue hanging out, exploring every little place he could. Ever mud puddle, he had to wade through. Every stick and leaf, he had to smell. It was fun and the kids had a ball!

They have a small play area, so we went there after our walk/bike ride.

After spending all that time outside in the 80+ degree weather, we HAD to get ice cream! It melted fast, since we were outside, but that just meant we had to eat it faster. ;-)

Because it was windy, Livie's ice cream managed to blow over and spill all over the ground. Tater was thrilled! He cleaned up that mess in a jiffy! Was a really fun afternoon together. So glad the weather finally improved, so we could do that. When we were coming home from getting the ice cream, we noticed a big billow of smoke rising in town somewhere, so we went to follow it. A section of the park we were just at was on fire. Looked like a brush fire from what I could tell. Police cars and fire trucks were on their way, because we passed a few of them. Glad we left the park when we did!

Saying Goodbye

In keeping with our month-long slew of parties, we had another one yesterday. This one was the best of all, though also the saddest. Some very dear friends of ours are moving all the way to Arizona. Brett got a new job there and will be leaving by the end of the week with his wife and kids following after. So, we took the opportunity to all get together (and, by ALL, I mean our Bible Study group) and have an evening of fun, laughter, and reflection. Pete got out his new cornhole game that he got for Christmas. Finally a nice enough day to use it!! Our friend Craig brought his set too, so they got quite a competition going. :-) So thankful that everyone was healthy and the weather was (finally!) perfect!

They all came over to our house and, because our house is small and the weather was wonderful, a lot of us decided to hang outside and relax and talk and enjoy each other. :-)

The kids had a great time together too. Livie and Caleb found this little moth that, by the time they were finished with him, was quivering in its death throws. He was loved a little TOO much.

Many of the kids got out new toys that they hadn't seen the previous week when they were here for our regular bible study, so that was fun for them.

The boys mostly congregated in the yard with the cornhole game, while we ladies hung out in the kitchen. Isn't that always what happens? We always seem to hang out in the kitchen. But, that gave us first dibs on the food, so that was nice!

This is the group of ladies I call my friends. God really blessed us by leading us to be a part of this amazing group. This is our first small group and we couldn't have asked for more! I love each and every one of these gals - and their husbands and kids too, of course!

We all brought something to eat, but the main course was pizza and let me tell ya, it flew off their plates! The kids ate an extra-large pizza all by themselves. Not to mention the strawberries and cupcakes and all the extras on top of them. All that playing caused big appetites!

Just more shots of eating and fun. :-)

One of the little boys there is allergic to both cats and dogs, so we locked Olive in the bathroom and Tater stayed in his fence. We bought a bigger one, so he had more room to play. He really wanted to get out and run around, but we kept throwing pigs ears at him and that settled him right down. Didn't hurt that he got lots of visitors coming over to pet and love on him.

Had to take a picture of all the kids together. I don't know if you'll notice or not, but many of the kids have blue spots on them. That would be because I had the bright idea to buy this new thing called "colored bubbles"! I didn't know when I gave the bottle to Madie that the bubbles were like giant balls of ink, that once they were popped stained everything in sight! That was a whole lotta fun washing off. Sufficed to say that between blue bubble spots and mud and dirt and sand, those kids were in desperate need of baths today!

I handed Madie the camera after a while and she took a few pictures for us. First was this one of Tater. See how happy he is?! He loves having company!

It got pretty warm yesterday, so Noah's shirt came off pretty fast into the evening. Here he is with Pastor John. :-) Such a cute pic!

Madie also took this picture of all the adults. This is our Bible Study group of 14 (plus 10 kids!). We are so thankful for having such an amazing group of people that are able to get together both on a spiritual level and on a level of friendship that is just so special. We're going to be so sad to see one of those couples leave us. Brett is the one next to Pete and Lee Ann is his wife and she's standing behind him. We love them to pieces! I've even become a hugger since they announced their moving. And, if you know me well, you know I'm NOT a hugger. That's saying something!

After we twisted the guys' arms into posing for pictures, we all went inside to hang out for a little while before the night ended.

We had all chipped in and gotten them a print that says "Some people come into our lives and quickly go. Others say for a while and leave footprints on our hearts and we are never ever the same". Nothing could be truer for this family. We got them a gift card as well for a restaurant down there. Wanted to give them something to remind them of their past here in town and also something that looks toward their future in their new town. We then sent the kids downstairs to play while we had a moment to share with Brett and Lee Ann what they meant to us. There were lots of tears, lots of laughter, and most of all, lots of love. We ended the evening by laying hands on them and praying them forward. Cannot remember a more special evening. They will be missed more than I can say. I'm just thankful that we had the opportunity to come together and spend a fun night together before they left. I've lived in blissful denial about this since their announcement about a month ago and I'll keep on living in blissful denial until about a year from now when I finally realize that they're not here anymore. I find denial to be quite enjoyable. But last night I actually had to face it and that was hard. But, back to denial again, since that's my favorite place to be in these situations. :-)

Debbie, the one standing behind her husband John on the far left, is the one who set up her camera on the tripod and took this picture of all of us. Yes, Livie is a dino costume, but at least Noah put his shirt back on! ;-) What a blessing to have Godly, loving friends in our lives. This is our group as a whole. Can you believe I managed to fit them all in our house?! So fun! Love and best wishes to our friends. Ya'll are the best!