March 25-27, 2011 Camping at Fort Wilderness

So we decided that it was time to take the girls camping. They had never been, so we went Disney style! It was a lot of fun even though I was sick (sinus infection/bronchitis), but I was medicated and dealt with it. We went with 3 other families and shared two sites. It was so nice to be able to spend time with our friends and the kids played pretty well with each other most of the time.

First night at dinner

Ashlyn eating a marshmallow

Kaylyn eating a marshmallow

The girls with Dale

Kaylyn & Shelby waiting for the bus

Still waiting for the bus

Heading to the boat

Eating lunch at the Polynesian Resort's swimming pool area

Mr. Schafer

The kids posing at the Aloha Dinner spot

Picking the statue's nose

Riding the boat back to the campground

While everyone else went swimming, Ashlyn got to ride a pony since she can't get her ear wet

Snacking by the pool

S'mores!

At the "Beach" campground to see the fireworks

The Snyders

The Maughans

The Bartons

The Sprinkles

Downtown Disney

Waiting for the bus in the hot, hot sun

March 25, 2011 Arts in the Commons

Once again, the kids made artwork that could be framed and sold to raise money for the school. Of course we have to buy the pictures, but we also hang them in the girls' rooms. Kaylyn drew a picture of the cross and Ashlyn drew a picture of a tiger. Each grade sings two songs in the commons and one of the songs Kaylyn's 3rd grade class did was using the recorders. I missed it this year, but luckily Jason went and took lots of pictures.

Ashlyn's Ear March 23, 2011

Ashlyn went back to Dr. Farrior today to get the inner ear packing removed and new clean inner ear packing put in. It was bleeding still when he took out the original stuff, but he said it looked good and there wasn't any infection. He talked to Jason a little more about the cholesteatoma (cyst) that was in her ear. He said that it was just pure massive and that there wasn't a place in her ear that it wasn't in. Only 2% of his cases he does not get the cholesteatoma out in one surgery and has to go back in....well, today he said that he had not been confident that he got it all out and he will need to go back in at the end of the year. He said the next surgery will not be as extensive and since he's going back in anyways, if he sees anything he can do to improve her hearing, he will do. He will basically lift the ear drum and if there's any air pockets, that means that there's cholesteatoma left and he will explore from there.

I feel bad that she wasn't diagnosed with this sooner, and if I hadn't been persistent and fired the first ENT and sought out the pediatric ENT, we may not have found it until it caused other severe problems. We are so thankful that we found the right doctor, thanks to my mom's ENT neighbor, to do the ear surgery. He's just that good!

On another note, Kaylyn went to the Southern District Science Fair this morning and had to answer questions with the judges. She didn't place, but there were over 500 contestants...oh well. I think she had fun with the whole process and learned a lot.



I'm just so proud of how smart my girls are. Kaylyn's Straight As (principal's list) and Ashlyn's A/B Honor Roll. This is awesome for Ashlyn seeing as she never attended school before 1.5 years ago and is now getting Bs in reading. The comprehension is still a little behind, but this is due to some of the language barriers that still exist. She got an A in phonics and a B in math too. She's doing awesome! Also, her speech is improving a lot with speech therapy. She's learning to say certain letters the correct way with her submucous cleft palate so that she can be more easily understood. The next big task is checking her eye sight. We've been told by two different individuals that work with her that think she might have some sight issues (reads to close to the books/papers consistently). One step at a time to make my child's life healthier and easier!

God was so awesome in showing us how much we could love another individual that did not come from us biologically. We fell in love with this child almost instantly and to me, there is no difference between biological and adopted. They are loved equally and abundantly.

Sister's Baby Shower Invitation

I made my sister, Kara, her baby shower invitations the day before yesterday...I have to say they aren't too shabby. I'm throwing her a baby shower with my mom's help Easter weekend. I made them through my Creative Memories software program called StoryBook Creater 3.0. I made the 5x7 landscape cards, so there are four pages to them. Just imagine a card that is landscape and opens from the bottom...so the first page is the front, the second page is the top when opened, the third page is the bottom when opened, and the fourth is the back of the card. NOTE: I cut out the address and phone numbers from the invitation for obvious reasons. By the way, if you're interested in checking out my sister's blog, she's very creative. She's in the middle of doing her expected daughter's nursery, mostly by hand. Check her out here.

Disney Live! Mickey's Magic Show

On Saturday March 12th, we went to Mickey's Magic Show at the King Center. We were in the third row middle. They were awesome seats! We got there pretty early, so when the people that won the ability to get their pictures taken with Mickey and Goofy didn't show up, they let us do it. Totally unexpected and pleasant. Remember, this is two days after Ashlyn's surgery. The girls really had a blast. During the show, Jasmine came out, Ashlyn got excited and waved to her and Jasmine waved back. Then Ashlyn blew her a kiss and Jasmine blew Ashlyn a kiss right back. She was so excited she said, "Jasmine loves me!" Too cute!

Ashlyn's Ear Surgery March 10, 2011

Ashlyn pulled through her surgery great! It took 3.5 hours to remove the cholesteatoma and it was the biggest one the doctor has ever seen. It went into her mastoid completely. There was no bone left, so he reconstructed the bone of hearing using part of her skull bone. He took a skin graft from her leg to promote quicker healing (he's patented this).

There's a lot of bleeding, but he said this was normal. At the beginning of the surgery, I told God that I trusted him and to give me peace about the surgery. For the most part He did. He said it would take 2.5 to 3 hours, so when it went over 3 hours I got a little worried, but not too bad. Thank you to all the people at work who gave me great Bible verses to read during the surgery. Thank you to all my friends and family for all the prayers. God is good! He said he would probably go back in at the end of the year to do a open up and look to make sure he got it all. Only 2% of his cases he has to go back in, so that tells you how bad it was.

Ashlyn has a surgery bear that had the same surgery, getting the same wrapping on the same ear! Too cute.

Here's Ashlyn after the bandages were taken off the day after surgery. There's an inner "cork" packing and we just put clean cotton balls on a couple of times a day with ear drops.

I think the most painful thing for Ashlyn has been the skin graft on her leg. The heel of her foot also has a bruise because when she woke up from anesthesia, she woke up kicking. She kicked a nurse and they sedated her a little, but I think she might have kicked the bed too causing her heel to be sore and bruised. Poor baby!

Thursday February 24, 2011

So, Kaylyn has always wanted to win a fruit of the spirit award...ever since I can remember (maybe pre-K). Well, God planned it perfectly. I had setup an 8 year wellness checkup for Ashlyn and it just happened to fall on Thursday 2/24. So I went to the school to pick up Ashlyn and take her to her 10:00 am appt. See the doctor only sees wellness patients between 10 and 2. So I get to the school and they're in chapel. So I go over to chapel to get Ashlyn and the 1st-3rd graders are in there. Right when I get there, I hear Kaylyn's name being called and Mrs. Smith said, "She just got the fruit of the spirit award for kindness." I beamed with joy and tears almost started coming down my eyes. She finally won! I kept telling her if she was faithful enough, she would get an award one year. She says that third grade is the last year they give out these awards to students. She didn't know I was there until she went to sit down. She absolutely gleamed. I was so proud of her. Here's a picture of her with her Monument project and her Fruit of the Spirit Award.