Quick Rae Health Update

Last week we had a busy couple of days of doctors appointments with Rae. In addition to her weekly speech therapy, she had her checkup with her neurologist and ophthalmologist.  Her neurologist is just amazed with how well she is doing.  She has not had to up her medicine, and she has not had any seizures either.  Her doctor was happy how well she has been doing in speech therapy.  She is reading now, and her therapist is helping to fill in the holes in her language that were missing. It is fun to watch her try to sound out EVERYTHING!  It is hard to believe it has been almost a year since that horrible morning.  Rae is just defying science, but all the thanks can be given to God.

Ophthalmologist appointment was a little more difficult.  It was an appointment where they had to dilate her eyes, and do a complete exam. The big question this time was if her eyes were still drifting - sadly - they are.  It is definitely better after the first surgery, but she is still occasionally sees double and the right eye drifts.  We now need to decide if we go ahead and do the surgery or wait another 6 months. She doesn't complain about it, but I do wonder if that causes her headaches. 

This week she will be going to the hematologist to see how things are. She has already had one IVIG treatment this year due to her count dropping way too low.  She is doing great with everything she has to deal with.

One appointment coming up I am dreading is the dentist.  We were suppose to have already seen them, but due to misunderstanding it has been postponed til next month.  I will also be inquiring if we need to go ahead and have some early orthodontia intervention.  I am hoping due to having had all those baby teeth removed so early, it has not caused any spacial problems.

So, she is doing really well with everything as long as we just keep on top of everything.  We are very thankful to God how He has taken care of her.

The Lost Medallion

This past Friday we took the younger girls to dinner and movie since Hannah had teen night. There are a couple of movies out that all the girls wanted to see, so we had to find something Hannah didn't mind missing. I happened to run across a movie being advertised on our local Christian radio's website. I decided to check it out and see if it is was something to we would want to see. It is called The Lost Medallion. It is a clean family-friendly movie with definite Christian themes. It is much like an "Indiana Jones" type movie. One interesting thing about the movie is that it stars Alex Kendrick from the Sherwood Production movies, and he also helped with the movie. The main characters in the movie are 13-something aged kids. There is also a nice little twist in the end.

Check out their website to see if it is playing near you. If you live in Central Ohio it is playing at Easton and Dublin. Go support this great family friendly movie. We need more like this!

May His Praise be Always on Our Lips

I wrote several weeks ago on this blog about our church doing a 21 day fast. The fast could be anything from TV to food. We were to pray and ask God what He was calling us to fast from. Sometimes it is hard to see what may be a strong-hold in our lives, or often we just don't want to admit it or give it up. So, one thing hubby and I did was we chose something for each other to fast from.  I chose something for hubby, and he asked me not to listen to a radio show that I enjoyed listening to in the mornings.  Was the show bad, no. It was a distraction.

I am not a person who always enjoys total silence.  I cannot sleep in quiet.  I can do quiet occasionally, but I needed to find something to listen to as we go about our mornings.  I do have a couple of apps on my phone that I can use to listen to Christian radio.  The ones I use are IHeartRadio and TuneIn. One those you can listen to KLove which is the best Christian radio station - nothing but positive messages, limited commercial, and not too many repeated songs (like our local radio station). You can also listen to them online.  Another place I found great worship music is Praise.com.  This is the perfect place to listen for just praise music -  no dj's, little to no commercials.

I know there are probably others out there.  I do know about Pandora, but it is getting limiting on how much you can use it before you have to pay.  If you do have DishTv of DirectTV they have Christian stations you can listen to.  I do not use those during the school day, but they are great when cleaning the house.

What are you listening to?

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New Recipes

As a mom, we get stuck in a rut of cooking the same foods even though our family likes them. I get tired of cooking them. I do have some standard go to recipes, but I like to change things up every once in a while. My family does get concern when I spring something new on them. Thanks to Pinterest, I have been able to find some good and often more healthy dishes to cook.

Last night was one of them. One kids was a little worried about it, but she decided last night she liked it. One could not get enough. The dish I found was Salsa Chicken. It was recommended by my trainer and my mom said it was an old Weight Watchers recipe. I liked it because you throw everything in a crockpot and 6 hrs later you have dinner. One thing I did do was to buy a good quality salsa since it was the main flavoring ingredient. It also happens to be one of my favorite salsas - Frontera Jalapeno Cilantro. After it was done, I pulled the chicken and put it back in the crockpot to mix back with the all the juices and salsa.  To make it easier for the family I took the tortillas and put the chicken in them with a little cheese and toasted all of them in the oven.  They were a hit! My brain was thinking of different things I could do with it and maybe other seasonings I could use.  I have used a similar version, but with BBQ sauce.  The family liked it as well.

My crockpot is getting a workout this week.  Last night before going to bed, I put oatmeal and apples in the crockpot for breakfast.  I knew since it might be a morning for all of us to be home, and it would be perfect.  Most of us liked it. I just liked having breakfast as a family, during the week.

Up for tonight a family favorite out of the crockpot - pulled pork.

Crazy Weekend

This past weekend has been one of those crazy weekends where we were all going in different directions. We had things going on with the church as well as things with our girls. The week even started busy with a quick trip to IKEA in Pittsburgh to pick up furniture for Emily's room. So during the week between doing school and doctor appointments, we were cleaning out Emily's and Rae's rooms to move furniture around. It was fruit basket turnover in the upstairs, but the weekend was coming and things had to be put on hold to get the downstairs ready for a get together at our house Friday night. We all banded together and got it done with some of the girl's rooms still left undone. We hope to finish it all this week and maybe I will post some pictures of the girl's rooms finished.

Saturday was very busy day. We were all passing each other coming and going. I had one girl at tennis while I was taking a friend's daughter's senior pictures. Next up, I met Noel for lunch with some friends, but I had to leave in time to get back to get the girls and go to Capital University for Hannah to play in OMEA District Festival. This was Hannah's first time in something with her new piano teacher. She did great and received great comments from her judge. Noel was unable to come, so he listened via speakerphone (just like the commercials). Hannah has come so far in the year with her new teacher. The group she played with has some great pieces to listened to, and it motivated Hannah to play more advanced music. I am SO excited to hear that! She is becoming quite the musician.

Hannah with her certificate

Rae in her dress she wore for her dedication.  I had not gotten a good picture of her in her favorite dress.

I Heart My Family

One of my goals for these 21 days was to be there more for my family. I want to look at my girls while talking to them and vise versa. This morning since it was Valentine's Day I chose to get up and get moving earlier and fix breakfast for the family before they wake up (except hubby - who wants to wake up that early). I made waffles and cut them into hearts and chocolate strawberry smoothies. It was all waiting for them when they came down. As a family, we all had breakfast together.

Sorry I do not have pictures, because I left my phone up stairs. We just lived in the moment. I had little gifts for everyone to open. I just want my family to know they are loved and I do care about them.

A little something special for my hubby

The Great Playroom Clean-up

Earlier this year we started working on cleaning out the different areas and rooms in our home. Hubby says it is an effort to be more productive and to lighten the house. It has taken a several weeks, but we do have most of the house done with just a couple of areas left to tackle. So, yesterday the girls and I tackled the playroom with some groans from the peanut gallery. Hubby had already moved my computer back down here from our bedroom. It had been in our bedroom due to my ankle surgery. Plus, Rae and I were doing her school in our room. Moving all of that to the playroom, plus Emily starting to clean out her room created quite a mess in the playroom. You could not even see the floor.

In order for me to work and Rae to do school, I knew it had to be cleaned. So armed with our trash bags we cleaned and organized. It took a few hours, but it was clean - even the little closet in the room. I will not tell you how many bags we filled up. With only a little left to organize, every thing now has a place. The loving family has a nice clean home, the ponies are all together, and Barbie and her friends in various states of dress are all together as well. Hannah organized our books and movies, but I did have to keep reminding her not to read as she goes. I do like where we put all the fairy wings. It originally is to hang pictures, but it is nicely holding the wings and Emily's ribbons. The girls were proud of all the work we did. They celebrated by picking out a board game and played it in the floor of the newly cleaned playroom.

The playroom side of the room all clean. The horse in the picture was made by my dad and a loving keepsake of mine. There is a little closet to the right that holds all our board games, puzzles, and the few dress-up clothes we have left.

With this week's trash - our trash man made need another thank you sign and candy.