Happy Birthday Mamah!

Today is my amazing mom's birthday! Happy Birthday Mom and Mamah! We love you!

Happy Birthday Granny!

Today is Justin's Mom's birthday. Happy Birthday Granny! We Love You!

I've been picture tagged...

Thanks Arianne! This is the 6th picture in the 6th picture folder on my computer...

This is Josh at 8 days old. What a cutie!

...and the 6 people I tag are: Stacie, Brenda, Dana, Emily, Jessica, and Melissa.

March Madness

The last few weeks have been crazy! Here are a few of the highlights:

Josh loves hats! It doesn't matter what kind of hat it is or who it belongs to, if he finds it he just has to put it on.

Josh also had his follow-up appointment for his ears this week. Everything looks great!

Jordan went missing for a few minutes last Saturday and this is where we found him - atop the block wall. Mind you, this is above my head. Apparently he climbed up this old chainlink gate:

I have done a lot of caking lately! These are cupcakes I made for Enrichment Night. They are chocolate cupcakes with marshmallow buttercream and chocolate butterflies. Dawn Esplin came over and helped me make the butterflies. We had a lot of fun making them and she was surprised at how easy they are to make!

This is the cake I made for Stacie Miner's birthday today (Happy Birthday Stac!). It is White Velvet cake with strawberry buttercream and white chocolate fondant.

I made another cake this week for a friend's 21st birthday, but it was kind of last minute and I was so unhappy with the way it turned out that I refused to even take a picture. Hopefully it at least tasted good!

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I took on another piano student this month - I now have three students (plus my own kids and hubby). I am hoping to find one more student to teach, so if you know of anyone who wants to learn just let me know.

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Justin and I also both donated blood last week. Justin donates blood and platelets regularly, but this is the first time I have donated in probably 8 years. Last time I donated I had forgotten to eat breakfast (I had an early morning class) and did not react well to giving blood - really I couldn't even sit up for hours without getting dizzy. Because of that I have been nervous to donate again, but this time I had no problems.

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This week was spirit week at Madison's school. Here she is on Crazy Hair Day: (it's kind of hard to tell, but there are 11 ponytails in her hair!)

Madison was also honored as a Straight A Student at her school this last week. Good job Mad!

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I am really hoping the next few weeks are a little calmer, but I'm not holding my breath!

Surgery Update

We are back home after Joshua's surgery. Everything went great with no complications! Joshua wasn't too happy before surgery - he had a fit when they wanted to put the little clip on his finger to check his oxygen level (of course a few minutes later he was wanting to play with it), he was extremely annoyed by the ID band they put around his ankle, and he was really not happy when I had to hand him off to the doctors. But even with all that, he still charmed all the nurses. They kept saying they might have to steal him and take him home because he is so cute. We are glad to have this over with and are really hoping it makes a big difference. Thanks for all your thoughts and prayers!

Surgery

As many of you know, Joshua's ear infections have been back with a vengeance this winter. So tomorrow morning he is getting tubes put in his ears. I know it's a relatively simple and low-risk procedure, but I am still a little nervous about it. Although, it will definitely be nice to not have him sick all the time. We are also hoping it will help with his speech, since he is not talking quite as much or as clearly as he should be. I am also not looking forward to him having to fast - he can't eat or drink anything after bedtime. He really likes to eat and the first thing he does when he wakes up in the morning is tell us he wants to eat. Luckily his surgery is first thing in the morning and we won't have to deal with a hungry, cranky boy for too long! Please pray for him - that the surgery will go well and that this will prevent any more ear infections - and I'll let you know how it goes.

Reading!

Jordan has learned how to read! We have been working a little bit over the past few months with him on his sounds and decoding words (figuring out what sounds are at the beginning, middle, and end of words). I knew he was getting really good at it, but I didn't realize how good until the other day. I overheard Madison asking him how to spell simple words - cat, dog, etc. - and he was able to easily spell them! So I pulled out a few easy reader books and with just a little help he was able to read them! Now all he wants to do is read. This morning he actually read some books to Josh - so much fun!