From four eyes to one eye...

As most of you know, we have been taking Sawyer to see Dr. Sabastian Troia for a while now to figure out what to do about his eyes. His left one crosses into his nose quite a bit especially when he is tired. So, he wore glasses for six weeks to see if that would help but it didn't. We felt that it almost made it worse. Our next step was to patch his good eye so that it would allow the crossing eye to strengthen and hopefully straighten out. He has worn the patch REALLY well for the past four weeks!

His first day of wearing it to Day Care, I had this whole little speech to tell the kids about how it was helping Sawyer and not to make fun of him..yara...yara..yara....well that speech went to waste because NONE OF THE KIDS NOTICED!!! Seriously? His friends are three and four years old-They should be noticing Sawyer has a huge sticker on his face and only one eye! But nothing. It was insane! About a week later, they were sitting watching a movie and his little friend Dane just turns to Sawyer out of the blue and goes, "What's on your face?" and Sawyer said, "It's a patch." Dane replies., "Oh." And there you have it! :)

Most people that we see think that he's injured it or something so they are always asking what he did to his eye and he is very quick to tell them, "I wear this patch so that my other eye will get stronger." I think he actually enjoys wearing it a bit!

The four weeks of patching is over and no real improvement has happened so we are headed back to Dr. Troia's office today. Please pray that God would help us decide on the next best avenue to take. We are hoping that there are a few other options to try before having to do surgery, but whatever it takes, we'll do it!

Parent Perks

Having my own child care business has been the absolute best decision so far! There is nothing more fulfilling and rewarding than being able to stay home with Sawyer before Kindergarten. I'm so blessed to be able to spend so much time with him! But the business end of it never lets your mind rest. I'm constantly thinking about licensing, certifications, training hours, unannounced government visits ect. The biggest mind racer is, "How can I out perform the other Day Cares in the area and keep my clients faithful business?"

One thing that I started last week was what I like to call, "Parent Perks". Every once in a while I would like to do things that let my clients know how much I truly appreciate their business, my time with their children and just a perk for being a parent at MY Child Care!

The other morning was our first Parent Perk~breakfast on the go. I made a sour cream coffee cake, fruit salad and some juices for them to munch on during their drive to work! The first of many more Parent Perks to come :)

The Renaissance Fair

Was my last post really Easter?!? Sweet Lord I'm behind! "Better late than never!" says all the procrastinators around the world. A few weeks ago we went to a Renaissance Fair a little ways out of town with Nana Kathy. The weather was just starting to be nice and warm and the smell of roasted turkey legs hung in the air!

The gleam in Sawyer's eye as he locked me up was a little too menacing for comfort!

There were quite a few side shows that went on all day and the first one we hit was the never-ending-embarrassingly-bad-belly-dancing show.....that's fifteen minutes of my life I'll never get back.

I tried my hand at some bow and arrows....not my calling but at least I didn't injure anyone.

We made it just in time for the Jousting Tournament! It was Sir Arthur vs. Judas the Rebel. We ended up sitting with the Judas crowd and had a sinking feeling that this was going to be a landslide. Sir Arthur always wins! It felt a little sacrilegious sitting in the stands the weekend after Easter, chanting, "Judas! Judas! Judas!" It was actually VERY well done! Middle age men standing on top of their horses and jumping off on top of each other was a lot more entertaining than I thought it was going to be! And wouldn't you believe it that Judas WON! Hail to the Rebels!

Afterwards we went up to meet the victor and his trusty steed.

Of course we had to make a stop at the Homemade Root Beer stand. The root beer and cream soda was served in these awesome glass jugs!

Bottoms up!

Bill spent the day chugging out of his boot leg whiskey jug and Sawyer just whacked everything he saw with his wooden sword. Good times.

In the forest blowing bubbles.

We made clay pots, ground wheat into flour, threw knives, shopped for handmade jewelry, and I made some rope! You never know when you might need to know how to make some good rope :)

Being there for the day was just CAPTIVATING! (Oh yes I did just say that!)

It was a fun-filled spring day to spend with Nana Kathy*

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter Everyone!

I know this was like over a week ago, but just getting around to posting now....busy busy! Well, we had a last minute change to our plans for the Easter weekend. Bill's cousin Travis came to spend the night with us on Wednesday, before his early morning flight out to Hawaii for their cousin Rick's wedding. Yep, you guessed it....at 11:15 p.m. Bill decides to buy a last minute ticket and leave the next morning with Travis for Hawaii! We found a great deal for a flight and car rental, did some laundry, packed a bag and they were off at the crack of dawn! Bill had an absolutely wonderful time with his cousins, eating, hiking, swimming, cliff diving, going to a luau and soaking up the Hawaiian sun!

Sawyer and I missed him a bunch! We met Bill's family at church on Sunday for the Easter service and then headed back to his parent's house for lunch! Aunt Terry came up from Lincoln for the day and Steve's Mom and Dad were also there.

Aunt Terry and Nana Kathy joining in the iconic 'Sawyer pose'.

Sawyer felt that he needed to go dig out his rain boots for the Easter egg hunt.....

Sawyer and Nana Kathy

Kathy had us all join in remembering the Easter story by doing some Christian Easter Eggs~each one had a little token representing a portion of the story (crown of thorns, linen cloth, wooden cross.....)

Then it was out to the back yard for the easter egg hunt! A few years ago Kathy started including gift cards and raffle tickets for prizes inside the eggs to make it more of an exciting hunt for the rest of us.

Papa Steve had a pile of dirt in the drive way from a recent project that of course Sawyer had to climb on! (Notice his shoe came off of his foot on his way up the dirt pile, but did that stop him? Never!)

When I noticed that Sawyer had found enough eggs that his basket was overflowing and he had moved on to storing the eggs in his hood, I decided this was the last year that I needed to leave eggs behind for him to find....he does just fine on his own! Greedy little thing..... :)

We had a great afternoon of fabulous food, wonderful company, gorgeous weather and the JOY that comes with the resurrection of our Lord!

Let's Dye Some Eggs

Last Friday the kids dyed Easter eggs....and dyed most of their finger tips too. We had quite a few chats about being gentle with the eggs. When kids this age get excited about things, their tendency is to squeeze them, stroke them, hug them and bring them over to show me every two seconds. So in other words, manhandle them. We only had a handful of casualties!

It was hard getting the kids to keep the eggs in the dye long enough to get some color because they kept wanting 'check on them' all the time :)

We had a wonderful colorful morning of indulging into the frivolous side of Easter! The kids and I have been talking about Jesus dying on the cross for our sins, being in the tomb for three days and rising from the dead for a couple of weeks and I really am impressed with how much detail they remember! A few random bits that they always like to blurt out while we are going through the story are: "Jesus wore a crown of thorns, VERY prickly!.....the earth trembled......the women were weeping!" It's really cute :)

Our Chocolate Eggs

Sawyer's Easter box from Nana Jane arrived a few days ago! The other day when they were talking on the itouch (AWESOME way to keep in 'touch'!), she had mentioned to him that she had sent a box to him and that it would be arriving shortly. Shortly couldn't come quickly enough. It seemed like every other sentence out of his mouth for the past week and a half was, "Is Nana Jane's box here yet?!" I nearly jumped for joy when the UPS guy walked up the drive way.

We wasted no time in ripping right into it!

We each got a Brazilian Easter Egg (large chocolate eggs filled with candy) and Sawyer got a few sticker books and activity books! Now we have even more candy to add to our Halloween/Easter stash. Wonderful.

Thanks So much Nana Jane!

Pizza Night for Two

Last weekend Daddy was hanging out with some of his friends, so Sawyer and I thought it would be a grand idea to make pizza and watch a movie! So, we gathered everything we were going to need and got right to work.

We made some homemade pizza sauce with tons of garlic. You can never have too much garlic. We made some spicy hamburger with red pepper flakes and you guessed it, more garlic! Sawyer took his job of 'spreader' very seriously. He was very meticulous about making sure everything was evenly spread. In other words, it took forever! We topped it off with peppers, onions and three different kinds of cheese! How was it? So good! If Sawyer wanted to open up his own pizzaria, that would be fine with me!!

We had a wonderful evening together watching "Home Alone" and eating pizza. It was awesome*