Amy tagged me.....6 random things about me!

Alright Amy.....This is gonna be hard, but because you specifically tagged me, I will give it my best try! Amy was "tagged" by a fellow blogger/friend to list 6 things about herself that others might not know about her, at the end, she "tagged" me to do the same thing! So I am going to attempt to complete this list! So here's my attempt....

When I was an infant, I had an undeveloped esophagus which caused me to turn purple from attacks I would have due to this condition. One story that stands out in my mind about this, is a time that my grandmother was caring for me and I had an attack and turned all different shades of purple and she had all sorts of scary fears racing through her, but came to admire my mom for what she was dealing with on a daily basis and wondered how she remained so calm.

I used to have rats as pets. Yes, I said RATS!! I loved them, even though I figured out along the way that I was allergic to them....when their paws touched my skin I would break out in itchy red hives. One rat I had died because of a fire that happened in my bedroom when I was in 7th grade, in which I lost everything!! (hey, maybe that could go as one of the six things on this list....maybe?)

So some of you know this.....but when I go shopping, I have to pick whatever item I am buying from the very back of the shelf....it doesn't matter if it's food, a toy, toilet paper...it just doesn't matter, I will pull the objects in front off so I can get the back one and then restock the shelf. It makes things very complicated and I get teased for it, but I must say that I have caused others that have shopped with me to form the same habit. Seriously, it's a problem, ask anyone that has been with me, even my poor kids!!

O.K.....so not a proud fact, but another one none the less. I didn't actually graduate on my graduation day....nor have I ever seen my diploma after getting a verbal that I had completed summer school after my senior year and I would be getting my diploma to show for it in the mail. I never got it, nor did I ever look into where it was. One of those things I still wonder about, it hasn't seemed to keep me back in any way though!

I have a mole on the inside upper eyelid on my right eye, in the corner by my nose! Random oh so random, I know!!! Not sure why it's there, other than thats the way God made me!

I didn't get baptised as an infant. I actually got baptised when I was 22 with my infant daughter, Kelsey! It was a very memorable experience, one I will cherish for the rest of my life!!

Alright, so I did it! I feel a little vulnerable, but thats o.k. I am who I am and proud to be a child of God!! Thanks, I think, Amy, for challenging me a bit here with this post! Since I have a limited amount of "fellow" bloggers the only person I am going to tag is SHANNON! Have at it sista!

EXHAUSTED!

Exhausted is an understatement! This is the result of 5 hours of over stimulation on a two year old. Mama only wishes she could crash like that! Daisy and I had our second week of classes today and then her first session of speech therapy. We leave at 9 a.m. for the class in Bellingham that goes until 12 p.m. The class, thus far has been great for both of us. Daisy and I have a great time interacting together, and it is interesting and fun for me to watch her engage with the other kids. There is a lot to do while we are there. We start off with four or five different choices in crafts that we can do together or we can just play...it's pretty much following her lead and letting her explore and just be her. We then have circle time in which we sing songs that have a lot of actions that go along with them, and then it's snack time for the kiddos. After snack we split off, and half of the adults go to another room where we discuss a given topic each time. Today we kept it short because we had a visit from an instructor that does signing, so she came in and we sang songs using some basic signing. Normally after the "class time", we have clean up time and circle time to sing a good bye song. It has become very clear to me from both my class today and therapy how important it is to involve signing/gesturing in developing speech. I am on information over load right now, so sorry if I ramble.
Daisy then had her therapy appointment at 1 p.m. I enjoyed every aspect of this. I got so much information from the therapist that I am feeling a little overwhelmed, but in a good way. We actually met for about an hour and a half. Normally these sessions are about 50 min. To clear up what I had previously stated in a post about what the diagnosis was with Daisy. I had mentioned that there was a concern with her mouth/tongue function. I may have misunderstood, but this isn't the emphasis. At any rate, we spent most of the time talking about how to effectively parent Daisy and I received an overdose of info.....luckily I understand that change doesn't come over night...but change does have to happen! Well as to not bore you any further, because I can't formulate my thoughts right now, I will offer more info at some other time. Next week on Wednesday we have therapy again at 9 a.m. and then we head down to Seattle for the hearing test at Children's. Looking forward to getting that over with! Continued prayers in this process are still much appreciated! God is so good for giving me these oppurtunities to be enriched by these experiences and to have a chance to be a better parent....what a gift!!!

We did it!!

Trina and I have been talking about getting tattoo's together for a while now. So we finally did it on Saturday. For those of you that don't already know this, I have two tattoo's and each of them represent Kelsey and Madison. My first one I got soon after Kelsey was born and I got a small flower on my right ankle. I then followed suit after Madison was born, and because her middle name is Rose I got a rose put on my left foot. So I had to finish up business with getting a daisy tattoo for well as you know...DAISY!! Trina had designed her own tattoo and it stemmed from a gift someone had given her during her time in Honduras. She also had two other tattoos, so we were both adding our third! It was fun spending the time together, I am not going to say that the actual getting of the tattoo for me was that much fun.....but I will say she made it a lot easier! I nearly murdered her through the process as she had to take the brunt of the pain I was feeling!! I tend to choose locations on my body that involves very little body fat and basically is on bone....so I hurt a little more than she did, I felt like a wimp, but was reminded of how well I did considering where I got the "art"! Thanks Trina for a great day and evening, I love ya and can't wait for the official day you become my sis in law...


Figuring out the perfect spot....




Trina's turn!!

An Update on Daisy....

I thought I would do an update to my previous post about Daisy and her delayed speech. Last Thursday Brian and I took her to The Neurology Center at St. Joseph's. We met with a very nice young lady, Elaina. Elaina did an evaluation of Daisy, she interacted with her through toys and pictures. We were able to be with Daisy and Elaina through the process and found the experience to be very interesting. She uses some sort of scoring technique to see how Daisy measures up to other kids. Based on this score, she determines whether she needs therapy and the score also indicates how often, once a month, twice a week, once a week or at home. It was determined that Daisy should be seen once a week. Elaina, based on the little time she had with Daisy, somewhat concluded that it is possible that she hasn't learned the use of her tongue and getting it to work with her words. So we are in the process of getting the insurance to clear to begin the therapy. The therapy will continue until Elaina sees some progress in Daisy's speech. It was still recommended that I have Daisy's hearing checked as well. So she has an appointment on May 2nd at Children's Hospital for that evaluation. We are going to try this first without sedation and if it isn't successful we will retry with sedation. It was also recommended to me, by Elaina, that I check into a class that Bellingham Technical College offers called Times with Two. It is an interactive class with your child, in which the first half is spent interacting with your child and the last half the adults get together and talk about parenting stuff. So I was lucky and was able to sign up an start the class next week. It is on Thursday's from 9:30-12 for 10 weeks. I am excited to see what can be learned, but mostly to spend that structered time with Daisy! So thats about it....Thanks for taking the time to read this and for caring!
P E E K A B O O




These are pictures I took of her on Easter

Happy 9th Birthday Jake!

We had the joy of celebrating Jake's birthday this week! He turned nine on Wednesday, and we got to celebrate with him and our family on Thursday. I made one of his favorite meals....Ham balls! Jake is such a blessing in our lives, we are so proud of him and are excited to watch him to continue to grow and see what God has planned for his life! We love you Jakey Poag and hope you have many more birthdays to come!


Jake is on a select baseball team this year. He wanted a new bat, so Papa and Grannie from Tennessee got him this one, it's supposedly a pretty "sweet bat" as the boys at turnout all wanted to have a turn with it!



Jake loves to get money....as you can tell by his expressions! His savings account loves it too!




Every 9 year old boy needs a bat bag and a game cube game...right!!?



And LC shorts and cap from Grandma Laurie and Papa Jimmy, with a sleeping bag from the girls for all the sleepovers they beg to have upstairs in Jake's room!


Well this is it for about 8 months...posting the kids' birthdays that is, we will start over again on the last day of December! All 4 kids have birthdays within 4 months of each other...mama's ready for a break!

HAPPY EASTER....a week early!

HAPPY EASTER!! I know, I know, I am a week early, however we do not have the kids next weekend so we celebrated today. We went to church this morning, gave the kids their baskets from us, and then headed out to "the farm" for a scrumptious meal, and an Easter Egg Hunt. We had a lot of fun, it actually did not rain we were grateful for the sun! Along with celebrating Easter, we were blessed to have our grandparents over to celebrate Grandma's birthday! It was nice to spend some time with them and we are thankful for the year's that God has blessed her with and wish her many more! Have fun this week as you prepare for the coming holiday and are reminded of what Christ did for us!