handsful

Me and my six, after church today…

Okay, quit goofing off and smile.

That’s it.

Us big girls.

Still sane after all these kids.  Most days.

Love from my family – cute new shoes – hoping for a frozen yogurt treat later.  Great day!

supplies:  hot ball, empty cup, cup of cold milk

hold hot ball in mouth until you can’t stand it anymore.  Drop ball in empty cup.

take a big gulp of milk.  Repeat.  :)

Our big kids are involved in a wonderful organization called Leadership Link.  The two homeschooling women who began this group desired to help build up the homeschoolers in our community by teaching them to be Godly leaders.  Part of that comes from the service projects that LL puts on each year.

Yesterday, was Guinness for Ghana – a day of games (centered around the Guinness Book of world records theme), a Ghanian market full of foods and crafts to purchase, a dance/drama presentation, and crafts for the little ones.  It was an awesome time, and all for an amazing ministry called The Fathers House – a home built by the Garrett family for 8 boys (so far!) who have been rescued from a life of slave labor in Ghana, Africa.  Read more about this at www.fathershouseghana.com

I didn’t take many pictures, I was too busy trying to chase after Dylan!  Lainey and Dylan were too young for the Guinness games, but they had fun crafts for the 5 and under group.  A local ice cream shop donated ice cream buckets and the kids turned them into African drums.

Both boys on the far right, doing a traditional drum routine….their leader is in the center, using an actual african drum.

the dancers behind them…Abbey is in the red shirt.

They did a great job…Abbey was smiling the whole time.

Dylan enjoying one of our purchases….ALL the proceeds from everything sold went directly to The Father’s House.  Members of Leadership Link made crafts, foods, etc to sell.  Even our local Chic-fil-a donated all of his profits!

Yes, all 6 kids are in the picture.  I can only find 5 of them though!

A closer shot of the one I couldn’t find!  Can’t wait to find out how much was raised for these boys in Ghana!  God calls us to serve and help those less fortunate, and Leadership Link is a wonderful way to get our kids OUT there doing God’s work.

The docs at Shriners told us to TRY and keep Dylan from putting much weight on the end of his short leg.

I just can’t call it a stump, I know it’s perfectly acceptable to call it that, I’m just not there yet….I guess we should come up with a cute  name for it.  Our friend’s daughter calls hers “Nemo”.  Get it?  He had a short fin.  Anyway…

Dylan isn’t exactly “walking” on it yet, other than when he walks up / down stairs.  When scooting on the floor, he kinda drags it behind him.  Truthfully, he acts like it’s not there…he’s just as fast as he was before the cast.

Today, I noticed that he camo print in one spot on the end looks like it’s fading.  I assume that’s because it’s getting rubbed off by the friction of it against carpet, etc.  So, we came up with a solution.

Tube sock to the rescue.  Wonder how many of those we’ll go through, trying to save the cast?

Tonight, on our ride home from the mall, it occurred to me that today is our FIVE month Gotcha-versary with Dylan :)

Obviously the big news this month is Dylan’s surgery is BEHIND US.  Yippee!  And, let me tell you, it’s acting as if nothing happened.  Cast?  No big deal.  Pain?  Only a teensy bit around bedtime.

Mobility?  He’s back up to speed, which I’m thinking the doctors would be frowning about.  He was scooting on his bottom, but now he crawling with his long leg behind him and the cast dragging right along.  They don’t want him putting direct pressure on it, and technically he’s not.  But, I’m afraid he’s going to drag a hole in it!  I want to find something I can put on the end (cut off end of a tube sock??) that will take the friction and I can replace if needed.

Dealing with this cast is SO much easier than his last one was.  Maybe because we’ve BTDT?  Also, this cast is smaller (not as fat around his waist, and obviously shorter than the other one).  So, his pants fit better.  And, I had an idea to cut the side seam of  his unders (1 size larger than usual) and use velcro strips to close it around the cast.  Problem…I don’t sew.  So, Gram came to the rescue and made 3 pairs for us to use.  Since he’s potty trained, I wanted him to be able to wear unders and not a pull-up (which he does wear to bed).  They work perfectly!

What else is new….

his favorite new word is “why”.  He asks it constantly.  I’ll answer one why question, and he quickly follows up with…”why mommy?”

loves waffles, noodles, pizza, and bananas.  Isn’t so fond of yogurt anymore.

wears his sister’s plastic necklaces whenever he gets the chance.

is crazy about getting haircuts.

What’s NOT new?  Still weighs 27lbs.  Well, according to the hospital, 27.15lbs.  Hey, he’s gaining, right??

Dylan, you’re such a joy.  Sweet, goofy, melt our hearts kinda kid.  Happy 5 months!!

Excuse the goofy shot.  He was being…well, goofy.  We had to bring his car seat up to the room to make sure his cast fit.  No problem there.

The doctors made their rounds EARLY.  7:10am to be exact.  He was given the green light to go home, so we spent the morning having breakfast and packing up.

He got his cast “tricked out” before we left.  They padded the edges with mole skin and then he chose a camo wrap.  He’s in very little pain, and is already scooting around on his bottom a little.

We are amazed that, less than 24hrs from his surgery, we were on the way home.  Our experiences at both the R McD house and Shriners in Greenville, SC could not have been any better…the staff, doctors, everyone was so caring.  We feel very comfortable there already.  Good thing, since we’ll be spending a good deal of time there off and on for a lot of years!

I think I may make Dylan a paper chain, so he can see how much time there is until he gets his cast off.  I need something to help him visualize these steps to getting his “new leg”.   We’re thankful that this particular step is behind him :)

Morning of surgery, snuggling with his panda pillow (thanks, Sandi, he LOVES it…)

While Randy feeds Dylan his dinner, I’m sitting in a lovely, open area with an indoor waterfall behind me, catching everyone up on Dylan’s day.

Surgery was scheduled for 10:45, so we arrived at 9am.  Dylan was in good spirits, until we put his gown on him.  He got kinda quiet at that point, wondering what was going on.  We could still make him laugh, though.

He took us loopy medicine, but only got wobbly.  No funny stories to tell…rats.  As a reward for taking the medicine (which we’ve heard tastes just yucky), the nurse wheeled in this huge wagon and told him to choose a toy.  It looked like Christmas in that wagon!  He chose a doctor kit, that he’s already gotten a lot of use out of.  He gave every nurse and doctor that came in a shot!

The time came to wheel him away.  Randy said a prayer over him, I kissed his little foot, and off he went.  I managed to hold my tears in.

We were told it would take 1 1/2 hours, so we went to the waiting room and then grabbed lunch from the cafeteria and brought it back.  Only about 40min into it, the surgeon walks in.  Huh?  It was a breeze, no complications, easy-peasy.   We were thrilled to hear that he’d done so well.

feeding him ice chips

He’s been awake all day, transitioning from ice chips to juice to crackers and now to dinner.  He’s literally eating and drinking as much as we give him.  And, wearing out the portable urinal.  Maybe this will push him over the 27lb mark?  Yes, that’s STILL what he weighed yesterday at his pre-op appt.

We’re told that, if he continues to do well, he’ll be discharged tomorrow.  Great news!  He’s beginning to have some pain in his leg, but they’re giving him medicine.  After dinner, he gets to leave the bed and we’ll pull him around in the wagon.

* added next day…after our walk, he decided to hang out in the wagon and watch a movie.  Looks like a great set-up, huh?