It's nearly Midway through March. Goodness it's been busy! Continued

So then in the first week of January we got our annual first of the year snow storm. Boy did we get a snow storm! We got several feet, and the east coast had a blizzard with upwards of 50 inches of snow! YIKES!

Here's what we had to work with though and while the kids loved playing in it, Rei and I weren't so happy with it since many around our area seem to not shovel their sidewalks, making Mini training really difficult. :(

But YES we did put our child labor to work in shovelling our walks and such- here is AC and MD bundled up with snow shovels and working on the driveway and sidewalks:




MD packing a snowball to fling at her sister:





God's Mysterious ways....

Rei and I had went up to the Roseland Good News Daycare up in south Chicago, on a day mission trip with several other church friends. While up there, Ms. Pearl,the WONDERFUL lady who runs this daycare with all of her heart for the teen moms in the area, had said that she needed bibs really badly. She said that the toddlers were going through the bibs so fast since they didn't have any sort of plastic backing on them and they were pulling them off quickly with no longer having strings on them.

I asked her if she'd like for me to make her some bibs and I could put double snaps on them to keep them on as well as they would be backed with PUL- Poly Urethane Laminated fabric, making them nearly waterproof. She said she'd like that and so I set to work after the first of the year and made up 25 bibs to send up to her.

While finances have been really tight with AC in daycare and needing to pick up the cost for that, I was trying to figure out how I was going to get the rest of the fabric I needed to make the bibs. I had "pretty" flannel fabric to put on the outer part that is seen, but usually I use 2 more layers of flannel on the inside of the bib between the outer layer and the PUL fabric on the back for absorbency. So I didn't have this fabric and quite honestly, wasn't able to go out and buy flannel for this. So I said a prayer about it and mentioned it to Hubby and we went to bed that night.

The next morning, Hubby informs me that somehow- there is a HUGE hole in the flannel sheets that we have on our king sized bed. So I pull the sheets off and it's obvious that it's not repairable. Wouldn't you know it, I have flannel to make this bunch of bibs now. LOL! I just said a prayer of thanks and got right to work.

Here are the bibs that I made for her, 26 of them in all:




A picture of the PUL backing and the double snaps:



So we sent them up to Ms. Pearl and I was elated to receive a note from her that they were the blessing of an answered prayer, that they were big enough for their kiddos, they didn't come off and they kept their babies clothes dry! She has asked me to make more for her over the next year as they are working to expand the daycare to a larger building this fall and I'm soooooo excited to do this for her! Praise the Lord!


Why don't you wear your Genes!



Over the years we have tried to explain to the kids what was causing the loss of vision and hearing and while it's very hard to explain to little ones, we did our best in explaining that I received the genes from both of my parents and by God's will, I received the genes for Usher Syndrome and a mutation occurred, thus I have Usher Syndrome.

So MD and I are talking one say and while I can't remember what got us on the topic, she asked me again why I couldn't see very well. I mentioned again that it was the way I was made by God and while it wasn't easy sometimes, that God has blessed us in many ways with being able to use my deaf blindness for good things. MD got really quiet and I could see that she was thinking intently. After a couple of minutes she looked at me and said, " Mommy, you know, you said your mommy and daddy gave you your genes (jeans), but I don't understand why you don't ever where them!?" LOL!!!!!

So after I was able to re-gain my composure and called Hubby in to help me out, we explained that my genes were not jeans to wear. LOL!


Martin Luther King Day- Trip to the Indianapolis 500 Speedway Hall of Fame Museum:

Hubby was off work for the day so we decided to do a family thing and the kids had never been to the Speedway Museum. As we saw from the auto show and the Children's Museum, they are very intrigued by the Indy race cars, and it doesn't cost much to get into the museum, so we decided to give it a try. The X's went along with us with their little boy, Little N and we had a pretty good time!

The kids enjoyed it as they liked seeing all the different cars and best of all getting to sit in race car too. :)

Hubby, KT, and MD looking over several cars that are in the Indy Legends Wii game that we have:


The girls in front of the trophy:


AC with little N in his stroller in front of the trophy:


A really good picture of the X family. :)


Mr. X and Little N with Tony Stewart's car:


A picture of all the older cars from the early 1900's:


The kids were fascinated with this really old patent car from 1886:



Then the highlight of the day- the Indy car they got to sit in! Daddy and AC in the driver's seat and KT being pit crew changing the right front tire!



The car was so deep that MD and AC had to sit on Daddy's lap to even see over the steering wheel, so here is MD on Daddy's lap and AC on the side panel:


KT was just barely able to see out:


And then here is KT and Little N in the Driver's Seat:


Here is Ms. Rei sitting prettily in front of a trophy, a painting of the race course and in front of several other cars:


Then we took some group photos in front of the car and flags in the center of the museum- here is our family all together:


Hubby, Rei, and I:


All of the kids together:


So we wrapped things up and everyone headed back to our house for lunch and the guys went and picked up food. We all ate and had fun together for the afternoon and it was a fun day!

It's nearly Midway through March. Goodness it's been busy!

I know, I've been BAAAADDDD and not followed up here for several months and behind at that.

Life has been quite a wild roller coaster these last few months. With getting the gerbils, family life, preparing for sponsoring a good friend through Great Banquet, the loss of a child to a church friend, training for the OneAmerica Indy 500 Mini Marathon, and the ongoing fight to be able to use Rei in the marathon.

Wow, where to start...

Guess I'll do a quick run down over the past few months and omit most of the pictures to try to catch up.

After Christmas- Hubby had the week off between Christmas and New Year's Eve. We tried to spend the time doing stuff with the kids and together as a family. We decided to go to the annual auto show to look at what was out there and the kids had fun getting in and out of all the cars and the plan was to do dinner and then go to the Christmas at the Zoo. However as it worked out, we were done with the auto show by 3pm and still had a few hours to kill before it was dark enough to enjoy the zoo, so we took advantage of our Children's Museum membership and went there next and saw the Barbie Exhibit and then had Subway for dinner before heading to the Zoo.

Auto show:

This wasn't meant to be a video but it's the best shot of the kids all hanging out in the VW convertible beetle- KT in the drivers seat, MD up front with her, and AC in the back being ornery and leaning over the side of the care with that mischievous grin.


Daddy and the kids checking out the Indy Race Car on display made so people could sit in it- MD in the driver's seat of this one:


Hubby in his dream car- the Sebring convertible:


Off to the Children's Museum- Fun at the Barbie exhibit

MD on the pink barbie phone at the designer studio, listening to barbie talk to her:


Next up- AC listening to Barbie:


All three kids playing Barbies in the interior of a barbie house in the play area:


After playing in the Barbie area, we went to the Jolly Days area to Santa's cottage and the kids got to pretend play at baking and all kinds of fun stuff.

MD overlooking a pan of muffins she was about to serve to Daddy and I:


And last but not least for the museum, is AC in the race car:


Time quickly passed and it came time for the Museum to close at 5pm, so we made our way up to the top floor to join in the closing parade with the dinosaur to march out in grand procession, however AC was wailing in protest as he didn't want to do this and finally settled down once we got going.

We then went to subway for dinner on the IUPUI campus and headed on over to the Indianapolis Zoo. We started out going around the waters area and the walrus said "Hello" to us by hanging out close to the glass in the viewing area:


The lights throughout the zoo were pretty amazing, with various colors around what seemed to be every tree and light ropes in the shape of all different types of wildlife:



We then went to Santa's village where the kids each got to make noisemakers out of toilet paper tubes and wrapping paper.


And my favorite part was that the kids got to write thank you notes to Santa for their Christmas gifts and put them in the mailbox for Santa- as you see AC putting in his letter here, thanking Santa for the gerbils.



The area that is normally a water sprinkler area in the summer was done up with some amazing lights synced to music, so here is a video of this:



And last but not least, we went over to the White River Gardens atrium where they had it set up with all types of Christmas trees and had a really fun scavenger hunt that the kids absolutely had a blast doing! We had to find various critters throughout the trees and all, plus there were more lights synced to music. :)

Here are the kids and I with Rei leaning against the large center piece rock in the middle of the place.


So of course by this point, it was very late and everyone was TIRED. We all had a great time together, lots of fun, and the kids even said they were ready to go to bed. LOL!


We spent our New Year's Eve over at good friends, John and Karen's place in the company of church friends and everyone ate good, played games and then toasted each other in ringing in the new year.

Then for New Year's Day, several of us regrouped and headed to the Indiana State Fairgrounds to the Pepsi Coliseum and the kids got their first try at ice skating. Rei and I got to sit on the sidelines, taking pictures, watching all the coats & personal effects, and giggling while we didn't take the falls and have the sore rear ends as some did. LOL!

I was very impressed with all of the kids though, they all had a really good time and got quite good at making their way around the rink with the help of the adults. It was quite nice too that having gone as a group, the adults were able to switch off on handling the little ones and skating with them around the rink.

Unfortunately since everyone was moving fairly quickly and the camera had to take pictures through the hockey rink glass, it was hard to get good pictures of everyone, but there are a few.

The H's with their little one in between them:


Hubby with MD and AC:


Karen with Miss J posing through the glass at me:


After about an hour and a half, AC decided he was done for the night and came up to sit with Rei and I, and had fun watching everyone and taking some pictures too. Here he is and Rei in front of him watching what he is doing. :)



Shortly after this, we wrapped things up and headed home, with some tired, but happy kids and another great time together as a family. :)