September 3rd, 2018- The Labor Day Update

Another summer has come and gone!  We are in the full swing of a new school year (3 weeks down, 33 to go!) so we must take some time on this labor day to recount Ally's summer adventures.

Ally and I ended our school year in May and said goodbye to both our schools.  The boys finished in early June so we enjoyed some time just the two of us, having playdates and visiting playgrounds.  After the boys were out of school, we joined the pool for the summer and spent many happy hours swimming and playing together.  Of course we also did swim lessons in June and July, which Ally-fish enjoyed and aced!  This was the first year I haven't had to get into the pool for swim lessons with any of the kids- hard to believe!  We also had a bit more 'just girls' time at the end of June while the boys went to a half day camp at a local church- Ally wasn't old enough to attend.  We also did our usual library time- Ally is now my only child young enough for story time, and she quite enjoyed the ones we were able to make!  Our local library has many programs for kids in the summer, all free.  One that we took advantage of was a local theatre company traveled to many libraries and put on 'Frog and Toad' for free!  The boys have been to many plays with me at the children's theatre but this was Ally's first play and she LOVED it!  It was a great production and as a result this fall when I purchase season tickets for the three children's theatre shows, I will be including one for her as well.

 Solo at the playground!

At the pool!

We went on several trips this summer.  The first was to visit my parents while Granny was up visiting from Florida in June.  We had a great week with them, and Mom even took all the girls to tea one day!  She found a tea shop about 45 minutes from her home and treated us all to a tea time lunch.  It was SO much fun, we all dressed up and picked out hats at the shop.  Ally wore a Cinderella dress Mom had bought for her and found a tiara among the hats.  While all the big girls ate tea sandwiches and snacks with a pot of tea we had each picked out (hot cinnamon tea...mmmmmm) Ally got a 'wee tea' with chicken nuggets, smiley fries, strawberries, and a bagel bite, with a tea pot full of lemonade!  She was so well behaved and we all had a great time!

 Princess Ally!

 With her 'tea'

 Her super cute tea pot!!!

Just look at that pinky!

In July we took a trip to the Outer Banks with my family.  We shared one big house and went to the beach and played in the private pool.  We played mini golf, had a few meals out on the town, and drove to the Cape Hatteras lighthouse.  Unfortunately Ally wasn't tall enough to go up the lighthouse (crazy, they had a height restriction and she BARELY missed it) but at least we got to see it up close so it was interesting.  We really appreciate these trips that my parents work hard to provide for us every few years.

 At the Cape Hatteras lighthouse- tallest in North America!

 She's been learning to write her name- she's still having trouble with the 'y'.  

We went to Jeanette's Pier to fish.  Ally lasted about 5 minutes...

A few days later we went to Pawley's Island for a long weekend with Russell's family.  We never went to the beach but we spent some time in the nice pool right next door and got to go to an indoor fun zone when the weather wouldn't quite cooperate.  The kids had such a good time visiting with all their family and we really appreciated our family coming together to provide this family trip as well.

While I went back to school for work week, the kids stayed with my parents alone for about a week.  They got spoiled with trips to the children's museum, trampoline park, and many lunches out (plus, iPads for everyone at once!).  This was Ally's first time away without Mommy and Daddy (in the past it had just been the boys who got to go) but she loved her time with Nanny and Gramps and had a lot of fun. 

School started the next week, and Ally was so excited to go to school with her brothers, and ride the bus with them too!  She got to meet her teacher a few days before and explore her classroom, and we got to give the Dandy-Walker/hydrocephalus/low muscle tone what-to-watch-for talk.  But it has been fine and she loves school as we knew she would.

First day of Pre-K!

Ally had her yearly neurosurgery appointment in July.  We saw a new resident and he has said we don't have to come back for regular appointments anymore!  We just need to bring her in if there are concerns we need addressed.  We are soooo thankful for the continued blessing of a properly working shunt- June was four years from her original surgery and counting.

Some shots from our family photo shoot on July 4th.  All credit of Beth Preston at Rebel photography 

The fall looks to be fun and eventful- Ally starts ballet and tap lessons this week, and started back to AWANA Cubbies as well.  We will be having many fall adventures together as a family, which we will update on by the end of 2018!!  Thanks for your continued interest and prayers for our Ally girl!

May 23rd, 2018- The Bittersweet Changes

Another May, another post.  So much to update!

Ally had a great fourth birthday and a super fun party.  The day of her birthday we actually had some really crazy wind that brought down a lot of trees and signs outdoors- so much that I had school cancelled for the day!  We sent Ally to school anyway though because she was bringing Krispy Kreme donuts to share with her class for her birthday treat.  That evening we went to McDonald's for her birthday dinner- mostly to play in the play place.

Ally's party was the next day.  My parents and brother and his family came in Friday night.  The next day Ally's brothers and cousins and a few friends from church went to a local skate center where they have a large indoor play place.  They got to play a long time, ate pizza and birthday brownies.  She and everyone there had a great time and all my kids slept REALLY well that night!

Ally got to do swim lessons again at school.  She LOVES the water and would always give me a glowing report about what she did at lessons ("I went all the way under water Mommy!").  We are looking forward to swim lessons again this summer for all 3 kids.

The boys started baseball again a few weeks ago.  Ally was a bit distraught that she was not on a t-ball team too- she has been going to ball games since she was a baby so she's ready to get in on the fun.  While she actually could have played this season we decided that it would be best to wait until next year to start t-ball.  Ben started at her age and he would get very impatient and didn't really seem to enjoy it all the time.  She also told me in the car the other day on the way home from school that she wanted to do dance, so we will be looking into that for the fall too.

Ally finished her first year at Cubbies!  She had a great year and learned a lot of verses and Bible stories.  She finished her book and got her book award.  We are so proud of her and she was excited to get her award- but sad that Cubbies is over for the summer.

Besides swimming lessons, we have lots of fun things planned for the summer.  We will be spending a week at the beach with my family and a long weekend at the beach with Russell's family.  We will also spend a week at my parent's home when my grandmother comes up to visit from Florida.  While we are at home we will be visiting the pool, playgrounds and creeks, and having playdates with friends.  We are all excited for another lazy, fun-filled summer.

We are excited to announce the biggest change, which affects Ally and I the most.  I have finally, after many attempts, gotten a job in the school district where we live!  Instead of traveling 30ish minutes one way, it will be somewhere between 5 and 10 minutes!  Since I will no longer be at my current school, not only do I have to say goodbye to my friends at work, Ally will have to say goodbye to her friends and teachers at her school.  We have loved the Land of Wonder and we are sorry she can't finish out preschool there, but Ally is excited to attend a new school next year- which will be the boys' elementary school, where she will attend Kindergarten in the fall of 2019!  They hold pre-k spots for children of teachers in the district, and thankfully their school still had openings this late!  She will get to ride the bus with the boys and we will all be on the same schedule.  This is truly God's timing; everything has really come together with the the school I will be teaching in being one of the closest to home (our district has 5 high schools) but not the one our kids will attend (not sure if I want to teach in the school they will be going to at the same time), the schedule changing to one very similar to my old district (Ally and I get a normal summer- the boys get a shortened summer) and having a spot in pre-k for Ally with the boys.  God has truly blessed us and we are so SO grateful for his provision.

May is another Dandy-Walker Awareness month- so wear some gray for our Ally girl this month!  Ally does not have to have an MRI this summer (yay!) so just a check-up at neurosurgery in July and she is getting larger inserts for her shoes to replace the ones she is quickly outgrowing.  We'll update again at the end of the summer with all the fun times and any news we find.

January 18th, 2018- The Un-exciting Update

Snow days are always a sign that I need to update the blog!  

One fine fall day...

In October we took our yearly family trip to the pumpkin patch.  The kids enjoyed seeing the animals, playing in the corn crib, eating apple cider donuts, and taking the hayride to the corn maze.  They also all shot either the corn or pumpkin cannons!  Once we got out of the maze they got to slide, swing, and ride the barrel train.  Then we picked our pumpkins (they had some white ones this year, which was neat) and headed back.  They also grew beautiful fields of sunflowers, so we took some pictures there too!  We always have a good time there each year.

Corn cannon!  She would only shoot it once, even though she got 2 shots, so Daddy took the other one.

We had a great holiday season!  It all started with Halloween.  We went to the consignment store and found costumes for all the kids again.  Ally was a Care Bear- Cheer Bear to be exact!  This was absolutely the cutest costume, and she loved it!  Care Bears are not her favorite thing anymore- she hasn't watched the show in quite some time- but she loved how fuzzy it was and she was sooooo cute in it!

It even has the heart on the butt like the stuffed animals do!

She had her Halloween party at school, where she went trunk-or-treating with her class and then we ate goodies and got to go on a hayride.  Then we came home, ate, and went over to Papa & Grandma's house to go trick-or-treating in their neighborhood.  When they are done we head back to their house and they are allowed to eat as much as they want out of their treat bags.  They had a great time together!

This year we were a Care Bear, a ninja turtle, and a werewolf!

Daddy found this at Wal-Mart and got it to surprise her on Halloween.  Ally loved having a matching costume with him!

At Christmas time, Ally's class and school worked hard on their program for their party.  They all made and wore Christmas-y headdresses and sung Christmas songs, then we ate goodies.  She had so much fun and did a great job!  She also got to sing Away in a Manger with her classmates from the 2s and 3s Sunday School class in front of the church during service.  She loves being in front of people!

Christmas itself was a lot of fun.  Ally was obviously a very good girl, because she got gobs of gifts.  Of course, there was the usual clothes and candy and trinkets, but she also got 2 baby dolls, a pink power ranger costume, an Ariel costume, a Belle doll, a Unicorn Surprise, a Calico Critters doll house and restaurant with accessories, a tricycle (that can be pushed by a parent- it 'grows' with the child), and probably other stuff I'm forgetting. 

Christmas Eve- going to church and PJs afterwards.

Her Ariel shoes.  She didn't put on the dress in the excitement of opening gifts.

More gifts- baby doll and doll house

Medically there has not been much going on (thankfully).  She has not had any doctors appointments except for a routine dental cleaning about a week ago (which she did great and there were no problems).  She now only has to go to neurosurgery once a year (so that will be this summer) and her checkups are near her birthday in March.  We did go back to the orthotics place to check on her inserts and whether she had outgrown them.  Since it had been about a year since she got them they thought it might be time for new ones but these are actually still going strong.  I think its in part because I refused to cut them and we just got a bigger shoe for her to wear with them.  We will be back in April to see if she needs bigger ones then.

Ally did give us a scare in the fall (can't remember exactly when it was).  Her school actually called me and left me a message, (which I didn't get until after I picked her up- when I'm at school my phone stays on airplane mode) and when I went to get her she was in the director's office because they were so concerned.  They said she was on the playground playing and all of a sudden just burst into tears.  They couldn't figure out why- there were not any kids right there with her that moment to have hit her and she didn't fall or anything like that.  She just cried and was grabbing her head saying her head hurt.  Well of course they know all about her shunt so they took her temperature and called me and brought her inside.  She was playing happily when I picked her up.  It made me feel good to know that they were taking these things seriously and letting us know if something unusual was going on.  We kept an eye on her for a while after that, but nothing really happened except that occasionally she would say that her head was hurting- sometimes she would mention the shunt, but I still don't think she really knows what's going on with it.  Since she had no other symptoms and it was very occasional we did not take her anywhere.  I have a theory about what might have happened that day (and maybe some of the other times too).  My in-laws met a man at their church who has a shunt, and he told them that sometimes he can feel it working- meaning he can feel the pressure easing when the valve releases excess fluid.  I think that's what Ally felt- it may have been an uncomfortable and unpleasant sensation and made her cry.  She's had this shunt for 3 and a half years now, so I'd imagine she's felt this before many times, but that's the only explanation I've been able to come up with.

So for now, that's pretty much it!  Not too exciting, but that's okay- we don't want exciting on THIS blog!  We do have a lot of exciting things coming up soon, including a certain little girl's FOURTH birthday (how is that possible???).  We've already booked her party plans and she's super excited about it, and disappointed she can't invite ALL her friends.  So if all goes well, next time we update we'll have birthday news and predictions for summer plans.  Thanks for keeping up with our girl!