Grace in the tub

My angelface taking a bath. This is my first post made entirely from my cell phone - picture and all! Pretty cool, huh?

Merry Christmas!

It's been a while since I've been able to update. The days following Thanksgiving I had a another MS flare that caused a rapid decline in my health. Kevin liked to describe it as my left side was drunk. I had a lot of left side weakness, walked with a cane, and was too frustrated to do more typing than I had to.

To make a long story short, I'm doing some intense drug, physical and occuptional therapies, and they have really helped. I've recovered a lot of my abilities and am not so reliant on other people. I think the doctors will release me to drive again, and that will take a big burden off the family. I'm hopeful for a full recovery.

I think that I had the best Christmas yet. Grace is at a great age now. I'll post pictures and stories as I get the time. Right now I have to focus on my therapy and Grace. I know many of you have been wondering how I am doing, and I wanted to get word out that I'm improving every day. Keep those prayers coming! They are working!

Sasquatch Sighting

The elusive photo of Kevin. Yes. It's proven that he does indeed exist, despite beliefs that he is merely a legend and rarely seen or photographed.

Thanksgiving 2006

When I was a kid, we just took naps after Thanksgiving dinner?!?

What's with the googly eyes on Grace? That's me . I'm glad I finally have a recent picture of myself that looks decent.

Here's all the kids. L to R Rachel, Angela, Anthony, Kelly and Grace. Poor Anthony. He manages to hang with the girls pretty well.

This is a picture of my sister Val and my cousin's husband Claudio.

Here's my brother Brian and sister Val. Brian and his wife Theresa hosted Thanksgiving this year for the first time. It turned out very nice. They have a nice house.

As a side note, Brian shaved his mustache off on Halloween for the first time in over 10 years - so for those who know him, this is a no doubt a shocking picture!

Bengston's Farm

The first picture is Grace's very first pony ride. That's her cousin Rachel with her. The next picture is Grace and Rachel in the pumpkin patch. Look how Grace adores Rachel! It was really cold that day - look how red the girls' faces were. We couldn't stay and do everything we wanted because we weren't dressed warm enough. Note to self: Next year, wear hats and gloves, even if it seems like a nice day out when you leave home.

October Snow???

Here's a strange sight - Check out my petunias in full bloom covered in snow. This picture was taken in my front yard October 12th, 2006. I put the planter of petunias in the spot where we had a tree and stump removed until we could get something else to grow there.

How to cook a turkey by Grace

Here's Grace's version of how to cook a turkey. Given 11/15/06 to Tammy, her daycare provider. Here were the intsructions: "Write the directions for cooking a turkey. Make a list of ingredients you would need and how much. Include oven temperature and time. "

List of ingredients:
Water maybe
Sugar maybe

Directions:
She puts the nose in and theleg. She puts the turkey in a pan, maybe. She puts milk on it.

Neurologist visit

I saw the neurologist last week Thursday. He showed me my MRI results and there were two new MS lesions on my brain that were pretty big. They were in my occipital lobe, which is the lobe that is involved with your vision. So, the MRI findings correlate perfectly with my symptoms. My doctor wants me to start taking the MS medications again, and I'm going to try to do that. I've had a hard time sticking with them in the past, but I feel like I need to try again. We'll see how it goes.

On a more positive note, I'm back to work this week after being off for two weeks to take steroids for my MS attack. The steroids seem to have helped improved my vision. I don't know if I've had total recovery, but I am not noticing blind spots like I was before! That's a very good thing. Thanks everyone for your prayers and support.

Maybe this is a better picture of her in the dry creek bed. I can't decide which one I like better. You'll have to help me decide. Which one do you like best? This one or the next one? Use the comments to help me pick! Thanks!

Here's another one of my favorites. This was taken in the dry creek bed at Uncle Dale's house. Thanks to Aunt Deena for the total American Girl ensemble - Bitty Baby and all. It makes for a really cute picture, wouldn't you agree?

I just love the faraway look in her eyes here. She looks so grown up. Sometimes I can't believe my eyes when I look at these pictures. There's something in this picture that I don't normally see in her.

Who is the cutest???

Here's one of Grace's 3-year photos. This was taken by her Uncle Dale at his house in Iowa in August. It's nice to have an Uncle who dabbles in photography, isn't it??

TGIF - Grace is in bed!

Took a couple dozen self portraits to try to get one that I liked well enough to post on my profile. It's not easy taking self portraits. Thank goodness for the digital camera.

Which reminds me... I've got a lot to be thankful for.

> My fabulous family - my family had a wonderful evening with my parents, sister & neices. It was raining, but we still sat outside with the kids while they played in Grace's kiddie pool. They thought it was pretty cool to go swimming in the rain. It was pretty cold at the time too, so we filled the pool by connecting the hose to a sink in the garage. Voila. Warm water.

> I am going to my first prep kitchen event tomorrow. I'm really looking forward to that. You go there, pay for a set number of entrees, they have all the recipes and ingredients all prepped and ready for you, you spend 2 hours assembling them and then take it home. They clean it up for you. Can't wait for the variety of food.

> Grace is NOT allergic to nuts. Her pediatrician did a blood test for tree nut allergies and they came back negative. Yay!

> I have a lovely daughter, of whom I'm very proud.

That's it for now. I'll keep working on the blog. It appears I have some issues with the way my pictures are displaying in the layout. Give me some time and I'll figure out how to do this better.

Look out for the Crocs crew

Here we are – the newest group of Croc converts. We do look pretty cool, don’t we? L to R - Me, Grace, my neice Kelly (frontin), Auntie Val and my niece Rachel.

My loving husband

This is a picture of me and my husband Kevin on our wedding day. Let’s see. That was October 2001? Wow. Time flies.

My daughter

Here’s a picture of my daughter Grace from June 2006. She just turned 3. It looks like I need to get her hair cut. Thanks to Manda for this picture.

I'm so excited!

I just had to find a way to share with my dear family and friends all the joys we have. I'm so excited that this might be it! I can't wait to figure out how to get this up and running. Stay tuned.