My Favorites

Took pictures in the backyard today. Here are my favorites...

Cleft Team

Had our cleft team visit today. I fret it for weeks...Eric just rolls his eyes at me, but tries to tell me everything will be okay. He's a good man.

I don't know what it is...afraid they'll find something to cut up, pull out, stuff in or therapy dump on???? So now everyone reading this is rolling their eyes at me! ;) But some of you get it! Surely?!

It hasn't been a full year since the last time we saw them, but there was some drama the past year, as I remember it! So understandable. Actually, it has been eight months, 28 days, 1 hour and 2 minutes.

I'm teasing! ;)

Well Zane did great, I did great, Eric did super, as always...annoying. ;) They thought Zane was a tank (He put down enough snacks in front of them to prove it!), his lip scar has healed 'beautifully', he blew them away in speech, and no problems in psych (with me either!), OT or nutrition. Nutrition?! Come on, do they know me?! ;)

Only bummer was the hearing test - not exactly passing. But we knew going in, it wouldn't be his strong suite. But here are the facts, he's progressing in all areas with no delays, his speech is excellent and improving and he DOES have allergies. So everyone is watching and waiting while we pursue some allergy testing to see if it might relieve this fluid that's keeping his ears from performing at their best.

We were first on the schedule and in and out within two hours. Besides ear follow-up and allergy testing this summer, we won't see the team for another year (WOOOOOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOO!), isn't that nice? :)

It was an awesome morning - all praise, glory and honor to Him, The Great Physician, who loves and cares for our Zane deeper and wider than we can possibly imagine. Thank you Father! Love you Zane-O-Boy!

It's Friday But Sunday's Coming!

Because we know HE LIVES, we had some fun celebrating in anticipation of Easter! We 'hit' hunts at two large churches just down the road from us. There were 1000s of eggs, crafts, animals, free food and candy, candy, candy.

Elle remembered the sweets from the year before, so she was just a little excited.

She cruised the fields and scored! :)

Zane took his time -- he wasn't sure why all the fuss over colored plastic things. He figured it out!

He also thought the big, white bunny was awesome -- Elle kept her distance.

What a fun family day!

Good Friday

Our Bible verse focus leading up to Easter was "For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.” Luke 19:10

More than in years prior, Elle is grasping a deeper understanding of God's love to us through His son, Jesus. What a sacrifice Jesus made to give us eternal life in heaven with our Father. Watching this knowledge unfold in your child's heart is JOY!

One way we focused our hearts, on this best time of year, was using the resurrection egg devotional. Oh how they looked forward to our evenings, discovering the next hours in Jesus' journey to the cross. They were somber and full of questions. This year, the crown of thorns and nails He bore for us deeply pained Elle. The story was brought even more to life at our church's Good Friday prayer walk. Each station had focused scripture and prayer regarding the last days and hours before our Savior was laid in the grave. Eric read and prayed with Elle at each station, but at the cross she was too burdened to kneel before it with Eric and literally pound in a nail. She quietly watched.... But at the final station, the tomb, she asked to pray and thanked God for Jesus and that He is alive. She hasn't stopped talking about Jesus' sacrifice...as it should be, all year long.

In celebration of our new life, found only in Jesus, we participated in Rent-a-Chick. My sister's family has a coop of them and was flabbergasted that we actually paid for this experience. Ha! It was good fun though and made for a memorable Easter happening.

So this is how it went down... we picked up two yellow and fluffy baby chicks from our nearby friendly farmer. Along with the chicks, they sent us home with a box, bedding, feed, water and food dispensers -- and then we experienced....

Funny story...on our drive home, we all had to go potty, BADLY! When we all had successfully made it on the convenience store potty, Elle shouted out, "HOSANNA!" ...just living The Word! ;)

The chicks were completely adorable and Elle was such a good 'mommy', cleaning their box, feeding them, replenishing their water and holding them until they fell asleep. Zane, not so much. I had to nearly force him to 'enjoy' this adventure and he just wouldn't have anything to do with it. Well, this lasted for five days and then those baby chicks just got ugly, smelly and not so yellow and fluffy. Eew, yuck! :( I'm thinking, a week would have been plenty of adventure for this city family.

My sister is still speechless. She informed me that I could have bought them for much less.

Me: "But what would I do with them when we're done?!"
My (compassionate) sister: "Kill them."

Uh.....yeah, right! ...we live in two different worlds!

And oh, cousin Titus also experienced Rent-a-Chick to his joy as well! ;)

Word Explosion

About two months ago, Zane had a word explosion. He has been doing well with his sounds and communication for some time and we have been very pleased. Then at 28 months, all these words started popping out and he stopped using sign language. Everything he needed was communicated with a verbal word. I tried to keep track of each new word to report to the speech therapist who seemed quite impressed. Then a couple of weeks ago, I stopped keeping record because he can repeat any word you throw at him. It's not always pronounced perfectly, but when he's challenged, he corrects himself by repeating it several times until he hears that it matches our sound - it's amazing! Now he's rattling off short sentences! Keeping it real, we probably understand him better than anyone, but he's communicating to others as well and they're hearing it too.


The other day while driving, I yelled out, 'RAILROAD TRACKS!' Zane shouted back, "PICK UP YOUR FEET!" He's even saying things that we didn't overtly teach him. We go to Target, but not regularly and rarely do I announce that we're 'going to Target' or 'we're at Target'. We just go to the store. Anyway, we were driving by Target and Zane says, "Mommy, look, Target!" Under my breath, I said, "Oh my word!" And he yelled back with drama, "OOOOH MYYYY WOOOOORD!"

He can also spot the famous coffee logo from a mile away and say "Starbucks" too. I wonder how he knows that??? ;) Another favorite of his to spot and yell out is "Taco Bell". Truly, he has never eaten there. So go figure?


He loves singing -- The ABC Song, all the scripture songs from Hide ‘Em In Your Heart, various Bible songs and the Veggie Tales theme song (now his favorite video to watch). "Mommy, Bob and Larry, TV, please?"

Being cleft affected, we (including the speech therapist) are blown away. His sounds are great and his determination to correct sounds leaves us speechless. So one can imagine our surprise when he recently failed his hearing test - WHAT?! We've been to a couple of doctors since and we're just more confused. With several more doctor appointments ahead of us and then a cleft team meeting in a month, hopefully we'll have this figured out. I'm anxious - just want 'them' to say that 'everything's great'!

We have seen some great improvement in his swallowing which could be contributing to his ear problems. It's hard to explain, but he has an interesting wallow-swallow that he used in China. We believe it was a survival technique so he wouldn't drown when they left him flat on his back to manage formula spewing down his throat through a pea-size hole in his bottle's nipple. Of course he doesn't need to wallow-swallow anymore, but it's just a bad habit that he's capitalized on in order to prolong good food - like cookies, ice scream or anything he enjoys or doesn't want to be done with. We often remind him, "Zane, stop wallowing, swallow."


Zane gets a lot of food coming out of his nose, which we have contributed to his fistula and alveolar (gum ridge) opening, but now we're thinking that it's more likely that the wallowing is pushing the food above the palate and out his nose, as well as into his eustachian tubes, causing the ear problems. So we have really stepped up training and addressing his bad swallowing habit (to his horror!) and the food coming out of his nose has GREATLY decreased. Now we're praying that it will also have a positive result on his ears as well. The next weeks will be telling, so we pray for healing, that Zane stops wallowing and ditches this bad habit for good. He's a smart boy and he knows exactly what he needs to stop doing -- he only does it now when he's being stubborn. What? Zane, stubborn? Uh, yeah! :)

Also with his sweet voice, he tells us, "I love you." "Sorry, Mama." "Night, night, Dada." Ahhh, does a mama's heart good to hear such victory!

There's one more thing that I'm hesitant to write about, but it completely blew us away. We'll have to do some more experimenting, but the other day I was reading a simple reader to him and after finishing one page he pointed to a word on the page and said it! ?? So I read another page and then asked him to point out a specific word and he did. He got the next four out of five words correct. Hmmm....maybe beginner's luck. He does like being read to. He'll sit for loooong books, and book after book after book.

Elle is an excellent and patient teacher too. Zane wouldn't be doing as well with his speech if it wasn't for her!

I know, I seem giddy, maybe over-the-top, but speech challenges aren't new around here. So victories are like mountain top experiences. And speaking of mountains, Elle conquered a huge one just before Christmas on what we call, The Best Day Ever. Read all about it here.

The Best Day Ever

Speech has been a tremendous challenge for Elle. We've had professional testing and countless hours with speech therapists and the results have been far from encouraging. But our dear, sweet Elle perseveres and tries and tries and tries, and is tremendously patient as she takes in instruction, coaching, and correction every day. We try to keep it positive and fun, but it's tough. We celebrate over every victory, no matter how small, but there have been really low points in this journey. She has also come to the realization that others don't always understand her tremendous efforts to communicate and sometimes their dismissal or lack of patience pierces her heart. It breaks ours.

It is an uphill climb for Elle, but we are so proud of her and humbled by how God has used this challenge to shape her heart in a way that might have been more difficult any other way. Her desire to be right with God, us and others is an example to us every day. Her innocence, sensitivity and kindness is dear.

One significant challenge for her has been guttural sounds. Whew.... One speech therapist (not to mention all our therapy at home) tried to get the 'k/c' sound out of her for an entire year, but to no avail. So we had been working and working on this. For example, 'key' is 'tea' and 'go' is 'do'. Substituting every 'k/c' sound for a 't' and every 'g' sound for a 'd' can really hinder successful communication.

Well, Elle had the best day ever on Saturday, December 18, 2010. It was a stellar day for us too! We were in Branson for pre-Christmas celebration at S D C. Elle was super excited as S D C is currently her most favorite place on earth. We had just spent the night at a hotel, woke that morning to a huge breakfast with waffles, played at the pool and soaked in a hot tub. After drying up, we were just minutes from heading out when Elle's elastic lace broke on her tennis shoe. Those things are hard to jerry-rig. Eric tried, but it was hurting her. The shoes were getting worn anyway and she certainly couldn't walk in them all day, so we headed to the outlet mall to buy a new pair of tennis shoes before heading to The City. Shopping with Mama and new shoes; things were getting very exciting for her...hotel, waffles, pool, S D C - WOW!

Elle had recently been noticing the different types of vehicles on the road. She had been pointing out SVU's and asking "Is that a fat tar?" So she started asking this as we crept down The Strip on our way to the mall. We answered as we had been for the past several weeks...

Us: "Cars aren't fat, they're big. Remember to use the 'c' sound for 'car'. Try car."

Elle: "Tar"

Us: No, that was a 't' sound, but good try. We'll keep practicing.

We were nearing the mall and she had been silent for a few minutes and then she said...

Elle: "Is that a faaaaat Caaaaaaar?"

Me: ELLE! (Turning around and SCREAMING) YOU SAID IT! YOU SAID CAR! YOU SAID THE 'C' SOUND! ELLE - GREAT JOB - YOU DID IT! (Still SCREAMING) WOOHOOOOOOO!

And she knew she did it! The smile on her face was priceless - we will never forget it. I don't know how Eric stayed on the road, he was 'screaming' too!

Elle: Car, car, car!

Us: Yes, yes - you got it! You can say the 'c' sound, Elle!

Eric: We have to celebrate!!!

And right then, we came to the intersection of a Krispy Kreme donut shop! So we pulled in, Elle smiling ear to ear, saying 'car, car, car' and Zane just thrilled that he was going to eat again. We have never taken the kids to Krispy Kreme and they've probably had one other donut in their lives - LOL! So this was BIG!!!!!! We had the place to ourselves and three glass cases of donuts to choose from.

Eric: Donuts for everyone! Elle, choose whatever donut you want!


So that was Elle's best day ever...hotel, waffles, pool, hot tub, the 'k/c' sound, new tennis shoes (and they were hot!) and S D C with unlimited rides on F*re In The Hole! Does it get better than that?! :)


About a week passed and then the 'g' sound came. We were just heading out the door when she ‘nailed’ it. A few minutes later we were filling up at a gas station and I pulled some change together to get her a yummy drink in celebration. The machine ate my money. I told the elderly attendant that my coins were gobbled up and why we were celebrating – LOL! He got them back for me and discovered the drink was out, so he gave Elle a bag of M&M's that he wouldn’t let me pay for. He was proud of her too!

Every day since she has been retraining her mind to produce the 'k/c' and 'g' sound for all the words she has been saying incorrectly. She's still in process, but never gives up and her victory is SWEEEEEEET!

We love you Elle and are so very proud of you - you are perfect in every way!


Never take your eyes off the boy...always keeping us on our toes...

Potty Training

Potty training...eek! With uncertainty, we put a plan in motion and pushed through the steps of preparation to begin potty training Zane last Monday.

The week before, we intentionally talked about it non-stop. We held demos, with all family members participating and a few days before official training began, Zane opened a gift box with his new potty chair and a potty book. He seemed excited, so we felt encouraged to proceed. With a star chart and a chocolate chip reward system, Zane was eager to begin.




Day 1: When Monday arrived, we threw away the diapers, rolled up the rugs, stripped him down, and started the adventure commando with a potty chair in the middle of the living room while we disassembled Christmas 2010. He began spot on and did it six times over! I was beginning to think he'd trained himself, but then we added underwear and the second half of the day didn't go as well. He seemed to equate the underwear with diapers.


Day 2: We had an appointment that I had forgotten about that couldn't be missed. We broke my rules and used a pull-up while we were out. Three hours later we were home and back in underwear. The rest of the day was awful, not one success. Nothing like potty training to make one's world feel disastrous!



Day 3: Decided the underwear was too confusing and went back to commando style. We got an eye-full all day and Daddy was worried he might hurt 'something', but it didn't inhibit his toddler world. He was awesome! I think there were just a few misses the whole day.

Waving bye-bye pee and running for a chocolate!

Day 4: Continued the commando strategy and had one disaster on top of the dining room table...don't ask! That evening we took him out in underwear to run errands...very scary! He didn't go when we tried at the home store or the restaurant, but on the way home he told us that he had to go, so we pulled into a fast food joint and he held it till we got to the toilet. Very exciting!

Day 5 & 6: Reintroduced all day underwear and had just one accident each day.

Haven't had an accident since and I'm thinking this was way too easy!


Naps and night were an entirely different story - mess after mess after mess, yuck!!!! I was really trying for the no diaper, no pull-up, go all out, underwear immersion strategy. I got up several times a night to take him to the potty, but after five nights of urine everywhere, my complete exhaustion and some reading, I decided that right now he isn't physically capable of holding it while he sleeps and especially all night. And since he's still in a crib, even if he woke up to go, he can't get to the potty. It just makes sense to not sweat it, enjoy Zane's success and diaper free days. So, we're celebrating - woohoo!!

S D C

We recently returned from a three day trip and finished our first season as pass holders at S*lver Dollar C*ty. What a blast we've had at Branson this year!

Too cold for camping, so a hotel with pool and hot tub this time around. Every morning, after a big breakfast, Elle splashed in the cool waters with Dada while Zane and I soaked in the bubbles. Zane knows exactly what he likes. Ten seconds in the pool and he was signing 'all done' and pointing to the hot tub. The next day I asked him if he wanted to go in the big pool and he said, 'Nooooooooo', and signed 'hot'. Works out great for me -- my preference as well! He is a boy after my own heart! Elle on the other hand had to be dragged from the fun pool to the boring tub. :) She loves having fun with Dada - very sweet.

The City was so beautiful! Lights covering every square inch - awing! The Christmas tree was magnificent.

Nativities throughout. CHRISTmas music heard everywhere. The story of Jesus' birth proclaimed.


Parades, light shows and all the regular fun too.

Elle, with her hands up in the air, in the very last car with Dada.

When we first saw the middle square, with the impressive Christmas tree that was light-timed to music each evening, I got choked up. When I turned to see Elle's face, her eyes were full of water. That was a great moment. Later, I was moved by the telling of the Christmas story by the old man on the train ride - he was so sincere and there was a sense that he was honored to share God's Truth. And again, while the Christmas tree lights danced to music, I was overwhelmed by The One we celebrate this season.


Every day since Elle rode SDC's F*re *n The Hole in September, she has asked about riding it again. Not a day has passed in three months that she hasn't mentioned it being her favorite ride. As expected, this was definitely the highlight once again for her.


Zane really enjoyed The City's ambiance and didn't cry on the Frogger this time. But his favorite moment was while we sat in front row seats at the 20 minute Living Nativity performance. We were just feet away from the side stage where Mary, Joseph and a POOPING donkey appeared. Zane thought the pooping was AWESOME!! He kept signing 'potty' and laughed out loud.


Actually, we all laughed because we were so close to the actors we could see them stifling laughs and gagging for air while they knelt down in poop to worship baby Jesus. We have an Advent book that we read every night. Since our return from The City, we can't get past the page with the donkey without Zane mentioning donkey poop.

We also worshiped on Sunday morning at The City. Elle even went up front and sang in the choir. She was a pro, as the night before she went up on stage during the "Frosty" play. Here she is, in the middle wearing the purple hat...


Speaking of frosty, it was cold, but we planned our wear well and stayed plenty warm. The fresh, hot cinnamon bread also helped and became a daily must-have -- I feel a tradition coming on!

We had a lot of fun being together and taking in the celebration of Jesus, our Lord and Savior!