November 26, 2007 - Hodge Podge Update

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving, celebrated at my sister's house with her family, my mom, all three of my brothers, several nieces and nephews and spouses and a great niece (pictured)....and of course, my husband and two sons. I lost count of how many people were there but I think it was somewhere around 18 or 20. It was definitely the largest family crowd that our two sons have seen yet and they seem to have handled it well. They had a great time playing with their big cousin Trent (also pictured). I brought lots and lots of toys and books to keep them busy but they spent more time playing with the toys my niece brought for her little girl. All in all, everyone had a great time, we had wonderful food and it was so nice to see the family again.













These three pictures were taken when I was making Mississippi Mud, the day before Thanksgiving. The chocolate is from the icing and the white stuff is marshmellow creme. The boys now have a new appreciation for baking.
























Here is one of the fun activities from the Mommy Teach Me book that I did with the boys today. They really liked it a lot. The trays are plastic and the pitchers are glass. I showed them how to carefully carry the tray and place it on the table. They both did pretty well.  I showed them how to be careful with the pitchers and how to pour the rice slowly, trying to hit the middle of the other pitcher. They were suppose to turn the tray around each time, so they are always pouring from left to right, which also helps preparing to read left to right. They poured it back and forth between the pitchers and into the tray and they picked it up with their fingers. I'm not sure that is exactly how it was suppose to go but the book says the number one thing for this activity is teaching them how to concentrate on a task and I think they did that pretty well. They had fun with it regardless.

I went to a dollar store this weekend to buy a lot of the stuff that I need to do many of the activities in the Mommy Teach Me book. I bought some simple sponges and cut one in half to let them pretend to wash their dishes. They loved that and have cleaned their dishes and pots and pans over and over, in addition to the window, the cabinets, trucks, trains, etc.....you name it, they have tried to clean it. Of course, they were using a dry sponge, so nothing is really clean:). But they had fun and I had fun watching them and telling them what a good job they were doing.

The really disappointing news is that we took Ben back to the plastic surgeon today and his scar is not looking good at all. The surgeon took one look at it and said, with a frown, "this is not acceptable". Apparently, his body reacted to the dissolving type stitches very badly, meaning he is allergic to them. The result is that the scar is wider than it should be. It looks as if it pulled apart before it healed. And you can very clearly see the little holes where the stitches were.

This means that we have to redo the surgery. I almost cried when we were driving away and I had a chance to really digest this. We go back to the plastic surgeon in two months to see how the scar is doing and how much scar tissue is there. We'll continue to pray about this over the next couple of months and I know God will get us through it. I just feel really bad for Ben, that he has to go through this all over again. That's what makes me more sad than anything else.

Other than that, things here are great:)! Overall, we are all healthy, happy, having a great time together and still counting our blessings:).