Hippotherapy

Our friends daughter has recently started doing hippotherapy, what an amazing opportunity for her and we are all anxiously awaiting to see results.

I had never heard of hippotherapy (another link) until her mom told me about it and I felt like this newer version of therapy needed a light shined upon it. It is used for occupational therapy, speech therapy, as well as physical therapy. There are locations across the country and the trained licensed therapists are amazing individuals with a true talent and blessing from the Lord.

Here is an excerpt from AHA's website: Equine movement provides multidimensional movement, which is variable, rhythmic and repetitive. The horse provides a dynamic base of support, making it an excellent tool for increasing trunk strength and control, balance, building overall postural strength and endurance, addressing weight bearing, and. motor planning. Equine movement offers well-modulated sensory input to vestibular, proprioceptive, tactile and visual channels.

Most centers have waiting lists because the research has been so promising on hippotherapy and there is such a need for more therapists.

The girls and I have been asked if we wanted to watch a session and we are so excited to see this amazing and invaulable resource in action!

More travels

Yes, seriously we have been gone again! If you think your sick of reading about us being gone just know we are sick or all the laundry that needs to get done when we come home!

We traveled "home" for a friends wedding that hubby was blessed to be a part of on Thursday. Then we spent the next 48 hours doing wedding events but it was fantastic! The rehearsal dinner was a hoot as it had a Texas theme centered around it (I will try to post pictures later today) with bbq, potato salad, beans, and peach cobbler of course! My husband is the shy, quiet and reserved groomsmen but he was put in charge of the evenings "festivities" that went off without a hitch. The wedding was beautiful and I adored the brides wedding gown. They had done something I have never seen before at a wedding...after they lit the unity candle the wedding party as well as the family gathered around them and prayed for them before they were introduced as a couple. I was moved, though something/anything about weddings moves me! On a side note I would just like to add how great my hubby looked in a tux!

Though our weekend was PACKED full of wedding events we were blessed with a few moments to catch up with our friends who moved back home. In addition to seeing them we were triple blessed by being able to see them, siblings, parents and grandparents for a great BBQ cookout. That was so great for us and hubs and I both agreed that it was a HUGE blessing to us to be able to truly reconnect with them. We are trying to convince them to come visit us here. :)

Another fantastic event was being able to stay with hubbies parents. They too recently moved back "home" and they ironically moved back into the same house that my husband lived in during high school! He loved being back in their house and he said he really felt "at home" which was great to see. And on top of all of this, we were able to attend church where we got married. Being the big cheese that I am, I asked my sister in law to take our picture so I can have a "then" and "now" she was a good sport but hubs thought I was a dork.

It was nice, yet crazy being able to drive around the city seeing how everything has changed yet hasn't changed. We really want to go back again soon and hopefully now with hubbies new job we will be able to visit much more frequently.

Dilema Solved

well kind of. Thanks to everyone who gave me their input on this. I had it all planned out in my head how I would solve this...if everything went according to plan this was how it was all going to go down:

I would volunteer to take Blake to story time and then somewhere else fun afterwards, so mom could have a break. When I would get to her house,I would mention that we had an extra one at our house if her mom needed it for her car for when she had the grandparents. Depending on what she would say we would go from there.

How did it really go down?

I went to pick him up, I asked her for her booster seat for him (because I had forgotten mine)....she informed me he "really didn't need one." My jaw dropped and I must have looked horrified because she said "oh calm down I will get you mine." Again I was speechless and didn't say anything close to what I thought I was going to say, but I left feeling that regardless car seat safety maybe was not necessarily #1 in their book. I am left with praying, and God can move mountains!!!

On a lighter note, he was HILARIOUS!! We are used to girly girls around our house, and Blake informed me of pokemon, star wars, and all kinds of other things we are not typically exposed too!!! He told me he LOVESSSS the lieberry and that they are the funniest places to go to. I asked him if we could run an errand or too and he happily obliged. When we got to said store, he asked why we couldn't use the "drive thru", my sides hurt when I was done laughing!!

Gestational Diabetes

My friend met with her doctor and got the skinny on what she can/not have. It looks like we have to avoid carbohydrates and pump her full of protein. There is not enough research out about splenda yet so the doctor didn't feel comfortable having her use it in her food or drinks so we will skip that.

Hubs has a friend who has been diabetic his whole life so we emailed him and he was a fantastic help!

We are no longer going to be doing a full menu now because she doesn't want us to have food only for her or have to be jealous of others. Instead I found a bakery that does regular cakes as well as diabetic cakes so we will be getting cupcakes from them. In addition we will also have water, decaf sugar free tea, peanuts, cheese (I was told not wine cheese) and crackers, and maybe a few other small items. This way she isn't tempted by unnecessary things and she is thrilled with the changes.

I learned that if she eats cheese after having something with a bit of sugar in it, the cheese will help breakdown the sweet (which I find useful even for myself).

Thank you ladies for all of your help I hope it all goes smoothly!

Super Bowl XLII of 2008

The Super Bowl is a huge and major production in our house, we either have always had a party or have gone to one. This year it happened to be our year to host one. Paper supplies had been purchased, drinks had been chilled, and everyone who was coming was supposed to be bringing an assigned dish, everything was smooth sailing until I got the flu. Hubs declared on Thursday that we really needed to cancel the party because no one elses needed to get sick. I agreed so emails were sent out as well as phone calls.

Sunday morning hubs went to church with baby while Claire and I stayed home and rested a bit more. While having a lazy Sunday afternoon, hubs decided we did at least have to have pizza for dinner in order to maintain some sense of football fever. Did you know that if you order from Dominos before the rush starts they will GUARANTEE your delivery? It is the cooloest thing, we called at 2:10 and asked that our pizza be delivered at 5:30 and they said it was guranteed. At 5:29 I was standing in our front room waiting for the pizza man, when I noticed a familiar face pulling into the driveway....I was perplexed and went and got hubby who laughed. It turned out they didn't check their email!!! They felt terrible for coming but we really didn't mind so we insisted that they stay and have dinner with us.

The adults had great fellowship and the kids had a blast painting, luckily I have been planning on painting the kitchen so this is now giving me a push to hurry it along.

This years super bowl wasn't what we had expected but it was better than expected and we are thrilled that they came!

****Dominos called at 5:30 and apologized for being late and he said he would be there in five minutes and it took him about 3 minutes. We told him not to worry because we really were not sure how this guarantee thing would work anyways. We do not usually do Dominos but after such terrific service yesterday we will be using them more often and especially on special event days.****