Celebrating Grandma

Tomorrow is my mom's birthday,

so today we {my sister and I} took her on an outing with the little girls...

to paint pottery!

 

We chose a nice big platter for her to use at all of our family gatherings.

 



 

First we painted on the base coat, a light tan color that covered the whole dish.

Us mommies made sure that the entire dish was painted before we moved on,

this was the not-so-fun part for the little girls.

 

 

Then we let the little girls freehand paint with a light green and light blue color...



Once the plate was full of color and mostly dry we put each little girls handprint on...

 

And we finished it off with some personalization,

this was the most nerve-wracking  part...



 But the finished product turned out perfect,

and Grandma loved it !!

 

It was an adventure, and a bit challenging with 3 of the 4 girls not really being "in to it".

I bet you can guess which girl loved it the most.

 

After our arts and crafts session it was time for dinner and cake...

 4 out of 4 girls were in to that !

 

Happy Birthday Grandma !!

Audra's health update

Audra has been struggling with not feeling quite herself for a while now.

Really, ever since she got sick on vacation in August.

She just hasn't gotten back to "herself".

She has been sent home from school many times for low grade fevers.

And generally she just seems tired and sluggish.

She isn't using the few words that she usually does,

and she isn't her happy, smiley, hyper self.

 

She hasn't had any symptoms to help guide us to what might be bothering her

and her limited language really impacts her ability to tell us what is wrong.

She is such a little mystery.

 

We have talked with many of her specialists and done some non-invasive testing to try to determine the problem. 

All we know is that her bloodwork shows signs of infection/inflammation but where is the big question ?!

 

So we came up with a plan...

Audra was scheduled to have dental work done under anesthesia so her GI doctor decided to scope her too.  And today was the big day.

 

Here she is in pre-op this morning with her faithful hospital buddy Pink-Flamingo-Bunny.

 This is their 13th trip to the OR together in Audra's 3 1/2 years at home.

 

Audra had an eventful afternoon in the OR...

sweet girl needed to have FIVE teeth extracted due to "crowding".

She had some adult teeth coming in but none of her baby teeth were even loose yet. 

So now she is missing six total including the one she lost on her own last month.

The top two and bottom four teeth are gone,

she is a toothless wonder.

Will certainly make for easy slurping of noodles !!

And as if that wasn't enough,

the dentist also took care of a few cavities and a crown.

This princess has more crowns than she needs

{in her mouth that is, not on her precious head!}

 

The scope went well also, but no real answer was found.

It showed her usual friable tissue with a tendency to bleed.  But no lurking signs of infection/inflammation...or worse.

So now we wait for the biopsy results to come back next week.

Once we finally got home after our long day,
Maura was super sweet and wanted to comfort and take care of Audra.
Her little face is so swollen...



but she still managed to give me a {toothless} smile for the camera :)

  

More Fall Fun

In the last few days before Halloween we crammed in a bunch of fun activities...

Pumpkin Carving

Maura was determined to actually carve a pumpkin this year...

last year we ended up spray painting and applying sticker faces to our pumpkin since daddy was away until the day before Halloween.

She picked the design and helped apply it,

but I did the actual carving.

Thankfully, she cleaned out all the "guts",

I really really don't like that part!

 



Her finished pumpkins...

she was so proud!

School Halloween Parades

Maura and Audra go to different elementary schools and both schools always have the Halloween parade on the same day :(

I usually make it to Maura's, since I'm worried Audra will be distracted if she sees me there.

 

Whenever I'm at a school event for Maura, she is always connected at the hip to her BFF!

So almost all of her "school pics" include Tori :)

 

Audra's aide sent me this picture of her,

ready for the parade...

{haha...YES, Audra and Maura's friend have the same costume!!}

 

 Little Girls Halloween Party

I had a "little kid" Halloween party just about every year since Riley was a baby.
I thought we were done after last year....
but Maura insisted she wanted a party,
so we threw one together last minute.
Luckily I have a bin full of Halloween party "things" in the basement,
so we used leftover stuff from multiple previous years parties.

We had snacks, decorated mini pumpkins,

made spooky necklaces, played Halloween Bingo, and pinned the face on the jack-o-lantern.

 



My girlies...

 

Cousins Whitney and Charlotte

 

Cousins Teagan and Tatum

 

The whole party crew...

Halloween Day

 The girls dressed all festive for school today

 

 

Trick or Treating

The girls were Shopkins this year...

 Maura = "Delish Donut"

Audra = "Poppy Corn"

We went trick-or-treating in the same neighborhood we went to last year....
since our lonely little street isn't any fun for trick-or-treaters.
This particular neighborhood REALLY gets into the Halloween spirit!
Most of the homeowners set up in their driveway with candy and so much more...
there were fire pits, music, movie screens, and FOOD:
The best houses had hotdogs on a rolling warmer,
fresh popped popcorn,
soft pretzels
and beverages!
We ended the night at the "haunted house".  They had pop-up tents set up across their front yard and each tent was a "spooky room".  The kids worked their way thorough the maze of tents and came out smiling :)
 

Sorting and counting their loot...

 

 Trick-or-treating sure is tiring !!



Pumpkin Patch

Fall is finally here and we couldn't wait to go to our favorite Fall Festival/Pumpkin Patch.

The girls and I met Uncle Tim, Aunt Dawn, Charlotte and Whitney there.

It was actually quite warm,

but at least it wasn't muddy!

 

 

Getting "lost" in the corn maze...



Taking a hayride out to pick pumpkins...

 

My perfect little pumpkins :)

 

 

Triple Birthday Party

Audra doesn't quite understand the concept of a birthday party.

 

Charlotte wanted to wait to celebrate her birthday once her new sister was home.

 

Whitney had never had a celebration of her birthday.

 

Sounds like the perfect reason for a Triple Birthday Party!

 

Well, really I don't need much of an excuse to have a party,

I absolutely love throwing parties!!

 

So we celebrated all three of the China beauties in our families at one time.

We are so blessed!

 

Audra turned 9 in September

 

Charlotte turned 9 in August

 

Whitney turned 6 in July

 

I had fun with the multi-color polka dot theme.

 The candy bar...

 

Cake time!

Each girl HAD to have her own cake,

so we had plenty of cake,

that lasted for days after the party!

Birthday girl Audra

 

Birthday cousin Charlotte

New birthday cousin Whitney

  

We had a such a great time with so many wonderful family and friends who showered these three sweet girls with love and presents!

 

Audra was one worn out little girl after all the guests left

Something's missing

I woke Audra up this morning,

and was extra meticulous about getting her dressed and ready for school,

because today is Picture Day!

 

And then, just a few minutes before her bus arrived

I noticed something was missing...

 

Her TOOTH!!

 

She had lost her first tooth!

Where it went we'll never know.

 

So then I had to rush and grab a few sweet pics of my toothless girl before sending her off to school.

 

And her school photos ended up turning out great too!