We Love Our Fire Department!!

Earlier this week, our fire department did a "family fun" night to educate the kids (and community at large) about the services of the fire department. The kids learned about stop, drop, and roll (and cover your face! This is a new addition since I was a kid learning about fire safety!) They learned about gun safety, got tattoos, climbed around the fire truck and ambulances, and, Gabriel's personal favorite, got to spray the hoses on the truck. Thanks to Maple Park Fire Department for such a great night for the kids!!

Working the fire hose!


Fire Chief Bits!


Resting his weary bones; it's hard work being a firefighter!


Checking out the truck


And a bonus picture, completely unrelated to the night...our first green pepper!!

We Made It!

I've worked nearly 30 hours in the last three and a half days, which, I mean, really isn't a LOT of hours BUT when one hasn't worked outside the home in nearly 2 years, ten hour days really whoop your butt. This morning I was on my own making donuts; the donut machine affectionately referred to as "Lucy" is a two year old. Child. Yes, the donut machine is a two year old child; temperamental with a mind of her own but basically good. ha ha.

The kids seem to be adjusting fine to me being out of the house; granted, most mornings they haven't even been awake when I get home (I work the four a.m. to nine a.m. shift) but training at the library has been a bit harder; they know where I am but can't just come "hang" out with momma. Gabe, of course, is used to me working, SarahAnne, however is not. She seems to need a whole lot of extra cuddles lately, but that's alright, cuddles are a good thing.

We did a tie dye event with the library today; I have a fabulous picture of THIRTY tie dyed shirts to post a little later on, as well as pictures from "Night Out With the Fire Department" that Geo and the kids participated in earlier this week. I swear, small towns have the *best* summer going ons, it definitely makes up for the boring winters :)

xoxo to all :) Hope you are doing well

Momma's Going Back to Work!!

I've been at home with the kiddos for two years now, with the exception of 5 months where I worked third shift (never again) As of today, however, I'm officially going back to work. Our local gas station needs a donut maker 10 hours a week and I could use a paycheck for 10 hours a week, a perfect fit! Ha ha

Sooooo, I thought I'd share my new employee id picture with all of you...

In Full Swing!

It's *one* day before the summer equinox and Mother Nature finally got a clue :) We went out and bought the kiddos (and our garden) a sprinkler...it was nearly 90 degrees with the humidity today and the sprinkler was a big hit!

*crash*

We are in the middle of storm season here in corn country Illinois and today we had a humdinger. Bits and I were out doing some grocery shopping and got caught in the downpour; I was literally dripping by the time I got to the car. Geo and Gabe, however, we are home and apparently the thunder was so bad that Gabe was under the covers! Gabriel, Mr. Storm Chaser in training, was scared out of his mind! Poor thing. As soon as we got home he had to give me the play-by-play of the storm "and there were crashes and they said BOOOM and then there was lightning and it was windy and man was I scared mom and so was dad" Then he paused to take a breath and continued on "Boni cat was afraid of the storm and his eyes were big and dad jumped when there was a crash and i was under the blanket" aaaand, there we have it folks, a thunderstorm as described by a five year old :)

FINALLY!!

We finally have a beautiful day in June! Not too hot, not too windy, not too rainy; just right ;)

We all slept in this morning (whoops!) and decided when we got up to have a leisurely breakfast and head to the local forest preserve Johnson's Mound and enjoy the weather.

And enjoy we did!! The boys played football for a bit, then we decided to walk the road up and around the "mound" as we do most times we go to there. Everyone climbed into the car tired and sweaty, and ready for a bottle of water. We snapped a few pictures (of course!) and came home. Geo's working on the lawn mower, with a little long distance help via his brother in Michigan, the kiddos are watching "Lady and the Tramp" and I'm procrastinating cleaning the kitchen. All in all a wonderful summery Sunday morning!

Hope you're all doing well and enjoying the beautiful weather!

How about a few new pics??

What are you doing?

If you ask SarahAnne this question, more often than not she answers "no" Up until about a week ago, neither Geo or I had ANY clue what that meant. Geo was out in the garage with SarahAnne and asked her "What're you doing Bitsy girl??" She immediately answered, in a sing songy voice "noooo daddy" when it suddenly hit him that she must mean NOTHING when she says no. He asked "are you doing nothing Bits?" she grinned and said "yup, doing no!" Duh mom and dad ;)

Finally after almost a week of rain and cool weather, we were able to get out to the park today. The park we go to has sand instead of grass so we were all able to kick off our shoes and play in the sand by ourselves this morning. After well over an hour of romping around, both kiddos had had enough of the park and got into the car without complaint. We came home and had some lunch and they are now watching "lady and the tramp" and enjoying it thoroughly.

George has his first weekend off in six weeks starting in less than an hour, we are ALL looking forward to it, even if we do have thunderstorms forecasted, at least we'll all be together, right?! Plus our friends Laurie and Thomas are coming to barbecue with us and watch "Benjamin Button" tomorrow afternoon. Good friends, good food, good movie-what else could you ask for?!

Enjoy your weekend everyone :)

*ding ding* round two...

Is over :) Gabe had his second cast taken off yesterday with AWESOME results. He is at 20 degrees of motion (absolutely normal range for a five year old!) He had no skin breakdowns or blistering, thank God. He spent most of the day yesterday playing with his new bat and batting tee...and reading his fan mail. Thank you to all of you who've been so sweet and sent him a post card/letter/what have you. He's absolutely LOVED getting mail for the last few days. You've all really brightened his days!

The next step is the consult with his regular ortho for botox...and if he won't do it, we have a back up doctor in place who WILL do it...will keep everyone posted.

Hope you have a wonderful weekend, thanks for all of the well wishes in the past few weeks :)

the good, the bad, and the ugly

Good news...Gabe's skin was *perfect* when his cast was taken off, absolutely perfect. The therapist was quite pleased when she took it off and saw that he looked great.

Bad news...We have four more days of casting, which isn't *too* bad, but bad enough

The ugly news...Gabe fought the entire time we were at the office. It started from the minute we walked in to the therapy room until right before we left. I had to physically restrain him while his cast was being cut off; something he normally loves and then it took TWO of us to hold him down while his therapist was starting the second cast. I was shocked, actually, at his behavior; he's so mild mannered and while he's not an angel all the time, he generally has no issue with casting. He screamed and hollered and kicked and slapped today. It was horrible. Physically casting doesn't bother him, however it seems that psychologically it is taking its' toll. Perfect strangers commenting on his casted leg certainly do not help the situation either...

If you'd all keep Gabe in your prayers, that would be wonderful...and if anyone wants to cheer him up a bit, he LOVES mail. loves loves loves it! He thinks postcards are fabulous, actually. If you'd like to send him something please email me for our address :)
chrissiwit@gmail.com

Thanks for all of your kind words, good thoughts, and prayers for Gabriel and his continued journey with the day to day dealings with Spina Bifida...we appreciate it more than you'll ever know.