Littlest Heroes Project

Ruby had a photo session last Saturday,(two days after her second birthday) with ,Christina Esselman, a photographer who donates her time and talent to Inspiration Through Art (formerly The Littlest Heroes Project) . Christina did a terrific job! She was also very sweet and brought Ruby a birthday present,one of the books that Christina gave Ruby is in the photo of Ruby looking at a book.Thank you Christina you are an amazing person!

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Ruby's big brother

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Ruby and Daddy

Blogger was messing up and wouldn't let me remove the duplicate pictures.

Girl with Down syndrome Tap Dancing

More Crawling

I'm so excited about Ruby crawling.After working on it for so long I just thought she probably never would crawl and just go straight to walking.She has been army crawling on her belly for a long time, and has even bear crawled a few steps lately,but one day a couple of weeks ago she just decided she would crawl on hands and knees!
It's just so wonderful to see her getting around everywhere and not scrubbing the floor with her belly.A couple of nights after she started crawling I was sitting in our living room, and Ruby had scooted on her belly into our kitchen and then she got up on her hands and knees to crawl and I just started crying.I was so happy!See Ruby can!!

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Crawling

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Eye check and other updates

My husband and I took Ruby today to see an opthamologist at our local children's hospital ,her eyesight is fine and she wont have to have her eye's checked again until she turns four.Yeah!While she was having her eyes checked she kept saying,"Hi!" to the opthamologist and saying "see it?" at the different lenses and lights the Dr. was using.The Dr's were very good with Ruby.

Ruby has started cruising along our furniture so I'm hoping to see her start trying to walk on her own soon.Although I'm sure as soon as she is walking she will be getting into even more than she does already!  She is really starting to pick up on using more sign language and speaking new words.She's so cute and will sign and say "bath" when I change her diaper,thinking that I'm getting her undressed for a bath.  :) She is saying "bite" when she sees any of us with food and loves to try and eat what we are eating, but usually she just chews on the food for a bit then spits it out because she has difficulty swallowing food with much texture without gagging.

We had a great time on our visit to the Zoo on Memorial day,which I posted pictures from on my Wordless Wednesday.A couple of commenter's from that post asked if Ruby liked the Zoo and I wanted to answer that ,yes, Ruby was very good at the zoo even though it was an extremely hot day.My husband and I were exhausted by the end of the day and my husband spent $22.00  and a 20 minute wait,just so we could all ride the train back to the front of the zoo, so we wouldn't have to walk all that way to leave.
Ruby enjoyed all the animals and would wave and say ,"Hi!" to them and she also made growling sounds at them.
While we were there I noticed an older couple and their grown children , one of the young women had Down syndrome.I didn't say anything to them and just observed how sweetly the family members all were to this young woman.I saw them several times while we were walking through the zoo,then while we were sitting down to rest, near the giraffes,this same family came over to look at the giraffes and the mother,who was in a wheelchair,noticed Ruby sitting  in her stroller."Look," she said to her daughter who had Ds,that little girl is just like you! At first it didn't appear that the daughter noticed Ruby but then after her mother started asking me questions about Ruby she turned and looked at her and her face just looked so sweet and she said,"Look! She like me ,she like me! I just wanted to hug her! We found out her name was Juliette and she was 39 years old,she looked great by the way ,her mother told me that Ruby would return much love back to us as long as we showed much love to her and that she would be a great blessing to our family.She also told me the best advice that she could give me was to not let Ruby do things now while she's 2 that I don't want her to do when she is 21.I don't know why I didn't think to take a picture of Ruby and Juliette together.I could just kick myself.sigh.Their hair was even the same color!

Thank you for all the well wishes to my son Grady on his college acceptance!

College

I found out today that my son Grady was accepted into the college that he wants to go to!He is going for a graphic arts major.Grady I'm so proud of you!

Wordless Wednesday-The Zoo

Don't laugh at me.

Wordless Wednesday

Sunday Verse

Lord,let me do the little things
Which may fall to my lot;
Those little inconspicuous ones
By others oft forgot.

If,like the Master,I can give
Myself for those I love,
Rich joy and peace shall come to me,
Sweet rest in heaven above,

I know not when the day shall close;
But when life's curfew rings,
I want my Lord to find me then
Still doing little things. - Unknown


She hath done what she could. (Mark 14:8)

Summer Vacation

Summer Vacation: Time For Fun and Time to Plan  by Kathie Snow

What We Owe

What We Owe Children : Revolutionary Common Sense     Kathie Snow

A Thank You Gift

Ruby's Occupational Therapist is from Australia and all of her family is still there,so she has decided to move back to Australia.She has been a terrific OT and I wanted to give her something to show my appreciation.I decided on this Teacher Assort-"mint" bag  ,I thought it was such a cute idea.I bought a mint colored gift bag, a Thank You card with a mint green envelope ,and assorted mint candies. Instead of printing the poem out I bought a Thank You card and hand wrote  :


Thanks for your commit-"mint" to help me learn.



Thanks for your encourage-"mint" to always do my best.


Thanks for your involve-"mint" in my life.


Thanks for your invest-"mint" of time and energy


to make therapy such a great place to be.


Thanks for making each session an enjoy-"mint".


Thanks for helping to create a nice environ-"mint"


for me to learn and grow.




Everything you have done 


has really “mint” a lot to me!!!


Here is another link with some cute ideas

Reece's Rainbow: An Orphan No More... In Honour of Christyn Joy Patterson

Reece's Rainbow: An Orphan No More... In Honour of Christyn Joy Patterson

Ruby

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Article on Developmental Age

Interesting article on developmental age vs.chronological age by Kathie Snow: Here

Love

Sometimes late at night when I'm trying to get Ruby to sleep and I'm rocking her and she is gently touching my face and hair I cry because I feel such love for her.

Loren posted about this beautiful love that we have for our children here  on her blog.

Words

Ruby has started saying a lot of new words recently and last night while I played Pat a Cake with her she started saying ,"roll,roll" and doing the arm motions when I got to the roll em up part. I sang Itsy Bitsy Spider with her and she did the arm motions for the rain and the sun.I almost couldn't finish singing it for her because I started tearing up.

Here is a list of words she can say:
Daddy
Hi
Bye Bye, which usually sounds like Bubye
Hi,Daddy
Baby
See
See it
Op for stop
Happy
Bobble for Bottle

I'm so excited about her speech, and she speaks very clearly, which is a good sign to me that she hears well.I just cherish every accomplishment she makes because I know they don't come easily for her.

Ruby is growing and a picture from Mother's Day

I put Ruby on lactose free milk and she has finally started putting on weight and is able to have regular bowel movements.I took her for a check-up with her doctor and her weight is in the 25th percentile on the Down syndrome charts,up from the 10th percentile.Ruby still will not eat enough food for me to quit giving her a bottle.I give her lactose free whole
milk,two tablespoons of infant oatmeal cereal,and vitamins in her bottles.

I have already shared my Mother's Day picture on Facebook so a lot of you have already seen it
 but I wanted to post it to my blog too.


Please,remember to keep praying for Sweet Ella as she fights Leukemia.

Wordless Wednesday

Please Pray for Sweet Ella

I got to meet Denise and her beautiful daughter Ella last year when Denise came to Texas for a family wedding.Denise just found out last week that her daughter Ella has Luekemia and chemo has already been started.Please,pray for Denise and her family.

Wordless Wednesday

Ruby Entertaining Herself

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Heartbroken

I'm just heartbroken over the loss of beautiful  8 year old Carly.She died on Friday.Please pray for her parents during this unimaginable time.
Michelle over at Big Blueberry Eyes has a wonderful idea to have a portrait of Carly commissioned as a gift to Carly's parents.Please go take a look if you are interested in donating towards this cause. http://mdbeau.blogspot.com/2010/04/doing-something.html