M.I.A. no more

Is anyone out there?! I am back from the dead! Man, that was a long break. Somehow after dealing with all of the craziness with AVH's therapies I got the flu, AVH had Croop and almost wound up in the hospital twice, AAH started throwing up, and then a few days later CMH followed. I had to come and pick him up from school after he barfed everywhere in the nurse's office after lunch. Ewwww. Fortunately what CMH and AAH had was short lived but it took a good three weeks for me to fully recover.

Here are a few photo highlights from the last several weeks. Although it looks like we have been busy, this is just some serious catching up and the pictures aren't that recent. Sorry. Better late than never.

I think this was the biggest strawberry any of us had ever seen. AAH my fruit lover couldn't wait to dig in.


I had a birthday recently and my thoughtful, sweet husband decided that he would take the boys shopping for a new dress for me. AAH was certain that the dress had to be red and CMH was sure it had to have sequins. As you can imagine they had a hard time finding just the right dress. Until they found this one. It had sleeves, was red, and a little shiny - Dad thought that one might work.

Unfortunatly when I put the dress on it actually fit and was comfortable, so I couldn't return it on the basis of size. I tried to convince them that it was a little too fancy for me to wear to church. And I asked them if they wanted to come and shop with me for a different dress. NO!!!! they said. I couldn't return it! I was stuck (thanks a lot honey). So I did all I could to update it and make it wearable. This is what I ended up with. Fortunately anyone at church who knew about my predicament made sure to compliment me on my new dress in front of the boys, and the people who didn't know about my lovely new red dress said nothing at all.

MJH did take some pity on me for putting me in such an embarrassing predicament and let me buy two more dresses at Ross before this whole ordeal was over (Thanks alot honey! No, really! Thanks!!)

Here are some pictures from our Spring Break trip to San Diego. We made a stop at the Scripps Aquarium while we were there. I love the ocean - every chance we get to take some time off work I have a hard time not wanting to head to the beach.



Here is CMH with his first pinewood derby car. He designed the whole thing and I am proud to say that the parental forces were not overly involved in the process. Although when you are dealing with power tools, how do they expect kids to do that on their own?! Let's just say that his patriotic silver pick-up was not the fastest car in the world but all he cared about was getting to keep his car and take it home. Way to be a good sport!


Here is the annual neighborhood Easter egg hunt. It was cold and wet but still fun. AVH was more into throwing rocks than finding eggs this year. He's not a candy eater yet anyway.

Daddy "judging" the easter eggs that the boys and I dyed. CMH took 1st AND 2nd place.


Here are some shots of Alex feeding himself yogurt. Notice the Dannon Light and Fit label stuck to his shirt. It's messy business giving a kid a spoon. I fully admit that I don't let him feed himself as often as I should. But, he IS doing great at drinking from a cup.

I just loved this next picture - it's fuzzy but we'll just call it an action shot.

AVH is finally making strides with verbal skills now that his walking is awesome. He could say "Moo" and "Uh-oh" before which you can loosely call words. He is consistently saying "this" and "that" and "do" and most recently "Jesus." I think we are going to count "Jesus" as his first real word. Way to go kid! That was a pretty good first word to pick.


Here is a token recipe for you to appoligize for my long absence. If you want some sweet old comfort food, this is a recipe that is sure to fit the bill.


Susan's Super Moist Oatmeal Cake

1 1/4 C water
1 C regular oats
Bring water to a boil and add oats. Stir and cool.

Cream together:
1/2 C soft butter
1 C brown sugar
1 C white sugar
2 eggs

Add:
2 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. vanilla
1 1/3 C flour
1 1/4 tsp. baking soda
Mix well and add the cooled oatmeal mixture. Bake at 350 degrees until nice and golden brown, 30-40 minutes. When the cake comes out of the oven heat up the broiler. Spread the topping over the cake and put under the broiler for 3 minutes or more until the topping is golden brown. Watch closely so you don't burn it!

Topping:
2 C coconut
1/2 C soft butter
2/3 C brown sugar
2 Tsbp. milk
Stir together well and set aside.



PS - We had a rollercoaster ride dealing with getting AVH's therapies re-instated. By some miracle there were some families who had the presence of mind to sue the state and there was a court ordered injunction (I have no clue what that is) which meant that all therapies to all children had to resume until the suit was settled. This was good news, but we just found out that they will be making a ruling at the end of this month on the injunction. We thought it would take many months to get to that point. So, we hope we're not back to square one in a couple of weeks.

PPS - Would you sweeties leave me a post if you're reading this or care if I keep blogging. People are begging me to Facebook and I don't know if I can bear to do both. What do you think?