TGIF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Wow!!! This has been one BUSY week for us!!! It all started Saturday when I was able to host my friend, Amanda's, baby shower at my house. She is having a little boy, Will, very soon!

The Table

The hostesses with Amanda

Opening her gifts

Friends that came to help celebrate this wonderful event!

On Sunday we had church--twice, Kris had an afternoon meeting at church, and I had GALS after church.

On Mondays, I babysit and this particular Monday night, it was my turn to host Bunko at my house and plan a meal for 12 girls! It was fun, but a lot of work! Kris had class and so Uncle Jeff came over to watch the kids for me.

On Tuesday I had to make 2 of my 3 cooking club meals! I felt like I was in the kitchen ALL DAY!!!

On Tuesday night, I (along with about 7 other girls from church) started taking a Cake Decorating Class at Michaels. It is two nights a week for two weeks. I have always wanted to take one of these and Michaels was offering it for half off this month. It has been a lot of fun, especially doing it with friends. Again, Uncle Jeff had to babysit because Kris had to go to Alltel to work for a little while.

On Wednesday, I had to finish my last cooking club meal and make an 8" round cake for my cake decorating class and freeze it. Then, I went and got Jack from Carrie and took all the kids to the park for a couple of hours. (I was feeling guilty for all the tv watching they did the day before when I was in the kitchen all day!) We had a picnic lunch and met up with Leanne and Eden. Then, I had to come home and clean up the house a little and make a hashbrown casserole for LIFE Group which is at my house. We had a cookout. Everything was yummy and we enjoyed getting to spend time with our friends and watch Pam play Wii!!! :)

On Thursday, I babysat again. I also had to make the icing for my cake for my class and ice it as well as make all the icing to decorate it with during class AND some to practice with during class. Our assignment was this rainbow cake so we had lots of colors to make and put in bags. It was a lot of work!!! But, I will say this, I enjoyed it! During class that night, we learned how to make stars, dots, writing, and the beginnings of flowers. We began decorating our cakes. I had to finish it when I got home at about 9:00 last night. I decided that I'd send it to work with Kris today. They won a big job this week, the new Bryant High School, so I made the cake say "Congrats". So far I think it was a hit.

I did have to laugh at myself because I realized in class last night that I completely forgot to put icing in between the two layers. Oh well.

So, today is FRIDAY!!! TGIF!!!!! (Thank Goodness It's Friday!!!) We have done absolutely nothing today. It is 3:00 and I have not had a shower. This morning the kids played outside in the sandbox while I read. It has been a beautiful day!

Tonight we are looking forward to going to Disney On Ice at the Alltel Arena!!! I am looking forward to doing something fun with just my family!!!!

Hannah Check Up - Exciting News!

Hannah went to the Rheumatologist last Thursday. She hadn't been in 6 months due to an appointment getting cancelled due to inclement weather in January. We knew she has been doing great, but when we told the doctor, she was thrilled! A resident actually came in and asked us all the questions about how she's been doing and examined her. Then, when Dr. Morris came in, she barely even looked at her because she knew she was doing so awesome. She had to have blood work done at this visit and was such a trooper! She watched the nurse put the needle in her arm. She didn't start crying until she saw the blood coming out. It is amazing to us how well Hannah has taken all that she has gone through for just being 4 1/2 years old!

We can not be more pleased with how she is doing! The last time we saw Dr. Morris in October, she told us that if Hannah continued to do well, we'd think about tapering her off her meds this summer! Well, she confirmed that again and told us that as of August we can begin to taper her off her Methotrexate!!! Currently she gets a shot once a week of Methotrexate. We give her .3 ml. At the beginning of August, we get to go down to .2 ml. We have to watch for any limping or stiffness. If all is good, then in September we can go down to .1 ml. We go back to Dr. Morris on October 1st. If all is still good, she will probably take her off the Methotrexate completely! That's what we are hoping for!!!

At this visit she also told us about another mom of a little girl about Hannah's age that has the same kind of arthritis as Hannah (but in her knee). This mother was very upset because Naproxen was not quite helping her daughter enough. When Dr. Morris told her that their next step would be Methotrexate, Dr. Morris said this mother got very upset and concerned. So, she asked if it would be okay with us to give this mother our phone number in case she wanted to talk to someone who has been where she is and could understand, share her concerns, but give a positive view of this drug. I was so excited by this! A chance to talk to someone who is going through something like we did would be so awesome! We desperately wanted someone to talk to who could understand back when Hannah started this treatment, but unfortunately we didn't know of anyone.

Since then I have made one friend, Wendy. Her little girl who is about a year younger than Hannah also has the same kind of arthritis but is fortunate enough to be doing well with just Naproxen! It has been amazing getting to talk to Wendy!! My prayer is that this new mom will call me and I can help her because I know exactly what she is feeling!

While Hannah is doing wonderfully, there is the chance that the arthritis could come back in as little as 2 months or even after a year. We will just have to see how she does when she comes off the medicine. I would be lying if I said I wasn't scared. It has been so long since we have seen her in pain, I really, really don't want her to go through that again. I wish we could be rid of this disease forever. I just keep praying for her good health.

We are getting to do another Arthritis Walk in May! We have set up a team called Team Hannah Banana! This Walk is a 1 mile walk to raise awareness and, of course, raise money to help fight the disease of arthritis. The Walk is at 9:00 a.m. at Cooks Landing at the Big Dam Bridge in on Saturday, May 16th! There is no fee to come walk, but donations would be greatly appreciated! They are trying to make this a family friendly event, so there will be a lot of fun stuff for kids! You can go to http://arthritiswalkcentralarkansas.kintera.org/teamhannahbanana for more information or to join our team!

Easter Baskets & Easter Pictures (and then we're done with Easter!)

Here are just some pictures (mostly for the grandparents) of the kids with their Easter baskets and then some family pictures we took Sunday morning.

Linc examining his bunny motorcycle from MiMi.

"Um! I've always wanted one of these!" (Really he has.) However, probably his favorite thing in his basket was the "dum" (gum)!

Hannah got a little Sleeping Beauty doll...

and some Tinkerbell socks. She was happy!

We went with an orange theme this year. Although I looked and looked for something to match for me and had no luck. I kind of blended with Linc's car tie!

Aren't they precious??!!

I love my family!

Hanging out at Harding!

Kris' brother, Les, and his family came to stay with us this weekend. We went to Searcy on Saturday and hung out on Harding's beautiful front lawn all afternoon. Then, we went to Spring Sing that night. Here are some pictures of the afternoon.

Gotta love him!

I love this picture--except for Kris' head being cut off!

The kids had a blast messing around with their cousins, Logan and Lindsey! Lincoln was in the mood to wrestle Lindsey!

The kids with Logan. Hannah LOVES Logan! She told me the other day that Logan wasn't her cousin anymore, he was her husband. Yes, we are from Arkansas! ha!

I love this picture!

I hope (and pray) that Hannah (and Lincoln) will come to school at Harding some day! It is an absolutely beautiful place!

Easter Egg Dying & Another Hunt

Friday the kids and I dyed some eggs! Hannah and I did this last year, but this was Lincoln's first time!

Adding a few stickers to their eggs!

Notice his big tattoo on his wrist that his sister gave him all by herself when Mommy wasn't looking.

Hannah decided to sticker herself.

All done!

Enjoying them now for lunch.

They each ate 2 whole eggs!

Saturday morning we went up to the church building for the Eggstravaganza! Hannah and Lincoln were old pros at the egg hunting by now! Here are Lincoln and some of his friends, Ethan, Carter, and Paul.