Rollerskating

Well, I have fulfilled 2/3 goals to give my kids a fun filled spring break. Taylor had received a free rollerskating coupon from a place that is about 10 miles away. And tonight was "Cheap Skates" night. It was only $3.00 a person, which only ended up costing me $6.00 to go. Ryan was tired so it was just me and the kids again. I figured I would have to hold both of their hands the whole time. But about 2 seconds after we all got on the floor, Taylor said, " I want to do it by myself." And I let her go, and watched he skate away, like she had done it a hundred times before. I was amazed. Now, she does have a pair of Heelys but they are a little different than skates. She was awesome! Blake on the other hand... Not so much! He was a LOT of work. He looked as if he was walking on a floor piled with grease (or something slippery). I couldn't let go of him for a second. He definitely wasn't nearly as good as Taylor. It literally WORE me OUT to try to keep him up. We only actually made it around the circle about 4 times. Taylor went around probably 50+ times the whole night. Taylor never ceases to amaze me at what she can do. She is definitely my athlete, and has GREAT balance. Blake is VERY handsome, but he is very klutzy, and has no balance. I hope that will change someday. But I think they both had a good time, especially Taylor. I probably won't take Blake back for a couple years though ;)

Children's Museum

My children are out on spring break and because we aren't going anywhere extravagant (like Colorado ;) I decided that I wanted to do a few fun things around Oklahoma. Yesterday, I took my kids to a Children's Museum in Seminole. Taylor had went there in Pre-K on a field trip and that's how I had heard about this place. It is a neat place though, they have a lot of things for kids to do and learn about. They have a couple mazes, a green screen (where you can be in a movie), a real airplane cockpit (to pretend you're flying), an art room where you can paint, draw or whatever, a pretend grocery store, a mirror room, just a bunch of things like that. There's so many things, I can't even start to name them all and also can't start to explain how they all work. But the kids had a great time. Blake has always wanted to go there (because Taylor did ;) and he really liked it. I plan to take the kids rollerskating and go to the Zoo in the next couple days. Then, they are going to go camping with Grandma and Grandpa at Lake Eufaula. So even though we aren't going anywhere, the kids are still having a great time. Here is a few pics of the museum:

The green screen

What the green screen ends up looking like

Inside maze

This outside maze was HUGE! It was hard to find your way through, unless you cheated, like Blake did ;)

"I'm the king of the world!" HEHE, I had to take this picture because it reminded me of Titanic. I don't think he's seen this part in the movie, but he did the exact scene ;)

Large bubbles

The skeleton moves the exact same time the the child moves

Hundreds of Blake's

Wow, guess what I did?

I'm shocked! I actually repaired some jeans for Blake and Ryan. Blake had 3 pairs of pants that had holes in the knees (and we don't have a lot of extra money), so I turned them into shorts, and they look great! And Ryan had 2 pairs of pants that had messed up zippers (one pair was Nauticas, like $60.00 pants). He was going to throw them away a while back and I told him I would somehow fix them, and I did :) Yay! He was really excited! Plus I got a lot of scrapbook pages done, and I am getting closer and closer to getting caught up with my kids' scrapbooks. I'm so happy. I feel a great feeling of accomplishment and had to share my joy!

Allergy season

Ugh, I HATE allergies! I had NEVER once had allergies before I was pregnant. Now I get them severely! It stinks! I always feel like I have to sneeze,and when I do, I sneeze a minimum of 5-10 times in a row, and I'm not a quiet sneezer. There is so much power behind my sneezes that I basically have to scream with it,I don't mean to, but I do. And when I'm not sneezing, my nose runs constantly, so I basically have a raw nose by the end of the day. And also my eyes are basically sealed shut because I feel like I need to sneeze. But my eyes stay shut all the time, and they ITCH. Allergies are NOT fun! So yeah, right now, I'm sure you all can guess that I'm suffering with allergies AS WE SPEAK! Please remember me!

I also wanted to show everyone a recent picture of Blake. He has hair again! Yay, hopefully he won't be bald ever again. He is finally looking like his old self again :)

His shirt says, "My Dad is Cooler!" Ryan likes this shirt ;)

Taylor's trial

This past week, I was organizing pictures to get ready to scrapbook again! I came across some pictures of Taylor when she was around 18 months. For those of you that don't know, Taylor had a SEVERE case of eczema when she was little. She started getting it when she was 7 months old. She had it bad up until her 2nd birthday. It was by far one of the worst things to ever have to go through, just seeing you baby scratching herself until she bled. And the cries she let out, they just broke my heart. I tried everything under the sun to try to help her skin. Aveeno products, Arbonne products, Oatmeal baths, nothing helped! I didn't use medicated lotions, but tried everything else. I even put socks on her hands and pinned the top of the socks to her shirt sleeves. I had the elders once, but back then, I didn't believe with my whole heart that she would ever be healed of that affliction. Then, on Christopher and Melissa's wedding day (03/23/02) a brother asked us if he could pray for her. We appreciated it and told him yes. He saw how bad she really was. Then we moved to Colorado the very next day. Then for the next 4 Sundays in a row, someone came up to her and prayed for her in church. It was so touching. So my heart just melted to see people's faith and it helped me to have more faith about it. So I STOPPED using everything and I just felt like she would be healed and I prayed a lot harder and just trusted God. I kid you not, after those 5 weeks of prayers, her eczema went away. Her skin used to feel like sandpaper, and after it went away, it felt baby soft again. She does occasionally break out in small patches of eczema, but overall it has totally went away. I am kind of happy we went through that so that we can tell of how God took that horrible affliction away from our baby. I just was reminded of it this week and felt like sharing it with everyone.

You can see where she had scratched her face until it bled, there are scabs throughout her face. She was close to being healed in this picture, she was healed within one month.

This is one of the hardest things to see you child doing. I only took this so we could remember how horrible it was. You can see how red her legs were (they were bleeding). She would cry so hard, but she couldn't stop scratching.