airplanes!

The boys had a great time at MAPPS with Grandpa, dad, and mom. They really enjoyed the airplanes, they sat in this one several times. They enjoyed the crank radio/light. The other favorite was the two seat anti aircraft gun. One seat/hand crank controlled the gun and one seat/hand crank controlled the movement of the platform.

More National Park pictures

The boys first national park!

The boys visited Carl Sandburg's last home in Flat Rock, NC on the way to Grandparents Ohio. The goats were raised by Mrs. Sandburg. She raised champion goats that produced much milk and she ran a commercial goat dairy.

The boys did well in the house, with only a few trips of the brown carpet. The contents of the house are the same as shortly after Mr. Sandburg passed away. We got to see all 9 bedrooms and most of the rest of the house.

They enjoyed the paths and the goats more then the house. Tyler really enjoyed the goats and petted many of them. Will looked at the goats but didn't pet any of the goats, but did pet a small dog in the parking lot. A lot of the locals were walking their dogs on the paths. Dogs must be on a leash and most of the owners had their dogs sit as we walked towards them. Will stated I like little dogs, and Tyler said he liked all dogs.

The boys now each have a Passport to your National Parks and Kids' Passport Companion Set. The kids companion has a checklist for the parks, by type and places to record all sorts of observations. To check it out go here:
http://passport.eparks.com/store/product/76459/Passport-to-your-National-Parks-and-Kids%27-Passport-Companion-Set/

Will's fourth birthday!

We decided on a family only celebration for Will's
birthday. Mostly because he was still on a soft diet from his surgery and his birthday fell on a
Wednesday. He enjoyed opening presents from Granny (fire truck, ambulance, trick or treat bags (reusable) and 4 books). He and Tyler loved their trumpets from Uncle D, Aunt E. Eddie and Josie. As you can see Will decided to try it out even though mom wasn't sure it was a good idea. Dad likes them because you can play real music with them, he is trying to teach them charge. Will's most used present came from Grandma and Grandpa Ohio and Mom and Dad a 3rd generation I-pod touch. He loves to play
memory games, so Dad has downloaded most
of the free ones he can find. He and Tyler share it
well. Soon Tyler will have his own to use.
It works great for doctor appointments and for
voting early (everyone commented on how
quiet he was :)).

Halloween at Stone Mountain

We took the boys to Stone Mountain Park Saturday for their pumpkin festival. They originally said they wanted to sit on top of the pumpkin, but when they got up close they changed their minds. The pumpkin was at least 5 1/2 feet tall.

They had lots of "scarecrows" with pumpkin heads all over the cross lands area of the park. The boys were fascinated with them. Tyler just wanted to know what the straw felt like and Will would rather pose with them then touch them.

The last picture is of them decorating their mini pumpkins. They had glue, glitter, feathers, eyes, small pieces of pipe cleaners, and lots of shinny small cut outs (circles, feathers, diamonds, etc).

Halloween

The boys decided they wanted to be cowboys like Woody from Toy Story. They were very happy
with these costumes. They came with a deputy sheriff badge but it was to hard to get it to stay.
The costumes are a child small and come to just above the ground, maybe we can get two years
out of them.
The boys did trunk or treat at our church Wednesday night and then wore the costumes for their Halloween party at school. No neighborhood trick or treating due to it falling on Sunday night. They got plenty of candy at church and school.

Last Week

Last Tuesday was Will's first day of speech this year at school with Mrs. Robin his speech teacher. He woke up at about 3:50 making strange sounds (not wheezing, not coughing) more like a high pitched whistle. He also felt warm but didn't have a fever. He didn't want any medication or to be held. After about 10 minutes he wanted medicine but not the kind we had upstairs (berry flavored) but the grape flavored one downstairs. With in five minutes of getting the Tylenol his breathing got better and he fell soundly asleep.

When David got him up he was feeling fine and went to speech. Meanwhile I called to get him a doctor's appointment to check out the breathing issue and he had a lot of nasal congestion for over a week. They usually can get me an afternoon appointment but because of back to school physicals only had a 9:45 appointment. David took him and he was running a fever, had croup and a sinus infection. So Daddy and Will stayed home after getting his prescriptions 3 days of antibiotics (Zithromax) and 5 days of predensone (a steroid to decrease the swelling in the throat). I stayed home with him the next day and he went back to school Thursday.

Thursday was Tyler's follow up appointment with the podiatrist for his big toenail that was damaged or infected when he was less then six weeks old. He is growing an actual toenail and loosing some of the old nail material. The current plan is to see how much of a toe he can grow. We are to continue to apply the anti-fungal medication. His other big toe nail often becomes ingrown we are to keep filing it down as necessary. When his other toenail grows out they can do a surgery to keep them both from getting ingrown. So it appears it will be a while before the toe nail grows to a normal size as it has taken three months to grow a new nail where the old one was just a mess and the nail grew straight up. I would guess at least a year to year and a half before we know if the toe nail will grow to a normal size. The anti fungal medication should last at least a year as his nails are small even where he has a full nail.

Friday was a "typical" day and no calls from day care.

The Asian festival

We took the boys to the Asian festival at the Gwinnett Center. They had many different performers, booths and food. The majority of the visitors were Asian, we saw several other adoptive families. The boys are wearing their big brother/little brother shirt in mandarin. We got lots of positive comments and people asking how far apart they were. Everybody thought they were cute :)! The drums the boys are playing are from the Taiwanese school of Atlanta. They have to be four to take classes to play the drum. The Chinese school of Atlanta also wants the boys to be four before teaching them Mandarin. Enjoy the pictures.

Worldess Wednesday

A great song

This is an original song by our youth pastor's son. If he makes it into the top 5, based on how many times his video is viewed he gets to play in the morning of the show and if chosen he will be the opening act for the Celebrate Freedom concert.

Around the house

These pictures are from early June. They got into my
sticker collection and had fun putting stickers all over
themselves.

They both like their camera's that Grandparents in Ohio gave them. They like to look at the pictures they have taken.

Cleft clinic visit

Will's cleft visit was the last week of May and I'm just now posting about it. He got to see the speech pathologist Dr. Riski who he will now work with. It helps he knows where the two toy draws are and that he will get a prize from the treasure box when he finishes! He worked hard to make the speech sounds he was asked to do. Unfortunately since we have added the allergy medication he has very little "nasal secretions" and mucus to limit his hyper nasality. So we are to keep working with him on his sounds having him whisper or close his nose with his fingers pushing the nostrils closed (not his favorite thing to do). He is still making many sounds by slamming his vocal folds together (glottal stops) to be understood. Dr. Riski wants the school speech teacher to work on his speech with him closing his nose or whispering so he doesn't get the bad habits reinforced.



When we meet with Dr. B. he said we need to do a sphincter pharyngoplasty to improve his speech. Surgery is scheduled for October 4th to take advantage of my fall break. We knew he would probably need 4-8 surgeries so we were not surprised, but hate to see him have more surgery. We are only suppose to stay up to 23 hours in extended recovery.

Puggles awards!

Tyler and Will and the other 3 boys in their class took part in the AWANA award's ceremony at church on 5/23/10. I had a hard time getting both of the boys in the same picture. So Tyler is sitting with his friends M and D. The next picture is Will and B our youth pastor's son.




The last two pictures are from their presentation
in front of the church. They were to say what they were holding and at the end say God made everything. It took two tries to get it correct.
They loved going to Puggles and are sad they don't get to go anymore. But when told they would move up to Cubbies and be with some of their friends that are a year older (4's) they were very excited.

More from the Zoo

I love the look on Will's face! With the man in the Yellow hat, you can see part of Curious George in the background.
Not sure of the name of the brown dinosaur, Tyler was distracted and Will wasn't sure what to think about the character or taking a picture.

Zoo member night

We went to the zoo member night and brought along our neighbor's daughter Torri. The boys love Torri and she really enjoys interacting and helping the boys. We only saw the Giant Panda bears and told her we would bring her again when we went to see the animals.



Their were many story book characters in the pavilion that were doing readings, and posing for pictures. Their was also a family friendly band and in the children's zoo area was a DJ playing dance music. The boys enjoyed dancing with Torri who really seemed to like dancing. She had played in a soccer tournament during the day and was tiered, but excited to go with us.
Not sure if the pictures will post.