She's Walkin' and Talkin'

Little Miss Priss is now trying to repeat pretty much everything we say!

Here is our little Sassy Frass:
(Please excuse her hair... there has been no humidity down here, super strange, and her hair has been out-of-control!)

Hope you have a wonderful Monday!

Post Op Week 14!

I cannot believe it has already been 14 weeks since Cliff's surgery (also, see Selective Dorsal Rhizotomy under Labels)!

Wow! Time flies!

This week Cliff has worked very hard and is making great progress! He is now walking in public! This is so exciting for us! It is so comforting that even strangers seem to be just as excited for Cliff as we are! They all smile and say "awesome job buddy!" instead of avoiding him because he is different. I am so thankful that most of the people in our community seem to be accepting of Cliff.

We went out to dinner one night last week and Cliff walked from the car into the restaurant:

It takes him a little  longer to get places, but we are so thrilled that he has independence now!

He still needs help turning and not crashing into door frames (he likes to "crash" which is ok at our house but not everywhere we go!)!

Then he walked all the way to our car!

Go, Cliff, Go!

We are so thankful to God for this blessing.

These Days...

These days are "side walk chalk" kinda days.

You know, beautiful, sunny, not-a-cloud-in-the-sky kind of days.

Cliff had a blast!

Can you believe I, Miss OCD, let Harper get all chalky?! Check out those shoes:

She took her "job" very, very seriously.

(I didn't know Harper could write already! What a little genius!)

Harper left chalky foot prints all over our house! I almost did not want to mop them up!

How many pieces of side walk chalk can you hold at once?!

Draw, Draw, Draw!

"Side walk chalk" days are my favorite!

I will remember this day forever.

What to Do?!?

What shall we do with all of your tutu's?!

I received an email asking how I stored Harper's tutu's without getting them all smashed and wrinkled.

This, my friends, is the answer:

Yep. I display them on her closet doors!

Super cute and perfect for a princess!

The Zoo!

The weather here lately has been PERFECT! We have been spending every waking moment of our day outside for about a week now! Last weekend we loaded up the littles and took a little trip to the Zoo!

We stopped by the elephants (which totally gross me out by the way, I can barely handle their stench without losing my lunch...) and Cliff decided he would call one over! "Heeeere elephant! Hey! Elephant I said come over here!"

...And guess what?!

 An elephant walked right on over. I told Cliff that I didn't know he could "speak elephant!"

Then we let Cliff and Harper "ride" on the little elephant! They loved it!

This was Harper's first time "riding" the little elephant at our Zoo! She was so proud!

Ross told Cliff and Harper all about each animal! He is such an awesome dad!

And then came the BEST part. The MONKEYS! Cliff and Harper were enamoured with them! They would giggle, point and giggle some more!

I mean when the monkeys were acting like a bunch of monkeys you just had to laugh!

"WHAAAT?! We gotta go?! But I wanna staaaaayyyy! Oooohhh, just 5 more minutes, PLEEEEAAASSEEE!"

Then Cliff pouted the whole way to the car because he did not care that the zoo closes at 5 o'clock sharp. He wasn't ready to go and they should have stayed open until CLIFF was ready to leave! How dare they!

The end.

It's Nifty being Thrifty!

This cutie patootie side table did not always look this fabulous:

Actually it started out dull, worn out and in need of a little love. But I saw right past it's ugliness and thid piece was screaming "Pick me! Pick ME! I have major potential!" So for about 7 bucks this lucky duck got to ride home with me!:

After sanding, priming, painting and more sanding this is her in all of her beauty! One thing I was super excited about was that it had a REAL marble top!

So pretty!

Oh yea, and the door opens so there is storage...

...and I did not have to do anything to the hardware except wipe it down!

This is my favorite thrifty find to date! I love, love, LOVE it! Acutally, I love it so much that now it is in our room next to MY side of the bed! (I'll share that with you soon!)

Little Feet

Harper,

Right now the sweet little feet in these super cute shoes take you all over our house. You get into eeevveerrryytthhhiiinngg and while I find myself thinking "Really, Harper? What more can you get into?" Then I remind myself that "this" is what your daddy and I prayed for. And God definitely answered our prayers! Sometimes it is funny because you make us feel as if we are first time parents. We recently had to put locks on all of our cabinets and baby gates up throughout the house because if we don't then some little miss priss will put EVERYTHING out of the bathroom cabinet into the potty... or get into ALL of my paints... or break my baking dish. Although it is a lot of work to chase after you all day, I am so thankful for you and all of your mischief.

Then when you are still, which means you are asleep or nursing, I think "Where will these feet take Harper?" And my mind drifts off as I imagine you in 10, 20, 30 years. Sometimes it makes me cry because I want you to stay little forever and then sometimes I get excited because I know that we will always be best friends. One thing always remains the same - no matter where your feet take you in life, I will ALWAYS be there to listen to you, comfort you, teach you, nurture you, learn from you, and most importantly love you.

Off to chase those sweet little feet!

Post-Op Weeks 12 and 13!

The past two weeks have been pretty much the same. Cliff has been walking A LOT with his walker! He walked about 35 feet in the grass, down the driveway and up the walkway to our front steps (This is pretty much like running a marathon for him!)! We were amazed! The weather has been beautiful this past week so we did therapy outside (it was so nice to have a change of scenery)! Cliff practiced walking up our front steps:

Almost there buddy!

Then we practiced side stepping while holding onto the railing:

It is wonderful that he can now do this so well!

He walked all the way around the corner to the house!

What a big boy he is!

This is a huge accomplishment for Cliff! He still has a long road ahead of him, but he is determined, we are determined and with God's guidance, Cliff will continue to make steady progress! He is amazing! Please continue to pray for Cliff to have strength and confidence. Thank you for your prayers! They are helping Cliff every step of the way!

Don't Worry!

Some of you were worried when I did not post yesterday!

Don't Worry!

I've been outside!

And that's where I will be all weekend!

If you live in the South, you better go outside too! It's gorgeous!

Happy Weekend!

Cliff's Workbench!

For Christmas Cliff got his very own Workbench! I scoured the Internet for workbenches to buy, but they were either too expensive or cheaply made or just plain ugly. So on December 22nd, I decided that we Ross would build him one! I gathered a bunch of different ideas from different places then Ross and I sat down talked about what we liked, got to work and ended up with this:

Here is where we began. Once we finalized our plan, Ross went outside and started building the workbench:

I started painting the sign to go on Cliff's Workbench:

It was cold outside so Ross bought the workbench in the kitchen so we could paint it. We wanted the top and the bottom shelf to stay wood, so we taped it off with painter's tape and painted the workbench red (I got a gallon of the paint for $5 at Lowe's in the mismatched section - don't you just love it when that happens?!).

This is what we ended up with:

Of course Cliff needs all of his Tractors and Dump trucks to haul all of his materials:

Cliff's Workshop has also been such an awesome tool to use for Therapy! He will stand at it by himself  and "build" things just like daddy without holding on!

This turned out to be one of my favorite things in our playroom!