Life as a Leach

  Abby got this sweet snow globe ornament today from Make a Wish!  It's flat on the back with a magnet on the back, so we can use it all year.  Such a fun surprise! We enjoyed going to my family Christmas party today.  Since we weren't sure we would be able to be there, we were especially glad to go!  The kids had fun playing with their cousins and they all seemed to enjoy their gifts.  The girls were all given JOY shirts by my aunt in support of Abby, which were really cute! We are so grateful for all of the love and support my family gives us!  They are the best! Tonight ended a bit teary when Caleb broke down while he was praying before bed.  We had suspected that there was a lot going on in his head, but he hadn't expressed it until then.  So the four of us had a little hug fest and then I climbed in bed with Caleb for a while and let him ask all of the questions he wanted.  He often does that, but understands that it's not good to d...

Abby had a good day!  Her oxygen has been fantastic and he pain is under control when she isn't moving.  From a medical standpoint, she is doing great!   Physically, things are tough.  She has only gotten out of bed to transfer to the bedside potty, but she has yet to really be able to bear weight on her legs.  I try every time she transfers, but her knees buckle and she collapses into me.  (I've got her!  Don't worry!) PT didn't come today, so I'm hoping that tomorrow they will be able to work on that a bit.   Abby doesn't have a pain pump this time, which has been a little more of a problem.  Before, we would just push her button before moving her.  Now, all she can get is a rescue dose of Dilaudid every 4 hours.  That takes about 1/2 an hour to get, 5 minutes to infuse, 5 minutes to flush, and another 5 minutes to begin working.  Not so speedy!!  This is especially challenging when we never know when therapists are comi...

We took advantage of our Family Passport we received from Make a Wish and visited Kings Dominion a few weeks ago.  It was a fantastic family day!  We were pleasantly surprised at how much Abby could ride, and Caleb enjoyed quite a few "real" roller coasters!

One fun place in Epcot is The Sea.  They have lots of rescued animals, and this is also where you will find the Finding Nemo ride.  Caleb got a "Mine! Mine! Mine!" shirt here, if you know that quote from Finding Nemo! This dolphin did some pretty cool tricks.  He could match pictures his trainer held up with pictures across the tank.  The audience was able to cheer whenever he got one right--which was all of them! After much searching and deliberation while planning for our trip, Caleb decided that he really didn't want a character meal.  He finally chose The Coral Reef, which is a seafood restaurant known for its huge fish tanks, divers, and the occasional underwater visit from Mickey! Sadly, we were as far away from the fish tanks as we could possibly be in the restaurant and there really isn't a place where you can walk up and look at them.  The divers stop being in the tank at 6:00 and our reservation was at 7:30. ...

One of the "must dos" of Disney World is a character meal.  Yes, they are ridiculously overpriced.  Yes, the food is usually mediocre at best.  Yes, children often scream in terror at the sight of their "favorite" Disney character up close and personal.  But it's the experience ...or something like that.  :) We had done two character meals last time we were in Disney World, but this time we just did one that Abby chose (Caleb chose a different kind of meal, which I'll share in another post).  We visited Akershus in Epcot's Norway for a late breakfast/early lunch.  The food was surprisingly pretty good (it's hard to ruin breakfast food), but we felt very rushed.  Nevertheless, Abby got to visit her princesses and there were no characters with heads for her to panic over. Snow White was definitely Abby's favorite.  She was very personable and spent much more time with her than any of the other princesses. Caleb enjo...

While a lot of people on the Disney Facebook groups I'm a part of suggested that Epcot might not be very interesting for kids our age, it was actually our favorite park overall!  Everyone really enjoyed visiting the countries, and Soarin was the #1 favorite ride of the entire trip, with Test Track being a very close second! One fun activity they have at Epcot is a bear decorating section.  You can color the bear, who is the mascot for Epcot.  Then you can get a stamp at each country you visit.  All of the people who work in that country are actually from it, so they also usually tell you something interesting about the country.  The girl in Japan wrote their names in Japanese characters, which they thought was pretty cool. One of Abby's special souvenirs was picking a pearl in Japan.  We had heard that the uglier the oyster, the more beautiful the pearl.   The theory holds true, because Abby got a beautiful silver pe...