a fun day at R.O.C.K.

Richard and I volunteer at a place called R.O.C.K.. It stands for "Ride On Center for Kids." The website is http://www.rockride.org/ . They have hippotherapy - which has nothing to do with hippos. It is using a horse as a piece of equipment, essentially, to be used in physical, occupational, and speech therapy. The main population is kids, but there are patients of all ages. For those who do not need as intense of one-on-one therapy, there is also a 'therapeutic riding' option. This is where there are several students and one instructor (not therapist) in the area at a time (with a lot of volunteers to help with the students and horses).

While I am on a 'sebaticle' right now - because they do not allow pregnant women in the area, this is really something that we both enjoy and I hope to pursue as a career option one day. That will be after a seris of courses to be a physical therapist certified as a hippotherapist.

Today was their annual open house. We took Nathan and had a lot of fun. He has enjoyed going with Mama to watch Dada volunteer and work with the 'horseys', but he had a blast today playing lots of games and hanging out with Mom and Dad.

There was a train ride. He liked the train, but the 'engineer' with his long beard scared him.

Nathan like to pet the little Shetland pony - it was more his sized.

We took a 'western' photo - really hokey, but we just had to.

Nathan and Dada were barrel racing, but Nathan prefered to finish the race hand-in-hand. That is my boy!! (you can see the 'barrel' behind them in the second picture - it was a course of 5 gallon buckets)

two great SHORTstories

Story / update number one:

I decided it was time to start Nathan with a 'big boy' cup. He was scared to drink from it at first, but caught on as he got thirsty. We are going to stick with just water in the 'big boy' cup for a while.

Number two:

As I came to the breakfast table this morning, I looked down at the large plate sitting there. Something just looked peculiar about it. It was the same plates we have had for a while. We were having pancakes to eat, and there was one left on this plate. Something was just different about it. There was syrup and butter on the table - that wasn't it.

It was PEANUT BUTTER

The result of a pregnant Mama in the house you may ask????

NO -

I think Richard is having 'sympathy cravings.' He assured me that this was normal. To that I say that pickles and ketchup is perfectly normal!!

gone fishin'

Richard, Nathan, and I went fishing with my cousin Mike and his oldest son, Doug. We went to a small pond in a park not far from our house. I am pretty sure there were only two fish in the whole pond. I saw one as I was walking down the bank looking for a new place to cast in - Mike said the other nibbled (but not bit) at his line. I really do think they were the only two there. We had fun nonetheless.

Richard caught a big one early on in the day (and I had to give him a hard time about it when he climbed up to get his lure):

He and Nathan took a football break:

I caught a crawfish (not on a hook or with a pole, but he was walking toward the water and I picked him up between two large sticks and carried him back to show the rest):

And right before we left, I caught a big one (even bigger than Richard's) and this time, he had the camera:

An Empty Space

Today we said 'goodbye' to Little Bear. He left today on a truck headed for Wisconsin. He is going to live with my parents. Things were just getting too hard. We didn't have the time to devote to him that we needed to. He really likes to play ball and sit right with you and get your undivided attention (this is not news to anyone of you who has ever met him!). We couldn't give him that anymore, and less of it was to come when the new baby was born. For those reasons, among others, he went to live with my parents. We had a few last hugs and laughs with him this morning.

Now all that is left is an empty space where his bed used to lay.

(and a few tennis balls and clumps of hair - but you know what I mean)

Happy Easter!

I just wanted to take this time to send you all wonderful warm wishes for a Happy Easter. We had a great time celebrating the resurrection of our Lord and Savior today, and hope you did as well!


From our family to yours:

HAPPY EASTER!!!

tirp to midland

We went to Midland a few little while ago and visited with Richard's parents. Nathan had such a great time!

Dada and Pappy taught him a fun new game using some old wrapping paper tubes (that Gran had cleverly saved for just this purpose):

They all seemed to have a great time! What do you think?

We were planning on going to a Scottish/Irish Faire one evening, so we needed Nathan to take an early nap so we could get up and eat and then go to it before bedtime. So we thought it may work well to take him to Chuck E Cheese to play some games in the morning. He really liked to sit on the jet ski game/ride.

But he didn't like it so much once you put a coin in and it started moving. (Look at Richard's face, and then at Nathan's - I really think Dada liked this one more).

The master plan worked. We brought Nathan home, and he crashed! I don't think his head was all the way to the pillow and he was OUT for a good nap. After a wonderfully tasty meal - we were off to the fair. Here are some pictures from the "knights of the guild" show. This horse was HUGE. It is kind of hard to tell in the pictures, b/c the man riding him was not very small himself. The horse weighed 24oo# and stood 17hands (that is ~5'7") to the shoulder. There was another one who was 20hands (that is 6'8") - but I couldn't get a good picture of him, he was always running too fast and the pictures were blurry. Take a quick visit to this website http://www.lovelongears.com/hands.html to read briefly why/how a horse is measured and what average heights and record heights are - this will really convince you how HUGE these two horses were.

Here is a picture of one of the knights:

Nathan really enjoyed the show. I was amazed at how well he sat still. He really likes 'horseys' right now. Here he is sitting on Oma's lap:

super silly

I have had so many days that Nathan has just really amazed me. Sometimes it is with things that he knows, or how well he follows instructions, or how sweet-natured he really is. Sometimes, like this particular morning - it was just how silly he can be!

I went to get him out of bed, and he immediately took off out of his bedroom, like he had something planned out and he was just waiting to do it. Normally he will just walk over to his changing table and wait for me to pick him up. Not this time. As I walked out of his room to see where he went, he came around the corner smiling and giggling and wearing this:

Just look at that grin! He knows just how silly he is being! And first thing in the morning! WOW - what a morning boy!

A little later in the day (ie. after he had clothes on) we were playing outside. The weather has been consistently warm and the sun consistently shining for several days now. That must be what caused all the lizards to come out of wherever it is they go - so they can sun themsleves. Unfortunately for Nathan they really like his little car to sun themselves on.

At first he was nervous of them. Then I showed him that it was ok and they won't hurt him (which they won't - they are totally harmless). Each time I saw one, I would point to it and say "oooooo." Nathan caught on pretty quickly and was no longer nervous of them. He would just point and say "ooooo." It was very adorable, I wish I could put audio of it on here. :)

quick note before bedtime

I was just wrapping up all of my 'business' online and ready to go on to the next task to be done before i go to bed. When all of the sudden, something that just tickles me happened - the baby got the hiccups. :) It just feels silly. Every second or so, my belly will just 'jump.' :) This is the second time today that the poor little guy has been hiccup-stricken.
I just wanted to share that with you all.

While I am here, I will tell you another story. I will call this one "Blessings in disguise."
Yesterday and today, Nathan and I have both been under the weather. Me moreso than him, but he seems to just not quite be himself these last two days. Well here is the blessing of it. On Monday I woke up around 7:15 +/-, got ready to start the day - realized that I felt sick and miserable - and laid back down, deciding to sleep until Nathan woke up. At 9:15 I grew worried about him and went to check on him. (He is normally up between 7 and 8:00). When I got into his room, he was just laying there staring at the ceiling playing with his hands. So I got into bed with him and we sunggled for just over 2 hours!!! This was a beautiful time for me as he is NOT a snuggler AT ALL - EVER. I am lucky if a hug lasts for more than 2 seconds normally! As we lay in bed, him all crunched up against/on top of me, I realized that this was the first time, since he could move his own body, that we got to snuggle. I also realized that it was likely one of the last times we could just do that. With the baby coming in just a few more weeks, I am not likely to just be able to lay there for 2 hours just because we want to.
This morning went much the same way. I went in to snuggle at 8:00, but he was still asleep, so I left him and came back at 9:00. This morning we snuggled for about one hour.
It was BEAUTIFUL!!