Easter

We had a great Easter last weekend at my parents house in the country.

Carson dyed Easter Eggs, and they turned out gorgeous.


The Easter Bunny made sure to spoil the boys! (For some reason we weren't able to convince Meme to keep the Moon Dough at her house...)



Carson loved his goodies.

Deacon liked the eggs. He held, shook, and LOOKED at them!

...and then dropped it when he was over it.

Carson HAS to be the most amazing big brother ever. He would find a couple of eggs for himself, then bring some for Deacon's basket. I love that kid!


These past few months have really strengthened our relationship with God, and Brian and I both agree that we have never felt closer to Him. Our faith has grown so much from putting our son in His hands and seeing the miracles He has made. This Easter was the first time I truly understood the magnitude of the holiday, and the sacrifice that was made for each of us. Hope yours was fab too!

2 WEEKS!!!

That's right, we are at two weeks with no seizures and life couldn't be better!! It is like the fog has cleared in Deacon's mind and he is doing fantastic!! Here's a few things he has already started doing so far:

• Sounds: "e" & "m", I have been sick this past week and he is now fake coughing and clearing his throat too!
  


• Social: The daycare was so excited because he lined up to go outside with the rest of the kids, instead of wandering around the room as usual. Deacon is staying in same room as us at home, and will even follow us around some. He is laughing in response to us and will mimic some sounds we make. Actually, he is loving us so much, he is waking up extra at night just to spend extra quality time together! We are loving it too, and have taken advantage by putting the little snuggle in bed with us.
  


• Fine motor: Deacon has improved at retrieving his pacifier and bottle, and getting them back to his mouth. This may be because his thumb-tucking has decreased.
  


• Vision: He is following us with his eyes and looking for items that have dropped instead of just searching with his hands. We also got a report from school that he watched them blowing bubbles for the first time!
  


• Other: He can now jump off the ground with both feet!
  

The funny thing is that he has picked up a preference for us, and is a little less open with others. So while we are wanting to show off all the new successes with everyone, he is not as willing to demonstrate his new tricks! lol

ONE Week!

God has been working on Deacon, I have no doubt.

I have been nervous about typing this blog, that maybe I might jinx something, but we are elated to share this news:

Deacon has been seizure-free for a WEEK!!!!

This past week has been nothing short of amazing! Deacon has gone from having up to TEN seizures a DAY (well, actually 40 before the medicine), to NONE for SEVEN!!

See that picture above? That has been his temperament ALL week! He is full of smiles, laughs, and the light has returned from behind his eyes. I can't even explain the changes we have seen in him in such a short time.

Maybe the medicine finally kicked in? Maybe the seizures have disappeared for good? There are cases where seizures stop with no explanation of where they went, or why they happened in the first place.

We are holding our breath and treasuring every moment. Please continue to pray. God IS listening and Deacon will be a testimony of how powerful prayer is.

Spring Break, Part 1

Last month was Spring Break. When school let out on Friday, Brian picked me up with Carson, Deacon, and their cousin Austin already loaded for a trip to the country.

We just stayed for the weekend, but it was a nice break from reality and gave the boys an outlet to be, well, boys. My dad and Brian joined in the fun, reminding my mom and me just how outnumbered us girls are.

The main activities were wrestling, 4-wheeling,

and battling.

The battling included the use of plastic pellet guns, leaving the old men injured before the day ended (my dad by multiple battle wounds, and Brian from a hurt leg). My mom and I just sat back and laughed at the chaos.

On our way home we stopped by and visited Aunt Ruth. She has the biggest heart in the world, and is behind many of the prayers that have gone out for Deacon. He was excited to meet her, even if his face in the picture says otherwise. :)

Later in the week Carson picked how we spent our afternoon. Imagine my surpise when he chose the newly built Chuck-E-Cheese by our house. lol

Deacon sampled his first pizza ever while Carson spent the tokens.

Here was his reaction to the yumminess:

Because Deacon no longer is wearing glasses, his shaggy hair could also be eliminated!

The next day the weather got into the upper 70's and Carson felt that was sufficient for SPRINKLER TIME!!

He had so much fun, but the poor guy was shivering by the time he finished.

Our other outdoor activity consisted of lots of swinging!

Carson FINALLY learned to swing all by himself!!

We also installed Deacon's swing to our swingset and as you can see, he approved!

more to come...

Froberg's Farm

I am running so behind on my blogs...I have like 10 to write, but just haven't had time to! I am going to try to knock out a couple today, but we'll see how that goes.

THREE weeks ago we went to Froberg's Farm, which is known for their amazing strawberry fields. It is pretty close to our house, but we had never been before. Because the weather was so gorgeous, we took the opportunity to drive over and play farmers for the afternoon. James (our neighbor) is an honorary member of our family, and came too!

The way it works is that you purchase buckets for $1 and then fill them as full as you like, paying $2/lb. We figured 1 bucket would be plenty for us.

Before we started picking, one of the employees gave the boys tips for picking the best strawberries, so they were very selective in their choices.

As you can see, Deacon was a BIG help...

But he did wake up after we were done to play.

While Brian paid, the boys got to swing.

They even had cute strawberries for the guys to take their pictures in. :)

I would love to show a picture of the amazing dessert I created with the strawberries we picked, but ya, that didn't happen and we just ate the berries fresh...maybe next time...

Cheap Date Idea

Well, hypothetically cheap...

If you promise not to judge, I will tell you about our fun date last weekend. It sounds kinda dorky, but it was a nice change from our typical "excitement" of dinner and/or movie.

I recently was due for an upgrade on my phone and joined the rest of the world with a touch screen, app downloading, fancy phone. I periodically check for new apps and have discovered a few addictions like Angry Birds and Wordfeud. The good thing is a lot of them are free, and if they stink you can just delete them, no harm done.

Last week I found one called Shopkick.

The app has a GPS, and the way it works is that you "check into" stores and earn points for doing so. Some places you don't really even need to go inside of, just be in the vicinity to get the points. Other stores, like American Eagle and Wet Seal, have sensors by their entrances that check you in when you walk inside earning you a larger number of points. Points can then be exchanged for rewards like gift cards up to coach purses, cruises, and a flat screen tv. Another perk is that most of the stores have coupons attached too, so you can just show the cashier your phone at check-out to redeem discounts.

So how did this work into our date? Well, another way to earn points is to scan the barcodes of specific items within stores. I talked Brian into downloading Shopkick onto his phone and since then we have fought to get more points than the other. Last weekend we had dinner at the outdoor mall near our house. After dinner, I convinced Brian that we needed to stop by all the stores that were participating to get our points, then drove to Target to pick up some baby food for Deacon. Target is one of the stores that gives points for scanning products, so we had a mini-scavenger hunt in the store.

This is why the trip has potential to be cheap. You can scan and earn for free, until your heart is content. But, you know how shopping works, especially in superstores: you go in to buy a couple jars of baby food and come out with items like a candy thermometer (seriously.), along with $200 in other purchases you didn't realize you needed...

Anyways, I am kicking Brian's butt with over 400 points, enough for a $25 gift card to restaurant.com. Not quite enough to make up for our shopping excursion, but a nice perk for spending that probably would have been done regardless.

If you are convinced that this is some excitement you can't live without, you can download the app on your phone and type in this promo code, earning 50 points right off the bat: tangerine5995

*In case you are wondering, I had NO idea my late 20's would be nearly this riveting...

MVP

I always knew Carson was a super-star!!!

Today was the first official game for the Steelers (last weekend was a scrimmage) and Carson's team kicked butt, winning 36-18. We were blown away by how well Big Brother did at practice and his game. He was stealing flags and blocking like no one's business, and even scored one of the touchdowns. His team is really good too, and all of the players are fearless!

At the end of the game they gave their first MVP medal of the season to CARSON!! He could not run off that field fast enough to come show us!! Proud is an understatement, he is still wearing the medal as I type this, and I have a feeling we will have to pry it off of him at bathtime.

Needless to say, we are proud too!! We might need to call some college recruiters to come watch him. (Okay, I'm not that psycho yet, but give me a couple more weeks and I just may be THAT mom...lol)