What I've Been Up To

Hello, Everyone. I know you've been wondering what we've been up to and how we are doing. I will try to give you a little update. I appreciate those who have inquired. Before I get into too much, first I would like to let you know that my computer crashed, and I am working on a laptop that I am unfamiliar with and that does not have my pictures; so I can't post any photos at this time. I am trying to decide if I should put photos on Flickr and post them from there. Do you know how to post pics on  your posts from Flickr? I could not figure it out. I am also wondering if I can post pictures from my Facebook page and how I would do that? I did not see that option. If you know how to do these things, I would really appreciate if you could share that information with me.

One of our daughters, Kimberly, second oldest, just got married a couple of weeks ago; so I had been very busy with helping her plan her wedding. Samantha, our 16 month old, was the flower girl; and Matthew, our 4 year old was the ring bearer. He pulled her down the aisle in a wagon. It was just darling. Our 9 year son was one of the ushers, and he escorted me to my seat. I felt very proud walking with him. The boys looked so handsome in their suits. The music for the ceremony was a violin and guitar duet. It was beautiful.

And are you ready for this? I am going to be a grandmother in February. I can hardly believe it. We are excited. Samantha will be 18 months when he is born. Aunt Samantha. How does that sound? They will be more like close cousins.

Samantha is doing fantastic. She is 16 months old now. She is saying several words, mama, da da, up, apple, happy and lots of babbling with many different sounds. She is so happy, giggling and smiling most of the day. She is so beautiful, fun, cute and sweet. She is just absolutely amazing. I can't properly convey to you just how awesome she. We are really enjoying her. She is sitting up well now. Playing with her toys. Her core is getting stronger. She is getting up on all fours and could possibly be crawling in the next two to four months. She learns the motions to little songs and rhymes very easily, for example, patty cake and Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star. She adores music and sings in her own baby language and sways to the music. If she is fussy, all I have to do is sing; and she cheers up. She has an occupational therapist from ECI (Early Childhood Intervention) who comes to our home once a week to work with her and teach us how to work with her and a developmental therapist who also comes once a week who works with her on the cognitive stuff. For those who do not know about Samantha, she was born with Trisomy 21. She was born healthy and did not have any heart issues. Just click on "Samantha" under "topics" in the sidebar to read my posts about her, her birth story, progress, a video of her babbling, etc.

It has been 9 months since my husband's heart attack. He is doing extremely well. He has lost a lot of weight.  He is now back to his high school weight in the low 170s. He is 6 foot tall. His cholesterol is in the 130s and the other numbers are in normal range as well. After his heart attack, his heart was functioning at 30 percent. He had an echocardiogram last week, and it showed that he now has full heart function. His doctor said he could not see any damage on the echo and that he has completely reversed his heart disease. An ultrasound of the arteries also shows that his veins are clear. The doctor was amazed and asked him what he has been doing. The radiologist says that the most he could have hoped for was 50 percent heart function and that he has never seen improvement like this. After his heart attack, he was told that there was a lot of damage because he did not come in for three days due to the fact that he thought it was indigestion and that he would not regain full heart function; so this is so amazing. We are so thankful to God for this. And I am also so proud of my husband for caring enough about himself and his family to work so hard and be so disciplined with his diet and exercise.

I haven't done any sewing lately. I plan to carve out some time to do some projects, hopefully soon. My 12 year old daughter Emily has sewn several things recently, a nightgown and a couple of dresses, one of her own design, which I will try to share with you as soon as I figure out how to load the photos. I am juggling many things in my life right now, as I'm sure you are. I am homeschooling three of our six children and doing therapy with Samantha every day, and scouting keeps us pretty busy as well. I also try to fit in exercise several days a week. And preparing to start my own jewelry business. So I am not able to blog as regularly as I would like right now. I am going to have a goal to try to do a post once a month, more often when I can, and sometimes less often. I would like to stay in touch with you and share with you our creations as well as updates on our family from time to time. Hopefully I can blog more frequently in the future. Would that be enough posting for you to keep visiting, or would you just lose interest? Knowing how you feel will help me determine the future of my blog and if it's worth the effort to keep it going; so I appreciate your feedback. Many of you have been a support and encouragement to me during difficult times, and I have enjoyed the many comments on my sewing projects. So it is hard for me to just let my blog go even though I don't have a lot of time to blog at the moment because I would miss you and the sense of community I feel here with like-minded people. I have also made many meaningful friendships through blogging, which has enriched my life immensely. Even though I have not been posting much lately, I still visit my favorite blogs daily, rarely missing a post, and try to comment when time allows. You are all so inspiring.

I hope I can figure out this whole picture thing because I would really love to show you some shots from the wedding and of our beautiful Samantha and how much she has grown. So please be sure and leave comment if you can help me figure that out. Thanks for visiting and for your input.

Well, take care and have a wonderful Christmas and Happy New Year. 

What's Wrong With My Blog? Pictures Blacked Out With Big Exclamation. Please Help Me Figure This Out

Scroll down through my blog a bit and you'll see that many of the pictures are gone and replaced with this black background and an exclamation mark. I have noticed the same thing on my art blog but worse. If you know anything about this and can help me get it fixed, please let me know. I am not very good at technical things. If you one of you have this skill, would you please be willing to do some research to find out what's going on. I have seen a little of this on other blogs. I don't know if this is a virus that is spreading throughout Blogspot or not. We need to figure this out quickly because this could probably infect any of the blogs out there. Anyway, please somebody help me or this may be the end of my blogging. Thank you.

And I am so sorry I haven't posted in a while. I just want you to know that all of your comments have meant so much to me. I have printed them so I can read them over and over. You all have helped me to get through this difficult time and to have a positive attitude. I have been very tired with new baby and keeping up with an active 3 year old as well as everything else. I have some sweet pictures I want to share with you soon if we can get this thing figured out and all of my pics don't get blacked out. I've noticed that these blacked out pics have almost completely taken over and ruined by teen daughter's blog.

Also, wanted to let you know that Samantha went to the cardiologist for an EKG and electrocardiogram and her heart is perfect. A big answer to prayer. She has been in perfect health. Thank you for your prayers. Please continue to pray for her that she will continue to do well. If you do a little research, you will find that there is a whole list of things that can affect people with Down Syndrome. I am praying for God's protection for my little sweetie.