Sleepless in Thomasville

Too Many Items to Classify

When it came time to clean out the gameroom, guess where two little girls were hiding? Each child ended up keeping one tub of toys a piece. The rest, well, you can find them at Faith Rescue Mission. I like tax deductions.
Matthew's birthday cakes. By the time you reach 16, you just want one of your all-time favorites, old-fashioned banana pudding and hot, chocolate cobbler.

It's not a banana pudding unless you apply the candles that re-light themselves and set off the fire alarm.

Okay, mom, just bring out the fire extinguisher.

Minnie Mouse and Princess Jasmine getting ready for the carnival.

When out of nowhere,

Carnivore Carson, crashes their party.

This is why I bring my Daddy with me, too much luggage for me to carry by myself.

Still smiling after 10 hours in the car and serving guarding luggage duty.

We were able to spend our mid-mornings and afternoons seeing a little bit of Cincinnat. Julia was determined to push her sister around the zoo. Chaning was a little drugged due to the sedation earlier in the morning and was not allowed to walk for several hours.

Don't think we have one of these at our local zoo.

Sloth is not the first word I would have come up with for this creature.

Did you know....

Yes, those are Christmas lights you will see beside the flowers.

Chaning feeding the giraffe a cracker. Yes, I paid a dollar for her to feed the giraffe. You would think I would have been better prepared to take a decent picture.

Julia made him say please before she handed over her one dollar cracker.

Eweee

This is what Chaning thought of the daily photo session at the zoo. You can see the bandaids on her hands. They were not able to start an IV for her CT scan on her hands or arms. They ended up going into her left foot where there was no novacaine applied.

Day two, testing went great. This is the day we planned on being at the hospital all day for three tests but finished by 9:30 and took a trip into Kentucky to visit the Creation Museum.

Now, when there's a dino at the front door of the museum, you now have Julia's attention for the remainder of the tour.

She found her a job at the museum...Fossil Protector. She comes at a high price though.

It took Julia a little while to realize that these were wax figures. "Mom, when are they going to continue digging?"

We found Michael and Lindsey's twins.

This museum spoke a lot of truths.

So true!

It takes some nine months to name a kid.. few hours - wow!

Julia, witnessing Adam naming the animals.

Aren't I just the cutest darn thing ever????

Not sure whether he was saving her or feeding her to the dino.

Yes, you read it right, 969 years old.

Girls taking a break to put together a puzzle.

Washing the petting zoo germs.

Chaning learned quickly to insert quarter, retrieve food and then run to the next animal.

She felt pretty safe feeding the sheep by herself. She even has the whole lay the hand out flat thing going on.

Not really sure if I need to get up close and personal with you, Mr. Llama.

Julia giving her the Daddy come over here look.

Enjoying the outside gardens at the Creation Museum.

I think she was into this photo session.

Chaning was not into picture taking. She was trying her best to crank out a smile for momma.

The flowers were just gorgeous.

To pose for this crazy lady or not. I think he was striking a pose to humor me.

We celebrated Matthew's 16th birthday the Wednesday before we left for Ohio. This meant he was left here in AL driving while we were 9 hours away. I think all in all he has done pretty good so far. This still does not keep me from worrying everytime he leaves the driveway.

We arrived in Ohio last Monday and got settled in for the night. Chaning had testing Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Each morning we started our day at 5:30 a.m. heading to the hospital. Of course, the first morning our TomTom decided to take us on the downtown route to Children's Hospital. After stopping and asking someone to pull up their mapquest on their iphone in the dark, going down a one-way street backwards and pulling into the swipe your card or you don't enter employee entrace only parking at the hospital, we finally found where we were to go. Keep in mind that the hospital was only 5 miles from the hotel. We decided that we would not do well on the Amazing Race show and will not be sending in our video tape any time soon.

Chaning did great each day and was a trooper. I also have to mention that we have used a Children's Hospital before and Cincinnati Children's by far blows away anything we have ever experienced. This is a top notch facility with excellent doctors, nurses and staff. I do not think we waited once for an appointment. They do not allow your child to get aggitated or scared without sending someone to you to entertain them and lift their spirits and mine too! They take that apprehensive feeling away from you and your child.

We met with Chaning's collorectal surgeon and gynecologist Thursday and Friday and received wonderful news that Chaning passed all her testing with flying colors. She will require surgery in the very near future. We will be going to Ohio for two weeks where she will stay in the hospital after receiving her two hour surgery and then receive food via IV fluids for 10 days. This is going to be a tough trip but one that will fix her forever. We are so thankful to be able to give her the care that she needs and look forward to a future for her surgery free, hopefully. We are told that from her history, they feel that this will be her sixth surgery - first here in the USA. Had her foster family not took such great care of her, she would probably have never made it here for this final surgery, for this we are forever greatful to them.

Our schedule gets more packed as the holidays near but we are having a lot of fun around here with this family of 7. Each day carries its own memories being made. Somedays my hair just grays right before my eyes. Tomorrow is the pumpkin patch with two out of the five. I love autumn.