Beautiful Saturday!

Saturday was such a beautiful day! I was planning on getting up and going to yard sales, but decided I needed sleep more than I needed useless "stuff". Matt took Abby to Walmart to sell softball tickets. Only 2 of the players showed up. They stayed for 2 hours and she sold a whopping 6 tickets. Three of those tickets were sold to our neighbor who happened to be there to shop. That still leaves 69 tickets for Abby and 75 for Caroline. I think the prize should be for free gas cards and then I bet we could sell them!!

While they were "not" selling, Tracey and I loaded up the kids and took them to the school carnival. They had a blast and it was easy on the pocketbook!

Here are some pictures of the kids at the carnival. They played plinko, plant walk, clothespin toss, and dinosaur dig to name a few.

I think they liked climbing the big pile of dirt the best! What kid wouldn't?

After the carnival, we went back to the house and relaxed.

There is nothing like taking a sheet, laying it on the grass, and just relaxing!

Mattie loves being outdoors!

The Children's Hospital and One Dead Spider

Today we took a trip to the Children's Hospital. It went amazingly well. I can't believe how smooth the process was from start to finish. We literally sat in the waiting room for one minute. Shortly after entering the patient room, the genetics counselor came in and talked with us about Down syndrome. She went over pretty much everything that we had already read about in the book Babies With Down Syndrome: A New Parent's Guide . She also gave us a support book of local people and organizations in their area. While sitting their Matt tells me to sit very still and not move. He then takes the book and tries to move it along my back. I'm thinking "What are you doing?.......Is there a bug on me?" Mind you, I am holding the baby. He informs me that yes......It's a SPIDER! He can't get it so he proceeds to beat me with the book trying to kill the spider. I'm sure the counselor was probably thinking WE needed some serious counseling and I don't mean on genetics....What a sight! She finds her way out pretty fast and then in comes the doctor. She does an overall examine of Mattie and informs us that everything looks great. She does have an issue with a clogged tear duct that we have been massaging. We need to monitor that and follow up with specialty doctors that are scheduled at age milestones throughout the year. All in all, except for a dead spider, it was a pretty good day!

My New Bonnet

Today my neighbor brought Mattie a little gift. It was a bonnet and bootie set that she made for her. I was going to wait until Sunday for her to wear them, but just couldn't wait. Here is a picture of her looking so sweet! Thank you Ms. Dale!

My First Post

I've decided to start a blog after visiting other blogs. I'm really not quite sure what I'm doing, but as with anything new.....I will learn. Speaking of new.....I have a new baby girl we named Mattie. She is a leap year baby and arrived three weeks early. Her nickname is fast and furious since she was almost born without my midwife. I'll have to share that story later. Mattie was born with Down Syndrome and is a blessing to our family. Mattie has two sisters; Abby who is 11 and Caroline who just turned 7 on Monday. I look forward to sharing our family experiences in this new chapter of our life.