Keys

Someone go  o my lap op.

a b  d e f g   i j k l m n o p q r s   u   w x y z

As far as I an see, I now possess 4 broken keys.

I was going o say, "Bes I an ell, I ae 4 missing leers," bu a made no sense.

Save the Date!

8 Years

Yesterday was our anniversary! We celebrated with a parade - the Children's Parade, in which our local Down syndrome group walked.

The girls were dressed in yellow & blue - Down syndrome awareness colors - and they both let me put pony tails in their hair (Lily was considerably more cooperative than Ruby!)


Lily also wore her Ukrainian hair bows I bought her in the Darnytsia shopping area in Kyiv - aren't they adorable?

Heading to the parade - with balloons!

This was Lil's first big outing - many of the families from our local DS group were there & got to meet her.

Big brother on his scooter

Ruby did not last long in the wagon, Daddy had to carry her.   Karly & Brian were going to watch the parade from the sidelines, but they ended up walking with us, since Ruby was so unhappy.  Lil had a blast people-watching, she enjoys the wagon.

After the parade, we went to eat - it's not easy to eat out with 4 children, but it was getting so late ... and it went just fine!  

Ruby enjoyed Chipotle much more than the parade.

The kids did SUPER at the restaurant ...

and the little girls sat in the middle of the family, across from each other.

It's a pretty different experience, being out as a family of six!  Different, but wonderful!

An Outing!

Today, I took all 4 kids to Target, by myself!  

We had a very short list - I noticed there wasn't a mattress cover on Lilya's toddler bed, and I'm a big fan of those waterproof mattress covers.  So we headed out after picking up Karly from her summer school outing.

It wasn't too bad, we just kept moving and everyone stayed happy.  I put Ruby & Lily in the double stroller & Karly pushed the cart ... the only trouble was Karly kept trying to parent Braden & telling him what to do even though he was behaving perfectly fine ... so, typical sibling stuff!!

* * * * * * * * * * *
This was a much better day than yesterday.  Yesterday, Ruby was still sick so we brought her into the doctor's again.  She had a fever over 103 & a fever rash all over her body.  Her poor little hands & feet were swollen & red, and she was just MISERABLE.  She was up practically all Sunday night, and wasn't able to keep anything down, so we had to get Tylenol suppositories, which actually worked well & made her so much more comfortable (after the initial ... dosing, of course).

Today she's so much better than  yesterday, but her toes are still red.  Her fever did break last night, thankfully, and she got some rest.

So, that's also why we were very quick today on our Target run - I didn't want to wear Miss Ruby out.

DS Awareness Walk

The Down Syndrome Association of Wisconsin - Fox Cities invites you to join us for our 1st ANNUAL AWARENESS WALK FOR DOWN SYNDROME, SATURDAY, OCTOBER 2nd at Riverside Park in Neenah, WI.  Festivities begin at 11 am (rain or shine).

The Awareness Walk is designed to help raise funds, AND to help raise awareness and promote inclusion, diversity and acceptance of Down syndrome, as well as strive to guarantee access to a full life for all individuals with Down syndrome, their families and friends.We place priority on support and education, delivering quality programs and services, and maximizing available resources. Please Join us for a family-friendly, fun-filled day!
 

If you'd like to donate to our team or join our team for the walk, please visit our FirstGiving Fundraising page!

The Ruby-Lily Dance Minute

For your viewing enjoyment, the Ruby-Lily Dance Minute:



I love how Ruby keeps trying to show Lily her dance moves.

Playing Outside

 

at least half of the time the girls spend outside, they spend trying to break into the van.  Working together, it might not take them too long to figure out how to get the doors open...

They love to go, go, go!

Life with 4

Ruby went to bed in the cutest little nightgown ... and woke up sans diaper.

Lily's become adventurous & is braving the stairs.  So far, she can only go up - but hey, she's going up!!

Ruby ate oatmeal for breakfast, mostly with just her hands.  It bothered Karly, but since it didn't directly hurt Karly, she wasn't allowed to complain.  Now, I have to comb oatmeal out of Ruby's hair.  I've already given Ruby permission to complain.

Some friends dropped off an amazingly thoughtful meal for us last night, along with a card.  I handed Lily the card while I was de-oatmealing Ruby, and Lil got out some crayons & took them to the kitchen table & colored the inside of the card.  So dear & lovely!  She really enjoys coloring & I'm so tickled that she's figured out where we keep the crayons.  She was coloring in her coloring book on the dining room floor yesterday while I was making dinner.

* * * * * * * 

Proof positive that teenagers don't listen:

Me:  Ruby, don't forget to drink your milk!

Karly (from the other room, in a mopey voice):  Okay...

* * * * * * * 

Where's Braden during all this?  On the computer

Gotta go clean up oatmeal from the chairs and watch Sesame Street with my little girls!

New Header

In case you're in a reader, pop over & check out my new header!  Thanks to my wonderful friend Melissa for making it!!

Playing Outside

Even though it's been damp lately, we try to get outside to play a little.  This is just another ordinary day of play, except for the fact that Lily is here, playing with us!!

My girls, drawing with chalk ... Lily still doesn't sit on the ground.  That's a cultural behavior she's grown up with, they do NOT sit on the ground, unless it is on a clean rug inside.  

I added this picture just because I like what's going on with Ruby's hair!

While we were outside, there was some work being done on the street, and this big guy was parked out front - Ruby kept signing "train," because she calls all loud vehicles trains.

A Week of Z Life

As Michelle flies home today (!), I realize I haven't done a very good job of keeping this blog updated for her. Here's a little rundown of some things we did this week...

Played with Play-Doh...

Had another picnic at a park...

Got a visit from Grandpa Z...

Spent a little time with cousin Logan...

Played in our sand and water table...

Played at yet another park...

Went to an open house/party at my work and played with balloons (one hit Braden in the face right before this picture was taken)...

And this is the work party (with Grandma Z on the left in the black and white shirt, Grandpa Z's head on the right side, and the top of Karly's head can be seen behind him).

2 Years Cancer-Free

Today was Karly's latest oncology check-up at Children's Hospital in Milwaukee. It's something we've been doing every 3 months -- today she had two ultrasounds, an x-ray and bloodwork, all to make sure there's no recurrence of her cancer. And we got all good news: all the tests looked good, and we're now clear to come back in four months instead of three (November, when Karly will be a mind-boggling 16 years old).

Two years ago this month -- July 18 to be exact -- is when Karly finished her cancer treatment: five rounds of aggressive chemotherapy, followed by 33 days of radiation. We decided to celebrate today's good news with a picnic at a park for our dinner tonight.

We chose the same park near our house that Karly's end of treatment party was held at.

Note to Michelle: I gave Ruby her (cut-up) sandwich and crackers all at once, to see how she'd do. She did better than in the past -- I only had to slow her down (and make sure she didn't put anything more in her mouth) three times. Oh, and with lunch today (at the hospital deli), Ruby drank her milk with a straw! She did really, really well!

After we ate, Ruby, Braden & Karly played with a group of extremely accepting kids who were at the park when we got there. You'll see that Ruby's getting plenty of attention -- every little girl we meet just loves Ruby.

The kids were playing an incredibly ridiculous game that required the person who is "it" to walk around with their eyes closed and try to tag the others who are playing -- Braden's "it" in this picture.

And when we got home after playing at the park for a couple hours, Braden had a surprise: his LEGO BrickMasters subscription arrived in the mail today (Nana and Nice Wolf bought him the subscription for his birthday last year).

Thirty minutes later, Braden had his new LEGO project complete: an imperial shuttle from Star Wars.

Meanwhile, Ruby played with some of her favorite toys, including Bert from Sesame Street.

All in all, the three kids had a good day, which -- by the way -- started off with an early morning Skype video call with Mom in Ukraine. Just a little over a week until Mom and Lily come home!

Ruby & Grandma Z

Grandma Zoromski is here this week, staying with the kids while I work and Michelle is off in Ukraine getting Lily ready to come home. Ruby, Braden and Karly have been enjoying the attention from Grandma, but Ruby possibly enjoys it the most.

Here's a little video of Ruby doing a dance (complete with some signs) while Grandma sings "You Are My Sunshine":

Happy 4th of July

This blog post is mainly for Michelle, who's on a plane right now to Ukraine (follow her journey to pick up our new daughter over on Lily's blog!) but you're all welcome to read along too. :-)

As Karly rightly pointed out as we got into the van this evening, "this is the first time we're going to see fireworks without Mom." There were firework displays in the area yesterday as well but we were all too tired to go. Karly was too tired because she had just come back from two weeks at camp, and the rest of us were tired from getting up early to pick up Karly, and from the long car ride there and back.

So tonight I headed out with the kids to catch the fireworks in Menasha. They were also having fireworks in Neenah tonight -- and we've gone there with Michelle in past years -- but I'd heard from someone at work that you can get a great view of the Menasha show from Waverly Beach. They were definitely right -- it was a perfect location to watch the show. I thought several times tonight about how great it'll be to have Michelle and Lily with us at Waverly Beach next year -- it'll be Lily's first Fourth of July!

Both Braden and Ruby loved the fireworks! In the past Braden's been scared of/annoyed by the loud bangs of past fireworks shows, but our location was perfect -- far enough away that the sounds weren't loud but still having a great view of the fireworks exploding over the lake.

Karly was completely uninterested and before the show even began asked to go back to the van and lay down because she was tired (she's still recovering from her lack of sleep at camp). She did hang out with all of us as we waited for the show to begin:

We walked Karly back to the van just before the show started up, and it was good timing -- right when we were about to head back to the beach, it started to rain so I grabbed a couple umbrellas from the van.

Ruby, Braden and I hung out and watched the show as it rained off and on for about 30 minutes. The weather was great otherwise -- at 9:00 it was still around 78 degrees out. Braden had a blast, and Ruby was standing up and clapping after the big displays. The rain picked up after a while though and Ruby had enough -- she turned to me and signed "all done." We headed back to the van, and on the way home even pulled over for a while so Braden could finish watching the show.

As we headed home after the fireworks and the kids started falling asleep, the first song of Paul Simon's Surprise CD started up, with the lyrics:

"We heard the fireworks, rushed out to watch the sky. Happy go lucky, Fourth of July."

Very appropriate, and a nice end to a great evening.

Ruby, Swinging

Yet more proof of how grown-up our little Ruby is getting.  Ru's getting to be a pro on the swings, hanging on and lasting longer and longer (she used to want to get on, then want to be off 5 seconds later).

Yesterday I took some pictures with my phone of Ru on the swings, and had a hard time timing it quite right, getting either ridiculous looks on her face...

Extreme close-ups...

Or pics of Ru not even looking at me...

Finally, I got a pic of her whole body, albeit with her looking down...

But this accidental close-up pic ended up being my favorite; she looks so grown-up!

Picnic at the Park

Earlier this summer, Braden & I talked about having lots of picnics at parks. Sad to say, we've been sort of busy, and we hadn't had any! We finally had our first picnic of the summer yesterday, and my friend Jamie met us with her kids!  It was so much fun to have friends there!

Look at this big girl ... I can't get over how much she's changed lately.

This was so cute - our friend Jack was bouncing his sister and Ruby at the same time!  The girls sat much longer than I expected they would (at least longer than I expected Ruby to sit ...)