I'm so Tutti for your Frutti!

So, tomorrow is May 1st, and that means it's Pediatric Stroke Awareness Month! So where am I on my to-do list you may wonder. Last week Wednesday, I spoke to Jeff Bailey, manager at Tutti Frutti here in Minot. You know, that awesome frozen yogurt place! He generously agreed to participate in the "Pennies for Pediatric Stroke" fundraiser. Man, was I excited!

And then Thursday happened! I got sick with this nasty bacterial infection, so there went my plans to hit up other businesses over the weekend. To make matters worse, the antibiotic they gave me didn't work so I went back this morning and got a Z-Pak. Needless to say this brought things to a halt. Everything's on hold when mommy's sick, housework, cooking, cleaning, Isaiah's PT, the fundraisers, EVERYTHING! Y'all should see this house! Well, maybe not, haha. Joseph is trying to help as much as he can but well, daddy's not mommy...Anyway, let's just hope I miraculously get better over night!

This year Pediatric Stroke Awareness Day is Saturday, May 5th (first Saturday in May) and that will be the day we start the "Pennies for Pediatric Stroke.  As you know, that day is also Cinco de Mayo, so there will be some pretty amazing flavors at Tutti Frutti - margaritas anyone? So, for those of you who don't know what to do with their spare change (or bills, we take those too!) and have a taste for some delicious frozen yogurt, make sure you go to Tutti Frutti in Minot from Saturday, May 5th to Saturday, May 12th and help us raise money and awareness for Childhood Stroke! The money raised will go towards CHASA, the Children's Hemiplegia and Stroke Association, to help little and not so little stroke survivors like Isaiah. Your support has already helped so much, Chasa has just started their first orthotic grant cycle that provides children with braces to help them walk. Let's keep up the great work! We will be at Tutti Frutti May 5th and May 12th so if you want to meet Isaiah, come on out! And thank you again, Jeff Bailey and the team at Tutti Frutti in Minot for being so supportive!

Love,

Streak for Pediatric Stroke

Ahhhhhhhh!!!! Tomorrow in a week will be May 1st!!!! Y'all know what that means - it will be Pediatric Stroke Awareness Month! As I mentioned in my last post I will be doing some fundraisers, one being "Pennies for Pediatric Stroke" penny jars. If you have a business in Minot or even somewhere else and would like to participate in "Pennies for Pediatric Stroke", please let me know. If you're in Minot, I will gladly bring you a penny jar and flyers about Pediatric Stroke. If you're not in Minot, I can at least send you the label for the penny jar and the flyers. Another fundraiser will (HOPEFULLY!) be a "Strikes for Stroke" bowling event, still working on the details for that. I seriously need a slap on the wrist for that!!! But there's another thing called "Streak for Pediatric Stroke". You choose something you will be doing every day for the entire month of May, like walking every day, coloring your hair purple (NO I WON'T DO THAT!!!), etc.

I'm not sure what I should do.....I've lost all my pregnancy weight and more (don't hate!) so a weight loss program won't make sense. I might get a purple hair extension, purple nails, purple clothes. I don't know. While purple is one of my favorite colors, I don't like purple nails at all. I'm super boring when it comes to painting my nails. I don't even have enough purple clothes to wear all through May! I have one purple shirt and one purple scarf, hahaha. Nia on the other hand could totally pull it off, she looks cute in purple anyway. I was thinking about planting purple plants in our front yard...What would you do? Seriously, give me your ideas!

It's Monday so we had PT today. Last time we were given this thin foam strip to create a loop around Isaiah's thumb and wrist to remind him to keep the thumb in the right position when grasping things. Well, it didn't work. Isaiah couldn't have cared less. Here's how it looked:

Isaiah with improvised splint. You see how he's still tucking this thumb in.

Nancy his therapist suggested a different approach, kinesio tape. Just like the foam strip it's temporary and soft enough to solely be a reminder and not force him. Right now it seems to work a lot better. Here's a picture:

I didn't do a good job this time but he was very squirmy and I really just wanted to put it on him to give you an impression. Of course I'll get some colorful tape, ha, maybe some purple tape!

Well, let me end for today, it's 80 degrees outside today, that's pretty much unheard of in ND! We usually don't get spring til May! So we're taking the kids outside. Y'all have a great day!

Love,
Mimi

Momma's slacking...

Hey y'all!

This is the third time I'm trying to write this post, it seems there is always something getting in the way! Hopefully this time I can get it done! How was everybody's Easter? We had a really nice time with friends and good food! Now that Easter is over I notice May is right around the corner and I realize that I haven't gotten anywhere with my Strikes for Stroke :( Shame on me, I need to hurry up and make things happen! May is Pediatric Stroke Awareness Month, so I will have a few fundraisers coming up. I'm sure there will be something that will speak to you ;) One awesome idea came from Chandra Whitfield, one of our CHASA Facebook group members. She thought about penny jars! I love that idea and told her I will have to try it here. As a matter of fact, I think it is so great that I wanted to mention her idea here! Everyone can spare a penny, right? I just need to see who can print a couple of fact sheets for me to put with the jars. I also petitioned for a proclamation in ND but have yet to hear back from the Governor. I will let you know once I do!

By the way, we've got great news from Nancy from CHASA today, Isaiah's story is featured on the CHASA website: http://www.chasa.org/i-didnt-know-babies-could-have-a-stroke-isaiahs-journey/
It is a shorter version of the one I have on this blog but we will contribute more to it on a weekly basis. You can read about other stroke survivors in the "Meet our kids" section too. That way others can learn about Pediatric Stroke and families that just received the diagnosis can find hope. While most stories have a lot of things in common, each story, just as the person it talks about, still is very unique. I tell you, a lot of those encouraging testimonies of recovery have helped me keep me going! Everyone at CHASA has been so helpful and kind to us, I can't wait for the retreat in July!

While I'm writing this post, let me give you an update on Isaiah: Lately, he's been getting on his hands and knees a lot and starts rocking back and forth so I'm sure we're not far from crawling. He actually leaped like a frog the other day, sorta. It was hilarious! He just couldn't figure out that he also needs to move his arms so the second time he leaped forward he landed straight on his face! He'll get it eventually though. He already knows how to somewhat scoot across the room, mainly backwards or in circles but it gets him from A to B. That means we need to baby-proof the house soon! With Nia we never needed gates. In Germany we had doors in every room that we could close to section off the area she can crawl in without getting to the stairs, in our apartment here we didn't have any stairs so we never had to worry about that. By the time we moved into the house on base she was walking and thankfully smart enough to stop in front of the stairs and call for help. With the open concept in this house we'll have to get gates up for Isaiah though. He's already so fast that watching him and stopping him are NOT options. So let the baby-proofing begin!

Some of you might remember that Isaiah's physical therapist and I had talked about getting Isaiah a splint to keep his thumb in the right position when grasping things. He still tends to keep it tucked in rather than spreading it, not all the time but quite often. It gets him so frustrated when he tries to grasp or pick up things with his right hand that he immediately switches to his left and since we're trying to encourage him to use his right hand a lot more we need to fix this thumb situation. Anyway. At our last session Nancy (therapist) told us she decided against a classic splint as the material that keeps his thumb in place would be too hard and she wants it to merely be a reminder and not necessarily force him. So we improvised by using a thin strip of foam and loop it around Isaiah's wrist.

I'm glad we're going that route rather than using a traditional splint. Isaiah can pick up bigger objects with his right hand and I'm afraid a stiff splint would just hinder him. I caught him the other day picking up Nia's toy broom with his right hand and playing with the bristles with his left! I was so proud of him!

He also played his "drum" with his right hand the same day! That day, he was sitting up like this for over 30 minutes!

Well, let me get back to the kids now. Isaiah's nap is almost over and Nia seems to not have gotten the memo that it was nap time!

Until then. Love,

In love with ruffles!!!

Ok, so today's post is all about ruffles! As you have seen in a previous post http://jmniquarterman.blogspot.com/2012/03/sew-happy.html I've been going a little sew crazy lately, making dresses and stuff for Nia left and right. Well, I haven't stopped! I came across this awesome ruffled fabric and thought it would make a perfect Easter dress for Nia. I already had a hand me down outfit for Isaiah that had the colors white and turquoise in it but I had nothing for Nia to match. So I got some white ruffled fabric and a turquoise ribbon and within an hour (including several interruptions from Nia because she couldn't wait to try on the dress!) I was done! All I needed was the fabric and one of Nia's dresses to trace the bodice.

Here's all of us on Easter, I made her a bow to match the ribbon on her dress. She didn't want to take the dress off at all! Since the fabric comes in a 52 inch width (I believe) I had leftover fabric. I couldn't decide on whether I want to make a shirt, dress or skirt with it so I came up with a simple tube style dress/shirt/tunic that Nia can wear whichever way floats her boat. See:

Obviously it's a little short as a dress so she'll wear it as a tunic ;)

It only took me 10 minutes! As you can see I switched up the flow of the ruffles. That's what's so great about this fabric, not only does it already come with ruffles, you can also use it with the ruffles going either across or down! Since now I am hooked on ruffled fabric (and I totally want to make stuff for myself!) I came across this awesome website http://www.rufflefabric.com/. Not only do they have lots of colors, they also have prints! I'm planning on making myself a dress or top (or both?) with this fabric:

http://www.rufflefabric.com/product/yellow-floral-cascading-ruffle-fabric

 

 

 

Isn't it just so summery! I LOVE it! And lots of their other fabrics....looks like I will soon have ruffles galore! Well, and Nia, too. Alright, now let me get back to my sewing machine!

Love,

Happy Dance!!!!

Hey y'all!

I know I've been MIA for a bit. Well, I stayed off the computer for some days and only accessed the internet with my BB so blogging would've been a pain in the tush! Plus, I was in a weird funk for a few days, I was actually almost going to blog about it but then caught myself and decided not to give this funk any power by speaking those negative words into my life. Instead I reminded myself of all those wonderful things I can be thankful for! Now, I'm out of this funk (YAY!) and doing my happy dance. Why? you may ask, well, here's why:

As you all know the auction went fabulous! Never would I have imagined to get such a great response. I so appreciate all of you participating! And thank you all for your generous donations as well! You have no idea how much it means to me! Y'all seriously had me in tears for a few days! We've also mastered our first week without seizure meds without any issues! Isaiah has rolled from his back to his tummy and is starting to get on all fours! He's still struggling since his right arm gets tired faster than the left but he's working on it hard!

But that's not it! Thursday, just when I thought this week couldn't get any better, I received an e-mail from CHASA. We got approved for a scholarship to attend the family retreat in July this year!!!! I am so excited about this! See, here in ND there are no support groups, getting information on Pediatric Stroke is not easy and so this the ultimate chance to get firsthand information from families that have gone down the same road we're going to travel. With upcoming family obligations this summer in GA and Germany, paying for this trip would not have been impossible but very difficult. Just as most families with a child with special needs we are a family with currently one income and that makes things a little more difficult. However, I still have a HARD time asking for help. A seriously hard time! So, I didn't want to apply for a scholarship thinking I don't want to take away from families who may need it more than we do, cause believe me, there are plenty of families who have to pay for their child's therapy out of pocket, families that are truly struggling. Everyone kept telling me to apply though, so I waited until the deadline was almost here. And I still told them I don't want to take away from families in need. Lord, I promise I'll get better at accepting help! Anyway. I'm so looking forward to attending this retreat! What I'm NOT looking forward to is the drive!!! Ahhhh! It'll be an entire day's drive by myself with 2 little ones! Unless, I can find a cheap plane ticket (pretty please Lord with a cherry on top!).

So, that's it for today. I need to get back to sewing Nia's Easter dress, I know, Easter is tomorrow. I was supposed to have it done but as usual things didn't exactly go as planned....but now worries. It'll be done within an hour! Yep, it's that easy! No, I'm not saying that cause I'm such an expert, I so am not. I just make easy things look fancy, lol. It's really that easy. I'll show you when it's done ;)

So happy Easter everyone and thanks for all of your support!

Love,