Just a little update while we wait. We are waiting for the Appraiser to call to come out here. We did have a closing date first for August 24, then September 1st and now I don’t know when the next one will be because we’re still waiting for that call that we’ve been waiting for for a few weeks already. The buyers are moving here from North Carolina to start work in a few days… we’re all waiting.  Usually when things get going at the end, they get going fast and you wonder how to fill the days as they seem too short. I’m hoping this will be the case very soon.  : )

Benjamin is doing good. He’s starting to attempt to crawl though his right leg seems to get in the way. We have an appointment with an Occupational Therapist on Thursday. We were supposed to go last week but the house was all sick from going to the Children’s Hospital the week before. I’ll post some catch up pictures soon. We paid off our debt and I bought a new camera since my old Nikon broke. It had fantastic reviews on image quality and they weren’t kidding… the best camera I’ve ever owned.  I highly recommend it! Panasonic Lumix Camera

Here are a few pictures from a stormy day a couple weeks ago:

Benjamin’s blood work came back fine… no Muscular Dystrophy. I am so, so glad as I’d rather he have Cerebral Palsy than that any day. MD is degenerative, CP is not. So, while we are grateful for the good news, things still don’t add up. We believe he is fine cognitively… we aren’t concerned that he doesn’t point for things or say Mama or Dada specifically. We don’t see a delay here but it just doesn’t add up that he is 13 months old and cannot even get into a sitting position. He’s nowhere near crawling or pulling himself up. Maybe this is developmental delay but I don’t understand it, it’s new to me. His arms work fine but his legs don’t. I like to see things add up and make sense to me… Cerebral Palsy would have explained it to me. I am glad he doesn’t have it, I just don’t understand this. If anyone has a child who is delayed physically (with no CP ) where their child could not crawl or walk like Benjamin, I’d love to hear from you. Thank you all so much for your prayers and for caring for us!

We are still at the hotel, we will head home back tomorrow. Here is the after visit summary from the MRI for Benjamin:

“Benjamin has developmental delay and hypotonia. He is unable to crawl, pull to stand, and does not bear weight on legs easily. He babbles but does not say any indicative words. To move around, he will scoot backwards across the floor. He does not point to indicate what he wants. No family history of developmental delay of behavioral problems. 

On preliminary review of the MRI there does not appear to be any definite abnormalities with no signs of white matter disease that would suggest cerebral palsy. I feel that he has developmental delay and hypotonia which may be transient or may indicate long standing developmental concerns. Some individuals with Autism can present early with this type of delay, but he does not have specific features of diagnostic of Autism at this time.”

So, that’s good news that he does not have cerebral palsy. We are happy! They did take some blood work however to check for Muscular Dystrophy. When we are in the clear there then I will be even more relieved.  : )  Thank you all for your prayers. I’m sleepy so that’s all for now. 

Catching up… Here are some July birthdays. There aren’t as many pictures as usual with all that’s been going on but we still enjoyed all the birthdays.  : ) 

Elisabeth – ten years old. When I had you, it had been 18 years since I had my first daughter in 1988 so it was like I was having my first again… I took you everywhere with me… it was as if we were bound together, the memories are so precious to me. I’ll savor them forever. Here we’re eating homemade devils food cake that I made from a quality dark chocolate bar. It was the BEST and moistest chocolate cake I’ve made. The frosting is made with some of the dark chocolate too.

Pup picked out some fabric to make a skirt with some birthday money. Here she’s pinning the skirt together. It’s a long flare skirt.

We decided since we “could” have 10 birthday cakes a year that we wanted to do something different for Benjamin’s birthday. We decided to make homemade raspberry pancakes with butter, whipped cream and mom’s raspberry syrup. We did not miss the cake!

One year old, little boy….

The cute, little face that I always see when you eat.

Clap your hands…

Beautiful Benjamin. Happy Birthday. I wanted to stop time many times with you this year. I savor the baby time so much…

Uhem, Mom’s plate…

Benjamin’s plate…

… and nine days later the twins had their 4th Birthday. Daddy was having to rip the flooring up that day because of the leak from the dishwasher so we did store cupcakes that day. They were good too. Tabitha is on the left and Anna on the right. Four years ago we had an emergency c-section because Anna’s heart rate dipped from a high 190 down to 60 and stayed there for some time. This happened over the course of the next three hours and they delivered them at 33 1/2 weeks. Daddy cried when he saw Anna first and he didn’t even know that she was the biggest of the two. It was hard, I had to leave them in the hospital for 19 days so they could gain some weight. They were only a little over 3 and 4 pounds. We had to go in for frequent ultrasounds to check for twin to twin transfusion. I think the twin to twin transfusion happened right at the end because of the weight discrepancy. Anyways, Happy Birthday girls. We’ll do something more special on your 5th birthday! We love you!

[vimeo 176778040 w=640 h=360]
<p><a href=”https://vimeo.com/176778040″>102_0212</a> from <a href=”https://vimeo.com/user36589551″>Hadassah Geraci</a> on <a href=”https://vimeo.com”>Vimeo</a>.</p>

We took a walk in early June. I also have a video of the children running around the walnut tree that I will post next. 

Off to the races… 

Since this picture, Benjamin has sprouted a head of beautiful curls upon the top of his head. He looks a lot different now.

The kids are picking and eating berries. I don’t know what they are but I remember eating these same kind when I was 4 years old.

One of the many beautiful scenes we will miss here…

Dad brought back many of our 30 walnut trees to life by watering them each day for the past three years we’ve been here.

Down our next door neighbor’s driveway, another pretty scene.

…and another pretty scene…

Beautiful wildflowers… maybe they are weeds but they are flowers to us. : )

A friendly earthworm…

The scene I’ll always remember when I was bike riding two years ago. Praying my health will return to that soon. Beautiful… we will miss the quietness.

Monarchs everywhere up here…