Faith's Mom's Blog

I don't usually use the old cliche, Thank God Its Friday or TGIF but today I really am thanking the Lord it is Friday. This week has been a super rough week for Faith and her parents. Monday - Faith had the day off from school for an unused snow day or something and thank goodness she did because she woke up at 6:30 a.m. throwing up. After getting her changed, me changed and her bed cleaned up, she did a repeat about 30 minutes later. She continued to do so until mid-afternoon until there was absolutely nothing left in her poor little tummy. Later that afternoon, she seemed to be feeling better so a gave her a mixture of Pediasure and water and she kept it down. Tuesday - Faith and I woke up to find her dad at home on the couch. Now he was throwing up and had called in sick. I kept Faith home from school to make sure her feedings were okay. Although tired, she did make it to occupational and speech therapy in the afternoon but ended up having a diarrhea-like diaper that her p...

There are so many words I can think of that describes the Great American Bike Race event that took place this past Saturday: loud, fun, exciting, crazy, inspiring, encouraging, exhausting but most of all it was just plain awesome! As team captain, I was required to be there all day, which I didn't mind but my feet certainly did as I did not sit down once! I arrived before 9:00 a.m. to greet my first rider of the day, my cousin Beth. She really knew how to set the pace by biking 17 miles in 25 minutes! After Beth, my former co-workers from Laducer showed up. I am so thankful to keep in touch with many of my friends from Laducer. Jane and Brooke did awesome as well - Jane did especially great with fundraising as she raised over $600! Lindsey and her boyfriend Matt arrived sporting their very cool 'Faith's Fantastic Ten' t-shirts which were paid for by my brother Todd and his oilwell consulting business. They were designed by another rider, Liza Kessel.  While Matt was...

Two days ago, we celebrated the resurrection of Christ on Easter Sunday. Many Easter traditions include Easter egg hunts, getting together with friends and family for dinner and going to church. Another family, we discovered, has the tradition of flying kites on Easter Sunday. And this year we had the opportunity to join them. After a wonderful dinner with our friends, it was time to get out the kites. Not just a few kites, more like 15-20 of them. These were some serious kite flyers! And it was so sweet when little one if the little girls in the kite-flying group gave Faith a purple kite with princesses. That was to be her kite for the day. Unfortunately, though, Faith was more in the mood to stay home. She hadn't slept well the night before and was very tired. But we talked her into going and once at the location, we coaxed her out of the car and into her chair. It didn't take long for her to cheer up once she saw all the kites in the air, she got especially excited when ...

I admit I have some mixed feelings about school programs - like the kind of programs where children invite their parents and other family members to watch them sing and dance and do other activities. Don't get me wrong, I think it's great for kids to be involved - I loved having programs when I was in school. It always made me feel sort of special that my parents would come and watch us sing and perform, especially since we had put so much effort and practice into it. It's a little different with Faith though. She'll come home from school singing the songs she is learning and talks excitedly about all she is doing at school right up until it is time for the actual program to take place. Then she doesn't want to go. But we go, hoping she'll be okay. Last night was one of these events. The kindergartners were all putting on a "Rootin' Tootin' Hoot 'n Nanny event" that was going to be full of surprises for the parents and kids as well. And...

What an adventure we had last week trying to make it over to Mandan for the annual Morton County Ag Day . The day began by adjusting Faith's feedings so I wouldn't have to do it at the event. Thankfully, she was up early to get her feeding done. It helped that I was also able to bring her to school about 30 minutes late. By the time we were getting ready to leave the school she had her second feeding and was ready to go! Or so we thought. When I went to pick up Faith she was surrounded by all three Kindergarten classes standing in line trying to contain their excitement about their field trip. While the kids impatiently waited for their bus to arrive, Tina and I got Faith loaded up in her van and away we went.  As we drove into the parking lot of the Mandan Community Center, Tina received a phone call on her cell phone. Apparently, the paperwork for the bus had not been finalized, so the other kids that were still back in Bismarck could not go on the field trip after all. Wha...