Grace Therapeutic Riding, the ranch that Natalee rides at for hippotherapy, hosted their first ever horse show for their students this week on Monday, June 27th.
It was so fun to see the many big smiles on the kids' faces and witness just how much they've accomplished.
Natalee had a great time and did very well. We're so proud of how hard she works at therapy and how far she's come!
Natalee got to ride "her" horse, Chief, and had a familiar lead, Neisha, and side walkers, Trixanna and Duane, which helped make a new situation more comfortable. Allison and Ashley were also in the ring offering gentle guidance and reassuring smiles.
Natalee got to showcase her skills and her confidence. She's worked so hard on motor planning and reigning Chief these last few weeks.
After Natalee's class, the kids partook of the ice cream sundae bar, and we stayed for the closing ceremonies and so that we could show our thanks and appreciation to Bob and Lois Vermeer who founded and continue to support the ranch and to Allison who puts so much time and energy into making this the best program it can possibly be. It does not get past us the rare treasure that the partnership between Grace Therapeutic and Kinetic Edge is and how fortunate we are to be a part of it.
I know not all of the volunteers made it into the photo - we're so thankful for every one of them!
The kids got to pet the horses before we left, which the youngest 3 were especially excited for.
(Xavier had hurt his foot at the park before the show so he didn't sift through the sand to pet the horses. He was there, though, supporting his sister, and was just resting in a chair waiting for us patiently.)
Natalee, we're so pleased with you and every ounce of progress forward that you make. We are so grateful you get to have the amazing opportunity of hippotherapy every week and that it serves such a great purpose. God is good to you. We love you!
Our week began with church. But first, Father's Day gifts for the best Daddy.
Zayden's face when he realized what the shirt meant. 👇
What a tribe we've been blessed with.
Before service began Mike got the call that his Grandma Jewell had passed. I'm thankful for the childhood memories he has with her and that she is resting in a place of eternal comfort.
We didn't stay for classes this week, because we wanted to head to Missouri to family lunch.
I didn't do a very good job taking pictures and didn't even get one with my own dad or the kids with him. Sigh. But we did have a great day and it just flew by.
Grandpa set up the dinosaur sprinkler and the kids, especially the little boys and Mia, had a big time.
Grandpa's youngest grandchild.
Evie believes in enjoying the simple things of summer. A pool of water. A sprinkler. A popsicle. She delights in it all.
Lunch was delicious and so was dessert. Homemade ice cream is just hard to beat! Aunt Annette was in Missouri and she came by for a visit, too. We were sweaty and tired when we started for home, but nonetheless we hit the backyard when we got home for some wind down time before bed. Our neighbor, Barney, stopped by and asked the kids to care for her plants while she and her husband were out of town, and then the kids and Mike FaceTimed AJ to wish her a happy 7th birthday! I got to send her happy greetings, too, but it is hard to get much in around the kids' chatter. Ha.
We logged 4 outdoor hours, Sunday, and several of us were sun kissed by bedtime.
The week was fairly clear with not a lot of plans, which was really nice. The days were hot, so a lot of our outside play was done in the evenings, which meant late bedtimes.
Evie's sweet imagination is blossoming...
A Monday evening backyard wiffle ball game.
I helped Evalynn play because she wanted to bat so badly!
A dress leftover from Emma's childhood years...
Cooling down for the evening with sno cones...
Natalee had early morning OT and PT Tuesday morning. We spent the rest of the day at home working through our checklists and playing.
I started re-reading Brambly Hedge to Evalynn this time.
The days are filled with snacks, food, laundry, sweeping up dirt, more snacks, and the door opening and closing 10000 times. I am thankful. Truly.
More sno cones....
Loving the dye free syrup powders from lil snowie....
Jace got to experience our sno cone fun this week...
Wednesday we were up and out by 9 a.m. Natalee had an appointment in Des Moines to pick up her new orthotics and we had a full day of errands to run.
We switched orthotists and really like the new one. She's a wonderful fit for Natalee and works seamlessly with Natalee's PT, Whitney.
At this visit we picked up new nighttime stretching DAFO's, and a new carbon fiber walking brace.
Natalee's new walking brace is carbon fiber and has less touch points. She says so far it is much more comfortable. It does have less flex than the white leaf spring brace she had, which means she's doing less work and the brace is doing more. This is always a hard step and one that her PT and I discuss a lot - to make any decision that restricts her body movements more and may cause a further loss of mobility. It's a ton of work to weigh the pros and cons of mobility vs quality of life, and I'm thankful for a great team that helps us make these decisions. We felt like with the pain she was having that it was time to give this a try and so far she likes it a lot.
Her old DAFOs are on the left, the new ones are on the right. Much brighter, some improvements to design, and we're hoping that the better fit will improve the stretch she gets to help relax her muscles.
After Natalee's 10:30 appointment we ran several of our shorter errands on the west side of the city. We hit Trader Joe's to restock on dye free "M&M's" and went to two different sporting goods stores looking for the perfect baseball glove for Xavier's birthday. By the time we got done with those errands it was 1:30 and we had hungry kids. We tried to go to Texas Roadhouse but it was closed so I told Mike to stop at the next family style restaurant he found on the way to our next errand stop. Cracker Barrell is was.
These kids were hungry but so good. They tried so hard to not whine and be patient.
Chicken and fries for Evie.
A build your own hungry man's breakfast for Xavier.
Chicken and fries for Ameliya.
The build your own breakfast for Natalee.
Hamburger sliders and fries for Zayden.
Maple bacon chicken strips for mom, and Dad had chicken fried steak. Only Mike, Evie, and I had any leftovers. The rest of the kids cleaned their plates, shared with each other, and got nice full bellies.
After our late lunch we stopped ran another errand and then went to a used book store and had a nice time browsing around. Our final stop was a Target run. I needed random weird things and wanted to look at clothes for Mia. She was in need of a few shorts and tank tops and had a lovely time shopping.
Shopping with kids is hard. They are so good, but you feel like you have to keep them so close. So it's a series of tripping on feet and falling over each other and trying not to yell "just get in a line!" That plus all those errands......one worn out mama.
We headed straight to the back yard so the kids could run and get out all that energy from having to be so well behaved all day.
The new gloves....
We snagged Natalee a new one on sale, too, since her's was a bit small.
Thursday was another "off schedule" day for us. Mike worked in the morning and then came home at noon and took PTO in the afternoon. I had accidentally scheduled an allergy check up for Zayden at the same time as Mia's speech appointment so we needed both of us to be in all the places.
The boys put together yet another cart - this one is for Zayden and Xavier will have the entire nightstand to himself.
Zayden and I headed south for his appointment. We've maintained his same allergist since we moved to Iowa so it's about an hour drive away. We ran into some road construction but were still on time.
The appointment was a bit of a disappointment. No matter what I do, we can't seem to maintain Zayden's allergies. He's a mess again and had an infected ear. That makes sense considering how he's been acting lately.
He and I went to the discount grocery store after his appointment, to try to stretch our grocery budget as much as possible. There weren't a ton of deals but we got a few bargains and a few fun treats for summer. He was such a good shopper and helper to me while we shopped, and very well behaved, especially considering we'd also shopped on Wednesday. Little man took a nap on the way home.
We went to the pharmacy drive through before we came home and unloaded groceries.
The kids got about 3 hours outside Thursday evening and Mia came to get my phone to take pictures of the stick bridge they built.
Friday was Xavier's birthday. He is 12 now, and and I can often see the next few years slipping by in a flash.
Despite birthdays, Natalee is very diligent with her bracing/stretching schedule.
She also worked on braiding a friendship bracelet while she was braced, which is a ton of fine motor work.
A peek at those new braces she got to design. Choosing fun patterns makes it a little more tolerable, for awhile anyways.
We ended Xavier's birthday evening with the final evening of homeschool softball.
If you zoom in you can see Zayden's tongue sticking out as he hits the ball. LOL.
Group pictures. What a fun time this was!
Zayden got to play in the lower and middle group this week. He held his own with that group of big boys in the middle group and had a blast being included!
Aunt Annette drove over to visit and watch the games. I didn't get any pictures with her except this darling one of Evie charging after Mike walking Annette to her car yelling, "Nanette, wait! I'll walk you, too!"
Birthdays are a lot of magic making pressure for mamas. Massaging out a tension headache before I went to bed.
Saturday was mine and Mike's 17th anniversary. He left early for his Grandma Jewell's funeral and had a long day. I had my own weird kind of long day. I wasn't upset he wasn't here for our anniversary, really. He was where he needed to be. I was just kind of in a funk, my back was bugging me, and I was a bit lonely I think.
I turned on the TV as the kids straggled in and they watched some cartoons in my room and snuggled as they woke up.
Eventually I got up and we got around a little. I vacuumed all the floors. It seems like I did it several times, but I never actually did get around to getting the mopping done.
Evie's hair is just long enough for a messy pony. Sweetie. And she loved this flamingo dress.
Eventually we headed outside for about 5 hours. I put to use the drink holders Mike got us and spent a lot of time reading my book on the hammock while the kids played.
Boys. Jace, Zayden, and Xavier.
hammock snuggles
Supper was leftovers and then I popped some popcorn on the stovetop, melted a stick of butter, and salted it up for a family movie night when Mike got home. We watched Rise and it was pretty good.
