Levi's 2nd Birthday

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Eliza's 6th Birthday

Today is Eliza's 6th Birthday! She wanted to have a Wii Party. The Henry Family came over and we played Wii and ate pizza and cupcakes (some with strawberries and whip cream). Below are a few photos from the evening in no particular order. I am happy Eliza was born! :0)

I didn't get any photos of it, but Levi loved playing with Rusty, Aunt Molly's toy poodle.

The candles were pretty cool. The flames were the same color as the candle.

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Pillowcase Dresses

I learned how to make Pillowcase Dresses yesterday at Activity Day Girls; thanks to the Primary President, Sister Amy! Eliza and Sadie got to watch the big girls making them and they really wanted one too. So, yesterday evening we went to the store and the girls picked out the fabric they wanted. Sadie picked cows because they make milk, of course. :0) I made dresses for their dolls with the scraps.

My Crazy Lazy

I was born with crossed eyes.

When I was an infant I had 3 surgeries to correct my crossed eyes. It is challenging to straighten eyes because the surgeon can not be sure they are straight when he is working on them. He/she make his/her best guess.
My eyes were never perfectly aligned. If one's eyes are not straight, one will see double. The brain will learn to suppress one image to eliminate the double vision. So, all of my life I have only used one eye at a time. I see out of both eyes, but I alternate which one I use to focus and which one I suppress. This is so natural to me, that I didn't even know I did it until an eye doctor pointed it out to me when I was 25 years old.

I was so awesome in 9th grade that I could even look in 2 directions at once!My wandering eye (strabismus) was a little vexatious because people often thought I wasn't looking at them. When you give someone eye contact, you look at one of their eyes. So, I had a 50% chance someone I was talking to would think I was looking at him or her.
When I taught the children in Primary (at church), several times children became confused because they thought I was calling someone else their name. I was good with the names, just not with the looking. One day, I just explained my "Crazy Lazy" eye to the children. I brought in a pair of glasses with one red lens and one green lens for each child. I had them put on the glasses. They talked about how they could see both red and green at the same time. I then told them that when I put on the glasses I can only see red or green, not both at the same time. I explained that I only use one eye so the eye I am not using wanders away. I called this my "Crazy Lazy." If the crazy lazy wasn't looking at them, look at my other eye. When the children later seemed confused about whom I was addressing, I'd remind them to ignore the Crazy Lazy! :0) Fun times!!!

Soooo, I decided to try again for straight eyes!

Beware:
Below is a scary post-surgery photo! It's a red eyed monster!
BOO!!

So surgery #4 left me with eyes that drifted inward instead of outward. The surgeon, Dr. Brown, over-corrected on purpose. The hope was that as my eye muscles healed, they would pull my eyes back to the center------They didn't.

My tired old brain could not deal with the new inward position of my eyes. So, I had pesky double vision. In addition, for the first 2.5 weeks, I had a torsion problem with my right eye. Everything appeared to be tilted, like it was leaning. That was crazy but my brain worked that out on it's own! Phew.

So,the eye nurse, Lisa, worked with me on the double vision. She put a prizm on one of my glasses lens, The prizm would bend the light, which would move the image from that eye out of my view, so the double vision would disappear. I felt a bit nerdy wearing the funny looking, cloudy prizm. (But that's not unusual, huh, Molly?).
Three months after surgery #4, I had surgery #5! This time Dr. Brown only operated on my left eye. I woke up after the surgery a little disappointed that I still saw double. I came home, groggy from the anesthesia, and took a nap. I woke up a few hours later and looked at the clock. I was elated to discover that there was just ONE clock! Yippee!!

Ta Da! They're lookin' straight!

Today I had my 6 week post-op check-up. Everything looks good. I was a little concerned about how red the corner of my left eye still looks. Lisa explained that it could take up to a year for the scar tissue to completely heal, but it should continue to lighten all the time. Dr. Brown seemed sure it would eventually go white. I had a loose stitch that was stuck in my eye. It looked like an eye lash. but wouldn't come out. Dr. Brown put an anesthetic drop in my eye and removed the stitch with a tool. She said that removing the stitch should help the redness go away. It was a foreign body that was irritating my eye.

I am so excited!!! My eyes appear straight and my pesky double vision is gone!

Tutus!

Eliza, Sadie and I love the new skirts Grandma sent!

It was such a treat when the girls opened their package!

Blurry, but still a cute curtsy. ;)
David and I are in our room talking. We hear hysterical laughter coming from 4 year old, Sadie. It was one of those unstoppable belly laughs. I, like most folks, love a good stomach cramping, speech impaired, humor induced laugh. It was a joy to listen to my small child experience this! (Much more delightful than say a tickle induced laugh). When Sadie finally slowed down her laughter to a light giggle, I inquired, "Sadie, what is so funny?" She began, "Levi iiiiiiis...." (Bout of uncontrolled laughter).... "He iii(giggles)iis...(more laughter).....

1 Minutes Earlier:
Levi comes into my room holding a tutu he had pulled out of the girl's dress up box. He struggled to get it on himself and then he handed it to me. I was a bit hesitant to dress my boy in a tutu but I understood he wanted to dance with his sisters. I put it on him and he anxiously ran out to the family room.

Sadie's reaction made it worth it! The next day I asked her, "Sadie, what was so funny yesterday?" The memory of it still made her laugh as she retold, "Levi was dancing in my tutu!"

(Sigh) My boy is back to his firetruck! Really, it is so fun to see how boys and girls are born different! Levi has started charging me, diving into me, or falling in my lap with some accompanying sound affect. Then he gives me a hug, climbs down, backs up for some running room and does it again. He's affectionate, playful, and destructive all in one move. :0)


David has been growing his hair out for the first time in his life. I really had no idea he had curly hair and I have known him 10 years! He is getting all kinds of attention over these lovely locks!