Foto Friday 2, vol. 5 - Creations by my Cupids...

... with a little help from Mommy :-)
(And, yes... I cheated... I am posting Foto Friday on Saturday!)

Since last weekend, we spent a little bit of time each day working on Valentines for friends, teachers, teachers' assistants and aides. I am not creative in any way, but show me an idea and I can copy it!!! So, thanks to Mighty Max and Amy, the idea for friends was firmly cemented when Amy posted their Valentine project last year. (Thanks, guys! We had lots of fun copying your idea! :-)) With a little Internet surfing, we found our other two projects and set about copying those, too!

Everything was really easy... and since I have tons of scrapbooking supplies, I didn't have to buy anything for the craft part of each project. I did the big cutting (obviously!), but the kids were able to help in some capacity with nearly every step along the way. We used my paper punches whenever possible and Preston liked doing that a bunch. Gracie liked playing with the little punches, but isn't quite strong enough for the punching itself. Both kids liked coloring and gluing (Gracie prefers to put the glue on herself, though!), Preston did great with the "ruffle maker" (paper corrugator) and sticking on the pop-up foam pieces to attach the hearts. He also helped assemble the flowers, but only lasted through a few before he wanted to eat a lollipop himself... which he did... just one, much to his dismay!








Sadly, Gracie got sick Tuesday evening and didn't get to/want to help much after that. Apparently, she wasn't quite over what she had just over a week before and with the four doctors appointments last week, her body couldn't handle the overload and she relapsed - - and then some. Our school lovin' girl only attended one full day last week and missed her Valentine's party on Friday. "Luckily" her pulmonologist ordered labs on her trach secretions last week, so she had a baseline for the bugs that Gracie was brewing. Between those labs and the recent developments with her condition, she prescribed the "big gun" antibiotic, Cipro, to fight this once and for all. Ugh... that's a brutal med. The kicker on all of this... our pharmacy doesn't carry it in suspension form (so we can give through G-tube), so between our pharmacist and my own efforts, we called a gazillion other pharmacies... no one can get it until Monday. What the what? It's not like we live in the middle of no where... Ri-dic-u-lous. Anyway, back to my girl... it's so hard seeing her this miserable... and she's been like this for the better part of a few weeks. Like always, she tries to rally, especially after a series of breathing treatments, but just can't do it for more than about 45 minutes before she tuckers out. It's times like this when we are reminded of the cruel reality of her very fragile health. Not that we "forget" really, but it's not something that we are keenly aware of and constantly thinking about the way we used to. So, when she's sick... really sick... we are easily transported back those first four years.

Here's a sweet pic of Gracie the day before the "ick" returned

In my sleepless, suctioning 'round the clock stupor, I somehow managed to erase several days worth of pictures from my camera... I was devastated. One of the days included pictures of a major "baby book" moment for Gracie - - opening her first Valentine from a (non-relative) boy!!! Mighty Max (with his sweet Mama's help) sent Gracie the most adorable Valentine package. She opened it with such delight and purpose, examining each and every little thing, knowing it was special and picked just for her. I am so sad to have lost those pics... so sad. Thank you Max (and Amy!) for thinking of Gracie and sending her so much love! We ♥ you!

♥Happy Valentine's Day Everyone!!!♥