Hello Sunshines!

SO BLESSED.  Ya'll, my family is so very blessed.  I looked back at the past few months and where we are today and I'm so THANKFUL it seems we are all on the upswing. Katie's surgery is healing nicely, I'm feeling better thanks to medicine, Mom is doing better and Dad received a good report from his scan for his bladder cancer.  SO SO SO Thankful. Thank you, Lord!

In my job, we work super hard and crazy late hours for a time, then we have down time and we all try to take off to get the OT off the books. Then it starts all over again (which, for me will be September - mid November). Thankfully, I had all this OT so I've barely touched my sick leave. Since the DR appts are tapering off, I took off a few days to just play with my 2-yr-old niece, Macy. Such a joy! I feel like I miss out on so much of her growing up when I'm working the long hours so I really appreciate the time I get with her.

This week we visited with my bestie, Donna, at her work. Surprised her! (maybe not the best decision, oops!). We played on the playground and enjoyed lunch at Cracker Barrel. She loved it all, loved the people, the playing.

As we were leaving Donna's work, we were on the second floor walking down the stairs and Macy yells, "Hello People!!" She is a social child!

I loved her shadow with her pigtail.  We are horrible at fixing her curly baby-fine hair and are usually baffled about what to do with it.  Her babysitter started pigtails, so this was my attempt to copy it.  I love it!

This was a BIG KID slide, she was higher than 6 ft in the air. And she did NOT want to go down that slide. But after a while she warmed up and decided she loved it, as long as she could hold mine and MawMaw's hands. Did I mention it was a spiral slide so the hand holding thing could only go so far... hahaha.  I enjoyed SO MUCH seeing her expand her comfort zone and be brave. Little by little she would conquer more things on the playground.

My mom finally broke down and got a smart phone - an Iphone - and is learning how to take photos and send text messages.  One day Katie and I were out playing and Mom sent this picture to her.  How sweet is this?! Hmmm... Dad might just find this in a picture frame for Christmas. Daddy can get this girl to sleep better than anyone.

Oh! and I made one more awesome supper last night and wanted to share the recipes with you, but I think I left them at home.  So YUMMY and from a diabetic cook book! with a few tweaks.

Cottage Cheese Baked Potatoes
4 large baking potatoes, baked for an hour in the oven.  Cut them in half and scoop out, leaving a small amount of potato and the peel (make boats, basically).  Put the boats back in the oven to crisp up (I forgot this part). Take 2 cups of cottage cheese, 2 tbps. of onion powder, some garlic powder, salt and pepper and whip it up but good. Put back into the boats and reheat them in the oven so that everything is warm and toasty.  I put Parmesan in the mix but will not do that again because I don't think you need to - just sprinkle some on top.  Everyone really liked these.

I also made Deviled Eggs (which I don't eat but they are pretty easy to make).  Baked onion rings. and some baked brie with honey, pecans and apples to dip. MAN it was tasty.

Ok, so I've rambled enough I think.  :)  Talk to ya'll again soon!