Need a Teacher Gift?

If you need a last minute teacher gift...check out Simply Complicated. It just easier to send you there than to repost the whole thing!!!

Pirate Party

I am in the planning stages for a fun pirate party. If you want to follow the progress, click on over to Simply Complicated. Here is a direct link to my first post about Pirate Party Invitations.

Sweet Kaden

About 2 years ago, my sweet Kaden was diagonsed with Amblyopia {or Lazy Eye}. He was 3 at the time. We started to notice his left eye was turning in at times. My oldest little baby had to wear glasses. I was hopeful that this would fix the issue & glasses aren't so bad. {I have worn them for 18 years.} There are worse things that could happen. Plus, he looks so handsome in them.



For a while, the glasses seemed to fix the problem. But, slowly...his eye began to wander even with his glasses on. So, we moved onto the next step. Patching his strong eye {right} to make his weaker eye {left} have to work harder. I struggled with this step. I was grateful that we were able to work on streghtening his eye, but I didn't want him to have a reason to be teased. You want to protect your child from everything.

His first eye patch was awful. We bought it from the Eye Doctor. It was huge & took up his whole face. It got food on it & was in the way all of the time.



So, I set out to find a better patch option. I came across Anissa's Fun Patches. They were exactly what we needed.


Kaden wore his patches for almost 4 months. During those 4 months, I was amazed at how many people were affected by this. Everywhere we went, I had people coming up to ask me about Kaden's situation & tell me how they were affected one way or another. I had adults coming up to me telling me that they wished that their parents had taken care of the issue because they struggle with it now. I had moms coming & asking me where I had found the eye patches. My eyes were opened to a very common problem.



Once his left eye was as strong as his right eye, we ended up doing surgery to shorten the muscles of his eye. His eye still turned in when he concentrated, but now that his eyes were able to work together...the surgery would straighten his eye. He would still need his glasses to help keep his eye straight. The surgery went very well & had very little recovery. Kaden was back to normal in one day. It was amazing.



If he didn't wear his glasses, then his left eye would turn in, but as long as he wore them...his eye did just fine. Over the next year or so..life was normal.



We went back to the eye doctor this week & Kaden is seeing better than he ever has before. The only issue is that his left eye is letting the right eye do all of the work again. So, we are back to patching 3 days a week. Kaden is excited to wear his patch. He wants to wear them to school & show all of the kids. We just ordered 5 new patches from Anissa's Fun Patches. I didn't receive any compensation for telling you this. I just wanted to share our story & hopefully help some of you out there who may be struggling with the same thing that our family has. I hope that my research & our experience with eye patches is able to help out other families.

Muffin Tin Monday...Cinco De Mayo

With soccer on Monday, it has been tough to fit it in. Tonight we managed to do Muffin Tin Monday...uh...Tuesday. We did a taco night for Muffin Tin Monday about 2 weeks ago, but it is a family favorite around here. So, we went with that again for our Cinco De Mayo theme. Here is what we ate for dinner.



red grapes...taco...carrots...spanish rice w/cheese

It was VERY tasty!!!!

Check out other Muffin Tin Meals over at the Muffin Tin Mom.

Muffin Tin Monday...No Theme

Today's Muffin Tin Monday didn't have a theme. I threw together a quick summer dinner before we had to take off for little man's soccer game. So, here you have it...



M&Ms, cheese, mandarin oranges, & an eggy sandwich

Check out other muffin tin meals over at Muffin Tin Mom.

Muffin Tin Monday...Leftovers ROCK!!

Ok...this MTM is right up my alley! Last night, I made tacos. {yup, I actually cooked!!!} So, tonight..we had "build your own taco" night. They also got to use our new Teddy Bear Muffin Tins. The boys thought that this idea was REALLY cool. It was fun watching them "create". Preston sprinkled his cheese & Kaden dumped his cheese on.

Here is what they ate:


cake ball, mandarin oranges, ground beef, cheese, spanish rice with cheese on it, & a flour tortilla.

Check out other muffin tin meals over at Muffin Tin Mom

I'm Back!!!

Wow...I didn't realize that we haven't done much over the last month. I feel terrible. After finishing the quiet book...we started back on our Alphabet Book again. Today was the letter "D". Preston chose to do "dinosaur". He has been all about dinosaurs for over a year now. He also had a request for a T Rex. I knew that I could struggle through making a long neck, but the T Rex was going to be a bit tougher. I found a sample & drew out the T Rex.

He had a T Rex, the letter "D", a google eye, red foam dots, & some glue.


Preston had a great time putting together his dinosaur. He loves to do the glue by himself. It is fun to give them different supplies & see what they do with them. I love his dinosaur!!!! While he worked...we sang the "D" says "duh" from The Leapfrog Letter Factory movie. I love that movie!