The Cute

Here are a couple pictures of the kids after church on Sunday.

Emily is always so pretty. I love her smile.




I thought Noah's green plaid shirt and turtleneck were so cute. He looked so big.

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Happy Birthday Song

Check out this cute video of Noah singing Happy Birthday to Daddy.

Too cute!!!!!

Didn't he do a good job?

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Happy Birthday Mike!

Tomorrow is Mike's birthday so I made a cake for him tonight.

Mike's mom made him a cake this weekend so he wanted me to make him a non-traditional cake.  He wanted a Sopapilla Cheesecake.

I'm sure we'll do something fun tomorrow after work and then we'll eat cake!

Happy Birthday Mike!  I hope you have a great day.

Yield: 12 servingsAuthor: Jennifer SmithPin it

Sopapilla Cheesecake

Try this Mexican twist on a cheesecake dessert. Sprinkled with cinnamon and sugar, this treat will be sure to please a crowd.

prep time: 15 MINScook time: 45 MINStotal time: 60 mins

ingredients:

• 3 (8 oz) packages cream cheese, softened
• 1  1/2 cups sugar
• 1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 2  (8 oz) cans crescent roll dough
• 1/2 cup melted butter
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 tsp cinnamon 

instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Beat together cream cheese, sugar and vanilla extract in a bowl until smooth.  Unroll one can of crescent roll dough and press into a greased 9X13 pan, pressing together the seams.  Spread cream cheese mixture into pan.  Unroll 2nd can of crescent roll dough and form into a 9X13 rectangle (on waxed paper) then lay on top of cream cheese mixture in pan.
3. Drizzle melted butter over the top of the cheesecake.  Stir the remaining 1/2 cup of sugar with the cinnamon then sprinkle over the cheesecake.
4. Bake in preheated oven until crescent rolls have puffed and turned golden brown, about 45 minutes.  Cool then cut into squares.

http://www.gracelikerainblog.com/2013/01/happy-birthday-mike.html

This is one of the few cheesecake sopapilla recipes that uses three packages of cream cheese, but it is just so so yummy.  This is the first recipe that I tried and it's the only recipe I have tried.

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Bell's Palsy and the Flu Shot

Exactly a week before I came down with Bell's Palsy, we all got a flu shot.  I normally don't get a flu shot.  We normally take the kids to their pediatrician to get the flu shot, but this year we took them to a different clinic that treats both adults and kids.  My excuse that they only give flu shots to a kid was not going to work!  Gah!

So we got the flu shot on a Saturday.  And by Tuesday or Wednesday, I didn't feel good.  I had that sore throat and ear ache only on one side.  It was the strangest thing that it only hurt on one side.  It hurt BAD.  I don't normally go to the doctor for something like a little sore throat, but by the next Saturday I was back at the clinic looking for some relief.

I was diagnosed with sinusitis and got some antibiotics (amoxcillin) and went home and took some immediately.  Then by the end of the day, I was already showing signs of Bell's Palsy (numb tongue, muscle weakness) even though I didn't recognize it as that.

I think getting the flu vaccine played a part in me developing Bell's Palsy.  I don't think a person can get the flu from getting a flu shot, but it seems like I always get sick after I get the flu vaccine.  That's one of the reasons I don't normally get a flu shot. I will definitely think twice before getting a flu shot in the future.

Do you think the flu shot can play a role in a person developing Bell's Palsy?

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Bell's Palsy - Day 35

Well today is Day 35 with Bell's Palsy.  I have made a lot of improvements within the last couple of weeks.

I can blink my eye now. It doesn't close completely, but it's a lot better.  This week, I had several days where my eye was irritated and dry.  I still tape my eye closed at night to protect it and help add some moisture back, let my eye rest.  Today, I tried wearing my contacts all day and it was not too bad.  I hope to be able to wear my contacts to work at least one or two days next week, depending on how it goes.

As you can see in the picture, my smile is coming back but my eyebrows are still not even.

My smile is back!!!!!

The muscles in my face are still fairly weak.  I still have to hold my lips closed when I rinse my mouth after I brush my teeth.  It is getting easier to talk although I still often talk out of the side of my mouth.

Oddly enough, my nose still has no movement on the affected side.

I think nobody who sees me realizes that I have Bell's Palsy.  I think I've made huge improvements in a little over a month.  This is great!   When I first got Bell's Palsy and heard "1-3 months" I was thinking that is terrible!  But it's been a month and I'm getting back to normal.

Hallelujah!!!!!!


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

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Christmas 2012 Recap

I know I have talked about Bell's Palsy a lot lately, but that's not all that's going on in our lives.

We had a really good Christmas.  Emily and Noah were spoiled rotten, of course.

A few days before Christmas, we went over to Nanny and Poppa's to decorate Christmas cookies.  The kids loved getting to decorate the cookies any way they wanted.  Emily was having the time of her life!  We were supposed to take some home so that we could put them out for Santa, but we forgot!!!!

On Christmas Eve, we went back over to Nanny and Poppa's for supper and to open presents.  The kids had such a good time!  Noah was so excited. He got so many trains and Thomas the train things and even his other favorite thing - Old McDonald had a Farm game!  And Emily got an iPod Touch!!! She had been wanting one and was just thrilled.  She got jewelry and perfume and arts and crafts supplies and so much more.

Then we had to hurry home to wait for Santa!  Even though Santa didn't get any Christmas cookies, we had plenty of good things for him to snack on.

And Santa brought a lot of fun things too!!!!!!!!

Noah got a Thomas the Train bed and toy box.

Emily got a digital piano and a piano bench.

On Christmas Day, it was snowing. We didn't get as much snow as the weathermen forecasted, but we decided to stay home.  The weathermen had been forecasting snow for several days so we had a "Plan B" if we were not able to go to the family lunch.

Of course, we had sausage balls and hot chocolate for breakfast. And I made chicken and dumplings and hot water cornbread for lunch.  We had also made green pea salad and deviled eggs that we were going to take to the family lunch so we ate those for lunch too.

The day did not go as we had planned, but it was a good day nonetheless.

Santa came and brought a Thomas the Train bed and lots of presents under the tree

Santa also brought a digital piano!

We set up Noah's new bed in his room on Christmas Day and the kids played in it a lot.

Aren't the kids cute in their Christmas pajamas too?

Noah also got his first pair of cowboy boots!  He didn't want to wear them at first, but once he put them on he didn't want to take them off!  Sweeeeeeeeet!

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Bell's Palsy - Day 22

After 3 weeks, I'm happy to report that my face is showing signs of improvement.

On Friday morning, I noticed that I was able to move the corner of my mouth a teeny tiny bit.

This is my new smile.  I have practiced this smile probably about 500 times over the last few days.



No noticeable improvement with my eye yet, but I will take every little improvement I can get!

What do you think? Looking better?


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

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Sunday School Bulletin Board - Winter Fun

This morning I put up my winter bulletin board in my Sunday School room.

I inherited a bunch of random bulletin board stuff a few years ago and one of the things was these seasonal kids.

This is the first time I have used these but I think they turned out super cute.

The black background is painted. This makes decorating very easy! Highly recommend.








- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

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Bell's Palsy - Day 19

Well I wish I had different news, but my Bell's Palsy symptoms have not really changed much. People keep telling me that I look better but my face is still paralyzed.

My pre-planned vacation from work ended a couple days ago and it has been an adjustment sitting at my desk at work all day.  My eye bugs me a lot during the day and there are times that I would like nothing more to just sit there with my eyes closed.  The worst part is driving back and forth to work.  My commute is about 45 minutes each way and it is a very precarious situation.  Sometimes my good eye seems just as irritated and unfocused as the bad eye.  Thankfully, Mike has been hauling around both kids in the morning and afternoon so that saves me an additional 30 minutes of drive time each way.

The other difficult part of going back to work is having to explain what's wrong with me over and over.  Most people don't ask.  I am sure they don't know what to say.  Sometimes I don't even bother to explain even though I can see the questions in their eyes. One of the cruel things about Bell's Palsy is that it's hard to say B and P words ... like Bell's Palsy.  Gah!

This deserves it's own blog post, but I have started taking lots of vitamins and supplements - a good multivitamin including all the B vitamins, an additional sublingual B12 supplement, fish oil for the Omega-3, naproxen sodium (Aleve) every six hours for the anti-inflammatory properties.  I don't know if this will help the paralysis go away any quicker, but I'm willing to try it.

By the time I get home from work, I want nothing more than to take a bath and go to bed. I was telling Mike earlier tonight that I wish my iPad had an app that would turn on my electric blanket without me having to get up and go in there.  Talk about lazy, right?

Thankfully, there's only one more work day before the weekend.

Longest.  Short week.  Ever.

Every few days, I make a cell phone video of myself trying to move my face in different ways - lifting my eyebrows, blinking, closing my eyes tight, smiling, puckering my lips. I like to compare it to the video I made on Day 1 (before I even want to the emergency room) to see if I can see ANY difference at all.  Even though people say I look better, the videos look the same to me.  My face still does not move.

I am wondering how long it took for other people to start seeing improvements?  I read something on the internet the other night that said if you don't start having some movements within the first 2-3 weeks, your recovery could take longer.  This is not a good sign.  I sure hope that's not the case.

I still only know one other person who has had Bell's Palsy.  Most people know someone who has had it, but they have not had it themselves.  The statistic I read online said that 40,000 Americans get Bell's Palsy every year.  That's not many.  Less then 800 per state per year.

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