Yeah - I sometimes lack in my ability to title my post. Also - I am going to start this post with a disclaimer. First - Mat and I took the kids to a local state park to take their Christmas pictures today. Yes, it is a bit early, but it was near 70 degrees today, so I wanted to use the good weather while we have it. Ah - the disclaimer. You will see Finley without her glasses on in these pictures. I know, I am a bad mommy. In my defense, I only had the glasses off her eyes for a few seconds to take the picture, and they went right back on. And I hate having to hide those beautiful eyes all the time. But I just wanted to point that out. Mat and I are diligent about her keeping her glasses and sunglasses on at all times to protect her eyes. But sometimes I make an exception.
Now that I have that out of the way - enjoy the Christmas photoshoot pictures we took today during this post. Even though the kids are getting older, they are still almost impossible to get a good picture of the three of them together.
Moving on.
The interesting news: Well - on Tuesday I failed to mention that this past Monday we had SNOW in our neck of the woods for the first time this year. Enough snow to cause a 2 hour delay, which was a pleasant surprise on a Monday. We had a few inches but by mid afternoon, it had all melted. But that is okay - I am not ready for snow yet.
The great news - our
RDH12 Fund for Sight was selected for our local high schools Holiday Telethon! We are so excited, because this is big for our Fund. We found out on Thursday, so I am pleased to be able to share that in December the telethon will donate every cent to our RDH12 Fund for Sight. We will be on as Finley's Fighters, but will also be there (hopefully) with another RDH12 family, and have videos from a few others. We are so grateful for this opportunity and that is brings us a step closer to our goal.
In other great news - Mat spoke to the researcher who is going to be doing our RDH12 research to hopefully find a cure. We are getting set, and she is putting things in place to start the research. Our number of $70,000 to get a first year of research completed remains a good number, so that remains our goal. If you go to our Finley's Fighters site
HERE, you can see what we have raised so far! (just our family). The other families have been doing equally as well, so we know with everyone's continued help, we can reach our goal!
Now - for some hometown news. As most of you can tell already, the people of Connellsville really step up when there are people in need. They just had their annual Veterans Day assembly at the high school. Since 9/11 they have a group called the CAHS Patriots that this year boast a number of 107 high school student volunteers. Each year this group does several mailings of packages to the troops and this year is no exception- next week they will pack and send over 400 package to the troops in Afganistan for Christmas. The items used to fill those packages come from donations from the community. And something that is even more impressive- each year at the National Cemeteries around the country they try to place Christmas Wreaths on the graves of the veterans buried there. Everyone of course knows about Arlington National Cemetery but they have one within 50 miles of Connellsville called the National Cemetery of the Alleghenies. Two years ago the CAHS Patriots got involved in trying to help sell wreaths for the graves there. The first year they sold 300 wreaths. Last year they sold 498 wreaths and even took a bus of students and adults to the cemetery to help lay these Christmas wreaths on those graves. And this year they sold 607 wreaths- isn't that amazing from a community as small as this? There is just so much caring and support for all causes there. We know that first hand.
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In other news - Finley has become competitive with her brother. Each morning while Mat drives she and Cainan to school, he says she tries to beat him at something. He doesn't allow her to gloat if she "wins" her little game, so instead, Finley has taken to saying "someone is the winner. I am not going to say who, except that the person's name begins with F". What a ham.
Cainan was under the weather this evening. He has been fine all day, but right before dinner he started to complain that his stomach was bothering him. And sure enough - he did.....well....let's just say it wasn't pretty. All over himself and the couch. I caught him the second time, though and we made it to the bathroom. He fell asleep on the couch and after a quick 30 minute snooze, was feeling better. We didn't let him eat much, so hopefully by tomorrow he will be feeling better.
I want to apologize for not doing "Making Meals Monday" for a few weeks. Mat is determined to clean out the house of food before we make anything else, so we are in boring left over and clean out mode. I will be back as soon as he is satisfied.
I am still making braille shirts. I think I have made around 140 of them. I am getting close to my goal of 200! (I will go over 200, but I want to make at least that many). If you want one, you can order one
HERE, or just email me. I have made some for Christmas and they are turning out great!
As a reminder, if you would like to make a donation to RDH12 Fund for Sight using a credit card, you can do so
HERE or
HERE. This will ensure you get a tax receipt from the Foundation and also - if your company matches - you can get a match as well! This is a new update. We were using paypal, but now we are able to do it right through the Spartanburg County Foundation website, which is much easier.
Finley has her last horseback riding lesson this coming week. She is going to be sad to not be going each week until the spring. It was so cute this past week, she was waiting to get on, and the horse leaned down and gave her a little nudge to be patted. I think they have bonded.
All three kids are taking swimming lessons right now. Today was their second lesson. They seem to be enjoying it, although Cainan won't put his face in the water. At least he got into the water.
I think I have rambled long enough. I hope you have enjoyed the pictures. I will see you Tuesday. Enjoy the rest of your weekend!
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