Laser Treatment

Reese had another laser treatment this morning. According to my mom, the first 30 minutes after she came out from under anasthesia were hell. They didn't give her morphine while in the OR this time (they did last time), so she was in a fair bit of pain afterward. So this is pretty much the face of pitiful. I think this is something like her 14th laser treatment on her face.

Seeing as she's 6 now, I won't be taking pictures simply for updates' sake. If I happen to take a picture of her for other reasons, and post it, that's one thing, but she gets kind of self-conscious after her laser treatments. Understandably. It's rough for her, and little kids tend to ask questions, at best.

If you have a child with a birthmark, or are thinking of adopting a child with a birthmark, I am more than happy to speak with you. We've had Reese for almost 4 years now, so we're not exactly newbies to the whole thing. :) Most of her older laser treatments have pretty regular pictures showing how she healed up afterward. Keeping in mind that all children heal differently, those pictures are available as a resource. Also keeping in mind that her legs usually reacted really badly to laser, and that's not standard. However, if you have a child who is not Caucasian, I believe that possibility goes up for blistering and somewhat adverse reactions, as well as less lightening. The melanin reacts with the lasers in ways so that it doesn't always work quite so well as it does on paler children.  These lasers are technically made for Caucasian people, not those who are darker, but it's what we've got.

Last night, we also had a good amount of bad weather. Lots of power lines down, lots of trees down, and currently 7 fatalities in our state, all except one from trees falling on houses. The last one was a double-wide trailer that flipped over. We're all fine, as is all of our family. Bad weather and tornadoes are extremely commonplace in Arkansas at this time of the year. So, yeah, lots of excitement for the next 5-6 months or so.

Mozart's Requiem

Snow storm...

Like Reese's hat? It has bunny ears, but you can't see them.

You can see how deep it is here, almost over Reese's boots

About 11 am this morning (note the bowl at the bottom of the shot)

That same bowl at about 1 pm

About 12:45 pm

So Arkansas got hit by another snow storm. Totals today for our area (actually about a 20 minute drive from here) was around 5.8", which is A LOT for central Arkansas. Lots of fluffy, white snow. Our Dad measured and said that he measured it to be 7" in our yard, which wouldn't surprise me at all having walked out into it.

Reese played with a little girl and her brother today, which made the snow way more fun for her. She was saying it was "no fun" because Joseph and I wouldn't go out in it. I sprained my ankle Saturday and didn't want to risk twisting it again. The little girl is the cousin of some kids I played with a lot growing up, so it's kind of funny. :) They had fun, though. They played until the cold became intolerable, then Reese went to play at their house for a little while.

School was, obviously, cancelled today, and it is also cancelled tomorrow. Reese didn't have school Friday anyway, so she has no school for the rest of the week, or Monday! Lucky kid.

01/10/2011- Another Snow Day!

Threatening to squish the base of the snowman we never finished...

Making a snow angel...

Making a snow ball

The snow ice cream we made

Yesterday (01/10/11) was another snow day, i.e. Reese was out of school. College doesn't start back until a week from today. The streets were mostly cleared in our neighborhood (until it refroze overnight), so we drove the block and a half up to the grocery store to get ingredients for chili. After we got home, we played in the snow for a while, with Reese and Joseph having a pretty decent snowball fight. My hands froze after making one snowball so I stayed off to the side and laughed. Because Joseph has good aim, and Reese doesn't. Except for from like a foot away.

We had chili for dinner and then I went out to gather a large amount of clean snow to try snow ice cream again. We used a can of condensed milk, not even 1/8 of a cup of sugar (our Sunday try at snow ice cream was way too gritty when we used normal milk and sugar), and a teaspoon of vanilla. We added just enough milk to make it easy to stir, probably around the same amount of milk as sugar. It turned out awesome, even looked like real ice cream. The picture above was taken with my iPhone, towards the end of the bowl. I forgot to take a picture before we dug into it. But it tasted awesome, and the texture was great.

Today, the snow is beginning to melt away, which is great for returning to school and all, but not so much for the fact that I love the way the snow looks. So pretty. Although no one in Arkansas appears to be capable of driving in it. It doesn't seem to occur to them to slow down in such conditions.

Snow!

Early in the snow here in Arkansas

Myself in the snow on Sunday, 01/09/11

Reese in the snow. The sweater is the one her foster mother in China sent home with me in 2009, handmade by her foster mother.

Jumping on the trampoline in the snow to see if the snow would hop up (there was too much of it)

Kitty foot prints

Joseph wrote this on the hood of my parents' car, says 'M + J'

So, the snow did hit Arkansas yesterday, 01/09/11. I think we got around 7 inches total around here. A lot of snow, and it was the powdery kind, which Arkansas never seems to get, unless it is on top of ice. So then...snow is pretty pointless. Snowballs with ice mixed in hurts.

The snow fell from about 1:30 or 2 pm through a good chunk of the night, leaving us with around 7-8 inches of snow. We played in it, made some snowballs, wandered around outside, watched the snow fall. It was, and it, very gorgeous. Very fluffy.

We made snow ice cream, last night's attempt being less good than tonight's, but I'm going to do another post for today's adventures. :)

Arkansas State Fair

Aunt Lacey, Dad, myself, Joseph, and Reese

Reese milking a "cow"

Dad and Reese on the ferris wheel

Reese on one of the "rides", for lack of a better term

The Fair was back in October, but we lost my "little" (point and shoot) camera from then until now. So I'm just now posting pics.

Look at what we have...

Falling from the sky.

Yes, that is approximately .5 inch hail. Arkansas has been pounded 3 times or so since February with bad weather, with tornadoes in all. There have been some fatalities in each go-'round. Today is number 4, I believe. Reese and I just spent some time in the bathtub as the above was falling. We're fine, no damage, but the weather isn't out of the state yet.

Please pray for the families who have lost friends or loved ones or properties in the recent months storms, and for those who will be impacted by this storm today.

I took some awesome pictures today while we were out. We didn't go to the territory fair thing, but we did go to a Japanese steak house and to see our sister, Michelle, and family. All of those pictures are on my big camera which takes a bit longer to upload, so you'll have to wait for those.

[UPDATE]
Also, one of my pictures of the hail was just shown on a local news station! Cool! I'd show you but it tells our exact town, so sorry!