Sweet Avery passed away on Monday.
Her parents want SMA testing and awareness spread over the globe. They want Avery to put a face to the terrible disease that is SMA and they don't want any other parent to have to say goodbye to their baby too soon. They are asking for donations toward SMA research and gene therapy (and here is a link thanks to one of my blog readers, La'tasha, that explains a little more about the gene therapy). Taken directly from their blog: An anonymous donor will match every dollar donated up to $500,000 to help bring Dr. Kaspar's SMA Gene Therapy program out of the lab and into her SMA friends. Dr. Kaspar's SMA Gene Therapy could cure Avery's friends or at the very least offer advancements towards a cure for them.
Please check out Avery's Bucket List and consider making a donation.
2) The other day I decided to try my hand at making the Weelicious vanilla wafers. My kids LOVE vanilla wafers. Love them. But I'm trying to cut back on pre-packaged foods as much as possible. So I thought we'd give these a try. I tried one as soon as I pulled them out of the oven and was pretty disappointed. They didn't taste anything at all like vanilla wafers. But. Jaidan came in and grabbed one. Chewed. Made a thoughtful face and said, "these take like biscuits." Another bite. "And they are soooo good!" The kids LOVED them! So while they didn't taste a bob damn thing like vanilla wafers, they're a keeper in our casa. Jaidan has taken to calling them "honey biscuits."
3) If my Facebook feed is any sort of indication, it's most definitely prom season. I've been seeing prom pics for a couple weeks now. They inspired me to post these couple gems of my own:
I'm right smack dab in the front in this one -- wearing a green dress that my grandma made and bangs that SCREAM "1997!"
From my senior year -- I'm Barney the Dinosaur over there on the left
I'm eternally grateful that I went to high school in the late 90's and not the 80's or early 90's. No sky high bangs or fucshia at any of my proms!
Both years* I went to prom, I chose to go with my girlfriends rather than with a date. I didn't have a boyfriend and, even though the same boy asked me to go both years, I turned him down. I didn't like him, didn't want to give him the wrong idea, blah, blah, blah. In hindsight, I wonder if it would've been more fun to have gone with a date. It would've made the pictures more interesting at any rate. Well, as interesting as they could've been in the late 90's. We were really boring with our hairstyles then, ya'll. Even with those "90's bangs" or "the Rachel." Can you imagine 14 or 15 years from now when this year's high school seniors and juniors are looking through pictures? Those boys are going to CRINGE at the awful long, shaggy hair they had going on. Cringe.
* I totally went to a prom a few years after I graduated - as a chaperone! My boyfriend at the time was a high school teacher/ coach and was recruited to chaperone. I was his date.
4) It's hot here. 90 degrees type of hot. I'll take 90 degrees in May to have the type of winter (i.e. nonexistent) we had. The summer is quite possibly going to be the most miserable one yet.
I made ham, black eyed peas, mashed potatoes, and cornbread for dinner the other night. Eddie loved it! He said something about me making it more often. Too bad, dude, the oven has to be on several hours to fix a ham and that's just not gonna happen once it gets any warmer. He's lucky it happened the other night.
5) The TV season is almost over and I gotta say . . . I haven't been impressed with any of my shows this year. I'm upset with how The Office has gone. SVU is no longer something I look forward to. The Biggest Loser was a total snooze fest this season and I'll be very surprised if they bring it back. I suppose I should get more into Big Bang Theory. Thus far I've only watched the reruns on TBS. It's definitely funny and seems to be the Cool Kid Show of the moment.
6) I'm doing the InstaMay challenge this month. Ya'll know I love me some Instagram. Here are the past couple days:
May 1st - Me, smiling
May 2nd - View from my bedroom window
7) Two months from today we will be at DISNEYLAND!
8) Ya'll know I love me some Jason Aldean. Actually, it's probably his voice I love the most. I just want him to whisper "bis-cits" the way he says it in Dirt Road Anthem in my ear over and over and over again. I realize I'm behind the country music times, but I recently downloaded his "My Kinda Party" album. He has a song on there - Country Boy's World - that I'm kind of in love with. Part of the chorus says:
You ever been to Rome, Georgia, picked peaches off the tree
Climbed a water tower in Paris, Tennessee
Went to Florence, Alabama, drank muskadine wine
I'm pretty sure he is singing directly to me. In that case . . . Jas? I can be in Paris or Florence in precisely three hours but I prefer the muskadine wine in Alabama. Let's make it a date. My birthday is in a couple weeks . . .
9) I woke up sometime around 4:00 this morning perched at the very edge of my bed. And I do mean the VERY EDGE of my bed. Why? Because there was a two-year-old sleeping sideways between my husband and I. Her feet were on top of Eddie and her head had burrowed into my bakc and pushed me nearly completely off the bed. Suffice to say, this chick pretty much runs our house.
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