Happy Belated July 4th

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The Sparkman's had a grand time thanks to Worth's firework shopping abilities. We thought for sure Gray would be able to make it to dark this year but that was a no go. He said the fireworks "scar me mommy" and he was done before the show began. Worth did try to take out our neighbor's house with a wayword rocket but beyond that it was a good evening. We spent the day at the park and napping with a little swimming to round out the activities. Gray has been a little sick this week so it was pretty low-key.

The boy is talking up a storm. He is starting to speak in sentences and knows when he is being funny. They are still very close but starting to fight over toys more. Gray is really good at saying sorry after he has walloped Shane upside the head.

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Shane has discovered makeup. She got a kit for her birthday (not from me) and now loves sitting in front of the mirror and putting it on. The other night she wanted to do my face. You know when you are asked to close your eyes and you feel a wet smear from your hairline to your mouth that you are in trouble. After she sufficiently coated us with glitter she did our hair (I got FIVE barrettes) and put jewelry on us so we could be "Rock-n-Roll Girls"

Worth and I went to Denver for a few days of business. My aunt came up from Houston to watch the kids. They had tons of fun and Gray is still walking around looking for "Rene". Worth took a few days vacation and drove to Denver and camped out. He shot this great picture. Next time the whole family will have to go.

Sparkman-Simpson

I can even make myself skinny!
Go to the Simpson's Movie web site and you can too.

Good Taste

Shane's "Five Favorite Songs-EVER"

1. Girls Just Wanna Have Fun
2. Dancing Queen
3. Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds
4. Mary Had a Little Lamb
5. Daisy Bell

Gotta love the variety!

Playing catch up

Sorry so long since the last post – so many things to update you about. I will start most recent events and go back. Click any of the pictures to see more.


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Shane had her long awaited ballet recital. She did great, no stage fright - which I was afraid of. True to Sparkman form we lost her new ballet shoes 2 weeks before the big event and no one in town was restocking. Luckily she has a school friend in another class (Carson – the little girl in blue in many of the backstage pictures) who loaned us some for that night.


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All the girls were hysterical and I had a cry a little to see our girl up on stage, doin’ her thing. She is so great and has such a sweet disposition. She decided to “take the summer off” from ballet, so we will see if her interest returns in the fall.

Mother’s Day weekend was very nice. We went to Hot Springs with Grandma and just relaxed. Mainly we tried to find things to keep the kids entertained with but they had a great time. I got a wonderful gift from Worth, a pair of diamond earrings. They are the first nice jewelry (besides my wedding ring) I have ever had. Shane brought me the present and I said “Wow, a little box, I never get little boxes” - now she likes to tell everyone that “Mommy got a little box with diamonds, she never gets little boxes.”

The Friday before Mother’s Day we returned to Arkansas Children’s Hospital with Gray for his MRI. We got there at 7 am and had him sedated by 8 and back awake by 9:30. As any parent knows, it is terrible to let your baby be sedated. I would like the think I am fairly level headed and don’t over react too often but watching Gray’s scared little eyes while they are giving him gas made me uneasy and weepy. Coming out of anesthesia was WAY worse. He was inconsolable for about an hour. He was insistent that they take the IV out of his arm before he would stop screaming or drink anything. When the nurse finally caved he got better quickly. We then went to meet with Dr. Bower – he said Gray didn’t have what he was looking for but they did see a very small “black spot” at the base of the brain. They don’t think it is any big deal but now we have to go have a neurologist to check it out. We are hoping to get that appointment in the next month or so. As for the swallowing issues, we just continue thickening his liquids and go back for another study in 9 months and hope he will be retraining himself to swallow properly.

Other smaller things...


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Last weekend we went on a nice nature mini-hike at a great trail in Bella Vista. We got to hear birds, bugs and frogs and the whole time our city girl kept asking when we were going home. Actually, she did have fun but I think a couple of hours was plenty on the trail. We packed a picnic lunch and fun was had by all.

Gray now knows how to escape from his bed. Very scary, not from the stand point of him falling because he is very good at being a dare devil but – HE IS FREE! Wow, that came fast. Worth put a chain lock on our back door last weekend – enough said.