Going, going, GONE!

Any of you remember what gave me 2 painting projects, caused me to go thru a bottle of rubbing alcohol, and had me answering questions about my baby for 4 months?

Yep, it's (FINALLY!!) paid off - I'm sending the last payment right now!  Woo hoo!  G-man graduated from his doc band ("helmet") almost 15 months ago....

and it's finally falling out of the monthly Semi-Homemade budget.   It was a nightmare with insurance (who didn't pay one cent towards it!), but when I look at that beautiful head... it was all worth it.

Cheers to my beautiful "baby" boy!  And here's to hoping that we never go thru that experience again! :)

Bluebonnets and Texas....

Go together like little kids and picture day. Um, okay, maybe not.... So, the wind was FIERCE and kinda freaked G-man out.... Then add us, not-so-gently reminding Big Sis to STOP pulling her brother's head so that it was pointed at us (she likes to 'help,' what can we say?).... and you get 2 kiddos who look like this:

I had zero time (duh) to really look thru the pics and do any editing, but this was my early favorite... We've decided that the candids are the way to go with these 2 crazy munchkins. ;)

Here is daddy, getting some lovin'....

And me with my precious kiddos - I miss them so much today! And you, too, Mr. Fix-It!

We had THE most amazing weekend, the one I've just been craving to have..... no company, no travel, no plans - just us. We watched a movie at home, we stay-cationed to Puerto Rico in our own kitchen (pics, recipes and commentary to come!), we played outside, we took these pics, and we had a celebratory lunch in G-man's honor (flat head graduation, ha!) at Red Robin (I had never been there before - YUMMY!) It was so much fun, I wouldn't mind doing it again. Often.

Before & After - G-man's new noggin!

Ohigosh, you guys..... Mr. Fix-It and I could not have been prouder at baby G-man's graduation from Cranial Technologies! Spending yesterday afternoon and evening with a helmet-free baby was sooooo nice! And when he was first diagnosed with plagiocephaly, we just thought this day was so far into the future. But now it's here! Yea!

So after 98 of these:
Part of the regimen was that we had to bathe G daily. For 98 straight days (seriously, I think we only missed 2 days! And I know there are some mommas that bathe their kids everyday.... but man, it's alot of pressure to HAVE to do it everyday, esp with the kinda schedule y'all know we keep over here!) Anyway, after all those baths, we can finally skip a day here and there!

And after an ENTIRE bottle of this:

The helmet had to be cleaned nightly and then left to dry during that 1 hour G got to be helmet free.

WE ARE DONE!!!! Woo hoo! Okay, so on to the good stuff, the before and after pics!

Look how much he's grown up over the last 4 months (before pics on left/after on right)! And how much he's thinned out! Here's the front view.... His head is less wide, but this isn't the most obvious pic.

The way I understand it.... there's a standard deviation, a range, that's considered 'normal' for a child of his age/sex. The acceptable range is -2 to +2. G-man started at a +4.6 in Dec, and...... (drumroll, please!).... he's now at a +2.1!!!!! I was excited just to SEE the results, but something about having numbers to quantify it, made me all the happier (I know, too many years in retail!)

The back view.... again, less width, which was the goal! (And, um, okay... it's time for a haircut AGAIN!)

This pic shows HUGE change! Here you can really see just how flat our sweet boy's head really was. Now we have rounded out the back significantly, as well as the top... I mean, WOW! Look at the difference! What a sweet profile.... :)

View from the other side.

This top view shows he does still have a little of a flat spot in the same place that he originally did... on the right. BUT, you can really see here how he went from a really WIDE head to getting alot of lengthening and right at that perfect lenght-width ratio!

We had our doubts about this process (esp Mr. Fix-It, he'll be the first to tell you!), but we're so glad we did it. Now G will have a near perfect head for a lifetime (and don't misunderstand me - we didn't do this for purely cosmetic reasons - there were medical ones as well... I'm just not going into all those here!) And now it's all behind us.... well, except those payments... we'll be making those until he turns 2 next summer!!

Happy Graduation, sweet baby boy!

A blog for you fellow Etsy Lovers!

Just how I didn't know about this blog is beyond me.... (and seriously, why didn't I think of that?!) It's a blog for all you Etsy Lovers and Sellers.... so, if you have a shop - or know someone who does - have them email Celeste to set up a give away and get lots of traffic. And if you're just an Etsy lover like me, head over there and enter all the giveaways. It's like they do the browsing for you. (Of course, we still have to check out the site for ourselves. We don't want them to have ALL the fun, now, do we?)

OH, and I'll be back as often as possible this week, after the Big Promotion. I'm wondering what I got myself into.... especially when I hear things like 'don't let the fear tactics affect you,' and 'you have immunity'...... did I apply for a spot on Survivor? Yikes!

But this Friday is a big day in the Semi-Homemade family..... G-man gets his helmet off! Watch for me to share his before and after pics with you, so you can see the amazing transformation! What a beautiful noggin on that crazy cute little boy!

Also, I've been gathering a bunch of fun non-mommish mother's day ideas! Great ideas for your own mommas or to hint to that hubby of yours, especially if you're like me and don't want to end up with a "mom jeans"-type mother's day gift!

Comment on this! ;)

Thanks to several of you (hi, Sasha!) that let me on to the little comment issue I was experiencing... Should be all fixed now, so feel free to comment away! (Then I don't feel AS much like I'm talking to myself!)

Quick helmet update: I've told y'all that baby G-man had a big ole, flat noggin (plagiocephaly, if you want to be medical about it). Meaning the back of is head had absolutely no curve to it. Whatsoever. Even if you tried to close one eye and squint or hold his hair down a certain way. We tried all those things. And it wasn't quite symmetrical either.

But, in the end, he got that expensive piece of headgear y'all have seen in the pics (yep, our lovely insurance.... I won't name any names, but cigna, you know who you are.... 'they' didn't pay one dime for it, despite all the good medical reasons given.) Anyway. He's been in it since Jan 16, which has given us a free pass all the way down to Dallas every single Friday so that it can be adjusted. And at the last appt, we're finally moving to every other week appts - yea!!! And y'all should see the progress he's made. I tried to look for pics that show his newly rounded head, but he's only out of the helmet for 1 hour a day... I'll def post a before/after when we're done.

But here he is in his cute onesie from Aunt Ellen.... I love to take him out in this! It says... Just reshaping my head!

And a couple pics of him sans-helmet.... you just wouldn't believe how wonderful this looks to us!