Stem cell treatments. quick post

It's finally here. After all the planning, fundraising, anticipation we are finally going to get Sam's stem cell treatments this week. She will be getting them this tuesday July 10. So at 0800 we will be in the air tomorrow crossing the United States so please keep us in your thoughts and/or prayers as we go on this venture. I will post more when we get back with pics and more :) Thanks for your support!!! It means alot :)



Hope everyone had a great July 4th!!


Here is what we did all last week.
These are some great memories :)  The kids were just snapping away and we had to go back and check all the beans and make sure they were strung and snapped but i wouldn't trade it for the world!!!
I would encourange everyone to have some sort of garden it teaches kids sooo much. They love it.

Honeysuckle delight.

Who doesn't love the smell of honeysuckles?! Around our house they just grow naturally in places covering fences which is beautiful. Not only do they smell good it's fun to suck out the sweet nectar! They range in color from bright white, off white, and yellow against dense green leaves.

Umm. . . that's what Sam thinks about honeysuckles. She had nothing to do with them. I like the dots

of flowers around her and behind her in this pic though. . . looks pretty cool.

So i meant to do this post last Friday a week ago to correlate with our last post about gardening and what is in our back yard.  That didn't happen!

Also , there is an auction going on right now to Help Samantha Walk!!!! Some lovely ladies over at Boutique Challenge Auctions donated some lovely handmade items to help raise money for Sam's stem cell treatments, therapy, and equipment. . .Check the auction out here!

Here are the items i made for it . . . .

I just love the beautiful field of flowers in our back yard :) I like pics outside with nature and pretty little blonde headed girls. . . . . . come check out the auction. It ends Monday May 21 at 10 pm est. . .

thanks for reading. . . 

Watch the garden grow. Part 1.

So we finally planted our garden last week and it's already sprouting like crazy!!! I am so excited to beable to eat fresh veggies this summer!!  One thing i thought of recently is that we don't have any fruit trees, i would love to beable to walk outside and get an apple or something, HA! Oh! Maybe make jelly from plums or something like that would be awesome!   We have our eggs now, that is a new thing this year, our chickens. . .

So here are the kids planting some zucchini seeds. . . here is James squatting covering his with dirt. .

And here is Sammy poking her little seed in the dirt with her finger. . . . 

And she decided she was going to cover up her seed with her pink crutch. . . . . lol, so cute!

So Jamie and I planted the majority of our garden last week and it is sprouting like it's going out of style. . . so i took some pictures, so we can watch the progress. . . .

this is yellow squash. . umm umm , can't wait for those babies to start producing. . .

Green beans. . . .

This is just showing Jamie's rows, lol. . . they are mostly straight, i guess. . .

this is a close up of a single sprig of corn peeking out !

Gardening is so much fun, it's work to keep it up, but you get to eat right out of your back yard, or heck some people plant in pots and go out on their deck or front porch and get 'em a mater. . .Plus, the kids learn a lot and they like to participate.

Thanks for reading. . . More to come tomorrow on more things in our back yard :)  . . . .

The Chicken Dance.

We have eggs coming out of our ears! It's awesome though, if I'm hungry, I'll just go fry up an egg, slap it on some bread, add cheese, and there you go! A high protein, wholesome snack. 

Here is Sam, trying to sneak up on a chicken to pet it. She gets mad when they run off.

Now it's a game.

Still trying. . . .

This is the most awesome thing in the world for a kid! Riding on the tractor!!! I remember doing that with my grandma and grandpa when i was little. This is a Daddy's Girl!!

We worked on our garden yesterday, i will post pics when everything starts coming up.

We planted corn, green beans, tomatoes, okra, yellow squash, lettuce, spinach, radishes, pickling cucumbers, zucchini. I think that's it. . . .

Can't wait for that either!!! It's making my mouth water.

On a different note, James has been playing t-ball. At first he really whined about it and acted like the bat was really heavy and fell on the ground like he was just sooooo tired, and just couldn't do it. He is doing great at it now! Thank goodness! He had his first game last weekend. He was so excited, he hit the ball into the outfield!

The following is a collection of James' favorite t-ball poses.

Acting like he's paying attention. . .

Chicken Scratch. . . .

Ready to run. . .

Ballerina. . .

Crouching Tiger or the pee pee dance, not sure on that one. . . .

Chillin' with hands in pockets. . .

Twist and shout or pretending to be Mario,

that's a tough one. . .

This is the whole team running across the field to catch 1 ball and throw it to 1st base!

This is James' cheerleader!

Thanks for reading!

Just Plain Good People.

So we have been blessed with some fundraiser opportunities from some just plain good people wanting to help us get Samantha stem cell treatments and therapy to hopefully help her gain strength and be able to walk on her own.  These are people who didn't really know us, or didn't know us at all, they just felt it in their heart to do something for Samantha! First we had a BBQ back on March 10, 2012. I don't have any pictures, unfortunately :( But it was a great turnout and raised $9,000! Wow! Samantha was in several newspapers in our surrounding area. We had a great response from readers , some mailed donations and some took on their own fundraisers to help out Sam. Personal Trainer Frank is holding his own fundraiser at his gym Outtabox Personal Training, you can read about it here . 

Also, she is called "The Cake Lady " by locals who go into a local BP gas station. Wanda read Sam's story in the Denver Weekly also and decided to do what she does best and bake cakes to raise money for Samantha! I received a card in the mail explaining what her plan was. Her original goal was $400, but she kept having interest in her cakes and her final donation was $3050! She raised that in just 5 weeks! So she invited us to BP and had a small celebration on April 20th, and presented us with the check. She had made Samantha the last cake , the 108th! She also wrote a poem for Samantha and had gifts for Sam. The audience included customers, kids from the school across the street, men who stocked the products at the gas station who came in often. She had a big sign up for Sammy and just made a big to-do of everything. It was genuinely a great and overwhelming experience.

Wanda is an amazing person, who had no idea who we were and took it upon herself to help. Believe it or not there really are still some good samaritans around.

The following day, we had a S.P.E.A.K. for Sammy Poker Run.  It was great with loud motorcycles & people who played poker while going to different stops and at the final stop the winner was declared. There was a live auction, raffle, and 50/50 drawing. All of this was organized by Marsha, a woman who really just lives a short distance from me, but we didn't really know each other but only of one another.  However , we grew closer in planning this event for Sammy. It's a good thing she knew what she was doing, because, i knew nothing about poker or how to organize an event like this. I must add there really was a baby in a bar just like Sweet Home Alabama, but it was for a good cause! :)   We started out at East Lincoln Fire Department for registration and ended at Twin Oaks.

This is Nana, one of our volunteers for the poker run. We had
many more who volunteered for this event.

Clint riding Sammy around

The final stop was where we had the silent auction and drawings.

Sammy drew all of the raffle ticket winners and the 50/50 drawing winner.

The auctioneer J.W. and Marsha modeling the Jack Daniels race car hood
waiting for the highest bidder!

We raised close to 5 grand at the poker run event!

Last but not least , we had a Yardale Fundraiser on April 28, which i don't have pics for either, but we had a great turnout for it also! Thanks to everyone who managed all of these fundraisers and took them on. Also, thanks to all of the volunteers!  It means a whole lot to us and we can't wait until we get to get Samantha her treatments. We have gained many new friends and supporters as we begin our journey. We have a few more fundraisers lined up for this summer that i will announce when we get all of the details together.

Thanks for reading.