Alex's Lemonade Stand

Today we volunteered at Alex's Lemonade Stand at our local HyVee. Proceeds from the event go to helping find a cure for childhood cancer. This cause is near and dear to our heart, because as most of you know, our nephew Corey is a survivor, having overcome rhabdomyosarcoma. Our friend Kristi's son, Carson, was diagnosed with neuroblastoma at 5 months old, and he, too, is a survivor. We had the opportunity to serve lemonade with Carson today to raise money for the Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation. For more information on this great cause, you can go to http://www.alexslemonade.org/ to read about how Alexandra "Alex" Scott (1996-2004) set up a lemonade stand in her front yard at the age of four to help raise money to find a cure for children with cancer, which has since then become a foundation that has raised over $25 million.

Molly in action!

This is a short video of Molly watching her measuring cups and spoons. :)

Baseball, BBQ, and Birdies

Ben began baseball this week and had his first game on Friday. He hit a line drive down third base for a double, had an RBI, and scored a few runs. He seems to enjoy it, so Brandon is excited that Ben may follow in his dad's footsteps!

Grace had her end-of-the-season soccer BBQ at her pal Nicholas's house on Sunday. The team enjoyed running through the sprinkler, eating hamburgers and cheese puffs, and playing with the Gigi-ball outside. The parents enjoyed sharing PTA and teacher gossip inside the house.

Molly has had a few rough days. The only thing that seems to calm her, other than the twinkle lights in the kitchen, is to watch the "birdies" on her wall. A while ago, you may remember that our friend Chad painted some Sumi-e art for Molly's room. Molly spends several minutes of her day "talking" to her birdies above her changing table. She seems to be drawn to black and white, especially black picture frames. Ben and Grace were trying to calm her down today and decided to make her a mobile. They colored various shapes with black marker and held it above her head. Molly stopped crying briefly to look at each one. Later in the day, I was trying to get some dishes done and Molly was crying...so I grabbed some measuring cups and spoons and hung them above her bouncy seat. This entertained her for over an hour, not even kidding. If I had known it was so easy, and so cheap, I would have hung these all over her room a long time ago!