Gala Decorations and Views

The gala committee did a phenomenal job with the decorations. There were so many tiny details that did not go unnoticed with us!

There were pictures of kids as the backdrop of the stage--we knew almost all of them! I loved seeing those smiling faces!

Each place setting had a menu with a different child's picture and story on the back. Gala-goers got to read about 800+ different children that have walked through the doors of RMH! You may remember that one of our friends recently lost her son Malachi, who was a fellow trach kid. When they sat at their place at our table, Malachi's sister had his picture and story at her place! It was such a sweet moment for them.

Whether they meant to or not, the gala colors coordinated perfectly with the colors in the carpet! It really looked nice with the yellow, red, and blue.

These trees lined the hall of the hotel where the cocktail hour was. There were 700 pictures of kids hanging from the sparkling branches, and it was breathtaking. This picture does not do it justice. Each photo was hand-cut and I can only imagine how much time it took to do this! I absolutely loved it--my favorite decoration by far!

Can I just say that only The Ronald McDonald House would bring their therapy dogs to a formal gala?!? I LOVE THIS!!! What an awesome way to show people what life in the House is like!

This was a glimpse of what the cocktail hour looked like. Yeah...a bit crowded! I grabbed my glass of red wine* in one hand and Abby in the other, and we high-tailed it out of there!

*No, I did not pull a Shelton Cooper during my speech and go up there intoxicated! I drank my one glass of wine over three hours, thank you very much!

Thank goodness for the green room for the RMH families! They had coloring books, crafts, and snacks to entertain the kids during the waiting game. We hid there during the very crowded cocktail hour.

Charm City Cakes made this ridiculously cool cake for the House. They are so good for the House and make cakes for them all of the time. If you look closely, there are SO many details that depict what goes on at the House. It was so cool!!!

This is obviously not a great picture, but it does give you an idea of the number of people there during the dinner service...which was fancy, fancy food, I might add! After a salad of butternut squash and shredded beets over a bed of arugula with goat cheese sprinkled on top (which, for the record, I loved...but it was lost on my boys!), we had filet mignon and a crab cake. Matt got two (reportedly amazing) filets, and I got two absolutely delicious crab cakes! It was a win-win situation!

The servers were so sweet and accommodating. I think they would have brought Abby just about anything she would have eaten! :) They brought her a little plate of fruit, and she happily ~~munched~~ sucked on a strawberry while I ate my dinner. Yes, I realize how dangerous this was with the white cuffs on that dress, but it worked out okay.

They even had rock candy for the kids at the end of the night! (Matt still thinks that these may have actually been sugar stirrers for the coffee that we never saw. He may have been right, but Abby thought it was rock candy and thoroughly enjoyed it, so I'm going with that!)

Next up: The play-by-play of the Gala in as many photos as I can gather! :)

Cerebrocostomandibular Syndrome

If you happen to pick up the latest Reader's Digest, there is an article in there about Piper Breinholt , a four year old with CCMS. If you've been around here a while, you'll remember wayyyyyy back when we first received Abby's diagnosis that I was able to speak to Piper's mom, Reagan. The article is more about their story and not as much about the ins and outs of CCMS, but I think it's probably enough to get some people googling it and I'm hoping a few will end up here. Every once in a while, I give a blog post the title of Cerebrocostomandibular Syndrome so that it would show up in Google. My ever-present hope is that people will stumble across my blog and 1) be encouraged by the hope we have in Christ, 2) feel a connection with someone in a similar situation as them, or 3) get excited over the miracles that have been performed in Abby's life!! (a combination of all 3 is great too!) :) Notice that it's not to get famous and it never wi

The Potty Man

Caleb LOVES to go potty! I have never heard a potty training story like this one....Caleb tells us when he needs to go, we take his diaper off, and he goes! Now, is it perfect? No, not at all! We aren't trying to potty train at at all, but we figure every time he goes is one less diaper we have to change! The only time we consistantly put him on the potty is when we give him a bath (he always pees in the tub, so we know he needs to go!) He almost always goes on the potty now instead of the tub though. When he's not "really" going potty, he's pretending to go potty! He's such a funny kid!

Lego Party: Favors

I'm a little slow in posting the Lego Party pictures, but I think I have a few excuses I could use. At any rate, I wanted to share what I did for the party! It will take a few posts, so stay with me. I'll start with how I did the favors. These are the goody bags I made. I just bought solid colored gift bags and matched scrapbook paper to each bag. Then I punched circles and attached them with the 3D foam tape so that the circles were raised. I used the keychain (explained below) as a name tag on the outside. These are Duplo blocks. I put a round magnet on the back and...voila! A magnet! (note: hot glue doesn't work so well...I ended up reglueing them with my apoxy because the magnets fell off.) I made crayons using Lego man crayons. Yes, I know this guy has lost half of his leg. The others were already packaged and I didn't want to open one up just to get a picture. I used a Lego mold to make the crayons. Caleb put small pieces of crayon in each m

Life as a Leach

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