Saturday, September 29, 2007

Nanananabooboo, I'm Goin' on Vacation

Last spring Smart Guy told me that in September I was going on a vacation... with no one but me! Alone. Solo. Well, we really hadn't talked about specifics until the last few weeks here. Two weeks ago, I called up Ruby and asked if I could come out. Sure, she said, come on out! I was pumped, then I found that blasted abscess and they had to do the surgery again, so we waited until afterward to see how my recovery went before we ordered the tickets. Well, other than the exhaustion, I'm doing good, so next Tuesday afternoon, I'm getting on an airplane to fly to St. Louis to see Ruby and her family, one of whom is only 8 months old and I've never met! I'm so excited. My plans did get altered a little. Part of the vacation was that I was going to take the train there. Twenty blissful hours to sit on a train and read books with no little people, (of my own anyway, knowing my luck I would have ended up in the same car as the Duggar family), and lunch with my little bro during my layover in Chicago. Unfortunately for that part of the vacation, we all kinda agree that sitting on my bahooney for that many hours in a train car seat less than two weeks after having surgery on it probably wasn't the wisest thing in the world, so the plane it is. I'm so excited. Ruby and I havn't seen one another since Inkling's wedding 16 months ago, and then we only were together for a couple hours, and it wasn't a time when we were able to visit a whole lot because we both had little people running around.

I've never been away from my entire clan for five days before. I'm not sure if I can handle it or not.... wait, let me think about it.... yah, not a problem. I will definitely be ready to get home and jump back in to mommydom again I'm sure. Daddy and the little people have big plans while I'm gone. They've been planning their menu already. Much to Bee's chagrin, it contains Daddy's 5-bean chili..... yuck! Bee and I are not bean people. I like the little tiny chili beans and that's it. Smart Guy only makes his chili when I'm not around. The boys and him love it. Well, they can have it. He did tell Bee that he'd make her a little pot without all the beans before he added them. She said "Shoo, I'm glad." They're also gonna go to CiCi's pizza, out to a movie, and to some stuff that has currently escaped my over-tired brain!

Thank you, my dear, sweet husband for sending me on this trip and being the kind of dad that enables me to know that I don't have to worry about anything bigger than Bee's hair being done so that I can relax the entire time. I love you so much!!

Well, it's bedtime people! Later! Maybe I'll try to post a little more often in the next few days, but don't hold your breath!

Overheard Conversation

This afternoon at the boys' soccer game, I heard this from the people sitting behind us.
"That #22, the kid with the glasses, is good. He can get the ball all the way down the field real fast."

Number 22 just happens to be my kid. Ya know, the one that probably would never walk. Yah, kinda makes a mom's head swell up!

Have You Had Your Snuggles Today

This conversation took place yesterday morning.
Bee: Mommy, I don't wanna cuddle today.
Mommy: Okay, how about snuggling instead.
Bee: Okay, that sounds good!

Apparently there is a big difference between cuddling and snuggling when your are four years old. Who knew!

Ya Know It's High Time To Clean...

...when you pick up the throw rugs in your kitchen and you can hear the junk from them hitting the floor and feeling it hit your feet. Yah.... my name is Grace and I'm a horrible housekeeper. Of course I could blame it on the fact that I just had surgery last Friday, but the fact of the matter is that my pain has been really good since Wednesday or so, I just can't get my energy back. I have a definite case of the blahs right now. I just can't get motivated to get up and go right now! So for the past hour or so, I've been trying to get some cleaning done, but my house is soooo bad that it's gonna take Smart Guy and I both several hours to get it done. Of course, my children are all big enough to help, so they will all be coming inside around 7:45 and helping get this pigsty in order. So, off to get some more done!!

10:05 Update We all worked for about a 1/2 hour picking things up and putting things away! The house looks a thousand times better. I feel so much better! I can relax a little bit now!

Monday, September 24, 2007

It's a Date

At first I thought having Bee going to preschool from 12:30 until 3:00 three days a week seemed odd. (every other school my kids have attented or I've worked in have always had mornings only) Now I realize that leaves three lunch dates open for Daddy and Mommy each week. Awesome! I went to the church to pick him up right after I dropped her off at school. We sat and ate and talked, just the two of us, for an hour and twenty minutes! I love being with my Smart Guy!

Sunday, September 23, 2007

Question of the Day?

What does one do when one looks out their family room window, sees four children playing on and with all the play stuff in the backyard, none of them understand enough English to understand you when you tell them they aren't supposed to be playing when there is no one from our house back there, their parents are no where to be found, and when one does come over finally, the only English that comes out of his mouth is "thank you"? Ugh!

I don't wanna be a snob, but I do not want children in my backyard playing on our stuff when we aren't back there. Even when we are back there, we don't need to have 20 kids back there.

Friday, September 21, 2007

Very Sleepy

Well, I was up by 3:55 am this morning and out the door by 4:30! That time of day should be outlawed. An awesome "mom-type" woman showed up at our house at 4:20 or so to make our day much less stressful by taking care of everything where our kids were concerned. She got everyone up, made sure they were dressed, fed, hair-combed, teeth brushed, backpacks on, and walked to school. Then she took Bee to school at 12:30 and picked her up at 3. We made it back to town just in time for Smart Guy to walk over and meet the boys after school and then walk home with them. Nope, they have yet to walk to or from school alone, and it probably won't happen anytime soon, if ever!

The surgery went good. We arrived at the hospital around 5:45, got all signed in, put in a room to change into a stylin' hospital gown, peed in a cup to make sure I'm not pregnant before anestesia was allowed, and cried my way thru the four pokes it took to get an IV in my steroid-shot veins. If they would just listen to where I told them to poke me, it would have taken one stick and about 5 seconds, but nooooooooo that would mean I was in charge instead of them. After being poked as many times as I have in the past ten years, you'd think I'd know where to get the stick done quick wouldn't ya now! I vaguely remember them laughing at me in the OR when I was lying there trying to keep my eyes open for a few extra seconds after they put the stuff in to knock me out. They wanted to know why I wasn't just letting myself go to sleep immediately. My response? "These last few seconds before I have no control over sleeping is the best I've felt for weeks, I'm gonna enjoy it!" Am I a sleep junkie or what?

So, now I'm due for another dose of pain pills and Benadryl. That's why I'm typing this now, an hour ago, I was still totally out of it from the previous doses, and in about a 1/2 hour, I'll be gone again. I usually give myself about 48 hours of around the clock pain pills and Benadryl before I start trying to function without them. The Benadryl, for those wondering is for two things, my allergies, and also because whenever I have anastesia, my entire body itches for about two days until it's all out of my system! Even with Benadryl, I constantly scratching. Apparently this is a very common reaction, but it wasn't until after my surgery in July, the fifth of the seven I have now had in my life, that someone bothered to tell me that the itching was all a part of the anestesia. I just always thought it was from the dry air in the hospital. Who knew?

So, back to bed! Later taters!

Thursday, September 20, 2007

My Week in Review

Hey everyone! Thought I'd actually post and give everyone an update on our lives... if you really care!!! Bee is doing great with her brace. Right now she's wearing it about 14 hours a day on average. She's supposed to wear it for 16 hours a day, so sometime in the next week or so we'll work up to that. As long as she wears it all night long, she gets in 12 hours without a problem. I personally wouldn't be adjusting to sleeping in that hard thing as well as she has. We're really proud of her!!

Last Friday we had to go to Cleveland for me to have a TB test and an upper GI. Fun, fun, fun!


All three kids had their first soccer games last Saturday. Bee's game was at 8:45 am and it was about 40 degrees and windy. We froze big time sitting on the sidelines watching. We were layered up and covered with blankets. If you've never seen a bunch of 4 and 5 year old girls play soccer, you really must treat yourself sometime. It's hilarious!! They look like a flock of birds, all going one direction and then suddenly turning and going the other! Ten minutes into the game, the coach realized that the teams were totally not matched equally. So she stopped the game and changed everyone's jersey's around and then started the game back up. At one point in the game, she stopped both the little girls games, put them all in a line and gave them some coaching, and then let them loose to their games again. If we hadn't been freezing our bahoonies off, it would have been fun.

The boys had their team pictures taken at 2:45 and then a double header at 3:30 and 4:30! In third grade the kids have a little more control of the ball and have the concept of forwards and defenders and such! There was a time when D.K. was laughing so hard at something that had happened that he forgot what he was supposed to be doing and messed up! Oh well, he was having fun and that's all that matters!!!

Last Friday afternoon sometime I started having pain again reminiscent of last March, although nowhere near as intense. I decided to wait thru the weekend to see if it got any better before I called the doc. It didn't and I discovered another abscess, so I called Monday morning. The had me go in Tuesday afternoon for an appointment with my surgeon, and now on Friday I'm going back in for surgery. It's minor, I'll be in and out in less than six hours. When they did the same thing back in July, I was out shopping the very next day, so the recovery is fairly short. The biggest thing I have to fight thru is getting my energy back.

Bee had her first day at her new preschool on Monday. Her and I went over to a new friends house for a playdate last Thursday, so she knew someone in her class already. They were waiting for us when we got there so the girls could walk into class together.

Yesterday I was home most of the day doing laundry and resting. Last night we dropped Bee and D.K. off at a friends house for the night so we could leave home at 5 am this morning to head to Cleveland (again) for Prophet's MRI so we can figure out what's causing his headaches. After we dropped them off, we headed to Coldstone's with just Prophet and treated him to ice cream! He's so funny when he gets us all to himself. He seems so much more grown-up to me. This morning we were out the door by 5:05 am and pulled into the parking lot at 6:15, 1/2 hour early, so we put our seats back and rested for a while before we went in. After talking with the dr. and nurses about his MRI, they gave him "giggle gas" to put him to sleep. Yes, it made him giggle. It also made him flirt with the nurse a little bit. It was cute. They put his IV in after he was asleep, and gave him meds to keep him asleep throughout the MRI thru his IV. After it was done, and he was off the meds, it took him about 45 minutes to wake up. He drank some juice, got his IV out, and they let us come home. He had a hard time walking at first, so we had to wheel him out in a wheelchair. Last time, he was sedated for an MRI he was little so we still pushed him around in the stroller and carried him. He's slightly too big to do that now! He's been talking about going to Taco Bell on the way home from the hospital since last week, so we stopped and treated him. We had to keep hold of him while he was walking around, because he couldn't walk a straight line to save his life. At this point, he's fine and running around the neighbors backyard playing.

We leave at 4:30 in the morning for Cleveland (yes, again) for my surgery. We should be home shortly after noon. I'm the first one on the schedule! Yuck! That's too early!! Everything should go smoothly!!

Well, Bee has been screaming "You treat me like a baby," while laying on the floor behind me for about five minutes! She's angry because I won't let her go outside to play in the neighbors yard while I make dinner. I don't like her out there when I can't watch her closely! I've got to go make dinner, pork chops, mashed taters, and veggies.... then we'll eat it at 8 tonight after soccer practice, a pto meeting, an upward basketball coaches meeting, and an evangelism meeting at church to discuss the "trunk or treat" that I'm in charge of next month have all been attended! Then we'll be dropping the short people over at friends house for the night, and she'll take everyone to school tomorrow!

We are seriously considering switching our main family meal of the day to breakfast starting next week. Our evenings are so crazy right now, and they will be until the end of the year, and we refuse to let it interupt us sitting around the table as a family to eat! If anyone has any ideas for yummy, healthy, unique breakfast food, let me know. I've come up with about 14 things, but 1/2 of them contain eggs. I may have to get creative and serve my children broccolli for breakfast. I'm sure Smart Guy would appreciate that!!

Toodles!!

Wednesday, September 12, 2007

Bee's New Brace

Today was the big day. We picked up Bee's new brace this morning. So far she's done very well with it! Today was also a big day because she got to ride in a booster seat in the car instead of a five-point harness carseat for the first time. The brace officially put her over the 40 pound mark so the orthotics dude and her pedicatrician gave us the okay to move her into the booster. They were both shocked she was still in a five-point harness anyway, since most people tend to either not know about the 40-pound guidline or choose to ignore it and move their kids up to the booster too soon... okay, enough of that soapbox, back to Bee's brace. She was rather uncomfortable in the car for the hour ride home. She seemed to do better once we got home and she could move around in it. Her and I layed down in our bed to watch pbs after lunch. We both took a nap. She seemed to sleep okay in it, which is good, since most of her time in it will be while she's sleeping at nighttime.

Here's pics of Bee modeling her new fashion statement! It has pink, purple, and blue butterflies, purple clouds, and hot-pink straps!



Sunday, September 9, 2007

Prophet's Birthday Party

Tonight was Prophet's birthday party. We had almost 25 people there and fun was had by everyone. We ate pizza! We chowed on chocolate-chip cookie dough pie! We squirted each other with water guns! We ran thru the creek! We slid down slides wet from the last 18 hours of rain and got wet and seriously dirty butts! We threw water balloons at everyone! We got water balloons thrown at us! We got wet! We got dirty! We ignored the fact that it was so humid and sticky that the birthday card envelopes, paper plates, and napkins were actually limp from the moisture! We
had a wonderful time!! We worried part of the day that we'd get rained out, but in the end it didn't matter, we just relaxed and enjoyed ourselves!!

Just hanging out waiting for the pizza to arrive!





All the dirty, wet, and sweaty kids running into the pavilion from the playground for pizza!



Daddy prayed for our pizza and our awesome ten year old before we all dug in!!



Here's an actual picture of me. I'm lighting the candles so someone else had the camera!! I'm the one in the red shirt!


The Birthday Boy blowing out 10 candles on his birthday pie!!





Getting ready for the big water balloon fight! There were about 225 balloons for 8 kids to share! By the time we started the war, they were already wet from playing with water guns, in the creek, and on the still wet playground. The balloons were just the icing on the cake!!










Uncle Smart Guy and our niece Nini!


Prophet surrounded while opening his gifts! Take note of all the wet hair and shirts!



The crew of wet, dirty, and extrememly happy kiddos!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY PROPHET! IT'S BEEN A FUN TEN YEARS BIG GUY!

Fall Deco Time

Okay, before you look at the time and say, "why is she still up?" Yes, I'm still up. I can't sleep. I have no desire to sleep. I'm not the least bit sleepy at this point. I'm not sure, but it could have something to do with the fact that the last three nights I've been so doped up on allergy pills that I've gone to sleep around 9:00 (way, way early for me) and gotten up after 8:00 the next morning. That's way more sleep than normal for me.

Anyway, I need opinions from y'all! This is the centerpiece I did for fall this year on my dining room table. Does it seem like too much goin' on at once? Mom, help!!! I really need everyone's opinion on this!! Of course, it may be changed by the time I get them since this is the middle of the night on Saturday and many of you don't do much on your blogs on Sunday! But let me know, I can always change it back if I do mess with it!! I like it, but it seems rather busy at the same time!! I promise you will not hurt my feelings if you think it's crazy busy!!



Saturday, September 8, 2007

I'm in a funk tonight. I'm feeling really blah! I've been crying and feeling sorry for myself. I've lost a friend. A best-friend. I haven't spoken to her since the first week of June. I called her, she didn't call back. I don't know what to do. She's angry. I understand why.

A Bunch of Stuff

We're having Prophet's birthday party tomorrow night. We've got a pavilion at the park from previous posts reserved for 5-9 and the party will be from 6-8. Grizzly Dad and Mountain Mom are coming over, as are Smart Guys little sis, hubby, and their little girl. There's a possibility of about 25 people there, but we'll see. The menu for the evening is pizza and pie... Prophet's choice. So I currently have four chocolate-chip cookie dough pies sitting on my counter cooling. Very yummy!! We'll have water balloons, water guns, and those party popper things for the kids to play with. Of course, there's the wonderful playground and the creek too!!

I've been trying to get this house in decent shape all day today, but I can't seem to get it done. It seems like everytime I've done something, someone short comes along and undoes it. That combined with the fact that I just have no desire to do anything productive right now means that my house is still a mess.

I haven't felt good since last weekend. I think it's just my wonderful allergies here for a nice long visit. I don't have time to feel nasty. I have a snotty nose, sore throat, clogged ears, which by the way, make every little noise sound like a fog horn, sinus headache, and all around bad attitude right now. Ugh!

This weekend is our county fair. Big deal, you may be tempted to say. Bite your tongue. In this county, you could probably be put into jail for saying things about the fair. Really guys, the kids actually get an entire day off of school on Monday just so they can attend the fair.... I'm seriously not kidding around. They take this really seriously. Today was the first day and up until about 30 minutes ago, we could hear the tractor pull, the very loud tractor pull, going on down at the fairgrounds. Oh yah, did I forget to mention that we only live about a ten minute walk, a 90 second drive from the fairgrounds. Which translates into many loud late nights until next Thursday night. Oh well, it's actually kinda neat that the community is so close knit.

Also, today was the first day of football for all the little kid teams. We happen to live with the local football field in our backyard. They started at around 7:30 this morning and didn't turn out the lights until about 10:30 tonight! I'll be hearing whistles and girls cheering in my sleep tonight. Of course that could also be caused by all the football watched on TV in my own home today too!!

Well, I must go clean a little more before going to bed. Sleep tight!!

I'm a Bad Blogger Girl

Well, everyone, I feel like I've been an absent friend here lately. Since June or so I've barely made time to post anything at all. Life has been happening around me and in order to keep up with it, something has to go. I've actually contemplated saying goodbye to the blog world, but alas the addiction is too strong to leave entirely. I realize that I've come to love all you guys and would miss you dearly if I didn't get on here regularly to catch up.

That said, last weekend we went to Mom and Dad's and I'm just now getting around to posting pics of the weekend. We had a good time. It was actually supposed to have been our family reunion weekend, where the entire family, aunts, uncles, cousins, cousins' kids, etc. get together in one town and eat together for every meal, sit around and talk, go to the pumpkin patch, and other fun things, BUT somehow this year half the family was missing. Those of us that were together had a good time catching up, but I really missed those of you that weren't there. Hopefully next year things will be worked out and we can be a family again. The pictures of Saturday night at the cookout didn't turn out as it was getting dark by that time. But here's some from the rest of the weekend.


My little bro!

Typical Uncey, falls asleep everytime!!

My grandma!

My mom and dad relaxing with everyone!!

My little sis-in-law... she'll probably try to hack into my blog to get this off of here when she see's this!! Oh well, it won't be the first time I've gotten in trouble for something I put on my blog!!

D.K. can fall asleep anywhere, even the middle of the dining room floor!


The one and only pic of the wienie roast that somewhat turned out!

Miss Libby Loo... she hasn't really been eating smurfs, just a blue marker while she and Bee were coloring. Give her a break, she's only 21 months old and apparently they really do taste good!!

Our trip to Curtis Orchard on Sunday! We fed the goats, played on the playground, did the maze, in which Bee totally freaked out, and had fresh apple cider donuts and apple cider!









This pic cracks me up. We didn't have any change to get grain from the machines to feed the goats, so Bee started picking up all the grain off the ground that everyone else had dropped so she could still feed the goats. She even picked it up for a little boy that was standing there and put it into his hands. It was so funny.






These are Sunday night out at the state park close to where my parents live. I grew up going to this park alot. I love that I get to share it with our kids.