Afternoon at Granny and Granddaddy's

Granny recently had knee surgery so she's been pretty much cooped up at her house ever since she came home last week. We wanted to go see her last week but then we had all the illnesses pop up and we didn't get to go. We dropped by yesterday morning and ended up staying for two hours!! It is not easy to leave such a fun place!!

We were entertained for quite some time inside, but eventually we ended up outside. Granddaddy had the brilliant idea of showing the kids how to change out the corn on the bird feeder!

 Here he demonstrates how to cut the ends off with a knife, and make a hole in it so it can be stuck on the nail.

Here, Brianna instructs Granddaddy how to put the corn on the nail. It is obvious that he needs someone to teach him these things.

 She even gets to do it by herself!

 After the squirrels are fed, Granny joins us for a walk. She did extraordinarily well with two children darting between her legs all around the yard!!

 Brianna quickly hops up to the "counter" and gives Granny her chicken nuggets, pennies, and quarters. Great service!

 Hunter: "Hmm... I'm sure there are usually a lot more people inside the kitchen for Sunday lunch!"

Both Brianna and Hunter were fascinated with the rain gauges. Granny explained to Brianna how to use a rain gauge. But Hunter preferred it when Granddaddy pretended to chug-a-lug a drink from it!! He made such funny sounds and the kids laughed hysterically!

Later on we got to see a squirrel eating the corn that the kids put out, so they were very excited! Granddaddy even sent home their own cobs for our squirrels here at our house! We had such a fun time with them.

And I FINALLY got pictures of us being with Granny and Granddaddy! It's a miracle!

Cleanliness

Stephen was vacuuming.

(Vacuuming stops.)

Stephen: Honey, I just found a half of a poptart over here!

Me: (Makes a face, shrugs) Sorry!

Stephen: (Laughs) What do you do, feed them breakfast and go back to bed?

Me: Honey!! (Appalled that he would say that!)

Ten seconds later...

Me: That is a really good idea.

Graduation 2012

It's that time of year again - more of our youth from church are graduating this year and moving on to bigger and better things!

We spent Saturday afternoon celebrating one of our graduates, T.J. We have been close friends with his family for about 12 years through church so we were pumped to celebrate him!

The coolest thing is what we got in our invitation to his ceremony - a note saying to bring our bike so we could go for a ride after the reception! Well, it just so happened that Leila was in town this weekend so she offered to keep the kids so we could see T.J. graduate, stay for the cookout, and go for a ride with anyone else who brought their bike.

 Our pastor Chad did the ceremony:

Jeremiah, also from our church, sang for the ceremony.

 And then T.J. spoke.

Getting his diploma!

We rode 30 minutes each way to the ceremony itself, and then the ride we went on with everyone else was about an hour or more, so that was the longest I have gotten to ride with Stephen since he got his motorcycle. It was such a beautiful day. I think we could have ridden for hours if we hadn't known that Leila was "stuck" here with our two kids!! (I know, a Grandma is never "stuck" with her grandchildren!)

I am really proud of T.J. I have a lot of memories of him, but as he's grown older he has really matured and turned into a young man that I really respect and I know he has a great future in front of him. I'm not worried about him like I worry about some kids his age. Congratulations, T.J.!

Best Things in Life

We've had a rough week around here, in the health category. I blogged last Friday that we found out Hunter had impetigo. Since then we've been going nonstop - impetigo won't slow us down. We spent last Saturday afternoon at a birthday party and then all night at a friend's house. Sunday we had goings-on at church as usual. Monday we had a rare cookout night with Jenn and Matt and kids. Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday I was pumping out mystery shops like mad, Wednesday and Thursday nights we had church, and of course that doesn't include all the "normal" things like playing with kids, shopping, working from home, housework, spending time with the hubby and sleeping! I know you know what I'm talking about!

So it pretty well threw me for a loop when I came home from Bible study Thursday night and Stephen told me Brianna was running a fever and her throat was swollen, red, and had white bumps on it. He was sure it was strep.

I might be the worst mom ever but the first thing I thought was, "Oh my gosh, I am working all day at The Classy Paci tomorrow. How is this going to affect me?" Obviously right after that I started fretting about her. I've never known the symptoms and signs of strep, but I do know it's been going around. We decided to check her out in the morning and see how she was feeling.

When she woke up on Friday she was totally miserable. Her throat looked terrible and she just cried all morning long. She couldn't eat, drink, or swallow. Add in the fact that she's 3 years old and never had a sore throat like that before and she was just utterly cranky! Thankfully, my friend Allison who owns The Classy Paci has two kids herself, and understands situations like this. I skipped out on work and took Brianna to the earliest afternoon appointment possible.

I have to tell you, I was not shocked or dismayed to find out she has hand, foot and mouth disease. Thank GOD not strep!!

The reason I laughed somewhat hysterically when the doctor diagnosed her with that is because just within our family, in the last two weeks both my nephews (Evan and Kaleb) had hand, foot and mouth (plus several of my sister's friend's children), and not only Hunter and Kaleb got impetigo, but also my brother-in-law Scott got hand, foot and mouth!! So was I surprised? Heck, no. I was just relieved it wasn't strep!

So Brianna is totally miserable. She won't eat anything really because everything hurts. She's subsided on yogurt and popsicles mainly, although she got down broccoli last night and practically a whole bag of potato chips tonight. Oh, and plenty of chocolate chip cookies. When your kid isn't eating well, you pretty much let them eat anything that sounds good, as long as it's got plenty of calories!

So this has led to several days of tantrums. She's been tired, but not sleeping. No naps. Sleeping at night but not through the night. Thirsty but it hurts to drink. Hungry but it hurts to eat. And absolutely nothing I do is right. She's just plain cranky. It helps to know why she's cranky - she's not just trying to be completely rude, but it's still really hard at times to take a deep breath and talk to her in a soothing tone.

All of that is background story. To say that it's been a rough week. I've been doing really well with being patient with her these past few days when she's felt the worst (it's something that God and I have been talking about a lot over the past year and I almost think I'm getting the hang of this patience thing) but I will say I've been taking a lot of deep breaths this evening trying to put her down for bed.

Side note - why do children always procrastinate going to bed even more when they're tired? When I'm tired I. Want. To. Sleep. Let me sleep! PLEASE let me go to bed when I'm tired! Who in their right mind PUTS OFF going to bed!?!? Anyway. I digress.

We got upstairs tonight and even though it was really late and she was cranky I told her we could read her new Fancy Nancy library book. A lot of times when it's so late and she's got an attitude she isn't allowed to have bedtime stories, but I just felt like this would calm her down.

After her story I turned out the lights and laid down next to her. And she sighed, and said, "Let's go to sleep, dear." She patted my cheek and said, "Oh, I love you Mom." She rolled back and forth and back and forth (she can NEVER get comfortable!) and she sighed again and said, "I like you Mom." We prayed and asked God to heal her sore throat and thanked him for healing her fever. She kissed my cheek and said, "I love kissing you, Mom." She laid on her back and said, "Today when you wasn't here I missed you. I love being with you."

And as I walked out of the room she said, as if it was an afterthought, "Oh Mom, I just love you so much."

Thank you, God, for the moments like this that warm my heart and make me forget every miserable thing from the past few days. It will make it so much easier to be patient with her tomorrow when she is stomping her foot and pooching her lower lip out at me with her arms crossed over her chest.

The Fiddler Review

I chose to review "The Fiddler" by Beverly Lewis because I love her style of writing. I have read dozens of Lewis' books in the past and this one was very similar to her other books. If you don't know Beverly Lewis, she writes Christian fiction involving Amish families. It's intriguing and adds a little bit of a twist to just a regular love story.

This story is about a girl who feels like she has to choose between being a concert violinist and a fiddler. She has a chance encounter with a young Amish man who is also feeling the need to choose - between his Amish faith and living a "fancy" lifestyle while believing in God. This is their story of leaning on each other, learning from each other, and the bond they create between each other.

I highly recommend it if you enjoy Beverly Lewis or Christian romance novels. It's an easy and enjoyable read.

I received this book for free from Bethany House Publishing Group for this review. All thoughts and opinions are 100% my own.

Pictures, Pictures

 My favorite cooking partner!

 Pet turtle at Mom and Dad's house! (Well, he was a pet for the afternoon, anyway!)

 Dad and Brianna sing a song about a turtle:

 Our new obsession: the game Hi Ho! Cherry-O! I remember this game from my childhood. Brianna got it for her birthday and we usually play it multiple times a day. (Note the pajamas and dress shoes - totally normal.)

 Bri's friend Adrianna gave her some stick-on earrings and Brianna's world has suddenly been opened. She loves them!

 Watering the garden at home!

 These kids are so sweet. Here is an afternoon where they were both just wiped. I turned on Doc McStuffins and Hunter just laid down on Bri while they relaxed.

 Our first (but not last!) library book! Llama, Llama!

Aunt Lauren got Brianna a playdoh set for her birthday that is an ice cream shoppe. SO cool! Note my cool little sundae I made with chocolate sprinkles!

 Another classic fashion tip from Brianna: Church dress + church shoes + purple socks = perfection

Finally old enough to ride on the lawn mower with Daddy! (And young enough that she fell asleep after just a few minutes on it!)

One thing we like about the Wii game system is the exercise games that are on it. Here, Brianna is a penguin trying to catch fish. She has to move side to side quickly to catch them!

Here is hula-hooping:

 One thing you can count on just about every night around here is a kitchen picnic. When clementine oranges were in season, we had "orange orange picnics". Now we've moved on to peaches!

Brianna wanted her outfit to be in a picture but not her face. (Insert eye roll here) This is a cute outfit from her Aunt Jenn!

A video from our Wii Fit antics:

Building Family Ties With Faith, Love & Laughter

Before reviewing the book "Building Family Ties with Faith, Love & Laughter" I had never heard of the author, Dave Stone. After reading this book, and realizing it is part of a series, I can't wait to get my hands on some of his other books. If you've ever read anything by John Ortberg and enjoy him (he's one of my favorite authors) you will enjoy Dave Stone. He is realistic, humorous, and honest. He makes everything seem so simple and lays out a great foundation for having joy in your home.

Stone talks about what is missing in our homes right now - time together, a strong spiritual foundation, and actually wanting to spend time as a family. We have become so busy that our families fall by the wayside at times. Stone gives awesome examples of how to start fresh, live biblically, and have a really joyful relationship with your family. These include eating dinner together, creating a family motto, and using kind words with each other. Really simple things that we sometimes forget.

I loved this book and would definitely recommend it to anyone with small children or older children. It's never too late to make some changes in your family structure!

I received this book free from the publisher through the BookSneeze®.com book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.

Life Goes On

Hunter has impetigo. I was going to link to the Wikipedia article about it but it has such awful, graphic pictures on there that I'm not going to do that to you.

Wednesday night he slept about 4 hours between the hours of 11pm and 6am. He made that experience even more pleasurable by screaming so loudly he woke up Brianna. We spent all night basically just sitting on the couch watching American Idol episodes I taped back in April thinking I would actually have time to sit down and watch them. Oh well, I'm starting to find out who has been eliminated so far... (for those of you who don't know, the American Idol winner was actually announced a couple of weeks ago.) I enjoy the show somewhat but it's just not a priority at all around here. But I digress.

Yesterday he had no problems. But after bath time as I lotioned his legs, I noticed a rash that was covering an alarming part of his legs. It wasn't like diaper rash, so I smeared Benadryl on it and hoped for the best.

He slept from 8:20pm to 7:45am.

Today after arguing with myself I decided to take him to the evening clinic at the doctor's office. The doctor took one look at him and knew it was impetigo, although she did do a strep culture as well (negative). She made it sound like it's very common, especially in the summer and particularly among those who suck their thumbs. It's basically just a skin infection that is treated with an antibiotic. It hasn't bothered him anymore and she says we caught it very early, so I'm glad I decided to take him on in.

Although I would have preferred to not spend two hours in a tiny consultation room with an overactive 3-year old and 18-month old! We sang about 500 songs and I had to dance to every single one. We played the loudest games possible. We laughed so loud I'm pretty sure they could hear us in the waiting room. One thing about my kids is they will roll with the punches.