Category: Uncategorized (Page 54 of 201)

We worked hard on the patio this weekend–I can actually include myself in this, this time, since I DID help!  See, I even have proof!

Tim completely finished off the patio and started on the pergola and installing the screen.  I worked on getting grass seed put down.  Oh and we also put down some sod along the edge of the patio since we figured the water run off would wash away the seeds in that area.  It was a simply perfect weekend to be outside.  Here’s the progress as of yesterday night.   The screen is up and running!  Yippie!!

For those of you wondering, or concerned, or just plain curious… I did call on Friday morning to try and get into the doctor. After explaining my symptoms and how I feel perfectly fine they wanted me to be seen within 24 hours just to rule out anything serious. However after spending an hour on the phone being transferred over and over, it turns out no one had any openings on Friday, so I was told to go to Urgent Care. Which I did when I finished teaching on Friday night.

At Urgent care the doctor was stumped. She doesn’t think it’s PUPPS. But she doesn’t really know what else it is. But it also, doesn’t appear to be anything really bad (like measles). So… she prescribed me some Prednisone and we’ll see what happens.

And I’m happy to say I do think it’s getting better. Although I accidentally spend too much time outside in the sun this weekend and I got a little sunburned, so now my arms hurt from that too! Haha! I’ll keep you posted.

Well, somehow or other, I seem to have PUPPS again.  Strange, eh?

And let’s just lay this out right away:  NO, I’m not pregnant.  Yes I’m sure.  Yes, I’m very, VERY sure.

So, the question begs… how in the world am I getting it again?  And the answer is, I have no idea.  But let me tell you, it’s no fun.  It’s spreading just like before.  So far it’s been creeping down my arms, legs, chest, neck, shoulders and feet (interestingly not on my midsection this time).  It’s not nearly as bad as it was when I was pregnant, but it’s still waking me up at night and I’ve had to pull out my Sarna lotion again.  Luckily I still had a few pills left from when I was pregnant to take at night to help me sleep.

The only thing I can figure is that it is somehow working its way out of my system now that I’m not pregnant anymore.  You know, releasing the pregnancy hormone.  Or something like that.  I just don’t know.  And unfortunately, it’s so rare that most people we talk to don’t really know much about it.  We’ve decided it it stays much longer I’ll have to go in and be seen.  I’ve had it for about 3 weeks now but it’s only started to get bad in the past week or so.

It would make me feel better if I know it was resurfacing and then would work it’s way out of my system and be gone.  But I don’t know if that’s what happening.  What if it’s just going to keep redeveloping?  Yikes!

Here’s the before…

And today!

Chloe was invited to Kailynn’s Birthday party over the weekend and she had a Harry Potter theme–she even got to go dressed as her favorite character!   Of course, Chloe thought it would fun to be Hermoine but, alas, we had NONE of the parts of the costume… Nothing.  Ugh.

Enter Goodwill.

I was on a mission to find usable pieces of clothing that were close to the costume and didn’t cost an arm and a leg… oh and I only had 15 min to do it and Chloe wasn’t with me, so I had to guess on sizes.  All that said, I’m quite proud of how it all turned out.  In fact she might just have to use the costume again for Halloween since it came together so nicely.  Hah!

Here was the inspiration picture…

Yup, pretty close if you ask me.  And she can use all the pieces again separately (well, except the boys will probably use the clip on tie rather than her…)

And the party was a smashing success, of course.  She came home full of stories and goodies and smiles.  Josiah was quite bummed that he didn’t get to dress up as Harry Potter, so he declared that his next Birthday party was going to be a Harry Potter theme.   But you should also know that he has also asked to have a Lego party and a police party and a Batman party and a Unikitty party and an Angry Bird party… so it really depends on the day you ask him!  Ha!  I’m at the point now where I say–“ok, Josiah.  You just keep that in mind and we’ll decide when it gets closer.”  I expect him to change his mind about 10 more times before his party actually gets here!

We had a lovely Easter weekend here.  Some of the highlights included:

• Taking the kids (minus Levi) to an Egg Hunt with the Bakers (Madison did NOT like this adventure.  At. All. But the older kids had fun.)
• Going to seek Wicked at the Orpheum!  And we even stopped to get ice cream cones afterwards to complete our awesome date.
• The big kids and I went to see Jen sing in a choir on Easter morning at her church
• Grandma Patsy came down to help watch the kids and enjoy some Easter fun!
• Tim worked a ton on the patio (he’s getting so close! Pictures this week  for Wordless Wednesday!)
• The kids had their own little Easter egg hunt with Auntie Jen while we were on our date

Here are a few pictures (courtesy of Jen!)

Have you heard that people with blue eyes are more sensitive to bright light?

I admit I had once believed that was totally untrue, but then I married Tim.  And lo, and behold, it IS true.  He has to have sunglasses wherever we go–in fact there have been times where we’ve had to stop and buy some if he’s forgotten them and it’s exceptionally sunny.  When we were first married I just thought he liked wearing sunglasses.  But over time I’ve realized that it’s actually kind of painful so the sunglasses are more of a necessity.

Which brings me to Josiah…

He has very blue eyes.   And he’s young enough that he can’t quite articulate that it’s hard for him to smile and look at the camera if it’s too bright outside… so we end up with lot of pictures like this:

Poor boy!

In fact, if you look back a couple of days at the post with the picture of all 4 kids, you’ll notice Josiah’s hand up (like a salute) and I asked him to take it down and he said he had to have it up to block the sun.

So, we learned a valuable lesson.  We need to take pictures earlier in the day.  We also need to invest in a nice pair of sunglasses for him.  I expect to have the same dilemma with Levi because, if possible, I think his eyes are even more blue than Josiah’s.   At least we’ll be more prepared when Levi is older!

Chloe and Josiah are continuing piano lessons (with me, of course!) and doing well.  If I haven’t mentioned it before, Chloe has gone through many phases of the “I don’t want to play piano” and then cycles back to the “I love piano and wish I could play that song I heard so-and-so play” and in between hits the “I’m indifferent towards piano so I’ll go ahead and practice without complaining.”  I’m quite certain this is normal.  Overall Chloe is progressing fine.  She struggles with keeping her counting between eighth notes and quarter notes steady.  We’ve actually started having her play a rhythm game on my phone to help with recognizing rhythms and keeping a steady beat while she taps them.  We’ll see if that helps or not–she just thinks it’s so fun to be able to use my phone.  She has a friend in her grade that just passed her in the books and she’s bummed.  But I did point out that he practices about double the minutes that she does and that’s what happens when you practice more!  🙂

Josiah has finally started to dwindle in his amazing over-enthusiasm for practicing and learning. Don’t get me wrong, he’s still more eager than Chloe, but I accidentally left him on the same songs for over a month (during contest season–I spaced giving him a lesson for over a month!  Yikes!) so he got bored.  No wonder really.  But now we’re starting to get back into the groove and his eagerness is returning.  He’s learning a song called “Taco Fiesta!” for the recital that he thinks is so cool.

And of course, Maddie Mae is always trying to sneak into the studio to play on the piano.  I’m hopeful that she’ll enjoy playing someday.  For now she sure enjoys being a big girl and climbing up on the bench all on her own and playing.  She does a really nice job of playing with her fingers more than just pounding.