Mayse... You Rock!!

I wanted to give a quick shout out to Mayse. I love you buddy and I am so proud of you! Let me start at the beginning. Last year I went in and met with Maysen's teacher for Parent/Teacher conference. I was told that he was falling behind in Reading and Math. This is after two years of tutoring at four hours a week which was a hard task to complete in itself with the time demand and schedules. I felt I could not win and was at my wits end. It was brought up to me as a possibility that he may end up in resource. I knew that there had to be something wrong and his 3rd Grade teacher had already worked wonders to figure out that he had a non traditional way of learning and tried to nurture that but all in all... he couldn't have her for the rest of his life so something had to be done. At that point, I decided that maybe a charter school was the way for me to go with my children so I put in for the lottery at Ranches Academy and my kids ended up getting in. Logan had to wait a couple months but Maysen got in right away. He never seemed to have problems with his homework and was bringing home good grades but I didn't realize the difference the school had made for him until I ran into his math teacher in the hall one day while Maysen was with me. She came up to Maysen and said, "How is my math whiz?" I thought she was just being positive until she then began to tell me that he was one of the smartest in his math level and she was moving him up to a 5th grade math level and that he sometimes helps tutor the other kids in the class. I was in complete shock. My Maysen? The Maysen I was told needed to possibly be in resource for Math? WOW!! He loves his new school and I love his new school. The education there is AMAZING!!! It has made a world of difference for Maysen and his self-esteem. He has made many great friends! A shout out to The Ranches Academy and to Maysen. Maysen is student of the month for his class this month. They display pictures of them in the classroom all month! Way to Go Mayse! I love you and I am so proud of you!!!

Life in the Fast Lane!!

Many of you know my little boy Logan. He has a great zest for life although he doesn't always know how to channel the emotion that comes along with that which usually means life is an emotional roller coaster for him! He is always so excited to get done what needs to be done in the quickest manner possible so that he can move on to the things he wants to conquer in life! Well, this morning I put his homework in his backpack to take back which I found loose in his backpack yesterday) and he told me I needed to put it in his homework folder. I said to him, "Logan, you left your homework folder at school." He said,"No I didn't, it's in the other pocket of my backpack." Sure enough he unzipped the small pocket on the front of his backpack and there was his homework folder all folded up so he could fit it. I'm assuming he did that to ensure that the bigger part of the backpack had room for his football and basketball. Anyway, I pulled his homework folder out to find this:



Draw your attention to question #9. I mean seriously... how could you miss that one? Easter really? That's when the pilgrims and Indians had a feast? That is how I know that he was just rushing through circling which ever one his little heart desired so that he could move on and do what HE wanted to do! I could not help but laugh. Apparently he decided he needed a huge frowny face on his paper too which... he probably spent more time on then the actual test itself. So cute!


Look at # 7. Apparently soldiers help farmers on their plantations.

He is so smart but when it comes to his agenda, that's exactly what it is is HIS agenda! He came straight from heaven that way. I know he knows these answers but I know in his mind, he has waaaayyy more important things to do in life to worry about test taking,and all the other tasks that don't seem important to him. He needs to move on to the more important things in life like: building forts, making ships out of legos, and learning how to get around the rules at school of no tackling in football, to riding his bike and sneaking off the helmet,taking all the food outside to share with his friends, and not taking the time to chew his food before inhaling it and he is off to his next adventure.

Please tell me you have a child like this that is on high speed, high volume, high adventure, with little or no fear... ALL THE TIME!! He lives life to the fullest and in the fast lane 24/7. You gotta love it though!

Needless to say, he missed every question on his test but then again to him.....
It is not among the IMPORTANT tasks in life, yet I could not find myself being angry for his ZEST for life! This is one assignment that will be kept in MY IMPORTANT file!

Overdue!!!!

Overdue baby? No, well kind of. I had my baby 3 1/2 months ago but the blogging of it is waaaayyy overdue!! I have really neglected my blog for a while now and am trying to play catch up. The first thing I wanted to catch up on was my baby shower which was 5 months ago.... yeah you heard it right.... 5 months ago!! I told you I really am a slacker. Anyway, I am trying to do better so you will probably see more blogs to follow that are way outdated. Anyway, my shower was amazing! Pink and Brown everywhere!! As many of you know.... I finally got my girl after three amazing rugged, tough little boys and boy did I get spoiled! My shower had everything pink and brown from the food, to the gifts, and even to the clothing. Thanks Tiercy and Kelly... for a wonderful shower and thanks to everyone who came to support me in my girl venture! It has been so much fun so far!!


The Invitation!! So cute!




Tiercy's awesome diaper cake!! Thanks Tierc.


Kelly's custom made cake just for me!



Tiercy's yummy cake pops!!






Great friends and yummy food!!

Thanks guys for a great shower! Everything was amazing from the food to the gifts, to the visiting! PINK RULES!!

Photo Shoot With The Kiddies!!

So, Brad and I took the kids to take their pictures. Too bad I forgot to put my camera back on High Quality and I am going to have to do a redo but I think they still turned out pretty cute!! I love my babies!!


Pretty Little Piper!!

Logan!

Trey!

Maysen!

Piper... We love you!!

We are so excited to have our new little girl Piper who was born August 6. We have been waiting for her for a long time. She has three AWESOME big brothers to protect her... Will she ever date? Let's not get ahead of ourselves!! Her brothers are so excited to have her as well. We are all so happy she got her safe and sound!! Her nursery was fun to decorate. Here are some pics to enjoy!!

Human Can Opener?

Logan......what a healthy, strong, vibrant child. I'm pretty sure he could be a human can opener. He brought me a battery the other day and said, "Mom, Do batteries have poison in them because I was trying to get it out of a toy, with my teeth, and this is what I did."

Nice, clean, pure cut right off the top of the battery. Now those are some serious skills Logan.

It is good to know that when times get
really bad.... and we have forgotten to add the can opener to the food storage...we will have
Logan. No prob on eating the canned goods right?

I guess we were all blessed with different skills in life.... Logan's a little more unusual than most.

We Love you Logan!!

Hula Hula zzzzzzzz...........

So the other day, My little Trey (hey I just rhymed...am I so cool?) Anyhoo, he was in the family room playing and usually when it gets really quiet......I expect mischief but to my surprise... I came in to find this........
He had fallen asleep inside the Hula Hoop! At first I thought he was playing because his new thing is pretending to be asleep. So I quietly snuck up on him to see if he would giggle and I heard deep breathing and possibly some small snores instead. Isn't he so cute? I love my baby! Okay so he's technically not a baby anymore as he will be 3 on Saturday.... 3 I say! HOLY COW! Where did those years go? I guess when the "baby" is using the "But I'm the baby" card, he isn't really a baby. Is it time for another? Maybe.....

I love you Trey!!

The Final Product!!

Sorry I have been a little behind on the blogging. This is way overdue but I wanted to post the final and finished costumes of my babies on Halloween! Although we forgot the furry gloves!
Hope you Enjoy!!

CURVE BALL!!

You know those times when you are going through life, everything seems to be going pretty good, and then BAM, you get thrown a curve ball, (and not the ball thrown at me in a past blog post i posted where I swore at a church game!) Well, that was us recently and that would be why the blog has been neglected as of late!!

Let me start from the beginning. A few months ago, Maysen (my oldest) had a retainer device put into his mouth to move his back molar back and twist it around because it came in the wrong direction. Well, he tends to have a lot of anxiety about the Dentist (I have no idea where he got that from, cause I NEVER freak out when I have to go the dentist). Anyway, he threw kind of a tantrum because of the glue to put the retainer in, and he thought it was going to hurt. Well, because of his tantrum, he got glue on his tongue.

So now here we are three months later, and two days before Halloween, Maysen comes into me and says, "Mom, look what the glue did to my tongue!" He proceeded to show me his tongue and my heart immediately dropped into my stomach!! What I saw, did not look like the cause of some harmless glue from his retainer and it had not been there two weeks prior when I put a pill for him to swallow on the back of his tongue. This is what I saw:


It must have grown under his tongue and then finally broke through the top of his tongue because his tongue was split open and this was protruding out from it.

Immediately the next morning, I had him into the doctors office and having worked in the medical field for so long, you tend to be able to read the faces of doctors a little more. When he showed the doctor his tongue, I could see the concern and possibly a small gulp.

The doctor immediately performed blood work and his awesome MA got on the phone to get us into a specialist and was able to amazingly get us fit in at Primary Children's in two days!! What a great MA!!

We decided to stay at Brad's parents the night before because his appointment was really early in the morning and they live closer, and we would be able to leave our other kids asleep. On the way to their house, we of course, can't do anything without having other things fall apart around us. We had a blowout on the car. Great!!

The next day, which just happened to also be Halloween, we were up at a Pediatric ENT's office at Primary Children's getting his tongue assessed. The ENT got the exact same concerned look on his face and again, possibly a small gulp.

They sent us over for a CT scan because of a small lump which they thought they also found in his neck, but that just turned out to be a swollen lymph node. They did find some thickening of the throat which the doctor says may or may not be something depending on what we find.

Maysen was scheduled for surgery for the following Monday (three days later) and it was a necessity to get the retainer out for that. We tracked down a dentist to remove his retainer, and he too got that same look on his face.

At this point, I am obviously imagining the worst as any parent would probably do.

So Monday comes and we take him in to have the mass, or lesion, or tumor, which it had been called all three terms, removed.

His surgery went well and now it was just the waiting game of whether the biopsies came back with cancer or not. We had gotten the car fixed by this point with all different tires put on and were on our way home from the hospital when..... yip.... you guessed it... another blow out. Thats just how we roll around our household!

The doctor assured us that the results would take 24 to 48 hours. Those hours were long and when I called up at 48 hours and they said no results yet, I was anxious. I called again at 72 hours, still no results. Again, the next day, still no results.

By Friday, I was ready to be admitted into the insane asylum and was going crazy. I decided to give it one last shot and call up there again. The nurse said,"I'm sorry, still no results."

By now, I am pretty much ready to go postal on someone at this point and told her she better call down to pathology and find out what is going on, or I will.

She called down there and called me back within five minutes and tells me that they had to order special stains to read the tissue. I'm thinking, what does that mean? Does that mean, they found something but want to be sure or what? She then tells me they won't have results until the following Monday. (A week after the surgery was performed).

Holy Cow!! I swear a week is supposed to go by way quicker than that!! Monday night, I finally receive a call from the doctor, hoping for good news but as prepared as I could be to receive the bad news and he tells me the following:

Hi this is Dr. G. I am so sorry that it has taken so long to get the biopsy results to you. I do want to let you know that there was no cancer found in your child's biopsy. We did however find in the tissue removed, a foreign object that was too hard to see what it was under the microscope but somehow a foreign object got inside of his tongue and was trying work its way out.

Its kind of the same reaction as an ingrown toenail trying to work itself out. It had caused it to become this huge protrusion, tumor, mass, lesion, whatever you want to call it.

The only thing we can figure is that, when he threw the tantrum while getting the retainer put in, maybe he did get cut on the tongue and maybe it was glue or something else that got inside his tongue and then healed. Then, three and a half months later, was trying to work its way out!! It looks like maybe Maysen did know what he was talking about when he said the glue did it to his tongue. I guess we will never know.

What I do know is that I was so relieved to hear that news. My heart wasn't sinking anymore! I could breath again. I never want to have to go through that again and pray that I won't have to.

Later the doctor admitted to me that he had no idea what it was and that it made him very nervous.

I have gained maybe an inkling of an understanding as those who have to actually gone through the nightmare of being told their child is sick with a disease that could take their life but still don't have a clue what it would really be like had I had been told my child had cancer.

It was a good reminder to not take life for granted and tell your loved ones how much you love them often. Squeeze your kids extra hard and extra long!! (Well, my kids are always telling me not to squeeze them so hard because they can't breath but ya know.)

We didn't totally come out of this empty handed though. I have been trying for two years to figure out why Maysen has been having sleeping problems. It has been affecting his life in every way. He is falling way behind in school because of it. (At least that it my opinion of why he is falling behind).

Doctors up to this point have just wanted to put him on sleeping pills and that's really all. I was about to call an ENT myself and have him tested for some things when all of this happened.

We now know that he has a deviated septum, enlarged tonsils and are testing for sleep apnea. Hopefully we will have some answers soon!

Alvin, Simon, Theodore!!!

Okay these are the partial pics of my boys Halloween Costumes. Thanks to my little sis, Kimbie, the are going to look awesome. I had the sweatshirts and everything but she made the fuzzy butts. They are so cute. I can't wait to see the finished product.

The funny thing is the personalities fit my kids perfect!!! Can anyone guess who Alvin is? Anyway, Thanks Kimbie again for doing that.

Evolution of Man!!!

Thank heavens for the evolution of man.

BEFORE



AFTER

A Reunion of Old Friends!!

Thursday night we had a BBQ of some old friends I used to work with at a disabled womens group home. It was a lot of fun to see everyone again. Thanks guys for such a fun night. We definitely need to do that more often than once every decade. Hope to see you all again soon!!

P.S. Amy we missed you but were excited to hear about your night at the police station. Ha Ha!!

A Walk Down Memory Lane?

I don't usually copy peoples blogs because I feel like I'm not original then but this looks like too much fun to pass up. I copied this from my friend Nat. Here are the rules.

1. As a comment on my blog, leave one memory you and I had together. It doesn't matter if you know me a little or a lot, anything you remember. If we are only blogging buddies, leave a comment about your favorite post of mine.

2. Next, re-post these instructions on your blog and see how many people leave a memory about you. It's actually pretty funny to see the responses. If you leave a memory about me, I will assume you are playing the game and I will come to your blog and leave one about you. If you don't want to play or don't have a blog, I will leave a memory of you in my comments on my blog. It is fun to see what people remember about you.

Mouth Like a Sailor!!!

You know those days you wish you could just stop....rewind....redo? Well last Saturday was one of those days for me.

I had a church softball game last Saturday. So the first inning starts, Awesome! I made it to home plate. Then we are outfield and I step up to pitch. I pitch and the catcher caught it. Well, just before she threw it back to me, I looked to first and was temporarily blinded by the sun. I turn back just as she throws it to me, only....... I couldn't see where the ball was going. That's okay, I think to myself, I'll just guess where the ball is going. BAD GUESS!!! The ball went right under my mitt and hit me in the mouth. My tooth went through my lip and I knocked a tooth slightly loose, but at the time, this is how it went down in my mind...

It went something like this......

Crap, another hit to the mouth, more stitches and broken teeth, just like in highschool when I had a bad cheerleading accident and caught a girl by myself with my head. I broke her fall and paid for it. That day is still gone from the memory bank because I suffered a pretty severe concussion, broken teeth, and stitches in my lip. I raved like a lunatic all day about weird things and kept asking the same questions over and over again. My brain was spinning.

As you can possibly imagine, after getting hit with the softball on Saturday, that I might be a little frustrated with what possibly may have to be endured, and at that moment, as irrational as my thinking may have been, I lost it. I was peeved and started raving like a lunatic the following: #@%$ it is always my mouth DA#@%T!! I threw my mitt down and left the field.

My loving husband, probably so embarrassed is trying to calm me down saying, "Would you quit acting like I would if this was me?"

After calming down, I realized that I had just acted like an idiot, and wait.... was that a church softball game that I just rattled off a few choice words at? Yip! It was.

At this time, I am thinking maybe it would have been better if I had gotten a concussion out of the deal, at least then, I wouldn't remember raving like a lunatic.

All is good with no broken teeth and a fat lip that is getting better but the moral of this story is....

When you are going to act like an idiot... try to get a concussion first!!!

Out!!

Coolin it Down!!!

So the long awaited day came for me after two years of waiting... No, I wasn't waiting for a missionary, been there and done my time with that. We now have what modern society likes to call central air. This would have been my third summer running with no A/C and I wasn't havin it any more.

Most of you right now are thinking, "Oh that is great that they can finally afford air conditioning." Not the case. The unit has been sitting on the back patio for a year just waiting to be hooked up. Its called time. The hubby has none especially lately.

We finally broke down and paid someone to hook it up for us and we were so excited to be able to enjoy the cool air. The first day of having it, I was enjoying it thinking no more being hot and what do you know.... the power went out for a couple of hours. Didn't get to enjoy it for very long before it was abrubtly stripped from me again. At least this time it was temporary. I have now been enjoying it for five days. Yay.

Don't tell Brad but now I'm cold all the time and I keep turning the target temperature up. My internal thermostat must be broken..... or I am so used to 90 degrees that I have to adjust to the climate change.

You Turn Me On and I Miss You!!!

Oh how I miss you and need you so.
I sit in the driveway with nowhere to go.

I watch the sun rise and I watch the sun set.
You are the best friend that I've ever met.

You are the only one who holds my only key.
How many days til we find you? One, two , or three?

Please come home safely and please come home soon.
Until I see you again, I will sit and watch the moon.

With Love,

Honda.

Okay enough with the rhyming. I do have to ask myself today why I don't listen when I am prompted to do something. The little voice in my head yesterday telling me to go get a second key made for the Honda Accord. Did I do it, NO!

Shame on me, now we sit with no key to the Honda with no spare set. Today Logan came and got the keys without my knowledge because he was so sure he had left something in the car.

He says he brought the keys back in and set them on the stairs. I had seven children at my home today being watched and so it is a very good possibility that he did do what he said and one of the babies walked off with the keys and hid them.

After searching for a while, I asked him if he got into the car or just into the trunk. He told me the trunk. I was a little excited at this point thinking he opened the trunk, set them down, and then after looking for whatever it was he was looking for, closed the trunk. Now the only task was getting inside the car to pop the trunk. How do we do that?.....We call the police to break into the car.

The nice officer came and unlocked the car for me and I eagerly pop the trunk to find.........Nothing. The officer yells out before he leaves, " Are they in there?" I reply with a No.
Thanks anyway officer, at least now I can get the carseat and booster out of the car to transfer to the van.

To make things worse, Brad got called into work tonight and goes to start his truck and..... yip, it won't start. It is completely out of gas so he decides to take the van to the Chevron to fill up a can of gas. About ten minutes after he leaves, my phone rings. This was the conversation:

Me: Hello?
Brad: Hey.
Me: Hey.
Brad: Do you know where our other set of keys to the van are?
Me: No, Why?
Brad: I locked the keys in the van.
Me: No, you can't leave the keys in the car and shut the door. (We have a really dumb security system on the van that will lock the door when you go to open it, don't ask me. All the other doors were locked already because they lock automatically after you hit 15mph.)
Brad: Can you look for them while I walk home.
Me: Yeah, sorry I would come bring them to you but, we can't find the keys to the car, and your truck is out of gas.

Brad finally made it home and we were able to find the other set of van keys. Thank heavens. I sure didn't want to be the one to call the police a second time to break into a second car all in the same day.

At least we have one running vehicle with keys to turn it on. As for the keys to the honda, we hope we find you soon.

The moral of the story is: Make sure you always have a second set of keys to every car, you know where they are, and most importantly, listen to the voice in your head when you are prompted to do something. Oh and don't forget, things always happen in three's..... or fours, or fives.

"Old Faithful!"

Okay, so a couple of days ago, Logan had to go to the bathroom so he went and a few minutes later,ran out of the bathroom completely traumatized. He was crying so hard, he couldn't even talk. I tried to get out of him what was wrong. I asked him if he didn't make it to the toilet and had an accident or if he got hurt. He just said, "No, just come here mom." At this point, I am thinking that I am going to find a mouse, or some huge spider in the bathroom that freaked him out so we walk into the bathroom and what to my dismay.

There was water everywhere but it didn't look like the toilet had overflowed it looked like it was sprayed everywhere. I asked Logan what happened, and he said," The water just sprayed out of the toilet." I then asked him if he even flushed the toilet and he said,"No." So as I was cleaning it up, I started hearing weird knocking in the walls and the drains were making funny noises. I immediately call Brad and explained that Old Faithful had gone off in our bathroom. He had me check a few things inside the tank and things checked out to be normal. We were just baffled of what had happened.

The next day, our neighbor across the street called Brad and said," I have a strange question for you, did you have some sort of sewer surge yesterday because when I got home all of my toilets were wet and there was water on the floor by them." Brad said," as a matter of fact, Yes" and explained what had happened with Logan.

Our neighbor explained that he had called the city and asked what had happened and it turns out that they were pressurizing one of the man holes on our street and put too much air into the pipe and therefore it caused the sewer surge or "Old Faithful" in the toilets.

Poor Logan. The kid is completely traumatized and refuses to use that toilet even though we explained what had happened. It is sad that our kid is scared of his own house considering he is already scared of our jetted tub as last year, when he was in it and it wasn't completely filled past the jets and he accidentally bumped the button to turn on the jets but didn't know he had bumped the button. He just thought it did it on its own and water sprayed all over the bathroom then. That was a year ago and he still won't use the jetted tub so I'm pretty sure it will be quite a while before he uses the toilet again.

Brads comment was,"Well, I don't think we have to worry about him wanting to become a plumber."

The good thing is that Logan had just gotten off the toilet before it had exploded. I can't imagine what we would be dealing with if he was still sitting on the toilet when it happened but I'm pretty sure it would involve counseling. We love you Logan and hope that you will overcome these issues sometime before you hit puberty.

Its just a good thing when Brad installed the plumbing, he didn't install a bidet.

Under Water!

So Last Saturday, Maysen was baptized and confirmed. Earlier in the week, Trey had been throwing up for four days straight so we were worried that come baptism day, things were going to be crazy. The morning of the baptism, everyone woke up and nobody was throwing up. It was a miracle.

We started getting ready for the baptism and sure enough, a half hour before the baptism, Logan came to me with sunken in eyes and green skin and says," Mom, I don't feel good." Too late to cancel at this point, we went ahead and left.

The baptism was great and I was so proud of Maysen but during the talk portion, I was in the back with a throw up bowl and Logan lying on the bench just in case.

No vomiting occured luckily but it was very hard to get pics. I am trying to round some up from other people so the pics will be to follow.

After the baptism we had a luncheon and Trey still tired and groggy and Logan not feeling good, went and lied down in my bed and went to sleep.

We almost made it the whole day and then when the last two families were left, Trey lost it again. I thought he was done. Yummy!

Later that night, after Logan had gone to bed, he woke up throwing up.

At least we made it through the baptism! Yay!

So to all of you who were invited and came, thank you. I'm sorry if we got you sick!

The World In HD?

So I recently was watching television and saw a commercial for a product called HD wrap arounds. The way it works, is these sunglass type things wrap around your current prescription glasses. Magically, when you put these wrap arounds on, the world is seen in HD. When I saw this commercial, I had to ask myself, " Isn't HD meant to see things with as much detail as possible?" So my question is, how do you see something that is real, in HD when that is the whole point to HD is to see it in the most detail possible. How do you see anything in more detail than looking at the real thing? Seriously, I thought God was perfect when he created the earth and I didn't think that HD was better than the real thing. So I have included the link to this site so you can see for yourself the difference of the world, and the world in HD. If you ask me, I think it is just the Ambervision company trying to make a comeback. Check it out for yourself.

Loving Your Pet is One Thing..... But Come On!!

Okay so the other day, as we were putting a search in for a certain breed of dog (my husbands thing), we came across this website where you can get products for all your pets needs. Anything from caskets, to urns, to keepsakes, engravings, to headstones, and even funeral services. Do people really do this? I was amazed to see that there are actually pet funeral homes and tiny caskets. I was also intrigued that there were pet cemetaries too? I thought that was just a movie. I know I have never seen one. The prices for these services are so reasonable ranging from $120- $550 per product. So, as I sat and pondered on the many services offered, I thought of you Steve and your poor little doggies that are on their last leg. Now you know how to best care for them as they pass on from this life. The joy they will have knowing that they had the best of love when they left this life. For anyone out there who loves their pet, please let them know that they were loved when they leave this world by giving them the proper burial or have them creamated to always have a piece of them on your mantle. For only the price of an arm and a leg, you too can cherish the memories of your pet.