The Litwillers

Fibro update, weeks 2-2 and 2-3

2012-02-12T14:23:00.002-06:00

The above photo is a pile of clothing that Rob and I can no longer wear. We went through our closet and tried on everything. Rob has slimmed out of all of his pants, suits, dress shirts, and most of his polos. He's currently out shopping for a thing or two to wear to church tonight! We're planning to get him new suits once he stops losing weight and are going to Kohl's on Wed with our 30% off coupon to replace some of his other items. He figures that since moving from Cali, he has lost 40 lbs. I have never seen him this slim, and it's all due to our change in diet. He has been avoiding most of the same things as me, but mainly the gluten. As an interesting side note, he is no longer lactose intolerant! He plans to ask the doc about that one, but we're wondering if a gluten intolerance was masquerading as a lactose intolerance. Can't wait to hear the answer!

I have lost 16 lbs so far and am losing at a much slower rate than Rob. That's partly due to the fact that I am not allowed to exercise yet. We are still working on breaking down the bad stuff in my body. But I have lost enough weight to drop two sizes. I'm doing a little better than Rob in the clothing department, but I also need a shopping trip this week.

I have been feeling quite a bit better and the only real noticeable pain left is in my arms. I finished round one of the cleanse I was doing...thankfully!! That powder tasted just plain awful and made me feel sick all morning long. Round two is only 21 days and the powder smells and tastes like vanilla, which is a huge improvement! It also doesn't make me the least bit sick. After this round, I will take a pill that will rid me of the bacteria. Oh, and on this round I can have all fruits and veggies back along with nuts, so I don't have to be quite so careful. It looks like I can have quinoa and a few other alternate grains, but I'm going to double check with the doc before I eat them.

During therapy, I have been doing a few extra things. One is a wobble board, which is kind of fun, and I have been able to tackle the hand-bike much more easily than ever. I did it for ten minutes this week. When I first started, I couldn't even handle one minute!

So things are going much better. I'm so thankful I have stuck it out and am excited to see where I'm at in another month or two.

Fibro Treatment Update: Week 2-1

2012-01-28T09:28:00.002-06:00

I have just finished week one of the second six weeks of treatment. I must say, it was SOOOO nice to only go in two days this week! I don't mind the treatments and I like the office, but it does cut into the school schedule. On days when I have nowhere to go, we get everything done in the mornings and the day seems to go so much better.

This week, he started something new: aricular (sp??) therapy. Basically, it's acupuncture on my ears. And yes, it hurts. I was a little sore after Monday's treatment, but Thursday's let me very sore and with some nerve pain. He told me that's b/c I'm out of balance and as everything gets back into place, it will not hurt anymore. I also worked on a wobble board, which is supposed to help straighten out my brain. (No jokes, Dad!)

I've gotten more used to the diet and surprisingly don't feel as hungry as I used to. We have gone out to eat once this week and I was again able to find something. Last night I took the boys to turn in their Book-it coupons and grabbed supper for Anna and I from Culver's. I found a great salad that I just loved. And it's a good thing I don't mind eating my salads dry!

Because Rob is showing signs of gluten sensitivity, we've made the decision to take the entire family down the gluten-free route quicker than we anticipated. I made a huge list of meals the kids enjoy and went through my cookbook, marking down how to make things gluten-free and getting rid of recipes that show no hope of transition. I was amazed to discover how many of my favorites are already gf or lend themselves to simple changes. And our local butcher is starting to sell gluten-free pizzas! Rob and the kids went and got some yesterday and said they were great.

I also started baking for the family again. GF bread is very expensive and since Rob and I prefer to home make our food anyway, we invested in the myriad of ingredients needed to bake gf. I have made sandwich bread, chocolate cupcakes, and blueberry scones so far. We didn't get our brown rice ground up enough for the bread, so it tasted very "ricey" according to Matthew, but we think we've already fixed that problem. The cupcakes were AWESOME, although very light so the kids had to eat them with a fork. I make a big breakfast for the kids on Saturday mornings, so we tried out the scones today. The kids gobbled them right down! We'll see what Rob thinks when he wakes up. It feels so good to be baking again!

Oh, and how am I feeling? A little sore here and there, but better. I've had a head cold all week, so it's hard to tell what is the cold and what is the fibro. Otherwise things are going along well.

Fibro Treatment: Week Six

2012-01-22T18:11:00.002-06:00

Six weeks of treatment down! This means I am done with three-day-a-week appointments. Now I will go two days a week. I have no real news to report on the treatment front. The nasty powder stuff tastes far better in a shake than it did alone and we have settled in to the diet once more. My resolve was shaken when my wonderful sister-in-law sent cake pops for the kids and gluten-free cookies for me, but I put them in the freezer and they will be the first thing I enjoy when the sugar ban is lifted.

I am feeling so much better overall. Here's a list of some things I've been able to do that I would NEVER have done a month ago:

1. Vacuumed the living room, including using the hose to get under the radiator.
2. Shopped for two hours with Rob
3. Cooked a large breakfast for the kids AND made my own at the same time
4. Took Anna to storytime and did not go crazy from the baby/mom noises
5. Stopped to talk to people in church on Wed nights and have been able to follow the conversation w/o feeling I need to escape b/c I can't focus

I still have a ways to go and there are still some mountains to climb, but I feel better overall and am slowly seeing my life returning to normal.

The Rest of the Family

2012-01-22T17:55:00.002-06:00

News about my fibro treatments have taken up much of my blog time, so I figured I'd give everyone else a fair shot :)

Rob: The greatest husband ever is doing well these days. He's working 12 hour days 5-6 days a week, so he's tired much of the time, but he's doing well. He kicked his caffeine habit and is more awake now than when he was downing coffee and Coke all day long. Rob has opted to eat with me on my diet and is losing weight as well. He has discovered that he has a gluten sensitivity. Since eating with me, he has noticed whenever he has certain products (namely white flour) his throat constricts and he feels sick. We have decided to take the family to a gluten-free diet sooner than anticipated. And he celebrated his 34th birthday on Friday by taking a vacation day. We went to a Mexican restaurant for lunch and then had a fun family day. He tried making a gluten-free pizza crust for supper but it did not work out....good thing we live next door to a pizza place! He and I went on a date Saturday and had a wonderful time, especially since we both bought a new pair of jeans. I have dropped one size and he dropped two!

Matthew: Little Man is doing well. He is still enjoying school for the most part and excelling. As I have been feeling better, we've been adding a few things back here and there and I am able to keep on top of his readers better. He has the tenderest heart of all three of the kids and has been very helpful to me. He's also my little food evangelist. We have been teaching the kids more and more about how harmful fast food is to our bodies and Matthew said, "What? Is that legal for McDonalds to sell food like that?" And then he proceeded to rant and rave about McDonalds for a long time :) I think my work is done....

Benjamin: Oh, little Ben, my most confusing guy right now. He's an angel 80% of the time and so very helpful, but then that little Ben-with-the-horns starts whispering in his ear and he can be a total terror. We're doing our best to help him out, but there are days that I'd like to string him up by his toes. He did have a little accident last week when taking out the trash. Some broken glass inside the bag poked through and sliced his knee, resulting in seven stitches. He's a tough little guy, though, and after the initial cut never cried once! He gets the stitches out tomorrow. He's also doing well in school and his reading, while progressing slower than Matt's at that age, is still coming along nicely.

Anna: She's still my little sunshine, but she has cloudy days for sure. She copies big brother Ben and gets herself into trouble more often than I'd like to admit. But, she is such a fun little thing to watch! And her sense of style is just hilarious: I never knew so many sparkly things in pink and purple matched! She looked at herself in the mirror on Wednesday night and declared that her Tiny Trackers shirt was ugly. I told her to add an accessory to the ensemble and that perked her right up. And then today she told me my church outfit didn't match. Her favorite movies right now are the Spy Kids movies and she runs around catching spies all over the house...all while holding her baby doll :)

Fibro Treatment Week 5: Indian Giver Week

2012-01-16T15:40:00.003-06:00

Yes, I realize the term "Indian Giver" is both insensitive to Native Americans AND inaccurate both historically and culturally, but it still means someone who gives things then takes them away. And that's the best description of what happened during my fifth week of treatment. Let me take you through the emotion and details involved.

On Monday, I was told that the results of the rest of my tests would be back that week and I would find out where my food sensitivities were. Fabulous! This is the news I was waiting for so I could get some other foods back and be able to start on a new normal way of eating. Wednesday was that day, and I was told I am sensitive to dairy (but might not be forever), still have to watch the eggs and beans right now, and gluten, of course. BUT--I could have dark chocolate and a whole list of alternate grains. I'm also fine with corn and potato, which was a big relief. (Coffee is also fine, but he'd rather I lay of it for now.)

So after my appointment, we hit the grocery store and I found myself some treats to make up for my miserable, treatless Christmas. I bought dark chocolate (70% or higher), gluten-free egg-free dairy-free cookies, and some grains to start making my own baked goods. (By the way, those kinds of cookies taste WAY better!!) To celebrate, we made up some cookies that fit the bill and I had plans to try out some bread on my own, hoping to make it cheaper than you can buy in the store. Anyone who has known me for any length of time knows how much I LOVE to bake! I had two glorious days of thinking I could settle into my new way of life.

Yeah. So then I went in on Friday and was told that I am now starting a cleanse. I was given the world's foulest mix to drink in place of my yummy greens drink and some more vitamins to take. The purpose of these things is to get out the bacteria in my gut and heal my slightly leaky gut. I only have two types of parasites, one known and one unknown, so I'm doing better than most of his patients. These could have been in my system even from childhood, so it's hard to tell what caused them. Let's just say the children have been reinstructed on handwashing techniques.

And the diet that goes along with the draught of living death (really, the stuff tastes like bad coffee gone bad) eliminates some of the things I HAD been eating! No potatoes, tomatoes (nightshade veggies), mangoes, bananas, mushrooms, nuts, corn and a few other things. No sugar (bye-bye dark chocolate) or alternate grains. PHOOEY!!

So I started the stuff on Saturday morning and felt like I was going to die. Not only did I have that wretched taste in my mouth all morning long, I felt like I had stomach flu w/o the pleasure of getting sick to make me feel better. And I have a really bad head cold on top of it all. Seriously, could this whole thing get much worse?? It's the first time I've wondered if I shouldn't just find a prescription med for all this nonsense.

And what really didn't make sense is why I couldn't have things that are not on my sensitivity list. I get the sugar--it feeds bacteria. But the rest just didn't make sense. So we muddled through the weekend, Rob fixing what he could (including a form of french onion soup that can only be described as an epic fail) but we were just chomping at the bit to get to my Monday appointment.

As nicely as I could (or maybe not) I kind of attacked my doc, the man who up to this point I did not question in the slightest. Apparently, I should have asked more questions on Friday as I could have avoided a weekend of misery. I can mix the Repairvite (a.k.a. sludge) with a smoothie for breakfast. Now that's better! And I only have to avoid certain foods in the mornings, maybe lunchtime. So my beloved potatoes are back. I just can't overdo the other foods so they don't interfere with the powder.

But. And this is a really big but....I am doing this for two months. Yup, two months of no sugar or alternate grains. No treat on Rob's birthday, no Valentine's, no nuthin'. And if I cheat, it only sets me back further. Seeing as I NEVER want to go through this again, I'll be good. I sent all the dark chocolate to work with Rob, gave the kids the remainder of my gluten-free treats, and I'm planning a big reward for myself when I come out on the other side, hopefully a much healthier more energized me.

Oh, and total weight lost to this point is 14 pounds. So that's something.

Fibro Treatment, Week Four

2012-01-08T17:29:00.002-06:00

Well, I have now gone four weeks under the fibro treatment I can honestly say that I'm starting to feel better. I'm not going to be running a marathon anytime soon (or ever, if I'm honest) but I am noticing subtle differences. The biggest change has been mentally. I can focus for longer periods of time and actually paid attention during the entire sermon this morning. I have always had a hard time concentrating on lengthy classes and sermons, so I was quite surprised when the service ended and I had paid attention to every word! I am also able to focus more on conversations with others, so I don't feel like avoiding people in church or getting out of a conversation quickly.

I am still in pain, but I'm better able to manage it. I've also been doing some thinking about how I've pulled myself away from so many activities, so I am adding a few to my schedule, but they are things that will help me therapy-wise: specifically, I'm going to another SU demo's card night for more art therapy :) Right now I feel most like myself when I'm focusing on stamping or when I'm homeschooling the kids, so those activities will get the most attention.

I am also trying to work on my sleep habits. That's a hard one to do, seeing as my body is all messed up in that regards. Right now I'm trying to get to bed at the same time each night and then get up around the same time each morning, no matter how I feel at bedtime or in the morning.

I'm still on the same diet, but it sounds like the test I did to find my food sensitivities is done. My doc is just waiting for the results. So, I should know this week!

Thanks to all of you who have been such wonderful cheerleaders. I really appreciate all of the support I've received, especially in regards to my choice to use a chiropractor over a conventional medical doctor. It means so much to know that I have people praying for me and cheering me on.

The Pepper Incident

2012-01-05T22:20:00.002-06:00

Tonight I made some Annie's Mac and Cheese for supper and as usual, Matthew headed for the pepper. He just likes a little seasoning on his food :) Since he's careful, I let him pepper his own food. But not Ben. Well, I wasn't paying attention and the next think I know, Ben has the pepper right next to him and he's chugging water. I looked at his bowl and there were pepper flakes everywhere! He took another bite or two, then refilled his water cup. And then asked if he had to finish supper.

Well. This momma is not about to let good food go to waste (especially semi-expensive mac and cheese) so I told him yes and he could drink as much water as he needed to. He was at the table for an incredibly long amount of time and drank five cups of water, but he finished it.

And you guessed it....there were five trips to the bathroom prior to his bedtime! On the last trip, I told him, "This is what happens when you do the pepper yourself!" He decided that he'll let Mom season his food next time :) And I'm REALLY thankful that he's never wet the bed and gets up at night if he has to use the bathroom....but we'll see what morning brings....

The Drain Monster

2012-01-03T18:52:00.002-06:00

Anna has been petrified of drains since toddler-hood. She never likes hearing the bathtub drain out and absolutely hates drains in public bathrooms. She'll cling to the wall and skirt around them to get to the toilet and keeps a watchful eye on them at all times! I've tried explaining to her that the drain is not going to hurt her, but she just doesn't believe me. So I made up the drain monster.

At our old place, whenever I pulled the plug and we heard the drain monster gurgling, she would furiously get all of her toys out of the tub. I told her the drain monster doens't like to eat little girls, but he'll eat her toys. And he ALWAYS attacks Daddy when he takes a shower after work. (Daddy confirmed the report.) Then I told her a few times that the drain monster WAS hungry for little girl, but he couldn't get through the drain and she couldn't slip down. It seemed to work for awhile, then she got scared again.

So then I told her that the drain monster doctor told the drain monster that he was too fat and had to go on a diet. He was no longer allowed to eat little girls because they are too fatty. That finally got her over her fears of the drain and then we moved and our new tub didn't make any noise when draining. Until tonight. Rob and Ben cleaned it out better and it began to drain more efficiently, so once again we have a drain monster. I told her he missed drinking her bath water because she tastes so sweet and she reminded me that he's on a diet and can't eat her.

Sometimes getting a child over a silly-to-us fear takes an equally silly story :)

Cutting Anna's Hair

2012-01-01T20:43:00.002-06:00

I decided to trim Anna's hair the other night. It grows so slowly that it has only been trimmed once in her short little life. Some of it is growing uneven, so after her bath I told her I was going to cut her hair, but just a bit. Right before I started, she asked, "Will it hurt?" I told her that she wouldn't feel a thing. Then she got real quiet and after a few snips said, "Makaila had her hair cut and she looks like a boy." (A friend of hers had a hair cut and the lady cut it much shorter than her mother wanted it to be.) I explained that she'd still look like a girl :)

When we were all done, I showed Anna how little of her hair was trimmed off. She glanced at it, then immediately got on the step stool and looked at herself in the mirror, turning her head both directions multiple times. Because I had moussed her hair and scrunched it, it did look a little short. She started to panic and said, "It's too short!!" I explained that it would look a little longer in the morning when it was dry. Poor little thing--I didn't realize how traumatic a haircut can be when you're only three!

And yes, she was fine in the morning. Her new obsession is headbands and she still looks like a girl in them :)

Fibro Treatment, Week 3

2011-12-31T17:08:00.002-06:00

This week was full of ups and downs and since I'd rather end the post on a happy note, will start with the downs.

Downs:
1. I've felt worse as the week has gone on, particularly today. But, I know why: the last round of parasites in my system should be dying. He said that's why I felt so crummy over Christmas and now over New Year's. I think I'm going to celebrate Valentine's big time this year to make up for it :)

2. A heavy mug crashed onto our glass top stove and cracked it. Two of the eyes still work, but it will cost as much to fix as it did to purchase, so we're just going to put up with it for now. And since a cracked glass top is not covered under our warranty (even though it was bought less than a year ago) we'll never buy one again.

3. I'm hungry....all of the time....

Ups:
1. Any day now, Dr. W should get my results back regarding food sensitivities so I'll know hopefully next week what I can add back to my diet.

2. I have lost 10 pounds since starting the diet and already fit back into a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt I haven't been able to wear for awhile. Dr. W thinks I'll lose another 10-20 before the end of January...I sense a shopping spree coming on in the spring!

3. I have settled into the eating plan and while I still crave a few things, it's getting easier to eat this way. The kids are eating much healthier as well and are loving the dietary changes...well, all except for almond butter, so we may switch back to natural peanut butter. But they are loving the almond milk!

4. Rob's home for another 3-day weekend :)

This next week, I'll start two new things during my treatments: some type of acupuncture and a decompression table. I'll fill you all in on how that goes next week. Oh, and he did say regarding the thyroid issue and diabetes that we are already doing things that will help, so nothing new on that front for now :)

Christmas 2011

2011-12-26T20:24:00.003-06:00

Our Christmas celebration this year was WAY toned down from previous years. Back at Thanksgiving, I made a list of all of the things I wanted to do at Christmas: cookie plates for teachers and neighbors, make homemade gifts for the family, cards, gifts for the kids, and decorate the new place up to the hilt. Then reality set in, along with my fibro treatments, and we had to change our focus. We had already decided not to go to Illinois, but rather stay home and let me continue to get better. Rob decided we would not decorate too much, so we focused on the tree, mantle area (finally, stockings hung by a fireplace!), and our countdown calendar. Our home was festive yet it did not exhaust me to decorate it.

Then came all of the handmade stuff. It became pretty apparent early on in the month that I was not up to making gifts as usual this year, so we had to eschew all gift making, including cookies. I hated to do it, but we decided to just focus on gifts for our family of five. The only thing I really kept up was the card making (so if you got a card, that's your gift this year!) I tried to think ahead and each time I had a card event, I made extras, so by the time I sat down to do the cards, I had most of them already done. Praise the Lord for thinking ahead!

We did have fun spoiling the kids. Various family members sent up presents, so we had quite the slew of gifts under our tree Christmas morning. It was so fun to watch them rip into everything. I'll post later on what they got. Rob's parents were able to make a trip up to see us one weekend, so they did get some grandparent time as well.

We also attended our church's Christmas Eve service, which was fun for all of us. It was mostly music, which the kids enjoyed, and the best part was when our pastor called up all of the children to the stage. He sat with them and read the Christmas story from Luke 2. Our children just loved it! We also had them with us for the service on Christmas Day and it was so special to sit with all three of them.

So our celebration was low-key this year, but just perfect for us.

Fibro Treatment, Week 2

2011-12-22T16:25:00.003-06:00

This week was not a good one for me. On Monday, I went to Madison to have a full blood test done. I was rather amazed by the amount of testing my doctor ordered, but very thankful that he ordered all of it. Some of the results are not back yet, but most of them are and it's...well...interesting.

He still has to go through the results with a fine tooth comb, but there are four major things that stood out in the results. My vitamin D levels are low, so I am increasing the amount I am taking. I have inflammation around my heart, possibly diabetes or pre-diabetes, and Hashimoto's disease, or hypothyrodism. That last one comes as a shock, only because my traditional medical doctor did a test for that and it was fine. Turns out, he only did ONE of the tests...what my chiropractor ordered was far more thorough. A normal person has a level no higher than 34. I am 133. So yeah, something is wrong there!

Like I stated previously, he still has to go over all of the results, so I don't know all of what we will be doing about this yet. He will go over that with me on Monday. I do know this: I will be living gluten-free for the rest of my life. The gluten causes parts of my body to attack other parts--honestly, I was listening yet reeling from the info at the same time, so I'm not clear on the details. I am saying good-bye to so many of my favorite foods but I know I'll be saying hello to some new ones as I begin to explore a gluten-free world.

The treatments themselves went well, although I am having a high-pain week. I have had a breakdown almost every day this week just from the sheer "foreverness" of what is happening, along with having to cope with a much different Christmas celebration this year. I'm in so much pain and just so tired all of the time that we can't celebrate as usual. I'm trying hard to still make it fun for the kids and focus on the positive while at the same time mourning the loss of life as I know it. It's really hard, to tell the truth. I did tell Rob that I'd smack the next person who tells me it's all worth it, because I do know it's worth it, I just need to be sad for awhile. In many ways it is like a death. There are many fond memories associated with the types of food I can no longer enjoy and even though I know it hurts my body to eat those things, I still mourn them. I will always have a hard time at gatherings that involve food and at restaurants. I know I'll learn what to eat and how to educate those who might be cooking for me in the future, but it's still hard right now.

In the meantime, my favorite chef has four days off for Christmas, so that will cheer me up. Rob is ready to attack all of this head on and get me as healthy as possible. I'm glad I have such a go-getter in my life. The kids want me healthy too, so they are like little watchdogs, asking if each bite I take is okay. It keeps me going :)

First Week of Fibro Treatment Done :)

2011-12-17T10:56:00.002-06:00

On Monday, I started my first week of treatment for the fibro. I am doing six weeks of 3-day-a-week treatments, six more of two-day-a-week, and six of one-day-a-week, then an assessment to see how much more we need to do.

So what does a treatment involve? Well, I get adjusted, focusing specifically on areas of my body that will aid in shutting down the pain centers of the brain, which are over-firing right now. This part is very similar to my regular adjustments, so no biggie. Then I have been doing some oxygen therapy. I put some tubes in my nose and breathe in the oxygen pumped at certain levels while standing on a vibrating machine. I will later do a decompression table while on the oxygen. On Friday, I also did a hand pedal machine while breathing. Pretty simple, and believe it or not, I already have noticed a difference in my mental clarity. "Fibro fog" is a very real thing and by getting more oxygen to the areas of my brain that control the pain, my brain gets less "foggy." I finally feel like I can focus on things and am not getting so easily overwhelmed. The pain is still present, but I'm better able to cope with it. It may take awhile before the pain is completely gone.

And then there is the diet: No gluten, eggs, sugar, soy, dairy, peanuts, beans, oil (other than coconut or grapeseed). You know how many foods that rules out??? Seems like everything, but what I am mainly eating are fruits and vegetables, nuts, and lean meat. And I drink water. Some of these foods I will get back as all of my lab results come back and we see what I'm sensitive to, like beans and dark chocolate. The first few days were kind of hard, but it is getting better and I don't feel so hungry all of the time. I have a special drink for breakfast along with a little meat, so that's helped eliminate one decision I have to make :) I am also taking some supplements and I must admit, I love my fish oil!! Tastes like a yummy orange drink and I haven't burped fish once.

It's not all positive, because it is hard to realize how much I'm missing at Christmas. Eventually I'll be able to use alternate grains to make cookies, but not yet b/c my pain is still at a high level. So no Christmas goodies for me. I'm REALLY thankful my mother-in-law brought some down last weekend BEFORE the diet started :) Rob says I'm thinking clearly now...clearly enough to realize I should have waited to start next week...but the sooner the better to make me better.

So that's it for now. In a nutshell, things are going well, but it's a hard adjustment. We're going to take the kids with us with the dietary changes as much as we can so they will be healthier as well. They are excited about trying new fruits and veggies. I've been blessed with adventurous children :)

My life with Fibromyalgia

2011-11-30T20:49:00.003-06:00

As many of my friends and family know, I have been diagnosed with fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome. I've been pondering posting about all of this for quite some time and since I just had my worst attack to date over the Thanksgiving holiday, I figured now was as good a time as any. I don't post my family blog on Facebook, but I didn't want to repeat myself, so that's why I'm letting my FB friends in on this post. I'll think I'll do this FAQ style and have a conversation with myself using many of the questions that have been posed to me by family and friends.

Q: When did you discover you had fibro?
A: Just this past summer, but Rob and I have known for quite some time that something is wrong with me. I tire more easily than a healthy person, have had spells of "lazy" for years, sometimes get muddled in the brain, have memory loss, can be excessively cranky, and a host of other issue have cropped up as well. When I read over the immense list of fibro symptoms people deal with, I realized that I've been putting up with some of them since my high school years.

Q: What does fibro feel like?
A: Well, it depends on the person. All fibro patients have a pain or ache all over their body, primarily in the joints, and the intensity of that pain depends on the day or activity. Beyond that, everyone is different. That's why diagnosing and treating it is so difficult. The only test a doctor can perform is a 19 point pressure test (I had pain in 18 of the 19 areas). I have pain in varying degrees, constantly feel tired but can't ever get a good night's sleep, my brain is foggy (called fibro fog), I get cranky, I have problems processing noises in groups, vibrations hurt (which is why I sit where I do in church AND why I no longer attend more than one service on Sundays.) In a nutshell, I feel like a cranky old lady most of the time.

Q: What is your doctor doing for you?
A: Pfft...my traditional medical doctor wanted to put me on a low-dose anti-depressant to help me sleep. I said no drugs. Fibro can be treated w/o meds...it just takes more discipline and a willingness to break outside of the "take-a-pill" mentality of the medical profession today. I have chosen to see my chiropractor instead, who will be doing a whole host of treatments that do not involve drugs. I will have to change my eating habits and I'm sure many other things, but I'd much rather change my lifestyle and be healthier than deal with the consequences of long-term prescription drug use.

Q: How do you know what you have chosen will work?
A: Well, I did a trial run of an anti-inflammation diet and felt better w/i a week. That tells me I'm on the right track.

Q: How has your life been effected by fibro?
A: Right now, I am pretty reclusive. I have a hard time concentrating on conversations so I don't hold long talks with anyone but Rob, who doesn't mind if I fade out. I have to try very hard to pay attention to anyone, so don't take offense if I appear to "check out" when I'm talking to you :) I have had to remove myself from every church ministry I am involved in. I am still an SU demo, as I am hoping that as treatment progresses, I'll be able to handle more business things. God has removed a number of large events I had planned and I'm grateful that He's in control of my business plans. Not what I wanted, but it's so much wiser for me to just do my two classes right now and the occasional workshop. Homeschooling is fine so far and I just shudder to think how hard it would be to try to be a good room parent if the boys were in school along with shuttling them to and from school and helping them with any homework at night. It's much easier to just do their work at home.

Q: How is your family handling it?
A: Matthew and Anna seem to be doing just fine. Ben is having a rougher time of it. He's testing me daily to see how I will handle him, yet at the same time willing to help. My kids are rather independent and probably do far more things at their young ages than their peers, but it's out of necessity. And it's good for them--someday when they are on their own, they will know how to clean and keep house and cook and fix stuff :) Rob is okay and eager to have me back to my normal self. He's working longer hours to help pay for the treatments and is pretty exhausted, but he wants to keep me. The stat that scared both of us is that fibro patients age nine times faster than the average person. Nothing else I heard convinces me more than that to seek treatment.

Q: Do you need any help?
A: I get asked that question constantly, and quite frankly I never know how to respond. I never know from day to day how I will feel, so it's hard to predict when I'll need help. I guess prayer would be the best way to help me right now.

I hope this helps answer the questions that many of you have had about my condition. I know so many people have said, "I have that!" or "I have an aunt/sister/hairdresser with that problem!" And then I usually get advice on how to deal with it. While I appreciate the care behind the advice, again, every case of this is different and everyone responds differently to treatment, so there is no one answer to the problem. And no, there is no cure. I can get about 95% better than I am now, but I will still have problems for the rest of my life. I'm okay with that...I'd just like to keep the bad time to 5% instead of the 80-85% I'm going through right now.

First room done!

2011-11-22T19:48:00.002-06:00

I am please to report that after 17 days of living in our new place, we have one room completely unpacked! Not sorted and put together to my satisfaction, but there are no more boxes in the boys bedroom...or Anna's, now that I think about it! But her room is still in the sorting process, so it doesn't count :) I took a picture of their room and I will post pictures in a private album on Facebook soon.

My stamp area was actually the first "room" put together, but there is still half a box of office supplies sitting in it, so it is not the winner. I'm very happy with my new stamping area, as almost everything is in arm's reach. All I need is an office chair on wheels and I'd have it all :)

The downstairs is progressing nicely. We have a small pile of boxes left in the living room, a larger pile in the dining room, and boxes waiting to come inside on the back porch. Our hope is that we can get most of it put away while Rob is off for Thanksgiving. We've decided to stay home this year and just work on the house. It's been very slow going due to my physical condition, trying to run our normal lives amidst the chaos, and Rob's crazy work schedule, but we are making progress.

The kitchen, while unpacked, is still a challenge. We have no utensil drawers, so we're trying to figure out the best way to keep all of our normal "drawer" stuff from taking over the counter. My long-range plan is to put a buffet piece in the dining room, but for now it's all in decorative tins :)

Rob and I's room is the least put-together. Our box springs broke, so the bed cannot be put together properly. We also have multiple boxes that remain packed--and quite frankly WILL remain unpacked b/c the room is only used for sleeping :)

So we're getting there, even if it's moving slowly. I can't wait to get out the Christmas decorations and see how great this place looks all dolled up for the holidays!

A Moving Story

2011-11-11T20:42:00.003-06:00

We're here and mostly settled into our new home. It's been quite the interesting three weeks as we have worked on this move. My dining room still looks like a box factory and the old house has one day of cleaning left on it, but we're beginning to see the light at the end of a very long tunnel.

We started our move by thinking that we would do things slowly, as our landlord gave us until Thanksgiving to get moved over. (Yes, both places have the same landlord.) We thought our big moving day would be the 12th. The first week we moved nothing but storage items over from our old basement to our new attic. That one week alone showed us two things: This was going to take more effort than we thought AND it was sending our lives into a tailspin. We decided to halt all schooling until we were settled and moved up the big date to the 5th. So as the second week started, we were furiously packing whatever we could and making trips to the new house once or twice a day with the van as full as it could be. We even took our babysitting kids over and they helped our kids get their toys settled into the new rooms. (Their mom gave us permission to put them to work.)

Monday of that week was so awful and stressful for me (partly b/c I scheduled a 31 party for my birthday) that on Tuesday we didn't know what to do. Rob's mom called and he jokingly asked her to take the kids for the week...and she agreed to take the boys from Thursday-Sunday. That was such a huge blessing. While they can be very good workers, we could see the strain on them and the stress for me. Anna was such a good girl while we worked in both places and did get to spend the big moving day with a friend.

This past week, Rob has been working on the remaining things in the old place as well as cleaning it. It has been a bigger chore than expected, partly due to his lack of time during the day and the fact that he keeps finding more things to clean! We're trying to leave it immaculate since the previous tenants of our new place trashed it and it took our landlord two months to clean it up. We just plain feel sorry for him.

I have been trying to get things unpacked here as well as keep up with normal household tasks, but it has been very trying. I have had fibro flare-ups on a daily basis, kids that are wired to deal with, and a dryer that no longer heats. I told Rob not to bother with the dryer until he has the other house cleaned up...I can deal with drying racks and drying some loads multiple times. I have finally caught up with the laundry, thankfully, but it has been trying. I'm looking
forward to next week when Rob and I can work alongside each other to put the house together.

We are enjoying our new home in spite of the stress. The kids have such spacious rooms, I have a wonderful stamp area, and even my bizarre kitchen is working out okay. I will have to take a picture of it and post it here...it is a funky set-up for sure! The house was built in 1875 and our kitchen was created in the 1930's when the place became a duplex. We do have a gorgeous curving staircase and chandeliers in three rooms. I can't wait to get the place completed and decorated!

A Moment to Breathe

2011-10-20T12:57:00.002-05:00

It has been just plain crazy around our house over the last month. I can't believe it's been that long since my last post! I'm so rarely home in the evenings...or at least at home with just me and the kids. We're hoping that life slows down a bit by Thanksgiving...but we'll see :)

Our busy weeks have included: Stamp meetings or events on Mondays, swim lessons for the boys on Tuesdays, church on Wednesdays, Ben's soccer practice on Thursdays, and some Fridays I have had stamp events in my home. Saturday mornings Ben has had soccer games and of course church on Sundays. And Rob has been working mandatory Sundays this month, so six of the seven nights of the week, I'm alone with the kids. We're looking forward to two nights in a row with no where to go and no one coming over!! Soccer finished last Saturday and there are only two swim lessons left, so that will free up two nights of the week.

We have gotten more involved with a homeschool group as well. On Tuesday, we took the kids to the annual fire house visit and this year they got to run the hose. Quite the treat, especially for Ben. Rob went with us and I'm so thankful he was there--I was pretty tired that day. The boys have joined a homeschool reader's theater group that meets the first and third Monday of the month. They both enjoy it, although Ben had to be a barrel last time :)

My stamp business has really started to take off. I promoted again this month and have three downline members and another in my second level. I have a (hopefully) huge event next month that will let me break out of my circle again. My regular card nights are averaging eight and scrapbook nights around five. We had a book-a-thon recently but I didn't put too much effort into getting workshops because.....

.....we're moving! Our landlord has a three bedroom available and we are hoping to be fully moved over there by the 12th of November. We are going to move slowly, starting with the storage, and want to take our time. I think it would be too overwhelming for me to do a full day move at this point. We have a whole load of things ready and waiting to take over when we get the keys. The new place is only about three blocks from our current home and it is MUCH bigger. Anna will have her very own room.

I have news to report on my health, but I think I'll wait to post. I'm going to be treated by my chiropractor instead of a traditional MD...the chiro is also a wellness doctor and seems to not only know more about fibro and chronic fatigue, but actually is interested in helping me get better, which my regular doctor was not.

Person-by-Person Update

2011-09-21T11:50:00.003-05:00

I noticed that I haven't posted in awhile, so I'll give the run-down one person at a time.

Anna: For sale on most days. She is 3 1/2 and showing every bit of her age. Being a girl, she adds whiny to the normal 3-year-old nonsense. I think I'll throw myself a party when she turns 4. But she is still our sweet little girl at times. We have fun together doing her hair and nails. She's changed her Kai-Lan addiction into a princess addiction and her favorite is Rapunzel. She's also been watching some Barbie movies (and the boys enjoy them too!) She's doing very well in preschool and just today identified all of her letters correctly. It's so fun to teach her and watch her develop intellectually. She definitely takes after her father in memorization skills. She learns her verses for Tiny Trackers with no effort and has near-perfect recall on them.

Ben: My little kindergartener is growing by leaps and bounds this year. He is showing a lot of responsibility in household chores and helping me in general. He's doing very well with his schoolwork, especially math, and he loves having Daddy do some of the teaching. Rob teaches math, science, and does Ben's read-alouds. He is enjoying soccer, although he is a pretty slow player. That's pretty typical for him, as he takes things a little slower until he feels more comfortable. What's funny is that he is a self-proclaimed assistant coach. He picks up quickly on what the coach wants the players to do and the reinforces it on the field.

Matthew: I think I am enjoying him more and more as he gets older. He was a fun toddler, but so active that it was hard to just enjoy him. Now that he's older, he is more responsible and fun to talk to. We've been making a huge effort to eliminate as many preservatives and artificial colors from our diets and we can see a change in his behavior. (Those are the things that cause hyperactivity by the way, not sugar.) He is so much calmer in general. He's going great in school, but more importantly, he's doing much better when he plays with other children. We are watching three boys three days a week for three hours each day (catchin' a theme?) and he does so well with them. Actually, all six of the kids are doing very well together, so much so that when the other family's dad worked from home on Monday, all six kids had a fit!

Rob: I love the times when Rob is actually awake...and that's not too often. He is working 50 hours a week, although for the next 2-3 weeks he will work 58 hours. We're very thankful for the extra income and that we homeschool so Rob has a chance to spend time with the kids each day. He loves his new job and we are adjusting to keeping things quiet in the morning so he can sleep in.

Me: I am slowly learning to readjust to life with fibromyalgia. I have learned a few things to avoid eating and have had to cut out a few activities, namely working in the nursery and choir. I'm not sad about leaving the nursery behind as I don't really enjoy it, but it's hard to give up choir. However, it is painful to hold the huge choir folders and stand in one place for long periods of time. Perhaps once I get the pain under control I can return, but until then I will pour my energies into making cards and encouraging others. I was just reading today about art therapy for fibro patients and thought, "Yay! I need to stamp more!" I'm learning each day to take things at my pace, but I am also seeing all of the ways God has prepared us for this season of my life. I need to write it all down sometime.

That's kind of how we're doing at the moment. :)

The Bat Story

2011-09-06T13:50:00.002-05:00

I'm finally able to tell the story of the bat attack last week. Granted, I'm doing this in the afternoon and I may still shudder a bit, but at least I can put it into words :)

Last Tuesday night, I put the kids to bed and came downstairs to do some stamping. I was actually awake and ready to work on Christmas cards for a nursing home ministry and work on my classes coming up this week. Part way through cutting some of the pieces to the cards, I heard a strange noise. I went into the living room and turned off the fan and listened. It sounded like scratching on the inside of our tin ceiling. The more I listened, the more I realized that something was up in the ceiling!! I didn't see any way for it to get out and we have heard mice in the walls in the past, so I just figured the thing got a little higher up. And then I saw something start to creep out of the decorative thingy in the center of the ceiling.

I screamed and the whatever-it-was went right back into the ceiling. It did look like a bat, but I didn't really get a good look at it. I then proceeded to wander around the house in a panic and talk to myself. Seriously, what do you do in this situation? Normally, I would have barricaded myself in my bedroom and let Rob deal with it. But he was at work, so it was up to me to take care of It. I tried calling the landlord, but he wasn't home. I went over to our neighbor on the other half of the house, but he wasn't home. While I was outside, I noticed that every single light in the neighborhood was off. I then proceeded to wander around and mutter some more. Then our neighbor came home, so I rushed outside and asked him what to do. He thought it could be a raccoon (fabulous) or a bat (ugh) and just wished me luck. THANK ALOT!!!

I figured at this point the only thing that might keep me sane was going upstairs with the phone, wait for Rob to call, and then BEG him to come home. I folded laundry to keep my mind off the creature in my ceiling, periodically banged on the floor upstairs to keep it away, and played N64. Time went by VERY SLOWLY while I waited for a phone call. When Rob did finally call, I told him right off what was going on. His supervisor very graciously allowed him to come home. He didn't hear anything, but he did call the police to see if there was an animal control service we could call. There wasn't. So Rob stayed downstairs with the lights off to see if he could find it while I went to bed.

Little did we know that the bat (and it turned out to be) had already left the ceiling. More than likely, it happened before Rob came home. We found this out when I woke up at 12:15 am to a bat flapping around my bedroom! I screamed and jumped out of bed, covering my head and back with a pillow as I cowered near the bed. Rob shot upstairs and flipped on the light, which made the bat settle down and perch on a decorative thing. Rob told me to stay put and I said, "Okay." He then changed his mind and asked me to slowly leave the room. I said, "Okay," and didn't move. I was paralyzed with fright. Rob had to pull me off the floor and out of the room. He asked if I wanted to go downstairs, but I really didn't want to find out if the bat had any friends. I crawled into bed with Ben and the boys (who had awakened to my screaming) and I kept tabs on Rob as he proceeded to catch the bat over the next two hours.

The first thing Rob did was go online to find out what to do. He got a heavy coat, hat, and gloves on and went upstairs with a broom, blanket, and bucket. He pulled the air conditioner out of the window in hopes that it would just fly out. He said he spent a lot of time just staring at the thing wishing someone else would do this for him :) But he was very brave and kept working at getting the bat down and out. He kept getting screeched at and was afraid of being attacked, so he took a few breaks to let it calm down. It flew to our window then the bottom of the bedframe before finally flying under the bed and getting itself caught in a bag. Rob tried to shake it out of the bag and out the window, but it was caught. Finally, he threw the whole bag onto the roof and let the bat fend for itself.

For a few days after that, I would jump at the least little noise. I'm still a little hesitant at night and Matthew spent three days sleeping with me until Rob came home. Our landlord did seal the thing the bat was hiding in better and showed us where we had some huge gaps in our windows that needed to be sealed up as well. Thankfully, bats around here are pretty solitary so that should have been it, but my extra-sensitive sense of hearing keeps telling me otherwise at night. UGH!! I'm sure I'm supposed to learn some lesson from all of this, but I'll have to stop freaking out at night first :)

First Days of School

2011-09-01T20:56:00.003-05:00

We started our school week on Monday and it was a pretty tough day getting used to a real schedule again. Tuesday went better...then we had a bat incident on Tuesday night that left Rob and I pretty exhausted, so we've just been eeking our way through the material with the boys. Rob had to leave work early Tuesday night to help catch the thing, so he worked 14 hours yesterday to make up for it. Needless to say, we're all pretty exhausted. I'll tell the full bat story once I stop jumping at the least little noise.

Ben had his first soccer practice today and it went very well. He's a great little player and I think he's really going to enjoy himself. Matthew wants to try basketball in the winter, so that's why he's not playing soccer. That and I don't think he enjoyed it a whole lot anyway. Both boys will be taking swim lessons so we'll be a little busy in the evenings. Thankfully, all I have to do is sit during these activities, so there's no stress for me :) And I'm also thankful we homeschool or poor Ben would be completely wiped out by the end of the week!

During the summer months, our church has a Wednesday night program for the kids. Last night was the last night of the program and they gave out awards to the kids who had the top three places in points. Matthew won first place over all of the 1st-3rd graders. We're very proud of him, especially since he did all of his Bible memory on his own. God has gifted him with the same memorization skills as his father :)

The boys both wrote stories today in school, so I thought I'd share them both to end the post. Ben had to write about Pat the Rat, a character in the little stories he is reading.

"Pat is a fat rat. Pat is fat because he eats too much cheese and doesn't exercise. He does not like being fat, so he's going to try to exercise and not eat the fat kind of cheese but the skinny kind."

Matthew had to write a story he heard from a family member, but had to write it from that person's point of view. He chose a story his dad told him about the time Grandpa Litwiller ran over some bunnies. I wonder if Grandpa remembers doing that? I left the spelling errors as he wrote them :)

"My dad was mowing the lawn and accidently mowd over a bunny nest. Two died. Me and my brothers wanted to hold the bunnys. My dad said leave them alone. We held them."

Harzler Hog Roast 2011

2011-08-26T09:37:00.002-05:00

We had our last weekend away of the summer this past weekend and we went to the Hartzler Hog Roast. The family who hosted the event are relatives of my husband and they had 150 or so people attend the event. We were really looking forward to it since we had so much fun the last time they had one in '08.

Since Rob works late, we did not leave until Saturday. And I didn't even let him sleep in much because I spotted a mouse in my study! He caught it and no more have been spotted, but I was not about to let a mouse freely roam my house while we were gone.

We arrived around 1pm and had a few moments to see all the fun stuff awaiting us before the delicious potluck lunch. Since we came from a distance, we brought chips and Wildtree Garlic Galore dip and some bakery cookies. I think I'll try to bring a hot dish next time in spite of the distance since there seemed to be a lack of those. But it was a delicious meal and everyone (except Anna) ate their fill. It was rather hot that day, so I wasn't too surprised at her lack of appetite.

The kids had loads of things to keep them busy. As I said a few times, a child would had to work hard to be bored there! Here are the fun things that our children did: Played on a swingset, played in a child-sized play house complete with kitchen set, the zip line, face painting, bubble blowing, holding a kitten and bunnies, pony rides, finding money in a haystack, riding bikes in a barn, barrel rides, and looking at a barn full of animals. I think the only things they didn't do were the hay maze and coloring. Anna enjoyed the pink port-a-potty which even smelled nice. Ben informed me that he used it to b/c it smelled WAY better than the blue one :)

In the evening there was square dancing and Anna liked seeing the pretty dresses. Unfortunately, she WANTED one of them and proceeded to pitch a huge fit about it. She was pretty tired by that point. We headed out around 8pm to get the kids bathed and into bed. They had no trouble falling to sleep that night!

We enjoyed our Sunday visiting with relatives and Anna, my mother-in-law, and I went to look for some dress material. My MIL is going to make Anna a few jumpers and a skirt and we wanted Anna to pick out the material. She did find some she liked, but she also found sheer material with sparklies and all kind of other impractical things. Every time she found one she liked, she said, "Ooo-la-la!" She did pretty good waiting for the "boring" adults to finish :)

We came back on Monday and jumped into a whirlwind, as I had a stamp event Tuesday night. But now we're enjoying a leisurely end to the week before we start school on Monday.

Anniversary Get-Away

2011-08-19T22:24:00.003-05:00

Last weekend, Rob and I celebrated our 12th anniversary. We had kicked around the idea of going away overnight and figured out a great way to do it. Last Saturday was our nephew Ezra's third birthday party and since we had never made it to the first two, we decided to go. Then we got the brilliant idea that if my parents were willing, the kids could go home with them and Rob and I could go somewhere overnight, preferably Sybaris. Mom and Dad agreed to take the kids and then Rob and I got to thinking....Why spend a huge amount of money for a hotel when we would have an empty house? We decided to save that money instead and stay home to enjoy the peace and quiet. It was the perfect decision. We could cook in our own kitchen (not that we did much of that), sleep in our own bed, and have the run of a quiet house. We went out to eat two times, once at Perkins and one at El Mariachi, a Mexican place that came highly recommended. It was excellent and the portions were so large that we got two meals out of one. It was also a good tester for us to find foods that fit with the way we want to eat. We went for a walk together, stamped, took several naps, watched a movie and in general just enjoyed being together. It was also nice not to get little people ready for church Sunday morning, but we were almost late ourselves because our "alarm clocks" were at Grandma's!

The kids had a great time with their grandparents and we picked them up Monday at lunch by meeting Mom halfway there. It was nice to hear the chattering again but so wonderful to have two days "off."

Lazy Summer Days

2011-08-06T10:56:00.002-05:00

I just realized that I haven't posted anything since Matthew's birthday and I need to remedy that before my dad visits me again to see what's going on. We have been enjoying our summer off and I think since we've been lazier I'll make this post a little lazier and ramble on and on and on....

The Pool: We have been loving our pool passes!! One of the best investments we have made was buying a family pass when they went half price. It's either been too hot or too humid (or both) for the kids to play outside so the pool has been the perfect alternative. And with all three kids out of diapers and two confident swimmers, it's been pretty easy to take them. The boys know their limitations so I never have to worry about them doing something dangerous. Some days they spend most of their time going down the big slide, other days they play around and practice their swimming skills. I've been so impressed with how much they are doing on their own. They can now do everything that they couldn't do in lessons (and their teacher, who is a guard, even noticed that!). Anna also knows how far she can go in the pool and does a great job of staying in her boundaries. There were a few times I took them but did not get in with them and Anna did just fine. Well, other than getting into a spat with two kids, but that was in the shallow end and I was able to wade in and deal with it. Sometimes Rob comes with us during the day, but most of the time I take the kids in the evening. There are far less people so the kids can really enjoy the pool.

The New Business: Sometimes I wonder about myself. I think I get a little too bored in the summer or something, because we have signed up to be Wildtree reps and this is the third at-home business I have done, all signed up for in the summer. But this one is a bit different from Tupperware (patooey!) and Stampin' Up! (my first love in direct sales). We signed up to be Wildtree reps for our family. (If you are not familiar with Wildtree, go to www.wildtree.com to see the product line. GREAT stuff!!) We have felt that it is time for a change in our eating habits and when the starter kit was half off last month, we thought we'd go for it. At first we were only going to buy the kit and use the discount, but now we're going to make a small effort to sell. My SU business comes first, so I will only do tastings (name for a Wildtree party) when Rob is home to watch the kids, unless it gets so wildly successful that I can spring for a sitter like I do for SU workshops. We have quite a few people coming to our open house on Thursday and several more who want to be on our mailing list. We're hoping that the sales pay for our own groceries and help us on our new eating quest. We're even doing a vendor fair next month. We love the product (especially the whole wheat pizza dough!)

Our New Eating Venture: Ever since I was pregnant with Matthew, I've paid more attention to what we eat. I haven't always been real good about doing something about it, but I've been more aware of what goes into the kids' mouths. And last month, we finally decided to act. To the best of our abilities, we are going to cut out foods with preservatives and processed junk. We have informed the kids that all snacks will be fruits, veggies, cheese, and homemade. We've been having fun revamping favorite recipes and finding new ones. So far, we haven't met any resistance, even when we threw away the kool-aid and leftover parade candy. Meals have been more tasty and filling as well. We are so blessed to have kids that have gone along with us and embraced this new eating plan wholeheartedly. We explained what all that junk does to our bodies and they were shocked! And I think it helps that 1) Rob is a fabulous cook and 2) we haven't fed them a steady diet of traditional kid fare. They are used to eating crazy things with us and none of them are so picky that they turn up their noses at new foods. Grandparents: Don't worry...we don't mind if they eat candy and such at your homes. Our rules are for our house only. And it will be even more of a treat to have those things at your house!

Sickness: I went through a week of some crazy sickness last month. I had four days of exhaustion and since that happens fairly regularly, I'm going to see my doctor this week. My mother has both fibromyalgia and thyriod problems and she said my symptoms sound like what she deals with. So we'll see what the doc says. My chiropractor recommended Vitamin D and CoQ10, so I have started on those supplements. And just when I got over THAT, I caught a head cold/virus thing that lasted 8 days, causing me to miss our annual Fulkerson family picnic. I would say that I was really disappointed, but I was so tired that day that it was a relief not to have to leave the couch! I feel sorrier now that I'm healthy again :)

The Library: The kids all finished the reading program and Rob and I did some as well. The kids got loads of free stuff again, but the big winner was Rob! He won a Nook! We've been having a fun time reading books on it and it's not nearly as annoying as I thought it would be.

I think that's all for now :)

Matthew's 7th Birthday

2011-07-20T12:02:00.002-05:00

Yesterday was my little man's seventh birthday. He has been strictly forbidden from growing at all this next year as he is just getting WAY too big! I can't believe how time has flown, and yet I have to say that I enjoy him more and more each year as he transforms from the unruly preschooler that he was into a calmer, more focused elementary school student.

We kind of started celebrating on Friday when Matthew got his first birthday card. Grandpa and Grandma Fulkerson sent him a Visa gift card and he thought it was pretty cool to have his own credit card. He bought an airplane and some fishing hooks for his new poll.

Grandpa and Grandma Litwiller came for a visit on Monday and they brought a surprise visitor, GG!! The kids did not know their great-grandmother was coming and they were STILL excited about it when they went to bed that night. We ate at Upper Krust, which Matthew chose because he loves their soup. Then we came home and Matthew opened up presents, which included a large Batmobile (almost a monster truck), a carnivorous plant set, and some t-shirts. He also received a check from his great-grandmother and a children's dictionary from his great-aunt and uncle. We had his cake that day since there were more people to eat it and then the kids played games with Grandma. Thankfully we have been given and have borrowed enough air conditioners that the house is very cool during the visit.

After Rob went to work, we took off and hit the Aquatic Center. The passes went half-price on Monday so we took advantage of that and plan to go a lot this summer. The boys are very confident in the water and other than checking to see where they are periodically, I don't have to worry about them. Which is good, because Anna takes up much of my attention! I'm her favorite playmate so we spend our time playing together.

Matthew was the first one up on his birthday and I let him play Wii until the rest of us got up. He requested chocolate chocolate chip muffins for breakfast and I had to find a new recipe since I couldn't find the old one! Good thing we have air or I would never have baked. Rob joined us just as we started to eat (he works until 2am now, so he sleeps in). We gave Matthew a Lego Pirates of the Caribbean set and he spent much of his morning putting it together.

He wanted to spend as much time at the pool as we could, so we all went at 11am when it opened. I like it when Rob comes with us because then I can go down the big slide without worrying that Anna is going to try and follow me :) We stayed until about 12:30pm, then we treated Matthew (and the rest of us) to McDonald's for lunch. We rested for the afternoon (well, Matthew played N64 all afternoon) and then we headed back to the pool after supper and stayed until 8pm. A local dentist paid for the pool to stay open an extra hour and they had tons of giveaways. Anna won a princess puzzle. The boys were disappointed that they didn't win anything, so I pointed out that the prizes all looked like dollar store toys. I then said, "And what happens to dollar store toys?" The boys replied in unison, "They brake!" I treated them to smoothies before we headed home.

We ended the evening with showers and the first pirate movie. Anna and Ben fell asleep pretty early on (I think Anna caught about five minutes of the movie, which is fine b/c she's too young to see it anyway!) Matthew made it to the end and did say that this was the best birthday ever :) And it's the first one since he turned three where he hasn't worried about getting older!

Birthday Weekend

2011-07-12T23:22:00.002-05:00

This past weekend, we made a trip down to Illinois to celebrate two special birthdays. Rob's grandmother turned 100 on the 5th of July and my dad turned 60 on the 7th. I think it's safe to say that we're "caked out" right now.

Rob was able to get time off from both of his jobs, so we took off on Friday morning for Normal. We had a very uneventful trip down, thanks in part to the van. It has really made traveling so much more pleasant! We had a yummy lunch at Rob's parent's home, then Rob and the boys went to the church where GG's reception was to be held to help out with the set up. I kept Anna back at the house so she could rest and hopefully make it through the rest of the evening. And I really didn't want to chase her around everywhere :) She and I watched Snow White and part of a Shirley Temple movie while I mounted some stamp sets.

When the boys came back, I was busy packing up a picnic lunch to take over to my sister's house. I got to meet my sweet nephew Logan for the first time...what a cutie!! We all ended up eating our "picnic" in her dining room and then went to State Farm park. My brother-in-law works for State Farm, and one of the perks is access to an awesome, huge park, complete with it's own aquatic center. We swam for almost 2 hours and had a blast. Again, the boys were very competent in the water and we even let them go to a different pool area than where we were. They had a water slide that ended in a pool with only a 2 1/2 foot depth, so Anna and her cousin Kenzie had a ball sliding into the water. There is also a lazy river and a large kiddie area. Anna found the tunnel slide in the kiddie area and spent a LONG time going down it. She even got caught by a lifeguard when she tried to climb UP the slide! Needless to say, the kids were very tired that evening. Easiest time I have ever had putting them to sleep at Grandma's!

Saturday morning we kind of puttered around and did a little bit of shopping, namely for Matthew since I somehow missed packing him a polo. We went to the reception at 1pm for family pictures and I'd say that overall the kids did pretty well. They, along with one other cousin, sang to GG. They were all so sweet!

Once we saw the kids' behavior start to degenerate, we decided to leave. (Better to get out of there at the beginning of bad behavior than the middle of it!) We tooled around Toys R Us and got some ideas for Matthew's birthday. They had some good clearance deals, so we let each child pick out something cheap. Then we headed back to Grandma's to change clothes and meet over at GG's house for supper. The kids were so well-behaved and for once, we left GG's because it was bedtime, not b/c of poor behavior. They had a ball with their Uncle Dan doing an animal hunt in GG's basement.

Sunday morning we got up, ate breakfast, and headed to Pontiac for Birthday #2. We dropped the kids off at my parents' church and my mom met us at the door to sort the kids into their classes. Rob and I headed over to their house to set up a surprise for my dad. We made a four-tiered "cake" out of cans of Diet Coke and decorated it with ribbon and signs. While there, we got to meet my new niece Annie, born back in March. I also left a surprise for my mom and put our family picture onto the wall with our pictures. (And don't worry, family, pictures are coming. It's just taking us awhile to get them all printed.)

After church, we had a great lunch and then the kids played in the pool. Anna wasn't too keen on playing with her brothers, cousin Ezra, and Uncle Joel, so she went back into the house with Grandma. Rob and I each caught a nap and we ended the evening at the park.

We drove back to Wisconsin Monday morning and have spent the time since then recooping from the trip. It was a fun trip down.

4th of July Parade

2011-07-04T16:16:00.002-05:00

One of the highlights of the 4th of July for the kids is the Annual Watertown parade, one of the best small-town parades I have ever seen. It lasts over two hours and the kids come home with lots of goodies. Oh, and the floats are pretty cool, too! We have such a fun town with great hometown pride and a comraderie that can't be beat! And you know you're in the right place when the Republican candidates can bravely walk down the street with no body guards and get lots of cheering from the crowd :)

Rob staked out our spot on Main Street yesterday afternoon. Yes, you heard right, yesterday. If you want a spot on the curb, you have to get your seats out a day early. We have a double captain's chair that we set out and the kids just sit on the curb. They're up half the time grabbing candy off the street anyway, so they don't need a real place to sit. He checked on our seats last night when he took the boys to watch the fireworks and they had been shoved down a bit, but were still on the curb. Oh, and he found us a spot only one block away!

The parade floats line up on our street and it's always fun to see who is out there each year. This year we had old orange tractors, the German Days float from Jefferson complete with blaring loud polka music (not complaining...it could have been the Elvis impersonator or the off-key rock band) and the Jefferson County Fair float sporting a plastic cow and the Fairest of the Fair. Anna thought the girl was a real, live princess because she had a tiara on her head. The kids spent most of the morning dancing on the porch to the polka music and talking to some of the parade walkers. When the "princess" went by on the fair float, she recognized Anna and gave her a special wave, which made Anna's day :)

We got down to our spot with plenty of time to spare, armed with water bottles and snacks and slathered up with sunscreen. Or at least the kids and Rob were. I neglected a few key areas, so I'm a little crispy right now. We did end up leaving a bit early because I couldn't take it anymore in the direct sunlight. Rob didn't want to stay for the whole thing anyway, so it worked out. And the boys are pretty tired from staying up late to watch fireworks.

Highlights from this year's parade: The stilt walkers whom Anna thought looked like fairies, all of the "princesses" from the various festivals and fairs, the Shiner cars (love those things!), the camels, the unruly horse, the boys running out to grab hot dogs from the float cooking them and giving them away, loads of candy thrown out, and our church float done with the teens. They focused on "Teens Serve" and had "statues" of teenagers from the past who have served our country. It was very well done and if they don't win a prize, I will be surprised!

The highlight for Matthew would be getting a fishing pole. One of the local clubs was throwing out balls and if the person who caught it threw it back, they got a free fishing pole. The gentleman singled out Matthew and pretty much gave him the ball. I thought Matthew's eyes would fall out of their sockets! He can't wait to go fishing with Daddy.

We really do have a fabulous parade here in town. Feel free to come join us next year! But bring your chairs a day early or you have to sit behind us :)

Beach Day!

2011-07-02T16:10:00.003-05:00

We've been meaning to head to the beach and today we got back there, minus Daddy. He had to work at 9:45, so we started prepping to leave when he took off. The kids were through-the-moon excited to go swimming, especially since it's been so nasty around here, weather-wise. This time, we were armed with Funoodles (large foam tubes) and a pink hippo floating thingy for Anna to sit in that we found at a garage sale (thank you again, Grandpa Litwiller!) We also took along our lunch in case we all got hungry.

The beach wasn't too crowded when we got there and I actually found a decent parking place in the lot this time. The boys took off straight into the water with their Funoodles and I can see a huge difference in their swimming now versus before their lessons. Money well spent, I must say! They were bravely paddling out to the deeper water with the use of the noodles and demonstrating many of the skills they learned. I have to say the biggest change I see is in Matthew, who no longer panics in the deeper water and wants me to show him more on how to swim. We worked on treading water and I demonstrated the side stroke, although he didn't try it yet. I'm so proud of the progress they have made!

And I'm SO thankful for that floating thing! It fits Anna perfectly and she let me take her all over the swimming part of the lake. Last time she clung to me in terror, but in her personal boat she was completely content and sang to herself much of the time. She even let me throw her around a bit. We almost made it out to the far end of the swimming area, but I didn't want to have to swim and pull her rope at the same time. I did notice that when I inched out to deeper water, the boys would join me, and soon they were spending much of their time in water deep enough that they couldn't touch the ground. Again, this NEVER would have happened last year with Matthew!

We had a wonderful time and came home sandy, dirty, cooled off, and sunburned. Well, Matthew and I are sunburned. I KNOW I got his back good, but he's pink anyway. And Matthew is a much better sunblock applier than Ben, because the half of my back done by Ben is a little crispy :)

VBS #2

2011-07-01T09:14:00.002-05:00

Sunday night started our church's VBS program and Anna in particular was VERY excited to go. And then we were told that 3's would go to the nursery. Um...no...said I, a veteran parent of 3's at our church. Apparently, the two people in charge (who have been in charge for years) had no idea that parents bring their 3's anyway and put them in with the 4's and 5's. Rob and I had a long talk with the director, who we sent to speak with the person who was in charge of the preschoolers last year so she could tell him how non-distracting the 3's are. He had no idea the 3's don't go to the nursery on Sunday and Wed nights, but sit with their parents or attend the preschool ministry. I'm glad we got all of that nonsense about 3's being distracting cleared up, so maybe the parents of 3's won't have to fight that same battle in future years.

So I took my little cherubs to VBS Sunday night, deposited them in their respective classes, and left for two hours of peace and quiet. And that became our nightly routine this week. We did pick up two extra kids (the ones who took our kids to their VBS a few weeks ago). I stamped and listened to a sermon series and ate supper in quiet. Last night there was a chocolate event at the library, so I attended that and came home with a huge bag of chocolate for Rob and I.

The kids really enjoyed the VBS program. Ben and Anna were in the preschool group, which was run by someone new this year, but it was just as fabulous as previous years. Matthew enjoyed being in his class as well. Like most VBS', there was a competition between the girls and boys to see who could bring in the most offering. They don't count it here, but go by weight instead. There was a table each night where the kids could "buy" a penny roll for 50 cents or a gold brick for $5. The girls won the first four nights and by that last night, the boys (all of them, not just mine) were determined to beat those girls. My boys gave every last cent they had in their piggy banks during the week (even turning a two dollar tip Ben got for a delivery into penny rolls) and they were completely tapped out by Thursday night. So I decided to spring for two gold bricks, one for each boy, and two penny rolls for Anna. I had to laugh as I traveled through the hallway at church...it seemed like every boy had a gold brick or penny rolls...one little boy had TWO gold bricks! And the boys won...blew the girls out of the water, if my boys are to be believed :) I did have a discussion with them about who the real winners were...the missionaries who will receive the offering money. Kind of sobered them up (and prepared them in case they lost again) and put it all back into perspective. But I'm still glad they beat the girls at least one time!

Today is supposed to be ghastly hot and we've already had to cancel our beach trip due to a thunderstorm. We've been warned to stay away from the beach after it rains so we can avoid swamp itch. Doesn't sound pleasant, does it? So we'll have to devise a new plan :)

Swim Lessons and the Root Canal

2011-06-25T10:57:00.002-05:00

The boys finished their swim lessons this week and while neither of them passed Level 1, they still did an excellent job. We got a full checklist of the skills they needed to have to pass and Ben had far more of them checked off than Matthew! I'm not surprised, because Ben is much less timid in the water. They were a little more relieved when they spoke with one of their classmates who passed, but said this was his second time through this level. They are both determined to pass next time and want to practice as much as they can. I think we'll be hitting the beach a few times this week b/c it is supposed to be very warm. They also got a free pass to the Aquatic Center, so we'll go there sometime as well.

I had my root canal on Monday and it went as well as can be expected. The procedure took longer than I expected it to take and I was rather sore on Monday night. A friend came over to watch my kids since Rob had to work and another friend brought us dinner, so we were taken care of. The kids did great that night as well, so I had it pretty easy. Well, except for the extremely sore mouth :) I was sore somewhat on Tuesday, but have been feeling fine the rest of the week. The tooth feels MUCH better and I'm thankful I had this done!

Anna says

2011-06-25T10:52:00.002-05:00

We were out running errands earlier this week and we passed by a catholic church. Anna pointed to the statue of Mary on top of the church and said, "Look, Mommy! There's a princess fairy on that building!"

This morning, Anna was helping Rob make breakfast and all in one breath said,"Only a boy named David, only a little sling. I want a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Hey, look! I'm a dinosaur!"

"Happy" Father's Day

2011-06-19T18:16:00.002-05:00

Well, we knew going into this weekend that Father's Day might not be so happy for Rob. He has the day off work (first weekend off in a month) but with my tooth pain we weren't sure how good I would be feeling. So it wasn't too surprising when I got up this morning and went right back to bed. Yeah, I got to sleep in on Father's Day. The kids got up and made Rob some pictures, which is more than I did b/c I completely forgot about Father's Day cards until late Friday night and wasn't able to get them done. (Sorry Dad and Dad-in-law...your cards will be late). I popped some pain meds and we went to church.

Ugh. Yeah. We had one child who was so unruly that his/her SS teacher had to find me between services. We pulled the errant one out of their second service class and had he/she/it sit with us in the service. The child was NOT too happy about it, but complied and Rob had a nice long chat with him/her. (We're protecting the not-so-innocent, but grandparents may feel free to ask.) Rob and I were both very upset about what happened, so much so that I don't think we caught much of the service. And I was in pain.

We left church and went out to lunch at the Pine Cone, a truck stop restaurant in Johnson Creek. That place is worth a stop for the enormous desserts alone! They are two to three times the size of any restaurant desserts I've ever seen and half the price. But, it's a popular place and very busy, so we had a long wait for a table. Thankfully, our waitress was quick and we had speedy service. The food was delicious as usual, but I managed to have three or four pain attacks while eating.

The kids spent most of the afternoon cleaning up their toy room and bedroom with Rob while he spent loads of time imparting wisdom to them about behavior. We had noticed as the VBS week progressed that both boys were becoming pretty bad behavior problems. It just goes back to the fact that when kids are around kids more, they learn kid behavior, and that's not a good thing. It really has reinforced our decision to homeschool and have our children learn proper behavior from adults, not from kids.

And during all of that, I slept. This Tylenol 3 with codeine is really starting to get to me. One day left!!

So Rob is now making homemade pizza and plans to play some Wii tonight to give himself a better ending to the day. I told him that the next time he has a Saturday or Sunday off we'll have a belated Father's Day celebration and make it a really special day for him. He deserves it...he's such a great dad!!

Dairy Breakfast

2011-06-18T19:14:00.003-05:00

We had a great time this morning at the Watertown Dairy Breakfast, hosted by the dairy farmers of the area. Every year on Father's Day weekend, the local dairy farmers take turns hosting this huge event. We have been gone or busy on this weekend in previous years, but since we had wide open plans, we decided to go. We even purchased tickets ahead (and Ben and Anna were free!)

We decided to take the free shuttle bus rather than a) try to find the farm b) have to potentially park in a muddy field and c) spend money on gas. As it turned out, the farm was pretty easy to find, but the "parking lot" was pretty scary looking and the lane was small and shared with tour wagons and the shuttle bus. The shuttles were full-sized school buses and the kids had a ball! They were so excited to ride on a bus! Anna had never been on one and the boys don't remember their last ride, so it was a real treat. Anna couldn't stop smiling on the entire ride.

When we arrived, we got in line for the actual breakfast. It was an all-you-can-eat feast of pancakes, sausage, scrambled eggs, sliced cheeses, and ice cream. The kids thought it was pretty neat to have dessert after breakfast. We all ate our fill, then took a tour of the farm. There was a kid area set up complete with model trains, a petting zoo, and a fake cow to milk. Matthew enjoyed holding a bunny and Ben couldn't get enough of milking the cow. We then walked over to the milking parlor and watching them milking the cows. I didn't think I would ever tear the kids away...they were completely fascinated with the entire process. We then took a wagon tour of the three farms that made up the whole dairy farm. Ben looked like he was in his element and even said he'd like to be a farmer someday. The kids got to crawl up in the combines and I didn't think we'd ever get Ben out!

We walked through a cow barn and the kids enjoyed seeing the cows close up. I asked Anna what she thought of it and she said, "Ooooo....those cows are STINKY!"

The kids were dragging by the end of the visit and Matthew even fell asleep on the return shuttle bus. They have had such a big week that I'm not surprised they were wore out. Rob took them out this afternoon while I had a stamp event, but he kept it pretty low key. Thankfully we have a much simpler week ahead of us!

Oh, and I'm doing okay so far with the pain management. Please keep praying!

VBS #1, Swimming, and Tooth Aches

2011-06-17T21:32:00.003-05:00

We have had a rather busy week and while all of it was fun, I'm rather glad that schedule is over! I have a brand new appreciation for "soccer moms" and the amount of time they spend driving around their kids. I must say that one week was enough for me...can't imagine keeping up that pace through an entire school year!!

The above picture is of the kids waiting for their ride to VBS. They were invited to attend VBS at a church in Fort Atkinson and we agreed to let the boys go. Since it's a half hour drive and she's only three, Anna did not go with them. The boys had a marvelous time and really enjoyed getting to know some new kids as well as strengthen friendships with the kids that invited them and a few other friends they knew there. After one day of the preschool class, Ben was moved up to the 1st and 2nd grade class. My friend who's kids invited the boys thought he'd do better in the older group and he did. Rob and I went to the closing program and picnic lunch today and got to see what a fun program the church put on. It's a much smaller church than ours (63 kids was their highest day...we bring more than that on our buses) so they had a chance to see a different type of church. I'm so thankful they got a chance to go!

Now, here's where the fun part came in: The boys had swim lessons at 1pm each day but Friday. VBS ended at noon. That meant I had to pick them up each day, have lunch ready for them in the car, get them changed real quick, and head off to swim lessons. In spite of the distance and construction on the main highway, we made it every day with time to spare. I was rather tired of packing lunches by the end of the week (again...kudos to you moms that do that every day for school!) and a little sore from driving, but none the worse for the wear.

And swim lessons were very interesting. Rob and I feel very strongly that swimming is a vital skill each person should learn, so we enrolled them in the park and rec dept swim lessons. I could teach them myself, but I'm already their academic teacher so we thought an outside teacher would be better. And I must say that I am VERY impressed with the swim teachers in our town. The boys are in Level One lessons, but I wish we had put them in Aquakids when they were four. Rob and I have both observed that class during the boys' lessons and are impressed with how they acclimate the little ones to the pool. Anna will be enrolled in that class next year.

That being said, the boys themselves were a little timid on their first day. Matthew panicked at the thought of going further than the wall and Ben wasn't much better. I realized I had to act fast or our money would be wasted. So, each day I have had a goal for them to achieve and a treat if they earned it. I've seen all kinds of improvement over four short days. They have one week left, so we'll see how it goes. I told them how awful I was during my lessons and how much better than me they are doing already. They felt pretty good after that, knowing that Mommy is a great swimmer and was a lifeguard. There's hope!

So now for Miss Anna: I knew I needed a few activities planned to help distract her while the boys were gone in the mornings. She went along for a few chiropractic appointments, had a playdate with a friend, went with Rob and I to a chocolate shop tour (part of the library reading program), saw animals at a library program, played at McDonald's, went out for breakfast with Mom and Dad, and got the TV all to herself. I'd say she was pretty spoiled by the end of the week! She's excited to attend our church's VBS in a week and was very interested in everything the boys did in the mornings.

On Tuesday of this week, I started having some severe tooth pain. I've had problems with one tooth in particular for awhile, but was told I have an exposed root on that tooth, so I didn't think much of it. By Thursday, I was in so much pain I could barely function (and that day Rob worked at Bass, so I solo parented much of the day...go figure.) I called the dentist, got in for a 3pm appointment, and found out I have a dying nerve in that tooth. They started to prep for a root canal, but since it was 3:30 by that point and Rob had to work at 4pm, I couldn't stay. They gave me a prescription for pain meds and I will go in for the root canal on Monday afternoon. A friend of mine will watch the kids since Rob will already be at work. The pain meds finally kicked in this afternoon, so please pray that I do not develop a tolerance to them and that I make it through until Monday. On a pain scale, it was a 9.5. Thankfully, Rob does not work all weekend and does not work until 4pm on Monday, so I have him around for help if the pain gets worse.

And that's been our week! Tomorrow we're going to the Watertown Dairy Breakfast on a farm and Ben especially is excited about the all-you-can-eat breakfast. He's a BIG breakfast eater, so this is right up his alley!!

Naughty Stoplights

2011-06-15T21:07:00.002-05:00

We've been pretty busy this week and I'll blog about what we've been doing when the week is over, but I had to share this Anna-funny.

A little back story: Two Sundays ago, the kids and I were headed home from the morning service and hoped to get there in time to see Rob before he had to leave for work. (He had left the service early.) We got to a stoplight just as it turned red and had to wait for the entire cycle before we could go. But the stoplight decided to skip our side of the street. Four times. The traffic backed up pretty badly as the errant stoplight continued to skip us. The kids and I were getting pretty upset and they asked what we should do. I told them we'd have to call the police (and it looked like someone behind us already was) and have them come out and help. The light finally did turn green, but we passed Rob as he was heading down the street.

Ever since then, the kids have called that light "the tricky light." As we passed by it tonight on the way home, Anna said, "That's the tricky light. If it skips us again, we'll call the police and they will come out and take that light away and lock it in jail forever!" Because that is apparently what happens to naughty stoplights :)

And I did explain that someone could just fix it, but after waiting so long to turn, I like Anna's solution better!

Beating the Heat

2011-06-07T21:18:00.003-05:00

We've been trying to keep cool here in Litwiller land during this three-day heat wave. I got lots of advice about where to take the kids around here, then realized we don't have the extra money to take them anywhere. So I got a little creative. We have a covered sandbox in our backyard (one of those frog/turtle things) and it still had the sand in it from last year. Along with a layer of water that ducks have been using as a little pond (I have pictures to prove it!). I had Rob dump all of that out, clean out the box, and fill it with water. I'll have to get a pic of the kids using it, because it's pretty tiny. They can all sit on the edge and dip their feet in or at least two of them can sit in it. Since Anna is not all that fond of water yet, the boys usually get the pool to themselves. It does cool them off some, so it has been worth it.

Of course we have stocked up on cold eats and Kool-aid (which I only allow during hot weather). But today I knew we needed to do something away from home. Originally it was supposed to storm today, so I planned to take them to play at McDonald's. While they played in their pool this morning, I realized that the forecast had changed and we could actually go swimming in someplace large enough to submerge more than an ankle. We have two main options--the beach in Lake Mills or the Aquatic Center. Another brilliant thought dawned on me--I got paid for a babysitting job just last night (I'd do it for free but this mom feels better when she pays me) and it was in the exact amount to get all four of us in at the aquatic center! Perfect! We waited to leave for the pool until after Rob had left for work and had many dreams of splashing around in the cool, clear water. And since the city schools are not finished until Thursday, we thought there would be less people at the pool.

Yeah. There were less people, alright. Zero, in fact, along with a sign that said the pool opened at 4pm. Apparently the large numbers of private and homeschool families in town that are already done for the year wouldn't be enough to get the pool open early. The kids started to show some disappointment (and frankly, I did, too) so I made a snap decision to go to the beach instead. It took us about 20 minutes to get there and when we did, it was packed! But we found ourselves a little spot in the shade and the boys were in the water in no time. We did have to deal with a cranky sunbather who tried to talk to Ben about kicking sand on her leg. I looked her right in the eye and said, "He was merely running past you. He was not kicking sand." She backed off and said, "Oh, I know, it just happened when he ran." Then she tried cornering him later when I was in the water with Anna, so I called he and Matthew over and showed them a path to our things around the Cranky Lady. (Who also tried to tell Anna to get a shirt on b/c she was so pale skinned.) ARGH!! I'm glad she left our family alone after that, b/c I was very much in the mood by that time to point out that her smoking was causing others to breath in toxic fumes, but she left. After yelling at other kids not to run, of course. (One of my biggest pet peeves is when people try to tell kids not to be kids, but I digress...)

Miss Anna was not nearly as brave as last year, so she and I spent most of our time on the beach. Kind of bummer for me, because I like to swim!! But we went at her pace and before I knew it, she was splashing at the water's edge and letting her brothers take her in about knee deep. The boys had a marvelous time splashing around and trying to see how far they could go in the water. Thankfully, there is a roped off swimming area, so I knew they were okay. We did manage to lose a sand bucket somehow when the boys tired of playing with it and left it in the lake. They fussed about it when it was time to leave, but I think they need a lesson or two about taking care of their property.

We left when Anna just about fell asleep on her towel and stopped at McDonald's for supper on the way home. Since we couldn't use my extra money for the pool, we used it for dinner!

And I'm hoping we make it through one more day without melting :) We do have a "new" fan in the living room that has made a world of difference. Rob and I bought an industrial fan back in Cali, but the stand had broken and Rob wanted to hang on to it and build it a new stand. Well, Matthew just happened to accidently knock over our pedastal fan in the living room and the blades shattered. Rob just went upstairs to the closet, took out the industrial fan, and put the two together to make one mean living room fan. It's awesome and about as good as you can get without a/c. We call it.....The Frankenfan. Yup, we're weird like that! But at least his obsession with keeping broken things paid off this time :)

Homeschool World's Fair

2011-06-05T14:02:00.002-05:00

This past Wednesday, we participated in a homeschool world's fair. The idea was that each homeschool family choose a country to study and then create a booth dealing with the country. About 10 families participated and it was loads of fun!

We chose The Philippines (of course) and had a ball putting our project together. The former high school teacher in me started planning all kinds of grand and complicated things for our backboard. We checked out a few books from the library and began reading. And then the boys got really bored about half way through the first book. It was then that I remembered my kiddos have just finished first grade and preschool...they aren't ready for all the neat statistics and info that I was trying to find. So I began thinking like a lower elementary student. What kind of things would they find interesting? And how should be best approach decorating our backboard?

After talking to the boys, we decided we would focus on everything fun about the Philippines. After all, what do people REALLY remember at these types of events? The fun stuff! Only teachers actually read all the info...and there weren't any typical teachers present! So we flipped through the books and scanned Wikipedia for anything fun and interesting to kids. Since Rob and I have a wealth of info already on our country of choice, we were able to easily direct the kids. We had one whole side of the backboard dedicated to food (lumpia and halo halo, anyone?), another side with rice terraces and dancers, and we did our more "serious" info in the middle (flag, pic of the capital, map, etc.) Ben, Anna, and I used the Big shot to cut out letters in the colors of the flag, Matthew cut out pics and matted them, I glued them to the board. We found a game from the Philippines, a dress shirt that Ben had worn, a Filipino version of Coke, and missionary cards that we were able to add to our display.

I found a sitter for Anna that day so I wouldn't have to chase her around the room and we were off. We got our booth set up in no time (yay for really big backboards!) and were able to wander around and see what everyone else had done. The boys learned about China, Guatemala, Japan, Egypt, Romania, Ghana, India, Ireland, and Germany. Many of the booths had food and the boys decided we need to add that next year. We were planning to make lumpia (Filipino eggrolls) but Rob had to work that day and I don't know how to make them.

Speaking of Rob, he showed up in between jobs to visit us, but just as he arrived, Ben came out of the bathroom and had had an accident. Rob ran him to Kohl's to buy some new shorts and came back in time to leave again :( Poor guy...some days we just don't know if he's coming or going!

It was a great way to end our school year and the kids really enjoyed the fair. I asked them if they actually read any info and they told me no, so I knew we did the right thing by focusing on pictures :)

Memorial Day Weekend, Part 2

2011-06-03T15:38:00.003-05:00

The kids were eagerly awaiting the arrival of their grandparents on Saturday night. We kept them pretty busy by giving baths/showers and cleaning up the little bits and places that still needed some attention. The kids were wild with excitement at seeing their grandparents here. Thankfully, it didn't take too much to get them calmed down for bedtime (or maybe I don't remember that part b/c Rob put them to bed.)

The next morning Miss Anna decided to wake up at 5am and join her grandparents. We stopped her and got her to stay upstairs until 6am, but she woke up her brothers in the process. So we were a rather tired group of people attending church that morning! Poor Rob had red rings around his eyes, but at least he and I were at the nursery desk during the morning service. Well, we crossed paths, at least. He manned the desk while I was in choir and then I took over when he left for work. He worked all afternoon, poor guy!

After lunch, we took a little tour of Watertown, hitting a few places my parents wanted to see again. Then we ended up at McDonald's for ice cream cones and some playtime for the kids. Rob came home and grilled up a delicious dinner of chicken, pork, and loads of veggies. We did s'mores over the grill and we all went to bed happy and well-fed.

On Memorial Day itself, we took to the park early to avoid the heat (and crowds). We fed the ducks and then played at the park. Then we headed home to avoid the heat, had lunch, and my folks took off. We took off as well and met Rob after work to do a little shopping. Then it was home to grill again for supper!

And now I think I'm done!!

Memorial Day Weekend Part 1

2011-05-31T21:11:00.003-05:00

We had a fun-filled, action-packed holiday weekend. I must say we were kept hopping most of the time, and that was partly due to the fact that Rob had to work the entire time. I wanted to keep the kids busy so they didn't miss Daddy too much.

On Friday, Rob worked from 10-1 at Bass and 2-10 at G & V, so we really didn't see him much. We grocery shopped, made a few stamp deliveries for my boss, and hit the park for a good long while. My boys have discovered that they LOVE sandboxes, so we keep sand toys in the trunk of the van for park usage. The park we went to on Friday had a rather lousy sand pit, but that didn't stop them from digging in! The funniest part about that visit was the end. I tried calling the boys over, but they didn't come. Then Anna yelled out, "Minions assemble!" and they shot right over! (That's a line from on of her favorite movies, Despicable Me.

On Saturday, Rob worked from 9:45 to 4:45, so I found a few activities for us to do. We packed a lunch just in case we were still out and about when we got hungry. We tried garage saling, but there wasn't much available seeing as it was a holiday weekend. We found one sale where Anna bought a "new" baby doll (the hair completely fell out w/i two hours of reaching home) and the boys got some balls to play with outdoors. Then we went over to Eberts, one of our favorite places. My intent was to let the kids play and then leave. The boys were concerned that I would drag them into every single greenhouse on the property, but I reminded them that Daddy wasn't with us on this trip :) We did end up buying some flowers anyway. After the kids played in the kid's village for about an hour, we walked through a few greenhouses and found one that was entirely pink. Anna picked out a geranium, then Ben wanted a red one, so we hunted to find the right shade of red. Matthew had his heart set on lamb's ear, which is a very soft plant. He found just what he wanted and proceeded to pet it while we were in line to pay.

Oh, speaking of being in line to pay, so the line was REALLY long and just as we got into it, Ben had to go potty. No problem...the bathrooms were right next to the line so he took himself. Then Anna had to go. Now there was a problem. I tried to convince Matthew to hold our place in line, but he just followed me over to Anna. There was a line for the ladies room, so I got Matthew back into the check-out line (now at the end b/c we lost our place) and told him to stay put. Ben was back by this time and the nice lady behind us said she'd help the boys. So I went back over to take Anna potty, but there was STILL a line and as I checked on the boys, they were speeding up the check-out line b/c a third register had opened. ARGH!! I decided to take action and ushered Anna into the empty men's room (a very nice men's room, if I might say so.) She went potty and then we headed back to the boys, who were by this time next in line to pay. Praise the Lord for the nice lady behind us!!

After Eberts we headed to Ixonia for a tractor expo. I had no idea what to expect, except that there would be tractors and a flea market, so we headed over to find it. We parked next to a small park and ate lunch, then went to see the tractors. Matthew was determined to find a tire big enough to sit inside of, and he found it with no trouble. I do think it would have been a bit more fun and informative if we had either grandpa there to help us out, but they enjoyed it anyway. The had a free kiddie ride and the kids really enjoyed it. It was also a very long ride, so Mommy enjoyed her free time looking around the flea market a bit. After their ride, we walked around the flea market and bought some kettle corn. Then we heard the emcee talking about a kiddie tractor pull. I had seen that in the advertisements but wasn't sure if the kids would be interested. I explained what they had to do and all of them were excited! I wasn't intending to enter Anna at all, but when they weighed in, she followed her brother's example and stood on the scale. All three were in a separate weight class, so they didn't have to compete against each other. They played on the playground until the event started, and Anna's group was up first. She went first and moved it about one foot, but it was far enough, as she got second place! Only three kids in her group, but she ended up with a medal. The boys didn't fare as well, but they did have fun and agreed that it was pretty hard. We headed for home afterwards and waited for Daddy to come home. My parents came over that night, but I think I'll save the grandparent visit for a separate post. I'd hate to undo everything my chiropractor has been working on by typing too much!

Fixed the Problem!!

2011-05-24T16:51:00.001-05:00

I finally figured out my problem with posting and so I should be able to post more frequently. I wrote that previous post over a week ago and haven't been able to post it. I'm now using an updated browser, so problem solved!!

An Update

2011-05-23T07:55:00.001-05:00

I have been informed by my father (who called on an outdated number...hint, hint Dad) that I have not blogged in awhile. I guess I've just been so busy enjoying my life that I haven't had time to blog about it!

Let's see, since my last post was Easter Sunday, I've got mucho catching up to do. I guess I'll just hit the major highlights of the past few weeks. We took a trip down to Illinois the weekend after Easter, but left Rob at home to work. I will say that I don't think I'll be doing that again. Driving that far by myself was a little rough on my body and, well, I just really missed Rob! The kids had a wonderful time playing with their grandparents and a few cousins. The main reason for the trip was for me to do two SU workshops, but we had to cancel one because my sister went on bedrest for a bit. We still went over and visited her, so that was fun. The other workshop went well, but I forgot to bring a punch that was crucial to the card. Thankfully, one of the ladies had it at home and her husband brought it, but not until we were almost completely finished with both make 'n takes. Argh....not my finest hour, but at least everyone had fun and ordered lots. :)

Just to stay on the business theme, I had a great card night last week with seven in attendance. I'm having a workshop tonight and overall I'd say my business is really taking off. I enjoy it and love any excuse to stamp!

Mother's Day happened in these missing blog weeks. That wasn't much to write about, mainly because I was sick all day. I had a headache and some weird stomach problems. I did get treated to breakfast in bed and they bought me Lego Pirates of the Caribbean for the Wii, complete with my own little Lego Jack Sparrow.

We finished our school year on Monday of this week. I had one week left to go and the boys agreed to do some schooling last weekend so we could finish. Rob had to work on Saturday and Sunday, so it was the perfect time to work. They are both excited to NOT have to do school and I think I'm just as excited....if not more so!! I am planning to do a little schooling over the summer, but nothing real big. My goal is to keep working on Ben's reading skills and help Matthew get more confident in his math facts.

We do have a few things planned for the summer. The boys are signed up to take swim lessons in June. They are in the same class, so I'm hoping that will help with their confidence. If they both pass, I'm going to sign them up for the next level class in July. All three children will get to do the library reading program this year, which starts in June. Otherwise we plan to hit the parks and the beach as often as we can! I'm going to work on my scrapbooking and learn to braid hair. :)

We have found a fantastic babysitter. When Rob starting working second shift, I realized I need a sitter if I am to keep my business alive! The kids absolutely love her to pieces and I feel very confident in her abilities. Anna asks me almost every day when she's coming back.

I think that's all for the activities going on at our house. And I hope you're happy, Dad!!

Easter at Our House

2011-04-24T16:07:00.003-05:00

This morning I was awoken by an anxious three-year-old trying in vain to get her dress on. Of course, she had grabbed the wrong blue dress and hadn't had her bath yet, so I helped her out of the dress and into the tub. As I was bathing her, I talked to her about what Easter means. As I finished talking about Jesus rising from the dead she said, "And He's coming again!" I guess she has been listening to all the times we've spoken of it before!

The kids were all very eager to wear their new clothes so they dressed right away. Anna has a very pretty blue dress made by Grandma Litwiller, along with a matching purse, hat, doll dress, and doll diaper. She's was simply adorable in her ensemble and I even allowed her to take the doll to church since she had an Easter dress, too :) The boys had new shirts and ties. They flip-flopped their colors from last year and looked just as handsome. I realized this morning I had nothing new for Easter, so I just threw on something spring-ish.

Ben and Matthew tried to make breakfast this morning for all of us. Ben made the toast and did just fine, but Matthew had some serious trouble with the scrambled eggs. Namely, he didn't pour the eggs into the pan, but rather all over the stove. Rob hastily cleaned it up and helped Matthew start all over again. It turned out good anyway :)

I worked in the nursery this morning during Sunday school and Rob was at desk, so we missed the big Sunday school breakfast. As it turned out, the 3-year-old teacher and her crew brought in breakfast for the nursery workers! She said she was tired of not being an adult :) I made sure I was covered when I needed to leave for choir because we sang "Worthy is the Lamb" from The Messiah. I haven't sung that since college and I just love The Messiah!!

We had a big lunch when we came home (ham, escalloped potatoes--Rob's grandma's recipe, green beans, rolls, and fruit). After stuffing the kids with food, we had our egg hunt. The kids painted eggs the day before and we hid them around the living and dining rooms, along with the two chocolate bunnies Matthew won in the egg hunt yesterday, and a bunch of beach toys. We bought a big kit of them since I plan to take the kids to the beach a lot this summer. And, we also bought them the third Narnia movie, which we enjoyed this afternoon. I was a good mommy and let them rip right into the bunnies and devour them. After all, what's a holiday without a good candy gorge??

They have been happily playing inside and outside all afternoon and we'll head back to church this evening. That is, if I can wake up Rob. He's out like a log on the couch.

The Egg Hunt

2011-04-23T09:07:00.003-05:00

This morning we got up bright and early for an Easter Egg Hunt at Pick 'n Save, our local grocery store. The hunt started at 7:30 to avoid the shoppers, I suppose, but there were plenty of people shopping already! The kids were so excited that they woke me up at 5:50am. I promptly sent them back to bed :) Rob decided to join us even though he doesn't get home from work until after midnight. He said he needed a shopping cart and free coffee to keep him upright, though.

I couldn't find their Easter baskets, so they went with an odd assortment of containers. Anna had a bunny purse my mom had sent her during a previous Easter, Ben used his Halloween pumpkin, and Matthew grabbed a plastic grocery sack. We headed over to the freezer section to wait for the hunt. Rob decided to do our grocery shopping and come over when it started.

The kids were divided into age groups and of course, mine were in three different sections. I deposited Anna in the 2-3 group and then helped the boys find their aisles. I pushed my way back to Anna to help her, but the parents were not allowed into the aisles with the kids. Unfortunately, most of the parents didn't get the hint to move aside and let the kids through! I used my big voice to part the way for the little kids behind us and helped shove them past the moms who couldn't take a hint. They had Hershey eggs scattered all over the floor along with a few plastic eggs.

Once it began, the kids went crazy grabbing eggs. I had a friend of mine who is six foot eight take a picture of Anna's group since I couldn't see past the wall of parents. I then hurried to take pics of Ben and Matthew's groups, who were already almost done! I got back to Anna's group and the wall of parents had moved forward. That group took the longest to pick up the eggs. They weren't in a hurry, I guess!

I went back and found the boys. Matthew and I had talked a little stratgey and I told him to quickly get past the big crowd and move toward the back. He found three of the plastic eggs, each of which earned him a big prize! He got a jump rope, two chocolate bunnies, and two big packages of Oreos. We now know for next year to go for the plastic eggs :)

And since they have so much chocolate I don't think Mom and Dad need to buy them any at all! Good thing, because it just occured to me last night that I hadn't bought any presents for them. I have their cards done, of course, but nothing else. We'll see what Rob and I come up with for tomorrow :)

Matthew at the Dentist

2011-04-19T18:49:00.002-05:00

At Matthew's last dental visit we found out that he has three cavities. One of them is in a tooth that he's likely to lose pretty soon so the dentist wants to wait a while before filling that one. The other two are in the back and won't come out in the near future, so he needed them filled. At that appointment, the hygenist showed him the gas mask he would have to wear and explained what would happen.

Today he woke up a bit nervous and kept saying that he wished the appointment was in the morning. Poor guy...he knew it wouldn't be fun! We decided it would be best for Rob to take him since Rob could hold him down if necessary. I would have to pick Matthew up since the appt was very close to the time Rob had to go to work. (And the nice part about that is that the dental office is on the edge of town, so Rob had less traffic to deal with on his way to work.)

The other two and I decided to get a nice distracting present for Matthew since we thought he'd be all loopy and sore. We went to Family Video and found the latest Lego Wii game (based on Star Wars' The Clone Wars) and two of the free kids videos. We then headed to the dental office, but did not have to wait long. Rob came shooting out and left for work with Matthew close behind him. Apparently, Matthew did NOT want the gas and just did the two fillings with no shot and no gas! He said it didn't hurt at all, only stung a little at one point. I can't believe my child who hates doctors and needles was so brave. He's a little sore right now, so I gave him some Tylenol and he had some soft mac 'n cheese and a milk shake for supper.

I'm just so proud of him!

Stonefire Pizza

2011-04-12T18:52:00.003-05:00

Rob had today off from Bass, so we decided to make good on a month-old promise to the kids and went to Stonefire Pizza for lunch. If you've been to Chuck E. Cheese and Dave 'n Busters, just put the two together and that's where we were! We took off around 9:45 and got there a little early, so we had to wait. Remember waiting for things to open when you were a kid?? I have to say waiting is much easier on this side of things :) The kids got to see a bit of the place from the waiting area, which only whet their appetite for more. We decided to take a walk around before lunch and found LOADS to do. The place was enormous. There was a large arcade with both video games and games that spit out tickets. In that area was a ride, bumper cars, and Ball City. Ball City is where the boys spent the majority of their time, and here's why: It's a three-story high structure filled with nerf-like balls and guns and cannons to shoot the balls from. We couldn't believe how amazing it was! And there was a slide from the third story down to the first. Watching the boys was like watching Rob and I in this thing. Matthew (mini-me) ran from thing to thing, trying each one and getting more and more excited as he went along. (I saw many happy dances as he discovered each new ball gun.) Ben (or mini-Rob) took his time and really explored each gun/cannon. It was so funny to watch him figure out the cannon. While Matthew loaded and pelted Ben with balls from the second story, Ben meticulously loaded the cannon, figured out how to aim it, and blasted Matthew with about 10 balls all at once. There were three dining rooms and we opted to eat in the one that Matthew described this way, "It's like eating inside the Children's museum!" Besides tables and chairs, there were a number of small playrooms, all visible from the eating area. Anna had her pick of a water play area, train table, face painting, play pizza parlor, and a McDonald's-style play structure. Of course the boys were young enough to play with all of it too, but Anna is the one who played there the longest. And then there was the food! Huge buffet filled with all types of food, including about 10 different types of pizza. We had plenty to eat as well as a sundae bar for dessert. Due to the expense of the place, we opted to pay for lunch (of course) and VIP braclets so the boys could do the three big activities in the game room. Today they had a $5 special for the bracelets and the boys made full use of them! We weren't sure if Anna would like the ball room or the one ride she's tall enough for, but I think she'll do it next time. Rob almost paid to join the boys in the ball room!! So we had a fabulous time exploring a new place. The boys are ready to go back tomorrow. I'm thinking maybe in July for MJ's birthday....maybe.... :) And I'm sorry my posts have been nothing but huge paragraphs...I can't figure out why they are posting this way.

Our Week with Job #2

2011-04-10T20:34:00.002-05:00

Rob started his job at Bass this week which meant we had to start getting used to a whole new schedule. He works on weekdays from 10-2 and one day on the weekends. The weekdays will change, but at least we know the hours for them. This week he worked every day but Tuesday and then Sat 12-4. Next week he'll work on Sunday instead of Saturday and I'll see if I'm ready to brave sitting with all three of the kids by myself in church that night. Rob was running around like a madman at times, but the schedule really isn't so bad. Once his chiropractic appointments are over with (2 more weeks!) the mornings will be much calmer. This week he works Mon, Wed, and Thurs, so there are two days "off" from Bass as well as Saturday off. I have a workshop scheduled for Saturday, so I'm thankful that I don't have to hire a babysitter, especially since it would be short notice. The kids and I are adjusting to our Daddy-less days as well. When I redid our daily schedule, I put all of the schooling between 10-2 so that they would be more distracted during that time and with Rob when he's home. That's been working pretty well. I have noticed that all three of them have been crankier than usual this week, but I'm hoping that lightens up as they adjust. I've been crankier as well, but I think I'll get over it too :) I think the most interesting issue arose on Thursday. Back in February, before Rob was laid off, I scheduled a 31 party. (31 is a company that sells purses, totes, storage items, etc.) I love, love, LOVE their products and knew I needed a party so I did not spend our entire tax return on bags. When Rob got his evening job I lost my child-distractor for the evening. Rob normally takes the kids to McDonald's to play when I have events. I decided to see how the kids would do on their own. I have a monthly card night so they will have to entertain themselves. Yeah. This test run proved they need a bit more training. They did okay, but kept coming downstairs to tell me they were bored. Nine million different toys to play with and they are bored. And then they wanted snacks. And later Anna decided to spray water all over the bathroom. I let them come down toward the end and play with the baby and toddler that were there, but they got more and more wild as the evening progressed. The 31 consultant told me she let herself out so I could put them to bed. Thankfully she's a mom and completely understood my plight. And after all of that, when I was ready to shop, I realized I had packed up my catalog with her stuff. I just about cried. So, I need to strategize for Friday when I have my card class. I don't want to hire a teenager to stay up there with them b/c I can't afford babysitters all the time...I'd rather they learned how to behave. Suggestions are more than welcome! I'm hoping to have a better week simply because we will be more used to what's going on. If there's anything I have learned in 35 years of living it's that humans can get used to anything and we all crave normalcy in our lives. I know the Lord will help us slip into a new routine.

One Week Down

2011-04-02T08:32:00.002-05:00

We have lived on Rob's new work schedule for one week now and it has been interesting, to say the least. We're all tired, but that is to be expected. Rob is enjoying the work, although it is hard work, but he's learning quite a bit. It sounds like they may be training him on more of the machining quicker than anticipated and he starts learning forklift driving next week. Can't wait to hear how that one goes! He will start at Bass this next week so we're really not done getting used to our new schedule. Oh, and we did find out he's making a dollar more per hour than originally quoted, which is a major praise. The kids and I have been adjusting to life without Daddy in the evenings. It has been especially hard on Matthew, who really misses having Daddy put him to bed. I decided not to do anything the same as Rob so I can just do my own thing with them in the evenings. We have been reading through the Moody family series (written by Sarah Maxwell) and are almost finished with the most recent book. It's about a homeschooling family and the kids just love it. I read a chapter each night and now I'm reading to them upstairs while they're in bed instead of downstairs. Then instead of a family prayer, I have them each say their own prayers. It's been sweet to hear the things that are on their little hearts. I have had a hard time going to bed w/o Rob here. I had been trying to get to sleep a little earlier each night, but last night I ended up watching a movie and not getting to bed until Rob came home at 12:30am. I blame him entirely for that because HE'S the one who checked the movie out from the library. :) I have been enjoying my extended stamp time in the evenings, but with Sale-a-bration coming to a close, I did more business things than stamp. I hit my highest sales month ever in March and will be able to make the van payment from my earnings. Woo-hoo! Our daily schedule had some changes, mainly that family devotions is after breakfast instead of before bed. Schooltime is now when Rob would be working at Bass. I will have to flip flop the boys. Right now, Ben has school before lunch and Matthew after. Matthew seesms to tired to focus well and Ben is too wired to sit still. I did them opposite on Thursday and that seemed to work much better. I'm sure I'll be tweaking more of the schedule as we go along. The only one who seems relatively unaffected by the changes is Anna. She's just the same, sweet, bouncy little girl she always is. She got some tiny princess dolls for her birthday and has been very busy changing their clothes, as well as diapering her babies with the diapers Grandma Litwiller made for her. The kids and I have had some fun in the evenings. I took them to the park both Wednesday and Thursday to enjoy the nicer weather. We even took a picnic supper with us on Thurs and bread to feed the ducks. All three of them are expert duck feeders and had a grand time. So we'll see what this new week brings with Rob's new schedule.

The New Van

2011-03-29T14:51:00.002-05:00

The kids have been so funny about the van. Matthew and Ben think it's the coolest thing they've ever seen and keep inventing reasons to ride in it. If we still have it when they're sixteen and driving, they may not find it so cool :) Anna likes it because she's high enough to see out of the window...and actually near the window and not stuck between her brothers. Any time I looked outside yesterday I was startled by the red van in the driveway. I told the kids when we went to Walmart that I'd probably forget to look for the red van and look for the G6 instead. Ben helped me out...when we left Walmart he stopped in front of my cart and said, "We're looking for a RED VAN, Mom!" And today Rob figured out the child safety locks. The boys think it's the coolest thing that one of the side doors opens by button instead of by force. The phrase most oft repeated yesterday was, "The van is NOT a toy!" You can imagine the fun I had with the kids :) Rob got to drive it today for the first time and when he came in he informed me that he much prefers the car :) That's fine...the van's for me anyway and I LIKE IT!! Via two vehicles!!

Finding Another New Normal

2011-03-28T11:45:00.003-05:00

My head has been spinning for the past three days....so much that I haven't even kept the family updated on what's happening! It's been really tough to process everything that's been going on AND keep our regular schedule AND do a few pre-planned events. Let's go back to Tuesday. Rob went to the Bass outlet to put in an application there. We have a good friend who is the manager and I work there twice a year to help with inventory. She wanted to help Rob get something to bring in income while he got a full-time job. He was set to interview with them on Thursday. Wednesday afternoon, he got a call from G & V Machine Co in Ixonia, where he had an interview a few weeks ago. They wanted to hire him, but for a different position. They basically created a full-time assembly position for him with the intent to train him on the machining part of the business. He had a final interview/tour with them Wednesday night. Then he went to the Bass interview on Thursday and got that job as well! So, what to do? The decision: He took both jobs. We believe that this time of our lives is one that will be dedicated to work and paying off all debts that we have incurred, some which have been hanging on for awhile, some of which were incurred while Rob was in school. He will be working 4pm-midnight at G & V, and the Bass job is part-time during the day. The hours will vary, but he will never start prior to 10am and usually done by 2pm. We're very thankful for both incomes! Taking both jobs did create a problem. The kids and I would pretty much be stuck at home all of the time. Sure, we could take him to the Bass job if we need the car, but not the other job. They are working overtime at G & V and there is no way he could get a ride home at midnight. We wouldn't be able to go to church on Wed nights and I would not be able to keep up my business activities. So we started to look for a new vehicle. Well, used, but you know what I mean :) We did quite a bit of hunting on-line and settled on a used van from a Ford dealer here in town. We were able to put a chunk down on it but had to finance the rest. It will make things tight for us and seems like a step backward in paying off debts, but is what we need to take a giant step forward. And I love "my" shiny red van! So can you see why my head has been spinning? Oh, and in the midst of all of this, my Stampin Up! business is really taking off. I had eight ladies here on Saturday afternoon for a stamping event and many want to continue in my monthly classes. I have four workshops on the book for the next month or so w/another one to plan. God has been so good in blessing my business. We're praying that my income pretty much makes the van payments or at least contributes the vast majority of it. And the kids have been real troopers through it all. I had to completely redo our daily schedule and they were excited!! We also redid their Chore Packs and they love that as well. (The chore packs are clip-on card holders that they wear while they do chores. There is a separate card for each chore and it helps remind them what they need to do next. I have one, too, or I get distracted!) I'm so thankful for a wonderful family. Thank you for your prayers in this crazy season of our lives. We so thankful to the Lord for quickly providing work for Rob. He was only laid off for three weeks. We're also thankful for our van and how that deal all worked out. God is so good!!

Anna's Third Birthday

2011-03-21T19:22:00.002-05:00

I have lived through the birthday, I posted pics on Facebook about the birthday, and now I'm blogging about the birthday. Catching a theme here? Anna turned three today in spite of the fact that she was forbidden to do so. She did NOT have our permission, but she went and did it anyway. At least she's cute :)

She started her day by sleeping in until almost eight o'clock! This is my early riser, so it was pretty surprising. We were all up and dressed and breakfast was almost done by the time she made an appearance. At least she woke up in time for her traditional call from my parents (or mom, since Dad had gone to work). They always call and sing to the birthday person. She smiled a lot and thanked her grandma, then we let her open family presents. She received a Kai-Lan sticker/coloring book from her aunt and uncle, a purse and watch from her cousin Makenzie, a bag of clothing from Grandpa and Grandma Litwiller (they had already given her a toy when they were up here for Ben's birthday), homemade cards from her brothers, and a Big Wheel from us. Rob had chocolate chip pancakes and sausage for her breakfast.

Rob left for a chiropractic appointment and to pick up the birthday cake (Kai-Lan, of course) and we trudged through school and cleaning. The kids were so hyper that it was all we could do to contain them. Once the cleaning was done, we let them watch a movie. Rob was going to make homemade mac 'n cheese for lunch but we ran out of time, so he picked up some Lunchables from the store instead. Somehow in the midst of all of this, a Stampin' Up order arrived and I got it bagged up for the hostess, I took a business call, two more family members called to sing (Aunt Mandy w/Kenzie and my dad), Anna was dressed in party clothes (Chinese princess dress and pig tails) and the party was set up and decorated for. Whew!

The first little party guest arrived all decked out in pink princess attire around 12:30 and the rest of the girls trickled in shortly afterwards. I had one mom stay, thankfully, so there were three adult present. Our first order of business was making princess crowns, which proved to be a little harder than we thought. The older girls did great but Anna and her other friend needed lots of help. They all got made and I had the girls sit down for a picture. Unfortunately, we put Anna's new bike away right before the picture, so she was kind of pouty. Then we ushered the girls into the kitchen while the boys hid all of their shoes. We talked about the Cinderella story while they waited. The girls found their shoes pretty quickly and then I passed out streamers and we had a princess twirl. They had fun twirling around in their pretty dresses. After that, we read Anna's current favorite children's story (Pete's a Pizza) while Rob prepared for cake and ice cream. The girls sang Happy Birthday and ate up the yummy sweets.

Halfway through eating cake, one of the girls spilled her pink lemonade right into the cake. We were able to salvage most of it, thankfully. We wiped many pretty little faces and hands and sent them back into the living room for present opening. Anna received some nice things from her little friends, like a Belle doll for playing in the bathtub, a mini princess with many changes of clothes, a whole pile of princess craft items, and a mini magni-doodle. The last gift was the most precious because it came from two sisters who pooled their piggy bank money together to buy the gift. Isn't that sweet?

I had one last craft up my sleeve, so the older girls glued some sparkly clothes onto teddy bears that I had cut out ahead of time. Little girls began leaving around 2pm, all sugared up! Anna and I did some stamp product deliveries afterwards so she would nap in the car and then we came home to crash. She wanted to eat at Applebees for supper and we couldn't complain...it's 99 cent kids night! Now we're all resting after the long day.

So I have a three-year-old now and she had a wonderful birthday. I think I need a nap.

Despicable Fun

2011-03-19T20:53:00.002-05:00

Tonight we decided to have a family movie night and went over to Family Video to rent something. I really don't keep up with what's out at all and thought that Tangled had been released on video. After scouring the shelves, I realized that it was not. So I looked at the cartoon new releases and found the movie Despicable Me. I thought the plot sounded amusing so I got it. After supper and baths, we all sat on the couch to watch it.

Oh. my. goodness. That was the funniest movie I have seen in a long time! And the boys were howling through most of it! They were so loud that we had to put on the caption just to catch the plot. Anna really enjoyed it as well, so it was a new fave for everyone.

I think Ben was the funniest person to watch. He's usually pretty quiet when we watch movies but he couldn't resist making a few comments. When the main character was chasing another villian, his ship pulled out tons of bombs. Ben said, "Well, that oughta do it!" And later when the bad bad guy was sent to the moon Ben said, "Serves ya right!" He was almost funnier than the movie!

I've been busy with stamp events recently and it was so nice to have a night just to be with the family. Of course that is the best part of all :)

Ear Infections, Back Appts, and Dental Visits

2011-03-16T20:37:00.002-05:00

Boy, sounds like we're falling apart from that title, doesn't it? It really isn't all that bad, but we have had quite a few appointments over the past week.

Last Friday, Anna woke up complaining of a sore ear. Since she's had a cold we figured it had probably progressed into an ear infection. So we set up a morning appointment for her and Rob ran her to the doctor. He tried to look in her ear, but she had a build up of wax in both ears (found at her well-child visit a week prior) and he had to flush it out to see behind it. Several tries with various instruments and liquids later, they got out a good-sized ball of wax and sure enough, her ear was infected. Because she was screaming pretty hard, they decided not to clean out the other ear for a check. If she has a double infection, it wouldn't really matter if they checked b/c meds will work either way. Rob and Anna then went to the pharmacy to fill a prescription for her pink meds, which she loves to take. She did get a mild fever Sunday night and slept for 14 hours but otherwise she's weathered the infection pretty well. I'll be working on cleaning out that other ear once she's done with her meds and the infection is gone.

Rob had hurt his back a week ago or so and while most of the pain had gone away, it developed into sciatica pain. So on Monday he made a visit to the chiropractor. He had an hour long exam, got an adjustment, and went back on Tuesday to find that he'll be doing a six-week treatment. Thankfully our state medical cards cover chiropractory, so we only have to make $1 copays. He goes in again tomorrow. He's still in some pain but does see improvement.

And today we took all three of the kids for their routine dental appointments. Ben went first and was an excellent patient. He always is :) He got a clean bill of dental health and showed his sister how to behave and what to expect. The dentist came in to check his teeth and the hygenist had Anna hop up so the dentist wouldn't have to make another trip in. Anna's teeth are a little more crowded so we'll have to watch her as she gets older. She did great for the dentist, but when it was time for the hygenist to clean her teeth, she clamped her little mouth shut and wouldn't let her do a thing. Finally, the hygenist suggested we let Anna brush her own teeth with a regular brush and she was able to assess Anna better that way. And she only charged us for an under three visit, so that was nice :)

I then took Ben and Anna to the waiting room where Rob and Matthew were doing his schoolwork. We traded kids and I went back with Matthew. (We were supposed to keep the same kids but after dealing with "Runaway Anna" I asked for a break.) Matthew's mouth was not as happy of a story as his siblings. He has a tooth ready to poke through at the top and another loose tooth, but the real problem is three cavities. Two need fillings b/c they are in baby teeth that will not be lost for a few more years. The other is so tiny that they will wait and keep an eye on it to see if it falls out first. Now our kids don't eat too much candy and rarely drink soda, so I asked why the cavities? The hygenist explained that the teeth are close together and only flossing regularly would have prevented that...but they don't expect six-year-olds to floss. Well. He was given flossers today and we will be regularly flossing his teeth from now own. I think we'll get Ben in on the action as well just for safe measure. Mommy has had WAY too many dental problems to just let this go in the kids! So, Matthew has an appointment in April for two fillings and another for sealant on his back molars.

In happy news this week, I have a new niece! Annie Joy Fulkerson was born yesterday to my brother Joel and his wife Cara. She joins big brother Ezra. Can't wait to meet her!

Little Miss Stinker

2011-03-11T09:22:00.002-06:00

Anna has been in the habit of waking up and getting into bed with us. It's amazing how one teeny little body can take up so much space in the bed! We have been trying to break this habit by gently guiding her back to her own bed each night she creeps into ours. So last night when she joined us, Rob got up and took her back to bed. She looked at him and said, "Daddy, will you stay with me?" and of course Rob stayed, because who can resist a request from such an adorable creature?

Yeah. So Rob sat on the floor and planned to stay there until she went back to sleep. Anna quieted down, then got up and trotted out the door. He thought maybe she had to go potty, but then she went into our bedroom. Thinking she was just going to get a blanket or toy she forget when she entered the first time, he waited. And waited. And then went to check on her. Turns out she had crawled into bed with me and was falling asleep! And why not...nobody else was there!

Rob took her back to her bed amidst much protestation and then she asked if she could sleep with Ben. Since Ben never cares if Anna sleeps in his bed, Rob said yes and all were happy :)

Ben's Fifth Birthday

2011-03-07T20:08:00.003-06:00

Today was Ben's 5th birthday. I can't believe he's five years old already! And if that isn't bad enough, Anna turns 3 in two weeks. Ai-yi-yi...it's no wonder I don't like March :)

Originally we had planned to take Ben to a fun place called Stonefire Pizza, an upscale version of Chuck E. Cheese. After Rob was laid off, we thought about cancelling since it is rather expensive. But we had already promised the trip and I am opposed to ruining birthdays, so we decided to proceed with the original plans. We were forced to come up with an alternative, however, when all three of the kids came down with a bad cough! Matthew started it on Thursday and by Sunday all three of them were sick. It's not too surprising that they all get sick together since they share a room.

We did have a fun time on Saturday with Rob's parents. They came up here for a brief visit and surprised the kids. We told the kids we were meeting "Harvey" at Applebees for lunch and they were rather shocked to see their grandparents waiting instead! They brought presents for both Ben and Anna. Ben received a Tonka truck and Anna got a baby swing/glider/high chair and a diaper bag full of things to play with her babies. Uncle Andy and Aunt Melissa sent Ben a fun game as well (and Anna something, but she has to wait on that gift!) We had Ben's cake on Saturday since there were more people here to eat it. I ordered a Batman cake for him, complete with action figure.

The birthday boy chose the menu for today. For breakfast we had chocolate muffins and eggs with Mommy's special hot chocolate, pb & j's for lunch with bbq chips (the adults had leftovers), and Happy Meals for supper. We also had some leftover cake after supper and Rob and I sang every version of every Happy Birthday song we could think of. We had Ben laughing pretty good. :)

Since the kids couldn't go anywhere, I ran to Family Video and checked out two video games. They have several that are rent one get one free, so I picked up two of those along with two free kids' videos. The boys had a grand time playing Wii all afternoon, and Ben got to use his brand new Wii remote that Rob and I bought him along with his Nunchuck from Grandpa and Grandma Fulkerson. I'm so glad I had bought his gift back in January! (Same with Anna's.) Oh, and our next door neighbor came over with a gift for Ben as well! She's so sweet :)

Other than being sick, Ben had a special day. Happy Birthday to my Ben-a-buddy!

A New Adventure

2011-03-05T11:14:00.002-06:00

Last Thursday, something very interesting happened that has sent the Litwiller household spinning. A meeting was held at Rob's workplace that ended up with him being laid off (or as Rob puts it, early forced retirement with no benefits). It was either lay off people or close down the factory, and at the rate they are going, the factory will probably close anyway.

So, where do we go from here? Rob has much praying to do. Does he look for teaching positions, a job in the area, or wait for a better career opportunity? We don't know. There are a few jobs around here that are possibilities and a few teaching positions available for next fall. We're not desparate (yet) as we have tax money to live on for a few months, but he will be diligently praying and searching.

In the meantime, he has some projects around the house that we were going to tackle in the summer that will be bumped up. We have been meaning to get to the basement and sort through tubs, as well as a storage closet. In between the job searches he will have plenty to keep him from being bored. (And if you know Rob, you know he hates to sit around doing nothing!)

I did have my "girl moment" on Thursday and cry for a bit, but we know God is in control. Neither one of us is disappointed and there is no animosity toward his former workplace. They hated to let him go. The president even had tears in his eyes during the meeting.

So that's what's happening in our world right now. Please keep us in your prayers as we take the next steps in our new adventure.

Nap songs and Trash Cans

2011-03-01T18:58:00.002-06:00

Poor Ben. He woke up at the same time Rob did yesterday...4:45 am....and he decided to get up with Daddy. Rob put a movie on for him when he had to leave and Ben watched it until the rest of us awoke at 6:45am. He was pretty zonked for the majority of the morning and when it was his turn to play Wii in the afternoon, he would play, rest his hands, play, rest his hands.... I finally asked him if he wanted to take a nap and he immediately put down the remote and went upstairs. Matthew felt so sorry for him that he offered to tuck him in. Anna, not to be left out on the kind acts, said she would sing Benji to sleep. *chuckle* Anna's idea of singing Ben to sleep was to sing "Jesus Loves Me" at the top of her lungs and a little off key. I took pity on the poor guy and called her downstairs. He slept for two and a half hours, so he must have needed the rest pretty badly!

Today as I was about to head downstairs, I looked out the window and saw two sanitation workers consulting a sheet of paper and looking at our house. They had a truck full of brand new trash cans and recycle bins. I'm guessing they were trying to figure out if one family lived in our house or two (we live in a duplex) and must have decided on two because the next thing I knew, a set of the new trash recepticles was smack dab in front of our stairs and another set was in front of the neighbors. Not really the place to keep them, so I sent the boys out to pull the cans to the side of our house. They did okay until they got to the driveway. Today being Bible study day, the car was parked in the driveway and it was not shoveled out enough to get the cans through easily. I yelled out to Matthew to turn the can around and pull it backwards on the wheels. Instead, he went to the front and laboriously pulled the HUGE plastic container around the car, THEN got behind it and used the wheels to get himself a little further. He then went back to help Ben with his slightly smaller container. Both boys worked pretty hard. Anna and I clapped for them when they had finished.

Just an hour ago, Anna had to go potty and as Rob entered to help her, she shot out with her pants down and said, "I was sitting there and I almost fell in!" Rob replied, "That's okay. Your big butt would never fit down the drain. It's HUGE!" Good thing she's not 16....

Trip to Illinois

2011-02-21T19:57:00.002-06:00

This weekend we went on a trip down to Illinois. Normally I let the kids know when we're leaving but since they bounce off the walls all day long until we go, I left it a mystery. They knew we were headed down there, but did not know which day. It was fun to listen to Matthew try to reason it out and figure out when we were leaving. Anna didn't need to think about it: she just put on her coat and shoes and waited :) Of course, she was three hours ahead of schedule, but she didn't care.

We took off on Thursday after Rob returned home and it was such a nice, peaceful day at home before we left. The kids eagerly awaited Rob's arrival to find out the departure time and we kept to our regular daily schedule to help pass the time. We took off and arrived at his parents' home in Normal around 7pm. We messed with them a little bit and took a slightly different route, pretending we were lost the entire time until we pulled into the driveway. I love being an ornery parent!

We had a wonderful visit with Rob's folks from Thursday night through Saturday noon. We also snuck in a visit with my sister and her two little ones Friday morning. My niece and nephew are so adorable!! The kids ripped around together for over an hour, then we headed back for lunch and a nice, long visit with Rob's grandpa. I, unfortunately, got a headache that afternoon and had to nap. I still can't figure out why, but at least the nap helped. We had dinner at Avanti's that evening with family in the area, then visited with Rob's brother and his family afterwards. Matthew and Ben had a grand time ripping around the house with their cousin Jamie while Anna was far more fascinated with baby cousin Julian, who just learned to walk. I still think one of these days I'm going to sneak that little guy into my suitcase and bring him home :)

The next day the kids and Rob went out to Rob's grandmother's farm with his dad to see the two windmills that had been placed out there. I really think that was the highlight of their whole trip! The boys have not stopped talking about how big those windmills were. They got right up next to them and were very impressed. Even Anna has talked about it quite a bit. They were also excited to see where Grandpa Litwiller had lived when he was a boy. I really do think my children are farm kids at heart.

After lunch we left in our usual flurry and went to Pontiac. My mom was watching my brother's four children and so we got to see four more cousins. We hadn't seen them since the summer so it was fun to see how much they've grown. They left shortly after we arrived and Rob took the kids upstairs so we could prepare for Mom's Stampin Up! workshop. She had three ladies in attendance and all three of them took advantage of Sale-a-bration so Mom had a pretty nice workshop. We had a good time visiting in the evening.

We attended church the next day and all three kids went merrily off to their respective classrooms with no problems. They love the classes at Pontiac Bible Church. We enjoyed a great sermon and then went home to some yummy meatloaf. My mom has the bestest meatloaf recipe ever! We left shortly after lunch because the weather in Wisconsin didn't look so good for that day. We did him some ice about 20 miles or so from home, but made it right before another ice storm hit. The hardest driving we had was just getting down our street, but I'm glad we got in before the plows went through or we would never have made it into the driveway.

The kids had a pajama day today and are very tired (and in bed early tonight!) All in all it was a wonderful trip!

Bye-Bye Birdie

2011-02-15T22:15:00.002-06:00

Tomorrow night we will bid a fond farewell to our new feathered friend. Four Lits have shown signs of an allergy and so we have to get rid of Sky. Ben is the hardest hit. He has never shown an allergy to an animal before, but for the past week and a half he has had a stuffy nose, bad cough at times, and purple rings around his eyes. I thought perhaps he was exhausted, so we've tried putting him to bed early, but nothing was working. I finally took him to the doctor yesterday and he said it looked like an allergy. I did a little figuring and when I realized his symptoms began a few days after getting the bird that he is indeed allergic. Anna, who is allergic to dogs and cats, has had more sneezing than usual but nothing awful. I have had light allergy symptoms each day but nothing unbearable. Rob, too, has had dry itchy eyes.

Matthew will be absolutely devastated when the bird goes home. He loves Sky and has done so well helping to take care of him. He is very ready for a pet, but we'll just have to do more research and find something we can all agree on and that does not bother our allergies. Makes me want to cry just thinking about him, because I know how terribly upset he will be.

He did tell me today that he thought Ben should go instead. I told him we could make Ben act like a bird but Ben didn't think that was a good idea.

New Blog

2011-02-11T17:30:00.003-06:00

I started a blog just for my stamping business and after two posts on the stamp website, I decided to move it to the same blog family as the family blog. It's easier for me to manage and I don't have to learn anything new :) It's called "Simply Encouragink" and the focus in on using paper crafting to encourage others. There is a link to my blog on the side. Enjoy!

Jail Break

2011-02-10T16:01:00.002-06:00

Yesterday, my worst fear came true as a bird owner. The bird got out when Rob was NOT here to catch him. I love birds, but I do not handle them and the kids have done so well with him and with not touching the cage. But accidents do and will happen!

I was finalizing some business with the Schwan man at the front door when Matthew jumped up and moved quickly past the bird cage, causing it to tip over on it's side. Bird seed and droppings flew all over the carpet and floor near the cage and the bird was flapping around like crazy. I went over to set the cage upright when the bird found an opening and flew out. The poor Schwan man was a little startled and looked like he wanted to escape as well. I was kind of hoping he was an expert bird catcher, but apparently he just wanted out :) He quickly went out the front door and I closed the big door behind him, keeping the bird contained in the living room.

The next 30 minutes really should have been on video. I wasn't planning to touch him, but I thought I might be able to coax him back into his cage by placing it on the floor with the door wide open. He was much more interested in the seed all over the ground and began to eat. Any time we got near him he would fly toward the front door. Thankfully, he pretty well kept to the living room with only one jaunt into the study. Ben shooed him out pretty quickly. I have to keep him away from my stamp stuff as 1) he eats paper and 2) my upline/boss is allergic to parakeets and any work I do for her must be kept parakeet-free.

Then I got the bright idea to have Ben try to pick him up. Ben is the bravest of my children and eagerly agreed to help out. I told him to pick up the bird as if he were trying to pick up a bubble without popping it. I certainly didn't want a squished parakeet on my hands...or between Ben's. Ben corned the bird, who was sitting on top of his cage, and actually did pick him up. Sky pecked at Ben, which caused Ben to drop him. Ben then put on his mittens and tried again...for a long time! It was pretty obvious that the bird was NOT going to let himself get caught again!

We finally tried to herd him into the cage instead. Ben pretended to try to catch him, which caused Sky to hop around the sides of his cage. Between the two of us, we got him to hop onto the inside of his door, which I quickly shut. I had already righted everything in the cage and gotten him fresh seed, so he was good to go. We put him back on his table and then proceeded to vacuum the mess from the fall.

Oh, where were Anna and Matthew at this time? Hiding together on the stairs watching the action. Anna was petrified of the bird being out, although she was very excited to tell Daddy all about it when he came home. Matthew tried once to catch the bird, but that was the extent of his help. So my Ben saved the day :)

Mousehunt continued

2011-02-09T09:42:00.003-06:00

Yesterday I was walking through the dining room when I saw a bit of bagel by the closet door. I hadn't noticed that yesterday, so I bent down to get a closer look. Mouse droppings everywhere. Looks like our friend had a friend. He must have tried to get that bagel back through the closet door. Rob caught him this morning and is planning to empty out the closet tomorrow to look for the beast's lair. Bleh. I think I'll hide in the study and stamp.

Mousehunt 2011

2011-02-07T19:49:00.002-06:00

Just we thought we had taken care of the mouse problem, they came back!! Last spring, Rob dealt with a mouse problem of smallish-epidemic proportions but we weren't prepared for SMART mice. Yeah...ever seen Mousehunt? We had one of those...minus the clever mouse who made string cheese.

Last Monday or Tuesday, Rob was in the bathroom and watched a little mouse drop down from under the sink cabinet. It saw Rob and scurried back up the hole. Rob set a trap and left for work, leaving me a note describing the situation. Yes, folks, he broke the rules. Rule #14: Don't leave for work until you have caught any rodents you see roaming around my house!!

We avoided using that bathroom all day until Rob came home and pulled out everything to find the entryway. Turns out, the mouse came from UNDER the cabinet (but Rob did clean out under the sink for me!) so there wasn't much to be done. Of course, there was something to be done about the mouse droppings I found in my pan cabinet when I was making lunch! EEEWWW!!! And I found them AFTER I had made lunch!! Rob plugged up yet another hole and we waited to see if we could find the intruder.

Friday night, Rob and I were enjoying a movie when I saw something small and furry next to the closet in the dining room. Yup, the mouse. He ran under the piano...right past the mousetrap! The trap is a live one that can catch up to four mice and I guess he wasn't hungry for peanut butter. We watched him make his way around the piano bench and head for the dining room. At that point, we moved and made noise so he would go back into the closet. We played this game a few times before bed. Rob set the trap closer to the closet, but he still wasn't caught by morning.

Saturday Rob pulled out the big guns and got a snap trap. He smeared peanut butter everywhere...and on Sunday morning found the peanut butter gone, trap unsnapped. Anna picked it up, Rob grabbed it from her and snapped his thumb, so at least he caught something :) He set it again Sunday night and this morning I woke up to a note that read, "Got him!" And Rob also took out the trash, so bonus!!

And in the meantime, we found evidence that the mouse had scampered through the silverware drawer, measuring cup drawer, and utensil drawer, all of which have been cleaned out and scrubbed. Bleh. My mom gave us the idea of using steel wool to plug up the holes, so Rob will spend some time this week re-cleaning out the closet and finding the entryways.

Here's to hoping for no more furry friends this winter!

Busy, Busy Week!

2011-02-05T18:27:00.002-06:00

We had a rather interesting and busy week this past....week. Hmm...running low on words, I guess! Rob's department had Monday off to let the other departments catch up, so we decided to go to the Milwaukee Public Museum. We wanted to get there early because the storm was expected to hit us sometime in the afternoon. We left around 8:30, got about 10 miles down the road, and turned around for home. Apparently, it decided to start a early. The kids were a little disappointed, but handled the change of plans well. We went to Walmart instead and got a few things for Sky the English parakeet. I'm so glad we were there early because apparently the people of Watertown completely panicked about the coming blizzard and swarmed the store later in the day. I found that to be rather silly considering that our town is quick to clean off the streets, but I guess if it made everyone feel better....

I decided not to play "mean teacher-mommy" and let the kids have the day off school, even though our field trip plans were cancelled. And I wasn't feeling well. I decided to skip Bible study on Tuesday morning as I didn't want to drive in the snow. We had a nice, restful day...and then the blizzard hit. The Custom Shoppe shut down on Wednesday and Rob was able to stay home and spend much of the day shoveling. We don't have a snowblower...and don't really need one with what little we have to shovel. Didn't look like the people WITH snowblowers were able to use them anyway! Our neighbor gave up partway through and just took out a good, old shovel. Ben went over to "help" him out with his little shovel. We were able to get to church that night since the storm was basically over by mid-morning. We have a great snow plow crew here in town and everything was cleaned off by afternoon.

Thursday was another busy day as we had two activities to attend. And of course, two of the kids were up before Rob left, so I knew I'd be dragging cranky people around all day. We attended Mom's group in the morning (and I put the cranky people in the nursery!). There were more moms than usual in attendance with two new people. I picked up the kids from the nursery and treated them to Happy Meals at McDonald's. Then we were off to the Johnson Creek library for a Valentine craft day. Anna and Matthew were in their element for sure! Both of them love making crafts. I didn't really have to help Matthew at all and Anna only needed a little guidance here and there. She's doing so well! Ben only made two or three crafts, then just sat there. The early morning rising had caught up with him and he was exhausted. I didn't think he would even make it to the car!

There were two reporters at the craft day taking loads of pictures of the kids. The photographer from the Watertown paper kept taking tons of pictures of Anna. She was on the front page of the paper, along with two other children, and so cute! Her picture was also on the website that day. Matthew may or may not have been in the other paper, but we are not sure yet. So exciting!

Friday was a more low-key day for us and we ended it with a fun family Wii night. We're trying out Disney's Epic Mickey. The boys and Rob really love it! Once my headache goes away, I'll try it out as well.

And I'm looking forward to some fun stamp events next week, along with a quieter schedule!

For the Birds

2011-01-30T18:58:00.002-06:00

When we lived in California, we had quite a little zoo. A turtle, parakeet, hamster, and multiple fish lived with us....oh, and a wild lizard we caught at school. (Never did get used to lizards running around everywhere!) Some friends of ours had a need to find a new home for their English parakeet. They loved the bird....and so did their cat.

We decided to give it a weeks trial, mainly to make sure Anna's allergies are not affected by the bird. It shouldn't be, but you never know. And we also want to make sure the kids can handle a pet. So far they are enjoying him, and so are Rob and I. We have both sorely missed the sounds of a bird in our home. I am not a dog or cat person by any stretch of the imagination, but I just love birds. Hopefully this week will see our children treating the bird nicely and Anna not having a stitch of allergy trouble. As long as we're okay with all of that, the bird is ours and we'll buy the big cage our friends have so that he has lots of room to fly.

Now We're Cookin'!!!

2011-01-29T18:14:00.002-06:00

Our new oven arrived yesterday and it was so nice (and yummy) to be able to bake again. We had breakfast pizza this morning and Rob's homemade pizza tonight (catching a theme here?) We opted for the glass-top model which has the option of a convection oven AND is self-cleaning. We're so happy with it! I can't wait to bake some cookies, but that will have to wait until I am caught up with a few stamp projects. So why am I blogging???

Rob has Monday off next week so we will be heading into Milwaukee to visit the museum there. The kids have been begging to go to the "dinosaur" museum again. They have a mummy exhibit there and I thought about taking Matthew since we just finished studying Egypt, but it looks a little scary for him yet and the youngest they recommend seeing the exhibit is nine. We'll just look at the one mummy they have in the little Egypt exhibit that is always on display.

Otherwise we're just plugging away around here. I had a touch of the cold Rob had this week, but I'm feeling much better today. I tried ignoring it for a few days but had to give in on Wednesday and stay home from church. I think I'm in fighting shape now. Rob and I had a date Friday night and the kids played with some friends of theirs.

I think I'll call it quits and get back to stamping now!

A Surprise Visit

2011-01-25T18:29:00.002-06:00

Friday afternoon, we were going about our day and planning to make some trips out. Rob answered a phone call and I heard him say, "Nuh-uh, you're not here....Really?....Penni, go to the window and look out!" Lo and behold, my mother was walking up the sidewalk! I called the kids to the window and all of us looked out, jaws dropped, as my parents came up the walk. This was their anniversary weekend and they decided to come spend it with us. They had already checked into their hotel room and were coming over for a visit.

The kids enjoyed having Grandpa and Grandma around and we all visited for a few hours. Then they took off for supper while we went out and grocery shopped. They came back and sent Rob and I on a date. Our sitter had cancelled on us, so it was nice to get our date anyway. We went out to eat and did a little shopping before coming home to put the kids to bed. Mom and Dad left then for the hotel.

We didn't see them again until Saturday afternoon, as they had a full day of shopping and relaxing planned. Anna was rather tired, but she was determined to see Grandma. As soon as they arrived, Anna climbed up on her lap and fell asleep for well over an hour. They left again around dinnertime. They joined us for the morning service the next day, ate lunch with us, and then headed on home. It was nice to see them again and the kids really enjoyed some grandparent time.

Rob's Birthday

2011-01-23T18:35:00.002-06:00

Thursday was Rob's 33rd birthday and we did a pretty low-key celebration. He decided not to take a vacation day since he already had Friday off. We planned to go on a date Friday night and take the kids out for dinner on Thursday. The kids and I had a few surprises we prepared while Rob was at work. The kids made cards for Rob and each thought of one way to bless him. Matthew cleaned up the living room and vacuumed it, Ben straightened his room, made Anna's bed, and vacuumed hte dining room. Anna let me put her hair in pigtails, Daddy's favorite little girl hairstyle. We also hung up the birthday banner for him.

Rob was pleased to see a clean house when he came in and the children handed him their cards. He had picked up some lunch out for a small treat and ate while opening the cards. He decided we would eat out at Perkins for his birthday supper. The kids were very well-behaved and ate well.

I had told the boys in advance that sometimes restaurants will do something funny if you tell them it's a person's birthday. Ben was the brave one and told the waitress it was Daddy's birthday. She brought out a slice of pie and the waitresses all sang to him. Rob does not like a lot of attention, so he was a little embarrassed. To tell the truth, Ben was as well! He decided he didn't want that ever done to him! I still think it's not as embarrassing as having a Japanese song sung to you while being expected to dance to it....

We did a little shopping afterwards and came home to put the kids to bed. It was a nice evening and a low-key birthday...just perfect for Rob.

Our date was cancelled for the following evening b/c our friend's daughter was sick, but we had some unexpected babysitters show up....and that's the next post :)

Surprise, Surprise

2011-01-17T15:02:00.004-06:00

Today it is snowing penguins and polar bears (an arctic version of cats and dogs.) It started pretty early this morning and I think we've gotten about five inches so far with no signs of stopping. I knew our G6 was NOT going to make it into the driveway, so it was up to me and the boys to shovel out the driveway so Rob could get the car in. Well, mostly up to me :)

I informed the boys at lunch that we would go out at 1:30 to shovel (close enough to Rob returning home that we wouldn't have to reshovel). They both stopped and stared at me. Matthew said, "YOU are going to shovel?" I told him yes. Then Ben asked, "Do you know how to shovel, Mom?" Believe it or not, I do know how to shovel! I'm not surprised they were shocked, seeing as I do not play in the snow....ever....and we have pretty defined boy/girl jobs around here. Shoveling snow and trash are boy jobs for sure!

Matthew then proceeded to give me snow shoveling lessons to remind me how to shovel. I then reminded him of the times I had to shovel around here when Dad was in school. I didn't think much had changed. I told him, "I know how to shovel...I scoop and then throw it on you!"

We got all geared up and went outside. The boys attempted to help, Ben being more helpful than Matthew, but their idea of helping is shoveling exactly where I am. I sent them to various areas to "help." Matthew lost interest pretty quickly and left to make snow angels. I did dump some snow on him, which made him cry and head inside, Anna on his heels. Ben stayed out with me and we cleared the drive (twice, since the snow plow went past) and then headed inside for some homemade hot chocolate.

And that counts for my excercise today!!

Half-way point!!

2011-01-14T14:56:00.002-06:00

This week marks the half-way point for our school year. I thought it only appropriate that I do an update at the end of our first "semester." Rob asked if I was giving exams...he suggested Ben's exam be: Read the directions. You can read them? Good, you pass!

Matthew has been so much fun to teach this year, overall. He is for sure my history/language arts child. We're studying ancient history right now and he just eats it up. I love that I can add my own tidbits in from my years of teaching history, but even I'm learning a few new things! He loves our read alouds as well. We just finsihed a series of Greek myths and he enjoyed the stories thoroughly...well, the ones that involved adventures and fighting anyway. He "let" me read the love stories, but kind of made a few faces at them. He does quite well with his story writing, although I admit the stories he comes up with outside of school are far more elaborate and interesting than the ones he is assigned. I can't wait for the day that he's confident enough with handwriting to grab a notebook and write away! He is reading chapter books this year and doing quite well with them. Math is going along nicely, although the program is getting a little too easy for him. He will start subtraction in a week or so and hopefully that will be a nice challenge.

Ben has become a joy to teach since we decided to stop the reading lesson book. That book gave us so many fits and I'm glad we just ended it. His reading is coming along just fine and he is on book 20 of a 27 book series that goes with the kindergarten level language arts. I think he's actually doing BETTER on his own. He has a good foundation from the lesson book, but he needs to move a little slower than his brother did in picking up sound blends and the like. I know he'll get all he needs from the Explode the Code books as we move along. Ben is more of my math/science kid anyway. He just loves his math! I'm so glad I started him in the Primer book this year instead of waiting for kindergarten. He's zipping through it. He started addition recently and has picked it up very quickly. He just learned skip counting by 2's and that was his first major challenge. We watched the video that accompanies the program just so he could get it from another source and he got it right away. The man who designed the math program teaches each lesson on the videos, and the fact that Ben "got it" right away from him just adds to my theory that men should teach math to boys and women to girls. But I digress....

The boys do their science lessons together and enjoy learning along side each other. I have been less than impressed with Sonlight's science cirriculum, so Rob and I have decided we will unschool science next year. We'll just get what library books we need and we have enough science experiment books on hand to hold us over for years.

Anna has started a mini-school time with Mommy since she no longer naps. We mainly just cuddle on the couch and read books while the boys are playing Wii. I checked out a collection of Madeline stories and that is her new passion right now. Even the boys enjoy them! There's just something about a fiesty red-head... :) She is also working through the cards in Ben's old Busy Bug set, a pre-math manipulative. She loves it and is doing quite well.

I really enjoy homeschooling the kids and especially this week have been struck by how much FUN they are! I can't imagine sending them away all day long and not being the one to see their discoveries in education. I also love how close they are to one another. They are such good friends! Ben and Matthew have been using various boxes and canisters from around the house to build Gotham City upstairs (which includes a Kai-Lan and Little People house). They even let their sister play, although she usually plays house with the Joker and Batman. Right now they are all downstairs building birdhouses with their daddy.

The Coin

2011-01-13T10:51:00.002-06:00

Matthew's assignment this week in creative writing was to write a story based on a coin. The following story is based on a bicentennial quarter Rob gave him. And it's heavily influenced the the Lego Batman game. Any spelling mistakes are mine.

Two-Face, a guy with his face half-damaged, stared at a coin all night long. He was wondering what to do with the coin--give it to the Riddler or keep it for himself? He decided to buy something with it.

Two-Face was walking to spend it at the bad guy pet shop. He wanted to buy a poisonous dog so if Batman wasn't in a poison suit, he would die. Two-Face lost the coin when it dropped out of his pocket. Then Batman found it.

Batman lost the coin, then found it again, then he bought a new green suit to protect against poison. The store owner was Daddy, and that's how he got the coin.

Early Morning Ramblings

2011-01-11T06:50:00.003-06:00

Up late last night doing inventory at the Calvin Klein outlet, up early this morning because I couldn't sleep, and now I'm posting something on my blog. This should be insteresting :)

Matthew had his Mommy and Me workshop on Saturday and it was a great success. We had five moms and ten kids coming originally, not including our own family, so we knew the house would be hopping. It was open house style and we hoped that the visitors would be staggered in their attendance, which thankfully they were! We got a phone call late morning that two of the boys invited had stomach flu and their mom was disappointed, but we may get together with them later in the week.

The kids were so excited to have friends over and were very good hosts. Ben and Matthew hung up coats and helped get their friends settled. To have some semblance of order, I borrowed a long table and chairs and set it up in the living room. Rob supervised the children, who were making a candy bar holder with the Make-A-Monster stamp set. The moms went into the dining room to make a card of their own. Most of the moms were thankful they got to craft in peace! The youngest child in attendance was Anna, so Rob didn't have it too bad, but our own boys were a little too helpful at times. I'm so thankful for their excitement and enthusiasm, though. We get that channeled in the right directions and we'll have two amazing young men!

Matthew was so thankful for his party and kept thanking us all night long. He even cuddled up to me and told me he thought Rob and I were the best parents ever. I'm thankful that he recognized the amount of work that went into something like that. It was fun work and we'll do it again...a year from now so Rob can recover :)

Church on Sunday was wonderful for several reasons: We all went and are healthy and Rob and I are not on the nursery committee anymore! We even got an "I won't be there" phone call before church and I cheerfully told the person who to call and report to! So nice. I was also able to be in choir again...I missed it so much. Sunday night was rather humorous, as Anna fell asleep on me and kept drooling all over my shirt. She'd shift, and the drool spot would move. And then she snored.

Last night I did inventory for Calvin Klein, which was fun but different from Bass. It is a little easier to do CK inventory since I don't like any of their clothes and I'm not mentally shopping while I count and scan :) I did have to drive home in a bit of a snowstorm, but I kept Rob on the car phone the whole time and made it home with no problems. He thanked me for cleaning off the car for him in advance (ha, ha) but I think it snowed some more last night, so all I did was get off the first layer.

That's enough rambling for now. Time to fix breakfast and start the day!

A Busy Week

2011-01-08T10:40:00.002-06:00

We've had a fairly busy week around here, and thankfully we've been well enough to enjoy it! Anna has developed a new cough, but it's not keeping her down so I'm choosing to ignore it. We're also all on Vitamin C now so hopefully that will help keep us from getting any sicker this winter.

On Tuesday I did inventory at Bass...my semi-annual job. I worked for five hours and had a grand time with the other workers. We ended up straightening the store at the end...something I had never done before, but it was fun. The kids were excited to see me home before bedtime. They had a great time with Daddy making tacos for dinner, playing Wii, and going to the library.

Wednesday night our Truth Trackers program started up again...sort of. Ben's group ran a normal program, but Matthew's group was missing the college student helpers, so the youth group ran an alternative program. He said it was fun, but he'd rather have a normal night. Miss Anna thought she got to go to Tiny Trackers since she sits in the service on Sunday nights now, but didn't fuss too much when she had to go to the nursery. And I finally returned to choir after a long break due to "the-cough-that-would-not-die."

Thursday morning was Morning for Moms. Our leader had gone through three speakers who all cancelled, so she asked me at the last minute to come up with two papercrafting projects. I had the ladies make a small Valentine's gift bag and a pocket card. We had a great time, even doing an after-Christmas white elephant. I got a jar of peanut butter (Jiff, even!) which is good b/c we are almost out! In the afternoon I had a meeting to prepare for a three-month craft workshop for our ladies missionary fellowship at church. There are two other ladies involved, one a fellow demo, and between the three of us I think we could supply the craft nights for a few years!

Friday I worked for my upline for just over three hours helping her get some things out of the way before she leaves for the Leadership conference next week. Then it was home to grocery shop and prepare for Matthew's Mommy and Me workshop this afternoon. We have five moms and ten kids coming, open house style, and I have one project for the kids and one for the moms. Matthew is excited to have them over!

Back in October, we had a book-a-thon to book workshops. Matthew wanted to help me out and have one of his own. He had project ideas, snack ideas, and a few other ideas and he was so serious that I went ahead and booked it! He doesn't even know that if there are enough sales he gets to pick something out of the catalog. It's officially my workshop, but he does enough card making on his own that I'll let him get the benefits. I even gave him my booking incentive and he made all of his own Christmas cards with it. With markers and multiple colors on the stamp...I was impressed with his work!

And the next post will probably be all about the workshop...hope it goes well!

Happy 2011!

2011-01-02T21:23:00.002-06:00

Happy New Year to all of you! We had a fun day on New Year's Eve cleaning and straighting the study--seems like a never-ending job! We did play some Clue with the boys that afternoon, as we bought the game with the remainder of the Kmart gift card. I always loved that game growing up and I do believe that I never once beat my grandmother at it. I had the best game-playing grandma--she always played to win! None of this pampering the grandkids stuff for her...I think she even knocked my ball in the neighbors garden during a croquet game once.

Enough of that rabbit trail...anyway, we went to our church's New Year's Eve service that night and Anna did pretty well in the service. Rob had to take her out one time and she shaped up after that....and fell asleep. Afterwards we came home and Rob made Chex Mix and hot chocolate. We ate, played Wii, and then settled down to watch a Star Wars movie around 10:30. By then Anna had conked out, so we had the boys get into sleeping bags, hoping they would fall asleep as well. Nothing doing...they were determined to make it! Rob left us for bed around 11:15 and the boys and I made it until midnight, when we went upstairs for bed.

The next morning, we groggily got up around 7:30 and then I was headed out the door to work for my upline's Birthday Bash. I had a great time chatting with the ladies and helping out while Rob went nuts with the kids. For some reason, staying up late made them wired! Rob was begging to get out when we got home, so we went to a mall that had a Macy's so I could spend my card. The last time we went to that mall I was pregnant with Anna. The boys enjoyed it, then we headed for a Sears so Rob could spend his gift card, then came back home. I was pretty beat by that point, so I just relaxed for the rest of the night.

It's back to our regular schedule this week and I'm excited to get some normalcy to our days. The boys are NOT so excited to start up school, but I know they love learning so I don't believe them one bit when they complain :)

Adventures at Kmart

2010-12-29T10:16:00.002-06:00

Yesterday afternoon we decided to go to our nearest Kmart so the kids could spend a gift card they had received at Christmas. We don't normally shop at Kmart (I could write a whole post on our evil San Jose Kmart) so the kids were excited to see a new store. We headed into Oconomowoc and piled out for a junior-sized spending spree.

I told the kids that I wanted them to buy a clothing item that they need first. They don't have too many needs thankfully, so they didn't complain about giving up some of their money for that purpose. Matthew needed a new pair of khaki dress pants, Ben needed underwear, and Anna...well, Anna didn't really need any clothing so I thought we'd look for dresses for next year. Matthew found pants pretty quickly while I took Anna to the little girls section. Kmart apparently does not believe in dresses, because I could not find any in her size. We did discover that Kmart is the place to shop for Kai-Lan apparel! Anna found pjs, a jacket, and a shirt. We turned down a pants outfit that just looked goofy and footie pjs. I got her larger sizes so she can still wear them next year. After that, I rescued Rob, who was having a hard time sizing underwear for Ben. Mom quickly got him set and we were off to electronics and toys.

Anna found a Wow Wow Wubbzy DVD for $5 but the boys didn't see anything they wanted. So we trooped over to toys. For the next HOUR we looked over everything the toy deparment had to offer. Twice. Matthew had originally wanted a Lego set, which would have easily finished off his gift card. We found one left and then looked for Ben. Kmart had ONE Riddler car that went with their Batman sets, so of course BOTH boys wanted it! I left Rob to handle that situation and looked at girl toys with Anna. We found a pair of plastic high heels that she HAD to have and that was it. Her money was pretty much spent at that point and she really didn't want anything else anyway. I went back to the boys and we looked over EVERYTHING before going back to the Lego set. After much deliberation, Ben gave up the Riddler car to Matthew and got himself some Buzz Lightyear gear and Hamm from Toy Story. Matthew couldn't find a second toy he wanted that met with Mom and Dad's approval, so we went back to the movies. He found a DVD he's been wanting and we ended with that.

We were pretty surprised when the total came up and it was $30 less than we thought! Turned out Matthew's DVD was on sale and Anna's clothes were all half off. Rob still has to spend a Sears gift card and since the kids' cards are also good at Sears, we'll wait for that trip to spend the rest of their money. I was pretty tired afterwards, so Rob let me use my gift card to Culver's for my supper :)

And I think the funniest thing I saw yesterday was Anna trying to walk in her high heels while wearing pajama pants that are WAY too long. I think that might be another ER trip waiting to happen....

Christmas 2010

2010-12-27T16:29:00.002-06:00

Friday morning we rolled out of bed and hit the road by 7:30am. And then stopped at Wal-Mart on the edge of town to get some Dramamine for Matthew. I think they hid it on me, because I spent a very long time tracking the stuff down, only to find it tucked away in a tiny corner of the pharmacy. I purchased it and hurried to the car, handing Matthew a pill to take. A full adult dosage. Needless to say, Matthew spent most of Friday in a stupor and was unusually quiet :) Poor kid....we remembered to give him half a dose for the return trip!

Our trip down was pretty crazy, as we had snow the entire way. Rob and I were pretty awake the entire time and only hit a few icy patches. The worst ice was on the street turning into my parent's alley...slid right past the drive! When we arrived, we were greeted by my mom and my adorable niece, Makenzie. We had a nice lunch and then kicked around for most of the day eating yummy treats and enjoying being together. We opened gifts in the afternoon: Matthew received Lego Batman for the Wii, Ben got a spiffy rescue helicopter, and Anna got two Kai-Lan playsets. We also received many other small gifts and lots of yummy candy :)

My poor daddy woke up with the stomach virus that is going around (we didn't give it to him, thankfully!). We did have a nice breakfast with Mom, then we packed up the car to head in to Normal for the Litwiller Christmas. Family members trickled in throughout the early afternoon and then we settled down in the living room to open gifts. Rob and I were in charge this year and it went a little better, but I think the age of the children will prevent smooth present opening for a few more years yet. The kids all received lots of clothes, handmade pillows and towels, and one big gift each. Ben completed our Toy Story trio by getting Woody, Matthew got a new Star Wars Lego set, and Anna now has lots of new dress-up clothes to play with! There were all kinds of other gifts as well and a good time was had by all.

After supper, Rob and I, along with Ben, went over to visit his grandfather, who wasn't feeling well that day. We had a nice visit, then returned to put the kids to bed. They fell asleep pretty quickly, giving Rob and I some time to work on a weight-loss plan for myself. It's pretty elaborate, but I think it will work.

We attended church with Rob's parents the following morning. I decided to keep Anna with us in the service. She did okay for a while, then got fairly antsy. We walked for a bit then tried to rejoin the service, but she got bit pretty hard by that wiggle worm. I was VERY thankful when the service ended and I could dump her in Rob's arms, who had been interpreting for his dad during the service.

We ate lunch then packed up the car to leave. The kids all fell asleep within 30 minutes of leaving and slept until we were about 40 minutes from home. We let them get McDonald's for supper, using some gift certificates they had received for Christmas from our neighbors. They had a great time rediscovering all of the things they got for Christmas and kept themselves pretty busy until bedtime.

Today we had intended to rearrange the study and straighten it some, but Rob finally came down with a harder version of the stomach bug. I went grocery shopping instead and ran a few errands, then worked on some other things. The kids have had a grand time today playing with new toys and we even got Anna to take a nap this afternoon. Hopefully we'll be feeling better and more able to tackle the study tomorrow!

Christmas at Home

2010-12-23T17:12:00.002-06:00

This morning, we opened up gifts with our own little family. We plan to travel to Illinois tomorrow for the Fulkerson side Christmas, followed the next day by the Litwiller side Christmas, followed the next day by a trip home with tired-but-happy children. At least that's the plan :) Maybe we'll leave the kids....

We have all spent the week recooperating from the stomach bug that ran through the whole family. Matthew and I were down and out on Monday and Rob got a milder version of it somewhere in there. The Christmas goodies have been safe from all since none of us could stomach sweets until yesterday! Rob took today off and we had a great time with our little family.

The kids woke up a little earlier than usual this morning and we did our traditional walk down the stairs, grabbing our stockings on the way. The children bought the stocking stuffers and did a great job picking out candy for each other. They stocked up Mommy with Reese's cups and Daddy with chips and Coke. :) Then we sat down to open our gifts. We had two family presents this year: a Veggie Tale CD and a Bible Trivia game. Then we started with Anna and went around opening gifts. Anna received the Barbie from Toy Story 3 and Jessie. She has NOT put Jessie down all day long! Ben received the Batcave and The Penguin. His gift was the biggest for sure and he's had loads of fun playing Batman today. Matthew received a star watching set, the Joker's Funhouse, and several other Batman bad guys. He too has had a blast all day long! Rob bought me a gift card to Culver's to curb my insatiable appetite for cheeseburgers and I made him four scrapbook pages to put on his bulletin board at work.

The kids played all day long while Rob and I finished up some chores and I finished making a few more Christmas presents. Anna and I both took naps this afternoon. She isn't taking regular naps anymore, but she has been awfully cranky recently, so I thought a nap was in order. My stomach kept me up some last night, so I needed a nap as well.

Tonight after supper, we will drive around looking at Christmas lights, then return home to pack for our trip to Illinois. It looks like we'll be driving down in some snow tomorrow, so we're going to leave early in the morning. Should be fun!

The Good, the Bad, and the Disappointing

2010-12-19T10:36:00.002-06:00

We had a pretty full evening schedule this week and were looking forward to having some fun with friends. The week started off pretty well and ended up being disappointing. And icky.

Tuesday night we babysat for a couple of friends of ours. Maranatha was having their faculty Christmas party so we were asked to watch five extra kids. Anna was the youngest to be in our home, so it went pretty smoothly. I find older children MUCH easier to watch than the little ones! We had two third-grade boys, two first-grade girls (plus our own 1st grader), two four year-old boys (one being Ben), and Anna. Anna trailed after the older girls in a hero-worship trance for most of the evening, copying everything they did. The three older boys played with Legos and Ben and his friend just fit into the cracks. For having eight kids in the house, it was pretty quiet!

Wednesday night was our last night of Truth Trackers for the year. Ben came home with a blue candy cane (and a blue mouth) and Matthew had loads of papers and stuff from the "store." He also had an impromtu Christmas program practice since church had been cancelled on Sunday. He wasn't too happy about that, but at least they got in an extra rehearsal. Ben also came home with a stomach bug that manifested itself early Friday morning. We'll get to that in a bit.

On Thursday, one of the families we babysat for returned the favor and sent us on a date. We have actually watched their kids a few times this fall, so not only did they babysit, they bought us a gift card to a mystery restaurant. THAT was fun! We got dressed up, dropped off the kids, THEN found out our destination! We ended up at Hi-Way Harry's in Johnson Creek. Sounds like a greasy spoon, but it's actually a rather nice steakhouse. We had a secluded booth and a very nice dinner. We did some brief shopping at the outlet mall then went back to get the kids. Anna cried piteously about leaving--she's never seen so many big girl toys!

At about 2:30am Friday, we woke up to the sounds of Ben getting sick in the bathroom. I'm SO thankful he was able to make it there! We got him resettled into bed and didn't hear anything more for the rest of the night. He woke up feeling fine, but got sick again. He spent the rest of the day on the couch and conked out for the night at 6pm. We had to skip our Sunday school class party that night, but that was the one event we looked forward to the least, mainly b/c it was a family party and we'd have to corral kids AND pay attention to the adult events. Instead, Rob and I finished up dipping buckeyes and oreo balls to prepare for Saturday.

Everyone seemed fine Saturday morning, so we plated up candy and drove around town to deliever 12 plates of goodies to Sunday school teachers, Truth Tracker workers, and my upline. 9 of the 12 were home, so we considered that to be pretty successful. The kids had a great time getting out at their own teacher's house to deliver goodies. All three of them delivered to one of Anna's teachers because they all love her so much. We got to go inside and see her husband's huge train collection, which the kids all enjoyed. Rob too! In the afternoon, I ran Matthew to Christmas program practice and stayed there for 2 hours. He would not go unless he knew I was in the building, so I took some stamp stuff and worked on my remaining Christmas cards. After that, we picked up the rest of the family and went to a friend's house for dinner.

We have been trying for months to get together with them and finally had a time where everyone was healthy and the weather was cooperating (they live in a town 40 mintues away.) Or so we thought. As we sat down to dinner, Anna looked a little uncomfortable, so I ushered her into the bathroom. She threw up right as we reached the door, then finished in the toilet. Rob and I cleaned up the mess and our hostess got her a change of clothes. Thankfully, they have a daughter Anna's age. She seemed fine and I attributed it to drinking juice too quickly...until she got sick again. We helped clean up that mess and quickly ushered our family out the door. Anna made use of her new bucket on the way home and collapsed on the couch when we arrived. Ben was sick again in the night, so I knew I'd be keeping two children home today.

Ugh. Both Anna and Ben were to have sung in the Christmas program today. The 2s and 3s haven't sung in a program since Matthew was 2 and I was so looking forward to seeing my cute little girl in her Christmas dress up on the stage. I had some cute red bows for her hair and was planning pig tails. Ben's group hasn't sung in a long time either so he missed out. Rob took Matthew and video taped the whole thing. He did a great job singing and behaved very well during the dramatic portions of the program. And he looked VERY handsome in his little suit, complete with a gap in his teeth where he lost a tooth yesterday! My plans had included our family celebrating after church at the Chinese buffet, but those plans are obviously out.

We have nothing going on this week prior to Thursday other than taking candy plates to our neighbors. Hopefully we're all healthy enough to do that!

Anna at the Cantata

2010-12-13T17:34:00.003-06:00

Our services were cancelled Sunday morning, but by early afternoon the weather had cleared and the cantata was still on for Sunday night. We decided to bring Anna into the service with us, thinking she'd be quiet enough. She will be joining us on Sunday nights normally when she turns 3 in a few months anyway, so this is a good time to start her transition. I informed her that she could come with us and she looked at me with her big, blue eyes and asked, "I'm a big girl to go to the service?" I told her yes, but that she had to stay quiet.

By the time we arrived for the cantata, most of the seats toward the back were taken up by college students. They are supposed to be reserved for families with small children, but either the ushers didn't put up the signs or the students moved them (which is frequently the case.) And since MBBC would not let students travel out of town for services that day, most of them ended up at our church. Yipee. We found our way toward the front of the auditorium, about four or five pews from the front. I was a little nervous, but thought Anna could handle it.

We rose for the first song and Anna sang mightily....until she realized she didn't know the song and looked up at me for encouragment. I smiled back at her and she continued singing. What, I don't know, but she sang with all her might! She slipped her little hand into mine part way through the song. She was fairly quiet at first, but could NOT sit still. There was a whole row of college guys behind us that were fairly amused with her behavior. She turned to look at them at one point and then said to me, "It's not funny to laugh at me!" I guess they were chuckling at her! One did approach us afterwards and told us how cute she was :)

When the choir began singing, Anna stood up and urged me to do the same. I guess she figured we HAD to stand whenever there was singing. I tried to explain it to her, but no deal. She stood at each new song and sat during the readings. And wiggled. A lot. I brought a quiet board for her, but she didn't want to do it. She did, however, want lip balm and mints from my purse. I finally got tired of the wiggling and traded children with Rob. Ben was on his lap to see better and sitting MUCH more quietly. Anna did okay with Rob until he tried to get her to look at Pastor Morris, who was playing the main character. She thought Rob wanted her to GO to Pastor Morris and kept trying to clarfiy the instructions. Very loudly. It was at this point that Rob took her for a little walk and put her in the nursery. She wasn't too happy about it, but at least we enjoyed the rest of the cantata in peace and quiet.

After we left church that night, I asked Anna why she went to the nursery. She told me that she was too loud. At least she understands and we're hoping to have her fully transitioned into the service before she turns three. It's such a blessing that both boys behave perfectly in the service now (even if they are not always the most cheerful about it!) She was so happy to be included with us and I think that desire will help her train a little quicker. Or at least I HOPE it does. :)

Glitter and Sprinkles

2010-12-11T18:23:00.002-06:00

The kids and I had a great time on Tuesday at a homeschool craft day. The library in Johnson Creek hosted their second annual Christmas craft day and had oodles of craft ideas and supplies for the kids. I was a little hesitant to take Anna because I knew I would have my hands full with Ben and Matthew. She did take a bit of watching at first, especially since all she wanted to do was add glitter to her projects! After making sure Matthew was okay and Ben was settled, I did let her do some glitter. And then she had to have glitter on EVERYTHING! I think next time (around Valentine's Day) I'll take my Stampin Up trays with me to help contain the mess. We did find her an easy project toward the end: a stocking with foam stickers. She made four of them and had a grand time picking out her own stickers. She was the tiniest one there, but pushed right in with the big kids to get her supplies!

The boys had a great time as well. Ben enjoyed himself, but Matthew was really in his element. He just loved making as many crafts as he could, and some of them turned out quite nice. He decorated his bed with them when we got home. I had to laugh because there was a ten-year-old at the table that kept copying Matthew's work. He's hosting a "Mommy and Me" stamp party in January and I know he'll be in his element.

We all made it to church on Wednesday night (yay!) and since the cantata was going on and I wasn't in it b/c my voice isn't quite back yet, I floated around and helped in a couple of different ministries. It was so nice to have all of us attend together! The second cantata performance is supposed to happen tomorrow night, but since we're in the middle of a blizzard that won't end until late tomorrow I'm sure it will be canceled. And that's okay...we'll just sing to ourselves :)

This morning I had a demo Christmas party to attend. We did a shoebox swap, where each demonstrator designed a card, cut the pieces for it, and then we all went around and made each other's cards. It was a fun time and we enjoyed a potluck lunch in the middle of all that stamping.

This afternoon, the kids and I went to a cookie decorating party. Last year, only Ben and I went b/c it was limited to just the children in his SS class, but the mom hosting the event opened it to siblings. Matthew and Anna were very excited to be included. Anna was ready to go about two hours prior to the event! Since we couldn't bring cookies due to the broken oven, I made a double batch of frosting and brought sprinkles. We had a great time with the decorating, although Anna was about as liberal with the sprinkles as she was with glitter! The weather was just starting to turn ugly as we were leaving, so it was good timing. We were supposed to have supper at the home of a friend 35 minutes away, but we cancelled. Hopefully we can reschedule soon!

We're going to have a kid-filled week coming up. We will have 8 children running around here Tuesday night as we babysit for some faculty kids during the MBBC Christmas party. Then on Thursday, one of those families is returning the favor as Rob and I go out on a date. Fun!! Friday is our Sunday School Christmas party, which included the kids. So lots of stuff going on, but it's all fun stuff :)

In the Christmas Spirit

2010-12-04T09:22:00.002-06:00

Snow is falling outside and I just feel like I'm getting into the Christmas mood! We have the tree up and decorated and the rest of my decorations are up as well. We don't have a lot of surface area for many of my knick knacks, so I just put up the few I wanted to enjoy this year. We also are doing a sort-of advent calendar. It's a countdown calendar from Stampin Up. We sat down as a family last night and put the kit together, then hung it up on our wall. The kids are excited about opening up each box to find the goodies inside. Some days it's candy, other days fun family activities. Rob and I even wrapped presents last night!

Anna had her stitches out yesterday. Rob took her back to Urgent Care to have them removed. We didn't want her to associate her regular pediatrican with the pain of suture removal, hence the reason we took her back to the hospital. They had a bit of a wait, then the torture began. Rob said she sat a little better this time, but by the second stitch she was crying pretty hard. Her great-grandmother had sent her a card and a dollar, so when they were done Rob and Anna hit the vending machine for some M & M's.

We are continuing to work on the rearrangement of some furniture around here. The boys and I have switched dressers. They are finally to the point where they need more drawer space. I cleaned out some clothes I no longer need and found I don't need much space at all! So they have the bigger dresser and Anna and I are sharing the smaller one. Anna previously just had a soft box to store her clothing, so she's pretty excited to have a real dresser. Rob moved our bed so that the offending part of the frame faces the wall. Our room looks much bigger with the switch! The last thing we will do is move a bookshelf from our living room to the upstairs. We took it from some friends who needed to get rid of it, but we haven't had a real purpose for it until now.

The boys continue to do well in school. Ben is on lesson 73 of his reading book and we've decided to stop at lesson 90. There isn't much new information to learn after lesson 90 and I remember Matthew being so bored with the rest of the lesson book. I checked out some level 1 readers for Ben and he's excited to read "real" books. We have even filled out an application for his own library card. Matthew took a unit test on Friday over his first 10 math lessons and was a little intimidated at first, but he received a perfect score, so it wasn't quite so bad after all.

Time to finish my last little bit of decorating, then I'm planning to stamp away the rest of this beautiful snowy day!

Anna's Big Owie

2010-11-28T19:25:00.003-06:00

Miss Anna has finally had her first visit to the ER. She posed for this picture, taken shortly after returning home this morning. Her lip was still a little swollen at the time, but has since returned to it's normal shape.

So here's the story--This morning, we were running around getting ready for church. I was pushing the boys through breakfast and having them get socks and shoes on while setting out Bibles, coats, etc. Rob and Anna were upstairs getting dressed. Amidst all the chaos, one of the boys ran to me and told me Daddy needed me. I ran up the stairs to find Rob cradling Anna on the ground with her whimpering. Rob looked up and said, "Anna cut her lip falling on the bed frame. I think she needs stitches." I didn't really want a closer look, so I got a wet washcloth and then we shifted gears for an ER trip. I had to call a fellow nursery committee member to cover us for the day, then we were off.

We got the kids out the door slower than I expected due to the fact that the boys were both hysterical. They were so upset that Anna was hurt, thought she would be in the hospital for days, or even that she was going to die. We assured them that she'd be just fine and it wouldn't take too long. Anna and I sat in a chair while the boys got ready. She clutched her blanky and whimpered quite a bit, but she handled it all better than expected. She had been calling herself "Tommy" all morning and I asked her, "Did Tommy get hurt or did Anna get hurt?" She replied in a sad voice, "Anna."

After a seat switch, we were off. We thought it best that one of us sit in the back with Anna. We put Matthew in the front with me, which he found pretty cool, especially since HE could open the door and DADDY couldn't. We arrived to find the ER parking lot pretty empty and got the troops inside. Anna and Daddy checked in while I got the boys settled, then the two of them headed back for treatment. The boys and I did pretty well together in the waiting room. We read books, watched The Three Stooges, took a walk to the gift shop (which was closed) and found a vending machine. I had oodles of change, so I treated them to a candy bar. By the time we returned from our walk, they were ready for us to go back and see Anna. She was picking out a toy from the toy box and looking like she got decked in the mouth. She was pretty swollen from the stitches and still sobbing lightly.

Anna held up pretty well while both the nurse and the doctor checked her mouth. Turned out she had cut her face above her lip and the cut went pretty deep. Thankfully, it didn't go through to her mouth and her teeth were perfectly fine. Her nurse is a friend of ours from church and works in Anna's nursery, so that helped her feel a little more comfortable. They tried to "glue" her ouchie shut two or three times, but it didn't work, so they had to do stitches. Rob and two nurses were needed to hold her down, and I guess she's a pretty strong little girl, because they were all exhausted by the end. She got three shots right in the sore area, then four stitches. By the third stitch, she was arching her back and popping her legs up in anger and frustration. Rob was able to hold her once it was all done and they were cleaning up. She'll go back on Saturday to have the stitches removed.

Anna whimpered quite a bit all the way to the store to get the ointment for her mouth. We let her pick out a special snack (Princess fruit snacks) and got her a movie with several different Nick Jr cartoons (one of which is Kai-Lan.) She's been pretty okay ever since and is back to her normal activity level. She did take a three hour nap this afternoon, which was desparately needed. We have to keep the wound clean and dry until the stitches are removed, so I think we'll be eating as non-messy as possible. Should be interesting, especially since the oven died again today! But that's another story.

Thanksgiving 2010

2010-11-27T20:21:00.002-06:00

We just got back from our whirlwind trip to visit the relatives for this Thanksgiving. I'm rather tired as I write and I'd have to say I might not remember everything that happened since I spent much of my time in a tired stupor. I haven't slept well for over a week now and sleeping in "foreign" beds doesn't help much. But we did manage to have a good time in spite of my sleepiness.

Our first stop was at the Fulkerson household. Rob got off work a little earlier on Wednesday so we could begin our journey before the bad weather hit. Our trip was pretty good and uneventful. We didn't even hit much traffic. I had purchased five Patch the Pirate CD's for an early Christmas present, so the kids had a good time listening to them. (On sale at Majesty Music right now--one of the CD's was $5 and one was free!) Mom was at home to greet us.

My brother Joel, sister Mandy and their families joined us on Thursday. We had a great spread of food. My mom was raised southern, so there is always more food than can feed a small army at family gatherings. Fine by me...lots of little tastes of all my favorites! We had a marshmallow fight in the afternoon and both of my boys agreed it was the highlight of the whole trip.

Thursday night we took off for Normal to visit Rob's family. I poured over the Black Friday ads that night and found one store that had what I wanted for Anna's Christmas present cheaper than anywhere I had found it. So, Rob and I took off at 5am to do a little shopping the next day. It was the easiest Black Friday shopping I've ever done! In and out of the store in about 20 minutes, then home to finish our shopping on-line. I took a nap afterwards, of course :)

We had a wonderful dinner with Rob's family. We all visited for a bit afterwards, then headed to his brother's house for our nephew's first birthday party. We had a fun time seeing him smear icing everywhere and get lots of great presents. Then we took the kids to Hobby Lobby to just kick around for a bit, then back to Grandpa and Grandma's. The kids and I all went to bed early that night and my sweet husband even slept on the couch in an effort to see if I could get some sleep. I woke up several times, but at least I went back to sleep easily. Anna woke up crying at one point b/c she had become uncovered, but nothing major.

We had a nice breakfast this morning then we left for home. We made a few stops here and there and got home with plenty of time to spare before the Parade of Lights. It's our favorite parade of the year! They turn the lights off downtown and all of the floats are decorated with lights. Anna was given a teddy bear and a glow necklace, they all got tons of candy, but Ben made out like a bandit. He was given a stuffed dragon, a teddy bear, a Hot Wheels car, and a glow necklace! He graciously gave his teddy bear to Matthew. Ben has gotten at least two if not three big items at each parade we go to! He's just a magnet for free stuff, I guess.

Our tree is now up, but not yet decorated. I'm too tired to direct the children yet, so we'll save that task for tomorrow afternoon. Right now Rob is bathing them and putting them to bed in preparation for a busy Sunday :)

Girls Morning Out

2010-11-20T17:27:00.002-06:00

Today Anna and I had a little time out just for ourselves. There was a craft fair in nearby Ixonia and I decided we'd get a little "girl time" in. She's no longer in a stroller and at just the right age to understand that she's having some special time with Mommy. We took off just before nine and after missing the turn, found the little elementary school that was hosting the craft fair. The room wasn't very big, but it was jam-packed with lots of craft vendors. Anna did pretty well holding my hand as we looked at each booth. I had already decided to buy her something special and she knew it, so she looked very carefully. It is my habit to walk once around a fair/market/etc before deciding to purchase anything, so it was hard for Anna to understand that! She didn't fuss when she was told "no," thankfully.

About half-way through the fair, she needed a potty break, and then we headed back in. One thing that caught her eye was a pair of M & M earrings. We passed on that one b/c she doesn't have pierced ears yet and I personally don't care for clip-ons. We saw several vendors with doll clothes, but she wanted the "not-for-sale" dollies. Then we happened upon a booth selling bead bracelets. The girl who made them was raising money for a field trip. I had Anna look at the cheapest ones and boy, did she look. She took her time and carefully looked over each bracelet, trying on several before rejecting them. I asked her which one she liked and she said, "They're all broken!" I had to explain to Anna that they are wrap around bracelets, then she chose a pink one. And then half-way around the room she decided she didn't want it anymore! I think her cousin might enjoy it, so she has a little Christmas gift to give :) We did find some cute Care Bears in homemade bags and she picked out one she liked. Well, she actually picked out TWO but I had her settle on ONE.

Then we went to a little kids' shop where everything was priced very low. She chose a nutcracker for each of her brothers and I found a cute sign for displaying school papers. We had a really fun morning together, which she didn't want to end because she asked if we could go to another store! I had to get home and prep for a workshop, so that didn't happen, but it was a very fun time.

While we were gone, the boys worked on making bird houses in the workshop. They loved their nutcrackers from little sister. Matthew is carrying his around everywhere!

Health Update

2010-11-18T13:08:00.002-06:00

It feels like absolutely forever since I've been to church due to sickness and injuries around here! Rob caught a cold back in October that has a lingering cough that he still hasn't gotten rid of. I think Matthew had the same thing back in August and he's over the cough now. Ben came down with it a week after our trip to Illinois, so he and I stayed home the first Sunday of the month so he wouldn't spread his germs. Since all he has left is the cough, he's been cleared to go since.

The day before he came down sick, I worked all day at a craft fair with my upline at her craft/SU booths. It was alot of fun, but I was rather the sore the following day. Since Ben was sick, I took the opportunity to stay home with him. That evening, he and I worked on getting the final summer clothes out of their drawers and the last of the winter clothes into the drawers. I then kicked/shoved the huge tub of clothes into the hallway and pulled a muscle in my leg. It wasn't until three days later that I figured out what my problem was! I thought I was still sore from the craft fair, but it was that tub that did it.

Then the day after I finally felt all healed from the injury, I came down with the head/chest cold thing. I think I'm finally over the worst of it and am just left with the cough. Anna has as of yet to show any signs of coming down with it, but I'm sure it's just a matter of time.

There is a silver lining to this cloud: A bunch of kids around here are coming down with a stomach bug. By keeping Ben home when I have, he's missed contact with the siblings of these children. I'm hoping our household is spared of that illness!

The Day I Got Lost

2010-11-12T11:39:00.002-06:00

This week in language arts, Matthew had to choose from three titles and write a story. He wanted me to let all of you know that this is a made-up story. :)

The Day I Got Lost

I was walking down the street with Mom and Dad and there was a bookshop and there was a book I really, really wanted and I looked at it and looked at it and found the book I really wanted. By that time, Mom and Dad had already gone to a market to get some food and when I said, "Hey, Mom and Dad, look at the book I wanted," they weren't there. And so then I ran to try and find Mom and Dad. Then at last I found them in the market. And after we were done, I asked if we could get that book and they said yes.

When Mom and Dad found I wasn't there, they started looking through the market and saw me coming in the door, scared to death.

The End

Birthday Weekend at the Fulkersons

2010-11-03T15:55:00.002-05:00

This is a picture of my birthday cake, made by my favorite sister, Mandy. I gave her free reign on the cake idea...all I wanted was the phrase "Cake is Awesome" somewhere on the cake. And I still have most of the head left if anyone's hungry...

Saturday night we all met up at my parent's house and had a nice dinner together. The kids played and then went to bed without a whole lot of fuss. Sunday morning we were up and ready to go to church after a yummy big breakfast. My poor dad came down with something and didn't feel too good while we were there, but we enjoyed what company we got from him :)

All three of the kids went easily and happily into their respective Sunday school classes, which is rare. Anna usually cries and Matthew usually wants to stay with us, but they did great this time. I'm glad they did go because the sermon topic was "What Would Jesus say to a Wiccan?" Very interesting and well-done sermon, but I think it might have scared Matthew a little bit. If you're interested in hearing the sermon, send me an email and I'll send you a link to the church's website.

Afterwards, we went back home and had meatloaf. I never understood when kids said they hated meatloaf when I was growing up. Obviously they have never had my mom's! It has a cheese layer in the middle and is super-yummy. My sister and her family joined us for lunch and then we spent the afternoon eating cake, playing, and visiting. The kids had a snack around 4pm, then we got them ready for trick-or-treating. Anna wore an authentic Chinese dress and we dressed her up as a Chinese princess. Ben was a fireman and poor Matthew was King Boo, a.k.a. a plain ghost. I didn't do a very good job on the costume and the poor kid kept tripping everywhere. We renamed our venture "Trip or treat" because all five the kids tripped! The four older ones tripped while going house to house and my little nephew Zach tripped coming into Grandma's afterwards. Poor guy had a big bump on his head to prove it!

The kids came home with buckets full of candy and we had a yummy pizza supper. Rob and my brother-in-law Chris made pizzas with the intent of seeing who's was best, but it was hard to decide. Mandy's family took off not too long afterwards and we put three tired kids to bed.

Ben woke up in the middle of the night having gotten sick on his bed. We think he just overate on Sunday. Poor Matthew, who was sharing his bed, jumped into mine. He was brave enough to go back to bed with Ben once everything was cleaned up and the sheets were changed. Ben woke up feeling perfectly fine the next day.

We took off Monday morning and had a decent ride home. Rob and I were so full from eating so much that we barely ate a thing before lunch. We got home and hit the ground running, doing some unpacking and grocery shopping. Little Anna was all grandma-ed out and fell asleep at 6pm that night. We had a great visit all around!

Birthday Weekend with the Litwillers

2010-11-02T16:51:00.002-05:00

This past weekend, we went down to Illinois where I celebrated my birthday with family. We did so much that I think I'm going to separate the story into two separate posts. The above picture is of the kids at Rader's farm. The cutie in the back in pink is my niece Makenzie, beside Ben's head is nephew and new walker Zach, and my sister is carrying the next one. So, six cousins in one shot isn't too bad!

We left on Thursday morning to head down to Normal. The kids were rather well-behaved on the trip, which is good b/c I had a terrible tension headache that day. Anna cracked me up...she was so excited to go to Grandma's that she had her shoes on as soon as she woke up. Rob packed her into her carseat holding all kinds of stuff as a joke, but she didn't care. She was headed to Grandma's! The kids all had their own lunches to eat as they got hungry and Anna said she wouldn't eat hers until she arrived. She did eat some on the road, but did indeed finish the rest after arrival.

The next day, we headed out to Rader's farm. The weather was predicted to be cool, but there was no wind and lots of sun, so it was perfectly fine. The kids had a ball running around the place and exploring all of the neat things to do. Matthew's favorite was a giant jumping...thing. Can't really describe it, but it was very large and he could bounce and flip all over the place. My niece was pretty brave up there and held her own quite well. Anna would only go up if Daddy was with her. We went inside for a snack, played some more, and then headed to a hibachi grill for lunch.

The kids just loved watching the "show" at the hibachi grill. None of us had ever been to one, so it was a real treat. Anna didn't care for the fire shooting up from the grill before the cooking commenced, but I think she found it interesting otherwise. My mother-in-law got a little sneaky and told them it was my birthday, so before too long, I had a headband on complete with chopsticks. Then a few staff members came out and sang a song in Japanese while banging on a drum. They wanted me to dance with them, so I made Anna get up and dance too. She loved it and on the way home said, "I got to dance with Mommy and nobody else did!"

We had a big family party that night so that all of us could meet Davis, the newest addition to the family. He's a cute little guy and we sure enjoyed playing with him. We had a great time visiting and playing around with all of the cousins. Rob's cousin took a bunch of crazy pictures, along with some nice full-family shots.

The next morning was more low-key and I even found a few minutes to steal out and spend a gift check I had. Then we went out for my birthday lunch at Avanti's. I hadn't been there in years and I always enjoy their sandwiches. Afterwards I did my best to help Rob pack, then he dropped me off at my sister's for a cardmaking class. There were four ladies in attendance and we had a great time making some cards. Rob and the kids had already left for Pontiac so I rode to town with my mom.

I'm trying to get pictures onto Facebook, but it keeps kicking me off the internet, so hopefully they will get loaded soon. Next up, Birthday weekend with the Fulkersons.

Nine weeks down

2010-10-26T20:43:00.002-05:00

This week marks our ninth week of the school year, and things are going pretty well. I thought I'd give a little school update on each of the children.

Matthew is doing very well and just soaks up any info I give him. He's loving his history lessons (that's my boy!) and has enjoyed all of the read-alouds we've done so far. He likes poetry about as much as I do, so it's been fun making fun of some of our poems together. Spelling is usually no problem for him, although he did have his first bad spelling test today. I pointed out to him that he didn't look over his words before taking the test and he agreed that he should probably do that in the future. Some of the language arts info is a little over his head, but we work through it together. Writing assignments are always fun with him since he has such an active imagination. He's enjoying reading chapter books and has found they are not as scary as he originally thought. And he is enjoying his math, although we did hit the first challenging lesson this week. I explained to him that I don't care about him getting the answers right so much as understanding the material. He felt better after my little pep talk. Poor guy, bad spelling test and a bad math test in the same day. Good thing I made cookies :) Overall though, he's doing a splendid job.

Ben has gone from a school hater to a school lover. I really enjoy Core 4/5 and think it's my favorite one so far. I've heard from other parents that they hate the choppiness of the program, but I enjoy reading different stories every day. Ben loves it as well. His handwriting is progressing well. I've decided to take an unschooling approach to handwriting with the boys. I know it may not be as neat as other children their age, especially Matthew, but they enjoy improving on it on their own. So I'm not worried. Ben has picked it up rather quickly. He's also doing extremely well with his reading. We are on lesson 45 of the 100 lessons reading book and he is doing a phonics series called Get Ready for the Code, a primer to the Explode the Code books that Matthew is working through. The combination of the two has been an excellent choice for Ben, as he is reading better and faster than Matthew. We are on track to finish the 100 lesson book by Christmas, which is Ben's goal. He actually WANTS to do a whole lesson every day! He is also in the Primer math book of Math-U-See and finally hit something that has been challenging for him. He's doing well, considering his age, and I just love hearing, "Can I do more math, Mom?" at the end of each school hour.

Schooling them separately has not been easy on me schedule-wise, but it's been the best choice. I'm really learn Ben and his learning style and I love spending individual time with the boys. I think they love it as well! We do occasionally double up on the lessons, especially on Tuesdays when I have Bible study. I do Ben's regular school time and have Matthew work on his phonics and math at the same time.

As for Miss Anna, she is picking up things right and left. She knows all of her colors and most of her shapes, which is pretty surprising since I haven't really worked on them with her at all. She's just picked it up from the family. She even knows a few letters and their sounds. I haven't made up her skill chart for the year yet b/c I'm still trying to figure out what she needs to learn that she hasn't yet! She loves reading books and soaks up any time I can be with her and just read to her.

So we're really enjoying our school year. I look forward to working with the kids each day...far more than I do the housework. I just love the quote: "If the house is a mess at the end of the day, you had a good day homeschooling. If your house is spotless, you had a bad day homeschooling." Let's say we usually have a good day homeschooling!

A Shattering Incident

2010-10-20T10:50:00.002-05:00

I can't believe I haven't posted this story yet! About two weeks ago, Matthew and Ben were running in the living room and Matthew ran into the middle window of our bay window. He leaned over the radiator to stop himself on the window and it shattered. Rob and I were getting supper on the table when we heard the loud crash, followed by shreiking and screaming. We ran in to see broken glass, a fractured window, and a rather upset six-year-old. Rob went to survey the damaged window while I did a head-to-toe on the son. Amazingly, he was fine! I expected to see blood, followed by a trip to the ER, but he was completely unscathed. Freaking out, but otherwise fine. We did notice on the following day that he had bruised his elbow and leg from the impact. We're both so thankful for God's goodness in allowing Matthew to be unharmed from the incident.

Most of the glass flew outside, thankfully, so there wasn't much to clean up inside. Rob handled the clean-up and then taped a board to the empty spot. This would have to happen on the coldest night of fall so far! But, I'll take a cold room over an injured son anyday. Funny though, the board kept the room warmer than the window ever did!

Our landlord came over to check it out and just yesterday was able to fit a new window to the spot. The whole deal only cost us $40. We were expecting the damage to be alot higher. And Matthew has hopefully learned his lesson about running in the house.

Sweetest Day

2010-10-16T20:17:00.002-05:00

Well, today is Sweetest Day and while we don't EVER celebrate it we did by coincidence go out on a date today. And again, it was a coupon date! Since my birthday is at the end of the month I've been getting birthday things from various places. I had a birthday card from Hat Creek Candle for a 1/2 off item and a free votive and a free lunch from Berres Brothers. (Both of which have been featured on the Food Network recently). We picked out a butter pecan candle and then went for lunch. I had never eat lunch at BB, but it was quite good!

We hadn't really planned much for the date, so we just had fun inventing places to go. We tried to go to the Octogan House for a tour, but found out that it actually costs something to get in. Rob whipped out his debit card...and they don't take cards. Since we only had enough cash on us for one of us to get in, we just looked around the gift shop and then left. We hit two garage sales looking for Halloween costumes and found nothing, but did remember that we have costumes in all of the kids' sizes. We also ran over to the thrift store to looking for dining room chairs. Ours have broken one by one and we're down to just one that matches the table (and it's on the way out) and four folding chairs, one of which is also ready to go. We did find a lovely table and chairs, but they were out of our price range.

We came home to relieve the sitters and decided to go to the park. There is a park here in town we refer to as the secret park. It's by the river but to get to the park, you drive down a dead end street. The entrance is kind of hidden by some bushes. There's hardly ever anyone there, so it's loads of fun. The boys had a grand time throwing rocks into the river and tromping around on the river bank. We had to make both of them toss their shoes and socks into a box in the trunk b/c of mud. Anna threw a few rocks into the river, but mostly stayed near Daddy.

We ended our evening tonight by watching some home movies, starting with Matthew, age 17mos. and ending with some taken last fall. It was alot of fun, although there were a few surprises. One was the video taken in the hospital when Ben was born and the other was a video of Matthew with Ana Abanes, our friend who died of breast cancer and for whom Anna is named. The kids really enjoyed watching themselves and they were so cute!

And now, for some Wii with the hubs!

A Story about Abbie

2010-10-14T11:15:00.002-05:00

In language arts, Matthew has been learning how to organize his thoughts to write stories. Today's story was about using describing details, so yesterday we filled out a grid with details about Abbie, his grandparents dog. He had to think of things specific to Abbie, not just "she barks, has fur, eats food." Here's what he came up with:

Abbie is Grandma and Grandpa Litwiller's dog. She is not very fast. At least, she is not as fast as Charlie, Uncle Dan and Aunt Kim's dog. She is a little older than Charlie. She lives with my grandparents and doesn't play as much. She has a funny way of eating. She leaves a mess on the ground because she takes her food out of her dish. It's nasty. She is a friendly dog. She is curious about everyone. She sometimes hides if she has had enough. She's mad when Grandma and Grandpa put her in her cage. She's really nice, I like to play wiht her, and I love her.

From Matthew

Conversations with the Kids

2010-10-10T19:40:00.002-05:00

Talking to your kids is always a fun experience, especially when they come up with such interesting ideas. Here are three conversations I've had this week.

While giving Anna a bath....

Me: How are you doing?
Anna: I'm fine. I have a backpack. But it's not up here. It's downstairs taking a nap.

Ben at lunch....

Me: Here's your milk.
Ben: I wish none of the stores sold alcohol. Or milk. Because I REALLY hate milk. There should only be one store that sells milk and it should be a store in Africa.

Matthew at the end of schooltime....

Me: Well, looks like we're doing adding by two's next week. So, what's 200 plus 200?
Matthew: Hmm...well, 2 plus 2 is four, so 200 plus 200 must be 400.
Me: Wow! That's pretty good! You're a smart guy.
Matthew: Thank you, but I'm smart because that's the way God made me.
Me: (tearing up a little) Yes, God did make you smart.
Matthew: He made me pretty strong, too!

Trip to the Firehouse

2010-10-07T21:29:00.003-05:00

Today the kids and I joined a homeschool group based in Johnson Creek for a trip to the JC firehouse. I guess the librarian there is very homeschool-friendly and plans all kinds of activites and trips for homeschoolers in the area. We were thrilled to find out about this group...especially the visit to the firehouse!

Last week, our library had a visit from the firemen during story time and we did get to see the trucks...right as they sped off on a call. But this week, the kids were invited to explore every single inch of the firehouse. We started off all in a room (about 25 or so kids with parents) and watched a little video on fire safety. Then the fire chief proceeded to drone on for a lenghty period of time, speaking mainly to the adults and older children about specific things that could have been covered in a nice handout. To their credit, the vast majority of the children politely sat there and listened. Two toddlers got fussy (mine was one of them) but overall the kids did well. THEN we got to go EXPLORING!!

The fire chief told the kids they couldn't possibly hurt anything, so feel free to look over the whole place, open any door you want on the trucks, climb into anything, and have fun! We went outside first and the kids got into a truck and looked all around it. Then we went back into the garage and looked over another truck and a rescue vehicle. We got to see all of the gear hung up and waiting for the firemen as well. I reminded the boys about a Curious George story where he mixes up the firemen's gear and what happened. They had a ball opening every door they could and seeing all of the different things that firemen use.

They also had the child safety house set up and the boys went inside to get a little lecture on what to do in case of a fire in the home. Each session ends with "smoke" entering the little trailer and the kids crawling to safety. My boys were a little chicken, so they exited right before the smoke.

I think the most valuable thing we learned, though, is that there is a great homeschool group nearby. I have so wanted to find SOMEWHERE for us to plug in, and the only thing in town right now is a playgroup that meets on Wednesdays. Not a good day for us, because Anna needs her nap that day if she's going to make it through church that night. But this group is run by a librarian who loves homeschoolers and plans many activities just for them. I'm so excited to find such a fun group! There are two families from our church that attend, so the kids knew a few people when they arrived.

I have posted a couple more pictures on Facebook of our trip, along with our visit to see the Oscar Meyer Weinermobile when it came to town last Friday. And I will GLADLY send your children a weinie whistle if you so desire :)

Ends and Odds

2010-09-29T13:42:00.002-05:00

Since my last post, Anna has been doing pretty good with the potty training. She's had a couple of accidents, but she doesn't like having accidents, so the frequency of them has gone down. It's pretty hilarious to take her potty b/c she giggles whenever she pees. Rob wanted to know if that was a "girl thing" but I told him it's just an "Anna thing."

I had to share this little story: A couple of days ago, Anna decided she didn't want milk for lunch, so she dumped it into the sink. The boys' eyes grew huge, because they know that's a pretty big offense around here. Anna was told she had to have water for lunch. She proceeded to throw a huge fit. The boys kept trying to leave the lunch table, but I told them to patiently wait it out...she'd quit soon. When she did stop crying, she sat down only to find that she had the "ouchie" chair, as she calls our backless chair. Both boys immediately got up and offered her their chairs. Aren't they just the sweetest little gentlemen??

Our missions conference has been going on this week, so we've been going to church each night this week. I can tell it is wearing on the kids, because they are getting tireder and crankier each day. They are enjoying the DVD presentations (remember projectors??) and the kids sessions.

I think that's about all the update I can handle right now...I'm a little tired myself!

YYYYEEEEESSSSS!!!!!!

2010-09-22T13:42:00.002-05:00

Here's Miss Anna with her Kai-Lan dolly!! She has been accident-free for 24 hours and we're so proud of her. On Sunday, she and I talked about her wearing underwear and she was excited to try it again. She had several accidents over the next two days, but we also talked about how yucky it feels to be wet or dirty. By last night she had gotten the hang of it and today has being doing great. She couldn't wait to get her dolly, which also came with a necklace that reads "happy" in Chinese.

So the Litwillers are now a diaper-free household. Wow. Feels kind of strange to stay that, but it's a great feeling. Next hurdle to climb is pairing down the amount of toys in this house. Mommy is on a rampage to get rid of stuff. RAR!!

can't title....still laughing...

2010-09-18T18:58:00.002-05:00

Rob and I were discussing some restaurants we had been to in the past and our uncanny ability to choose places with great appetizers and desserts but lousy entrees. In part of the conversation, Rob said, "How do you butcher a baked potato?" Retorical question, right?? Not if you're a six-year-old know-it-all. Matthew patiently explained, "Dad, you cook and then you cut it up!"

Garage Sales!!!

2010-09-18T11:11:00.002-05:00

We went out garage saling this morning. After doing a full assessment on the childrens' winter wardrobe, I needed nothing for Ben, winter boots for Matthew, and quite a bit for Anna. I had them try on snowpants yesterday and it looks like we're fine there. Watertown is having it's first all-city fall garage sales, so perfect timing for me!

As usual, they sent out a list of the sales as well as a great map of the city. I picked out the most promising sales, including one selling G.I. Joes for Matthew. He still has money leftover from selling some things at a garage sale earlier this summer and just LOVED watching the cartoon last week.

Thankfully, most of the stuff was priced to sell. I just hate it when people try to make back almost what they spent on clothing. I won't pay over a dollar for shirts or pants and rarely over $3 for a coat or boots. There are so many sales that I know better than to snap up stuff at one...I prefer to wait patiently for that "perfect" sale. There were plenty of them today! I did find Anna's coat for $1.50 at one, a few shirts here and there, and then the last sale I hit was the best. I got a whole bagfull of shirts and sweatshirts for Anna for $3.20. She doesn't need pj's, but I couldn't pass up one pair with Boo from Monster's Inc. on them.

Matthew was a little disappointed at first b/c the G.I. Joes were the big ones and he wanted little action figures. The guy went down on the price and Matthew got one for $2. He's loving it right now, especially since it still has all of the parts and pieces. I can't imagine what it might go for on ebay! Ben was upset b/c he didn't have enough money for one, so I traded him the 50 cents I gave him for $2 and he went back and bought one as well. And of course, I couldn't pass up getting a Strawberry Shortcake doll for Anna that matches a blanket she was recently given. :)

And we were done by 9:30! Not too bad of a day!

The New MEW-seum

2010-09-17T19:11:00.002-05:00

Today we took a field trip to visit the new children's museum in Madison (or MEW-seum, as Anna pronounces it). They had closed their doors to their previous location back in January and reopened in the middle of August, so this was our first visit to the new location. We took off after 8am to get there in time for it to open at 9am. Well. The website needs to be updated, because they didn't open until 9:30. It did mean we got a good parking space in their lot and were first in line to enter, but the kids weren't all that happy that they had to wait. :)

When we did finally enter, we were met with a bright, cheery environment that far surpassed the old location. Rob and I were particularly impressed with the use of recycled materials. Flooring made from old gym floors, benches made from old beauty parlor chairs and pianos and fire hoses, curtains from plastic bags, and even a curtain made from old Twister boards! We were able to speak with one of the employees, who also told us that the toddler walkway was made from pieces of the old Kohls building in town! Everywhere we looked were recycled materials.

It was very open and spacious with multiple classroom areas for their various events. There was a large art room and the kids loved painting on the glass paint wall. On the rooftop they had created a garden, and they did an excellent job! The had chickens, turtles, fish, and a few homing pigeons. Apparently, they also grow fruits and veggies up there. We got some great pictures of the kids looking at the street below--very thankful for large glass fences!

The under 5 area was the best one I've ever seen. It was large and had lots of activities for the little ones. Anna found some babies right away, but then quickly set off to discover the water play area. Ben found a drum and would probably still be there if I hadn't pulled him away. While we explored that area, Rob and Matthew went to the second floor to play on the gerbil wheel. I guess it was harder than it looked, because Matthew couldn't get it going. Rob did, but then couldn't get it to stop!

Anna found a large dollhouse, but it was encased in glass. She kept asking me to open it so she could play with the dollies. All three of them met up to make pizza and pies in the cooking area, which is usually one of their favorites at any museum. Rob and Ben messed around with an old pin ball machine--okay, so it was pretty much Rob :)

Oh, we just had a wonderful time! The new museum has a cafe, so we decided to eat there instead of our original idea. Wish we would have left, because the food was expensive. We opted for a heavy snack instead of full meals and then got another snack when we got home. What we had was good, but not worth the price! I think next time we'll just eat at a hot dog vendor from around the capitol square. (The museum is right near the capitol building.)

All in all, a very good day. Since Rob may continue to have Fridays off for awhile, we're going to try to do a field trip every other week. Fun, fun!

School, Week 3

2010-09-15T20:48:00.002-05:00

We are in the midst of our third week of school and things are going well. The kids have settled nicely into their morning routine and Anna now understands that she is to occupy herself. I have resorted to television a few times, but am thankful for the days when I don't need the crutch. Anna also knows she's welcome on my lap most anytime as I teach the boys. I think this next week we'll get into our afternoon routine more. It kind of tapers off after science class and somehow I'm losing my hour and a half of stamp time, so we need to be a little more strict in the afternoon.

Matthew is really enjoying Core 1. I think everything has been a hit so far and he's even whining less about copywork. He absolutely loves Math-U-See and says math is his favorite. I do science with the boys together in the afternoon and they are having a ball. Thursday is the favorite day b/c it's experiment day.

Ben is also loving his schoolwork. I'm so glad I split them up and did separate schooltimes instead of combining cores. Ben in particular needs my undivided attention and is thriving. He's gone from hating his reading lessons to almost overconfidence in them. He is catching on to reading faster than Matthew did, mainly b/c Ben is approaching our phonics-based program from a whole-word mind. That means he's learning how to sound out the words, but does best when he knows the word and remembers how to say it. Kind of strange, but it works. He's doing well with handwriting, especially after I showed him samples of Matthew's handwriting in Core 4/5 and he realized how poorly Matthew used to write :) He also loves his Math-U-See. I have him in Primer and almost wonder if he couldn't do Alpha with Matthew, but I'd hate to push him so early.

Anna is doing much better with our schedule. The boys play with her, especially Ben, and she's loving the attention. We've put potty training on hold right now and we're going to leave more of it up to her. We got so excited when she seemed ready and now I think she's taking a break to access things in her mind. So we'll wait. In the meantime, she has developed a skin irritation to diapers, so we're using pull-ups. Matthew did the same thing, as I recall. I think we'll try to find some training pants so she can wear them over her underwear b/c those pull-ups are expensive!!

Rob is plugging away at the Custom Shoppe and they have been warned that they could have four-day weeks until Thanksgiving. I am just loving being an assistant to my upline (who was featured in this month's SU magazine, for those who get that....i.e. Beverly...) and am enjoying helping with her events. I have a few events on my own calendar and am just enjoying the opportunites that come my way.

Friday is field trip day and we're going to explore the new Children's Museum in Madison. Can't wait!!

Joke telling

2010-09-09T19:52:00.003-05:00

Today, the kids have been on a joke-telling kick. We'll call this first one "Delivery is everything."

Anna: Knock-knock
Rob: Who's there?
Anna: Interrupting pig.
Rob: Interrupting pig who?
Anna: (long pause) Oink!

(If you don't get it, then you've probably never heard the whole line of interrupting knock-knocks. The point is to deliver the last line while the other person is still saying interrupting whatever. And now that I explained it, it's not funny anymore, is it?)

This one is the combination of two classics.

Ben: Knock-knock
Me: Who's there?
Ben: Dwayne
Me: Dwayne who?
Ben: Why are you crying??

(And again, to ruin the joke, the answer should have been, "Dwayne the bathtub, I'm dwouning!" The answer given is to "Boo" being who is there.)

Ben did get me good with that one, though. His innocent, four-year-old way of delivering what he thought was a hilarious joke was pricless!!

Made of Money?

2010-09-06T21:33:00.003-05:00

Today, Matthew put in his request for his next birthday. (????---didn't he just turn six???) He wants the Lego Star Wars Endor set, price tag around $100. Rob told him that is was too expensive and that he might change his mind between now and July. Matthew told Rob that he won't change his mind and he'll bug Rob EVERY DAY about getting the set. Rob still told him no. Matthew then said, "But Dad, you have that card that works everywhere! Why don't you just use that?" Perhaps it's time to take our lessons on money to the next level: explaining the debit and credit cards :)