vacation pics part 4

vacation pics part 3

Vacation pictures part 2

Vacation pics part 1

crazy busy

So, obviousely wer'e back from vacation and jumped headfirst back into life. Sorry for the lapse in posting, i'm on day 4 of a 7 day stretch at work, blah. I have the weekend off though so be on the lookout for vacation pics!

It was absolutely wonderful and I think a lot of healing took place. The kids were very open in talking about Alex and the first day we were there Alex's song came on the radio (that was piped through the entire house). It was one of those moments where everyone just stopped what they were doing and looked at the person nearest them with a common understanding. We had a lot of moments like that.

Oh, and by the way. I'm slightly offended that I only have 3 "followers" over there on the sidebar. A little birdie tells me that WAY more people than that read my blog on a daily basis (and email me when I slack off! Thanks!) so why are you not over there? hmmm? I'll have you know that I might just die if I have to live life with only 3 followers..... so if you can sleep at night knowing that by all means...........

Of course I wont' die. But I might spiral into a deep depression forcing me to eat nothing but Reese's peanut butter cups for months on end causing me to balloon up to 780 lbs and need someone to wash the sludge out of my creases. I'm just sayin...

more fun while we're on vacation- Wednesday

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More fun while we're on vacation- Tuesday

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see more pwn and owned pictures

Some fun while we're on vacation- Monday

see more pwn and owned pictures


see more pwn and owned pictures

Congenital cataract

I was going through some pictures I took over the summer and stumbled across one that really shows Nate's cataract and how it bounces the light back at the camera. You might remember back when Nate was 4 months old it was a photo like this one that sent us, and Nate's pediatrician into a frenzy thinking he may have a condition called Retinoblastoma, a cancer of the retina that often manifests itself by bouncing a white glow back at the camera when flash is used.

We thank God every day for that cataract, because although Nate has a big decrease in vision in that eye because of it, he can live with it and to us, little else matters.

Time for a real post

Figured it was a good time to update on the goings on around here. Tonight is my last night of work before we go to Faith's Lodge next week on vacation! We are all very excited to be getting away for a few days with no work, no distractions, without half the towns teenagers in my presence at all times...... *sigh* bliss.

It's that time of year again. Poor Nate started vomiting on Tuesday. You might recall him being hospitalized in June for dehydration... when he gets sick he gets SICK. Well this bout was no difference and ended up with Craig bringing him in yesterday. One of the great things about working at the hospital is being able to be right there when someone in my family has to come in. Of course Nate was dehydrated again and urgent care quickly brought him over to ED where they decided to give him some IV fluids there, hoping not to have to admit him. Poor Mike the paramedic tried and tried to get that line in and couldn't. Through no fault of his own, Nate's a really hard stick anyway and put dehydration on top of teenie veins and you've got your work cut out for you. Finally we all decided we'd had enough and the doc agreed to see if he could keep pedialyte down orally.

Thankfully with that pedialyte into him and no puking happening he perked right up and started acting like the devious kid we have now nicknamed "beast". Even felt well enough to throw my brand new cell phone in the toilet, grrrrrrrrrr. I think it will be ok, today it works but there's some funny lines through the screen which I'm asuming are just some water trapped so I'm giving it another day or two of rest and hoping all is well.

AT the end of it, 4 hours later we left and he's been acting like his normal "beastie" self since! He, of course, was the star of the show in the ED and had all the nurses swooning. hehe. Now here's hoping the rest of us don't come down with it while on vacation!

I've scheduled some goofy posts through the week we are gone to keep you entertained hehe.

Because somedays it really does look like a clown car

Thos are alphabet refridgerator magnets.....

Priceless

Trip to Walmart $10.00.....

Cool new Nerf dart gun $4.00

Finally being included in your older brothers' game....

PRICELESS!

Since when are Dachsunds herding dogs?!?!

Apparently no one told my weiner dog that she is not bred for herding cattle! She's very good at it too, running those cows from pasture to pasture while Craig yelled "Stop, you'll toughen the meat!"

My baby is six!

Saturday was Jacksen's 6th birthday. One of the benefits of me working is being able to buy birthday presents like this!

To the people in my life

A friend of mine did this on her myspace page and I decided that letting off some thoughts would be good for me. There are so many things in life you either don't get the chance to say to someone, or you hold back in saying for whatever reason. Anyone who says they say everything they feel to every person they know isn't telling the truth because if we said everything we felt to everyone, we'd likely not have many people in our lives. There are times we feel things that might be hurtful and angry and times we feel things that might be sappy and embarassing. So here are some of mine. There may be more than one thing about more than one person but please don't ask me what is about whom, that would defeat the purpose, doncha think?

~It's not as cute as you think it is, in fact it's quite annoying

~ You are an awesome parent, even if you do things a little differently than I do

~ I hate how you use people

~ I know you talk about me the second my back is turned, just like you do everyone else

~ I wish you could admit that you aren't ok with how things turned out, instead of always pretending you are. Although you try to act strong you could allow so many more people in to help if you'd just admit that it's not ok you were handed a bad hand

~ I am proud of how much you have accomplished at a young age but a bit jealous as well

~ It makes me crazy when you invent bad scenarios that don't have any reality to them, it makes me feel like you are making fun of my experience

~ Sometimes it scares me to see you turning into her

~ You have saved me these past couple of years and you don't even know it. You have given me purpose when I didn't think I had any, and made me feel like I'm valuable when I've been quite sure I'm not

~ I feel very fortunate to have you in my life and I'm not sure what I would do without you

~ Don't let him make you feel bad about who you are. You are a wonderful person and it's his faults that won't allow him to see that

~I wish you could slow down and enjoy life

~ I hate that you get everything handed to you and I have to work so hard for everything I've ever gotten. I hate that this has given you this huge sense of entitlement

~ You will never know how grateful I am for you

~ You can always make me laugh when I feel like crying

~ I sometimes think we are too alike for our own good

~ I worry about you the most

~ I honestly don't know why I continue to keep you in my life when you make me miserable

~ I am grateful that I know I have you to help me up if I fall on my butt, which I have so many times in my life

~ I wish you cared when it mattered. I hate knowing that I never got the chance




~

You'd think I fell off the face of the earth!

Good lord I've never not blogged for over 2 weeks! What the heck! Thankfully my hours are coming down at work now that I'm almost done with training and I'll have more time to do other things. I'm just so tired at the end of the day that I can't possibly write anything that makes any sense.

Stay tuned by the end of this week for some fun photos. DH has been doing a great job at catching the kids in action on the camera while I've been away!

Finding our new routine

If you know Craig and I, You probably know that we thrive on routine. We get uncomfortable when our routines aren't followed. I think it's because there are so many people to schedule, if something gets off track it can derail the entire thing. We are so insanely routined that most of our friends think we are crazy. Bedtime is the same every night, as well as dinner.... even bathing is scheduled. I mean it's not like written in a daily agenda or anything but we've just found that keeping things to a normal helps everyone.

So this past week has been really trying for everyone. Especially Jacksen. Jacksen, having SID, MUST be kept on a routine. When he was a toddler we had to even have a picture calendar up demonstrating what would go on that day and on days that something new was happening we had to begin preparing him for it at least a day in advance or he would fall apart. This week has been such a struggle for him and he has been having a lot of temper tantrums and meltdowns and the resurfacing of some SID behaviors we haven't seen in years.

We are having a new issue with Austin involving a girl. Oy. I won't go into much detail lest a certain person in his life (who has actually been estranged for over a month now) be reading this and jump to conclusions and use a typical teenage ordeal against Austin. But it's been stressfull.

And then there's me. I'm very use to just being the person who runs this household. I have my systems, I have my ways. I have my bulletin boards and calendars and they help me keep the running of my home going. I am so involved in it that I rarely let anyone help me. I don't even let my husband wash clothes. But this week I've been forced to hand over half of the running of the house to him. I just can't work 40 hours a week learning very complicated work and then come home and do everything. It's been hard for me to admit this, very hard. But Craig has done well. Sure, there are some things out of place, there are some minor mix ups but things are getting done. Although I'm feeling very uncomfortable that I haven't handled everything I'm realizing that Craig is just as capable as I am and that by giving him the chance to prove it, I'm helping us all.

For the record, I won't stop pairing the kids' outfits up on the hangers.... he can't match an outfit to save his life.

I love my job but I'll be happy when my training is done and I go to my normal part time hours for a while. But I think it's gonna be ok with me working more regularly. Ok for all of us.

Whew! I'm beat

I started my new job this week, today was day 2. So far I love it. There's a LOT to learn and it's been really slow so I'm getting a chance to ask a lot of questions without being too much in the way but yet not learning as much as I might if it were busier and I could see it all in action. I was in Urgent care yesterday and ER today, I definitely like er better, it's just more interesting. Urgent care is basically snotty noses and skinned knees which is rather boring. Yesterday I got to watch and today I got to answer the phone and man the switchboard. I'm quite certain I sent at least half the calls to la-la land. Oops.

Tomorrow is orientation... for 8 hours. EIGHT HOURS. Apparently someone from like every department under the sun will be coming in to talk to us, about God knows what.

The kids are back to school. Tuesday for the older 2 and today for the little one's. So far they all seem to like their teachers and Hailey has joined cross country again. Austin is starting off on the right foot completing his first 2 homework assignments last night with a great attitude. Fingers crossed!

Anyway, things will be a bit quiet around here til I get through my training, I'm training 40+ hours a week so I just won't have much time to blog, sadly.