25 Random Things About me...

Well this has been going around Facebook for awhile and I have read many others and I thought it was a great idea however, I do not want my information on Facebook. There are too many random individuals reading that stuff and I knew that since only close friends and family read this blog I felt it was more appropriate to post it here. However, I did enjoy reading others "Random things" on Facebook because I did get to know other friends and acquaintances a little better, but it is not for me. I think it is a good idea to make this list because it gets me thinking about what things I know about myself and to examine my likes, dislikes, interests and hobbies. So here it goes

-I love the idea of a vegetable garden but I do not want to maintain it
-I get very nervous when I travel a far distance from my kids
-I do not enjoy flying and usually end up thinking about what could or could not happen during take off/landing/and while in the air
-I like lots of snow and I like when it stays around for awhile
-I actually like to exercises and I like knowing that my muscles are in good shape and are being used on a regular basis
-If my family would cooperate I would cook vegetarian dishes everyday
-I love staying home with my kids, it is such a short time in our lifetimes to spend quality time with them.
-If I could change professional careers and go back to college as a singly young woman I would choose a more family friendlier career like physical therapy, nursing, teacher, photographer, social worker.
-when I have a weekend away from my kids I like sew, watch TV, and spend time with hubby
-My guilty pleasure is watching reality TV
-I love massages but do not like pedicures
-I love jellybeans, skittles, Mike and Ikes, Dove chocolate, Carmel nips and trident gum
-I enjoy cooking and trying new food
-I would like to "flip" an old house
-I love taking pictures of my family
-I dislike when my kids whine and ask for things constantly
-I have never spanked my kids. I am not against it I have just never had to.
-I do miss my part-time Planning job and my co-workers in Knoxville
-I miss my Friday playgroup friends and kids from Knoxville
-My house is never completely clean
-I love using cloth diapers and I wish I would have used them with my two older children
-we may or may not have another child
-I love fixing things around the house. I am a handy woman
-I consider myself a spiritual person whose is constantly striving to become a better person for myself, my family, for our world, and the greater good
-One of my dreams is to run a non-profit child/parent resource center where parents can get help, take classes, talking to others about the challenges of raising children and really trying hard to raise their kids an appropriate way
-My idea of a fun adult night would be to go to a nice restaurant then go and see a comedy show or play card games with another couple

Well I think that is it. I think I actually have 26, but who is counting

Things I am grateful/thankful for:
-warmer days
-getting a close parking spot and a spinning pass last Friday (I usually never get into the Friday class)
-Having alone time with Nathan
-our sweet, lovable dogs

Craft Time

OK so I have made it my mission to get back onto the craft wagon. I did lots of crafts with the kids before the holidays and I have not gotten back into it. They always enjoy doing the crafts, it helps them learn new things, I learn new things, I feel like I am actually doing stuff with the kids besides always cleaning up after them and cooking for them, and it keeps their behavior in check since they are occupied. So we started this weekend by dying silk scarfs. I got the idea from here and thought it would be a great activity and then the kids could play with them. The girls love to pretend play with anything and this was no exception. They have used these scarfs as blankets and beds for their Groovy Girls and Nathan has taken some interest in the scarfs.

So here are pictures from that event. The girls had fun dipping the scarfs in the dye and being in charge of their color.


The colors turned out beautifully. The Kool-Aid did wonders even though it still had food coloring in it and I should have just used food coloring. Oh well.

I also finally took pictures of the two dolls that I made for the girls while I was in Penn State with hubby. It took me about 10 hours to make both of these dolls. I enlarged the pattern by 50 percent so that these are bigger then the dolls I made during Christmas time. They turned out really cute and I may try to adapt the pattern for a boy doll for Nathan. The girls picked out their own fabric. Mallory chose the bright pink/blue one and Julianne wanted the yellow/pink fabric.



Additionally here is a picture of my birthday pillows my friend from Tennessee made for me. The are so adorable and I love the three fabrics together. Thanks again Katie.


Nathan is sick again. He started getting a fever on Monday so I filled his antibiotics prescription the doctor had given me when I took Mallory in a couple weeks ago. He had been taking antibiotics earlier in the month for an ear infection and ended last Wednesday. So it has been about 4 days and I can tell that it is back. He was sticking his finger in his ear and he has a mild fever. Monday night I went in his room and he was breathing really hard so I gave him a breathing treatment and slept with him so that I could hear his breathing patterns. I gave him another treatment on Tuesday morning and this morning. So this morning he still has a fever of 101.7, I gave him some Tylenol and he took a morning nap. He is still doing some belly breathing and his is coughing a ton so that is what he has going on now.

Things I am grateful/thankful for:
-good books
-sleeping in my own bed without my wiggly/loud sleeping/hot son (even though I did enjoy sleeping with him but did not really sleep)
-somewhat warmer weather

We are back

We just got back from visiting Penn State University in Pennsylvania, hence the name Penn State. Home to the Nittany Lions and Joe Paterno. It was a great visit. The city is a very cute college town in a valley between two mountain ranges. We stayed on campus so I got to do a lot of walking around and visiting the campus. Most of the buildings had slate roofs and most of the architectural was very pretty and traditional. I was going to take pictures but the second day we were there the wind was very strong and I was did not think that taking pictures was the best idea. I pretty much staying in the hotel room sewing the girls some dolls, I took a few walks, ran and watch senseless TV. D and I got to go out to dinner the first night and then we ate dinner with his coworkers the second night.

We missed all the excitement at our house on Thursday night. We called around 5:00 pm. and we heard a man's voice and asked D's mom who it was and she said it was my friend's husband. So he got on the phone saying that D's mom had called him because there was an animal in the house. D's mom had not really gotten a good look at the animal and thought it was a lizard or a toad. So she called him and asked our neighbor to come over to help them get it out of the house. So the two men came over and the animal ran up the stairs and into Julianne room. It ended up being a chipmunk. They were able to capture it and release it down the road. I guess the kids were hysterical and really upset. I guess Nathan was the one that spotted it and showed D's mom. D's mom, aka Mimi, said that Nathan was really upset and his checks were so red from being upset. Additionally, the girls were so upset that night that they slept in our room and Mimi slept in Julianne's room and Mimi's sister slept in Mallory's room. So anyway, it is a really funny story and I am actually sorry that I was not there. I do remember kind of hearing something in the fireplace a couple of days ago so it may have gotten in there. We still don't really know how it got into the house. I thought that the boys would have tried to capture it or at least smelled it but I guess they were oblivious to the fact that there was another creature in our house. They laid in their bed the entire time the action was going on. I guess that is what we get for buying lap dogs.

I finally finished my purse's from hell, so I am no longer going to call them that I will just call them my new purses. They turned out really well and I am actually pretty pleased with them. I am pretty hard on myself when it comes to making things and rarely say that my work is great but these are pretty nice. The outside is quilted, there are inside pockets, a Velcro closure, a bottom support and I love the springy fabric. I think I owe most of the credit to my new "walking foot" that I bought for my sewing machine. It keeps the fabric together and just is flawless in sewing two pieces of fabric together. So that helped keep the corners square and fitted and it helped me quilt the front panel.



While in Penn State I got onto the Internet with our laptop which also has a lot of our older pictures.











So I uploaded some pictures and here are some of my favorites.

I don't remember how old Nathan is in this picture but he is younger than 6 months since it was taken in Tennessee


This one is before Nathan was born


This is Mallory and I see some resemblance to Nathan

Here is Mallory in that snowsuit that I just posted a few weeks ago where Nathan was in it.

Mallory at a gymnastics party in Tennessee. She must be around two.

Mallory in her Halloween outfit. She is 2.5 years old and reminded me of ET.

Julianne and Mallory around Christmas time in Tennessee. Look at Julianne's poor face and Mallory did not have any hair.

Mallory getting dirty with paint.

I had two other pictures that I was uploading at that time of Julianne and it did not complete so I will have to do it another time.

Things I am grateful/thankful for:
-getting away with my husband
-being able to travel to a new place I have never been
-enjoying time to myself
-being excited to see my kids
-knowing that they were in good hands while we were away
-having great friends to help out while we were gone, Thanks Jess, Jill, Monty and Ron
-Having a safe uneventful car ride to Penn State and back

Where does the time go?

I cannot believe my last post was on January 28th. We have been extra busy around this household with dad and kids being sick, I have been working on my new purse from hell, and I am finishing up work for my former employer. So with all that it means I have less time to blog. So D played basketball at the local high school last Thursday and fell into a bleacher and fractured his rib. What that means is that he is/was in a lot of pain and they can not do anything about it. Finally on Monday he was in lots and lots of pain and could not concentrate so he went to the urgent care and they gave him some pain medication, Tramadol. He took it for a couple days and then on Wednesday started throwing up, was nauseated and had the cold sweats and it took him 12 hours to recover. We do not know what caused his severe upset stomach/nausea. It could have been the pain medication he was taking or it could have been a bug. Anyway, he is feeling much better and will not continue to take his pain meds in case that was the cause. He said he was in Hell on Wednesday so he does not want to take the chance. Mallory and Nathan both have ear infections and are on Amoxicillin. They are both doing well and seem to be feeling better.

My purse from hell, is a Mini Miranda Bag from Lazy Girl Designs. I love the purse and I am excited for it to be done but it has taken me forever. I think it has taken me so long because I am making two bags from the same fabric so that adds on extra time; secondly, the outside fabric is quilted so that took some time and lastly there are a lot of steps to this purse. I started it this weekend when D's mom had the kids. So I had lots of time and I have probably put in at least 20 hours into making this purse, hence the name Purse from Hell. I am almost done, all I have to do is to put on the straps and the flap closure. So when I am done I will have two identical purses of which I will use one and either try to sell the other or give it to someone. When I get done I will post pictures. I am hoping to get it done by this weekend.

That is about it for now. I better go since the kids are throwing toys up into the air. I thought I would write a short post now but the kids are taking advantage of the free time so I better go.

Things I am grateful/thankful for:
-I am glad I did not get sick (knock on wood)
-I am glad that D is feeling better, it is no fun seeing your spouse in pain
-having a weekend to ourselves
-getting a good gym parking spot on an extremely cold day with two kids
-getting into spinning class, I have tried to get into this class the past two Fridays, only to arrive minutes too late to get a card and hauling two kids with me.

Snow Day!!

Today was the best snow day ever since D got to stay home also. We had a few inches of snow last night and then about half an inch of ice over night and then it just started to really snow this morning. I think we probably got at least 6 new inches of snow today. All the local schools were closed, The Ohio State University, and even a lot of the businesses. The county was in level 2 snow emergency which basically means try not to travel on the roads unless you have to. So it was nice to have D home most of the day and to be able to play with the girls outside and not worry about Nathan not being able to really walk in it. Julianne spent most of the afternoon outside after it stopped snowing which was around 3:00 pm. She played with her friends and then our teenage neighbor took her sledding at our local park. She had a blast and she loves the snow. On the other hand, Mallory is not a fan of the snow or the cold. She played outside for a little bit but did not last longer than an hour. Nathan had a great nap and slept from 12:30 to 5:00 so he went out after his nap for about 20 minutes and then wanted to come back in. I am not sure if they have school yet so hopefully they will call tonight and let us know. Our local road has not been plowed or salted and there is sight of the pavement but I am sure the busier roads are better off.

Here are some pictures of the day and from D's birthday party.



Someone was snowboarding down our street. Isn't that great.

Another shot of him snowboarding





My neighbor pulling Julianne back from sledding.

She really is alright


Things I am grateful/thankful for:
-experiencing lots of fluffy snow.
-seeing all the pretty scenes from having lots of snow
-Knowing how much Julianne loves playing in the snow

Happy b-day to D

Happy Birthday to my lovely husband. He is now 35 and now I am not the only person in the house who is 35. So he loves it this time of year because for 8 days we are not the same age and he loves to rub it in. We celebrated his birthday by giving him his presents and we will be having cake and dinner tomorrow night with the family. We had a friends birthday party to go to today so I could not make him dinner so tomorrow he will get his meal. He requested carbonara and I am making bread and dipping sauce so it should be a nice dinner.

I have been very frustrated, annoyed and sometimes stressed out lately. It seems like since Nathan turned two he has been screaming, yelling and having tantrums more often. For instance, today he cried in the car the entire time home from yoga. I don't even know why he was crying. I think he wanted a breakfast bar of which he already had one before we went to yoga so I was not going to give him another one. And then he cried again later in the morning over something I do not remember. So when he is screaming in the car I am get short with the girls and then I loose my patience. I actually don't loose my patience very much. I am pretty laid back and our discipline techniques work fairly well where I rarely have to raise my voice and get very stern. However, Nathan's screaming drives me nuts. I try to talk to him and have him use his words but that does not always work. His tantrums are because he is not getting something he wants, he wants me to pick him up when I cannot, or he is telling me something and I can not understand. So when he acts up I put him in a chair in the other room and tell him he can come out when he stops crying. This usually does works, it seems like he has some built up frustration where crying and screaming is the only way he can release it and when he comes out of his "time out" he is much more reasonably and patient. So I know that this is all normal and he is just within is "terrible twos" but he seems to be in it more than the girls ever were. So we will see. I usually keep my cool but I feel the tension headaches coming on slowly these past couple of weeks. So hopefully this is the worst of it and it will get better.

On another note I picked up Julianne from school yesterday and as soon as she got in the car she started crying saying she got "A Warning". A Warning means that she did not received a Happy Hawk certificate for the week and she got a warning for some unwanted behavior. She explained the story to me through her tears. She was on the reading rug and she was talking to her friend and her teacher looked over and said "that is a warning, Julianne." So I guess she is not suppose to be talking on the reading rug. She was very devastated that she got a warning. She cried for about an hour about it and I kept telling her that it is OK that this is the first one she has gotten all year and that she is such a great student and it is OK to make mistakes sometime. She just keep whining and crying after I talked to her and I finally told her she needed to go upstairs into her room to settle down and to regroup. She did and she came back down relaxed and she felt better. She has not really talked about it since then. D also talked to her about it and told her the same thing. I have to sign this piece of paper that talks about the warning and give it back to the teacher. So I will do that and see if she reacts to that. She is just too hard on herself and has this first child perfectionstic quality about her that we have to make sure she does not take herself too seriously and let herself make mistakes and not get too upset about it.

Things I am grateful/thankful for:
- Celebrating D's birthday with him
-escaping my frustration during yoga today
-finding a great card for D for his birthday
-having really nice weather yesterday where we could actually go for a walk as a family with the dogs
-my sister-in-law making a cake for D for his birthday

Birthday Party

Well we finally had Nathan's family birthday party at our house this weekend. We had a great time and Nathan had fun hanging out with our family. My sister-in-law made him a soccer cake which looked great but he was not too interested in eating. He was sick the entire week before with his usual cold/asthma so he did not eat my birthday cake the day before. So I was not surprised that he was not too into the cake.

D made a great birthday dinner for me. We had roasted red pepper pasta with goat cheese. It was delicious and it was great to have him make dinner for me. I went to get my hair cut and colored and I came home and dinner was served. The girls helped decorate a cake for me and we had a nice dinner surrounded by my beautiful flowers D had delivered on my birthday. He does such a great job making sure my birthday is special and he takes a lot of time to think out what he wants to do and executes it beautifully. I appreciate all that he does and how thoughtful he is. He is a great husband. Thanks D:)

I had Nathan's two year well doctor visit today. I had a lot of questions to ask her about his general health. I am trying to be more proactive to make sure that we have explored all possible causes for his different issues. I tend to have the attitude that our body will generally take care of itself and intervention is not necessarily needed. Here are my major concerns:

1. Asthma. We know that when he gets a cold it goes straight to his lungs and causes coughing/wheezing and labored breathing. He has had 4 of these episodes since October. They last for about a week and then the rest of the month he is fine. She suggested he take a once a day asthma medicine to curb his labored breathing during this time. We decided against that since he does not have symptoms during the rest of the month. We decided to be more proactive when his cold begins and to use his nebulizer at the beginning of his cold (which is his runny nose) instead of just during his labored breathing. I told her that I don't really know when I am suppose to be using the nebulizer and I just use it (minimally) when he begins the labored breathing. She said we should start it when he gets his runny nose and it should help him not have the labored breathing as much and will help with the amount of wheezing he has during the week. So I will try that since the scary part for me is when he has the labored breathing. So hopefully that will help even though I am not too thrilled with using that stuff more often.

2. Eczema. It is not too bad right now since the seasonal allergies are not bad and because he wears pants and does not have access to itching it. He loves to itch it when he is using the potty and that is when it gets bad when he itches it more. There is not much we can do about it since I have all the medicine I can use and I choose to only use them when he really breaks out. Right now it is manageable and does not affect him too much right now.

3. Yeast infections. He has been getting lots of yeast infections lately in his diaper area. I am aware that cloth diapers hold the yeast spores and they get more moist than disposable diapers so that may be the major cause why he gets the yeast infections. However, I have been reading more about how some people have yeast overgrowth in their intestines and this can affect their digestive tracts, nutrition, etc. So we talked about that briefly. She recommended we use Florastor which is a probiotic and helps maintain the balance of good microorganisms in the gut and promotes intestinal health. So we will see and I am hoping that this will help his very runny stools. Which was another issue. He has very loose stools and it could just be that he has loose stools but could it also be from something else going on. So hopefully this will help. I like that it is like a supplement and not a medicine. We will use it for 10 days and see what happens.

4. Allergies. We talked about his next allergy test (which is in early March) which will hopefully show what other things he may or may not be allergic to. On one hand it would be nice to find out what he may be allergic to and what may be messing with his system and keeping his eczema going. If we knew than we could eliminate that item(s) then we could see if it helps him. On the other hand if it is wheat or something common it will be a pain to eliminate that item also. Additionally, we could eliminate the offensive food and it would not affect his eczema and we would be in the same position. Or it could help his digestive tract or it could help him not be so picky. Who knows. I may never know. So it will be interesting to see what happens when he has his next allergy test.

So those were my major issues we talked about. Gosh, usually my well check ups are boring and we don't usually talk about anything because I never have any issues. But with little Nathan I do. He was almost at the 25th percentile for weight and almost at the 10th for his height. So he went from the 10th percentile for his weight at this 18 month appointment to the 25th. She was not overly concerned with above issues since he had gained weight. She said she would be concerned if he had not gained weight. She said that kids with all sorts of digestive/allergies issues do not gain weight. So that is good. Like I told her I am fine if he has these issues and that is just what his body is doing but I want to make sure that I have exhausted all resources and options and to make sure we are not making it worse by not being more proactive. She was really understanding and said she is mostly interested in his allergy test results to see if any other allergens shows up positive.



My beautiful flowers

My birthday cake (the "5" broke so we just used the 3)


Mallory and the newest cousin, Jacob

Julianne with Lexee

Nathan and Mimi




Things I am grateful/thankful for:
-being able to celebrate my 35th birthday with my family
-coming home to a lovely cooked meal
-seeing my kids excited for my birthday
-having a great husband
-having a warm house when the temperatures are below zero
-Having a generally healthy son