Busy Christmas Break

We made it through Christmas and now on to New Years, Jacksen's 7th birthday party, our 8th anniversary, and then Jennah's birthday. Most families slow down after Christmas, not us Christmas is just the beginning of a month long party. Hopefully adrenalin will carry us through.

My youngest brother and his girlfriend were in a bad car wreck Tuesday before Christmas. They both walked away with minor injuries and a concussion. Sean wasn't wearing his seat belt and really should have been hurt much worse than he was. The car was completely demolished. Christmas was very meaningful this year. It really scared all of us and made me realize how blessed we are and that we need to live every day like it is our last.

So for the New Year I resolve to live every day like it is my last because as we all know it could be. What's yours?

Jonathan's Christmas Party

We went to Jonathan's work Christmas party Saturday night, and we had a great time. Grandma Janet kept all three kids over night and took them all to church on Sunday. That was the first time Joel had stayed the night away from me and Janet said he did fine. Yeah! That means we can start leaving him some and not worry about him. Jonathan's name was drawn and he got to play Deal or No Deal. He won $250!! I was so proud of him we never win anything, and that was the biggest prize of the night! It was so much fun having a date night. After the party Jon took me to Steven Howards KoKoa and bought me some of my favorite chocolates yum! 

 

Joel's Breakdown

 

Christmas Cards

Last weekend after the beautiful snow I thought we would go ahead and try to get our Christmas card photo in the snow. We headed to Honor Heights Park only to find it closed because of the weather. So we improvised and took pictures right out side of the park. Only two of the twelve we took turned out well enough for the card this isn't the one we chose. The pictures didn't turn out because we had been shopping for two hours, the cold, and we had to wake Joel up upon arrival at the park. I am going to post another picture that you can see Joel has had enough. It was fun though.

 

My Crazy Parents!

My parents work as Hot Shots. Their job is to deliver large equipment anywhere in the U.S. or Canada on very short notice. They got a call yesterday to go to New Mexico. For me this would be stressful in itself getting a call one minute and dropping everything, packing a bag, and leaving that same day or sometimes early the next morning. If you know my dad, he thrives on this sort of thing. He loves a good challenge and is always ready to get up and go. This time is different though. They have had to travel in bad weather in spots, but they have never started the trip in bad weather like this time. So they left this morning about 7 and have been traveling for eleven hours now and still have about four hours to go. Along the way they have experienced several white outs. If you haven't ever experienced a white out, you see nothing but white everywhere. It can be quite scary. This trip in normal weather would take about nine hours. I called them earlier and my mom said they had been going about 40 MPH the entire trip. They have to stop every so often to rest and they sent these pictures to us. I just thought this was kinda neat. I tease them everytime I call and ask them where in the world are Bill and Tamara. I really think they are enjoying the chance to see the world in their Dodge pickup. 

The Simple Things in Life

This week I have realized it is the simple things in life that make me happy. First, a working washing machine makes me happy. Our's has been broken for over a month. We kept thinking we would try to look at it ourselves but just never had the time. Monday we finally had a repair man come and fix it. Total time of repair ten minutes. What was wrong you ask? The drain had a sock stuck in it. I am so happy to have a washing machine again.

Second simple thing: Zithromax. If you have small children you will know that this medicine does the trick when it comes to ear infections (Joel has yet another double-ear infection). Only one teaspoon the first day and one half a teaspoon for days two through five, unlike other medicines that have to be given two or three times a day for ten days, and then at the end of the ten days the kid still has an infection. For some reason the Dr. always tries the Zithromax after about a month and a half of other medicines. This time the Dr. prescribed it first! Love this stuff!

Third: The change of seasons, although not exactly simple makes me happy. It is so exciting to be able to tell my kids that when they wake up in the morning there may be snow. Not to mention the coziness of sitting in front of the fireplace and watching a movie.

Sometimes this time of year I get all wrapped up in who is getting what and how are we going to pay for that, but for this week anyway I am happy with the simple things.

Jonathan's BAD Back

Okay, so we finally know everything (so far) that is wrong with Jonathan's back. We knew before his fatty tumors had come back (four this time instead of two) and that he has arthritus in the same place as the fatty tumors. His back started hurting more so Jonathan went back to the Dr. to get a referal to a specialist. He went and had an ex-ray and the Dr. thought he may have a slipped disc. He ordered a MRI. Jonathan went today to find out what it showed. I am kicking myself now for not going. I just assumed the MRI would show everything we already knew and maybe a slipped disc. I was so wrong! The Dr. told Jonathan he has hemangioma?!?! He said it was a rare find. Jonathan said the Dr. had to explain it to him about eight times. This is what Jonathan got from it; it is a large grouping of blood veins that have formed a tumor on his spine that can cause excrusiating pain at times and other times you can seem just fine. The good news no surgery, and it won't get any worse than it already is. The bad news there is nothing that can be done about it except for pain meds. He also told him the two lower lumbar discs are thinning this means they are on the path to slipping (I think). He also said that this has no connection to any of the other random things wrong with his back. So that's where we are right now. Jonathan is kinda relieved to know he isn't crazy. I am confused. I tried to call his regular Dr. so he could explain it to me and answer some questions, but I think he is out this week. I am still trying to decide if this is good news or bad news.

This picture is just one of the many things Jonathan has been willing to try (some things he is still unwilling to try YOGA) to help relieve his back pain. Needless to say it didn't help. 

 

Jennah's Thanksgiving Feast

Jennah had a school Thanksgiving Feast yesterday. This picture is a family project all the Pre-K kids had to do. They had to dress up Tom the Turkey so he wouldn't get eaten. It was a really fun project. Of course Jennah wanted to dress hers up in a dress so as you can see our Tom the Turkey is dressed like the Little Mermaid. So much fun!

Joel also enjoyed the feast as you can see in these pictures he has a cookie in each hand.

Today was Donuts with Dad day at the school. Jonathan couldn't go this afternoon with Jennah by herself so the three of them went to Jacksen's school this morning. I knew he was going to take them this morning so I volunteered to help in the afternoon Donuts with Dad. The dads had to write their names, their kids names, and their kids teachers names on a paper just so we could see who attended, and it amazed me how many dads didn't know who their kids teacher was. I think probably 3 out of 4 dads had to ask there kids who's class they were in. So when I got home I called and quizzed Jonathan. I was so proud he knew both our kids teachers!

Poor Gravy

Well I'm afraid we are going to have to put good old Gravy down. He got out of our fence last night and almost killed a little dog, of course it was the other dogs fault. This other dog is always out of his fence and comes to Gravy's fence and teases him knowing Gravy can't get out. Gravy has never gotten out before, and all we can think is that some kids must have gone back there to get their ball and forgot to shut the gate.

As I was coming home last night I saw Gravy and the little dog starring each other down. I yelled at Gravy to come to me and he backed up a little and the other dog jumped at him. That was it for Gravy, he attacked. I ran in to get Jonathan to come and break them up. Gravy wouldn't listen to him so Jonathan hit him until he let the dog go. Our neighbors said the dog was okay just sore.

What really scared us was that Gravy wouldn't listen to Jonathan. We have always thought he may have a little pit bull in him and after seeing how Gravy had the dog by the neck we are convinced he does. So we just can't keep him around our children. He has been such a good dog we just hate to do this but we have no other choice. Everyone knows how attached Jonathan gets to his pets (Pride), and I'm afraid Jacksen is going to be the same way. He just cried and cried when we told him what we were going to have to do. So I'm afraid we have a long night ahead of us.

 

 

 

And The Winner Is...

Jennah! Yet again Jennah won our church fall festival costume contest. If you can't tell she was a 50's girl. She loved the skirt because of the beautiful spins she could do with it. Luckily Jacksen was outside playing when they announced the winner or I think there would have been some tears. He tries so hard to think of great costumes, but there is just something about Jennah that wins the judges over.















Here is our little pumpkin Joel. This little outfit was Jacksen's when he was almost two and as you can see it was almost too small for Joel. He loved the trick or treaters that came to our house. He was right in the middle of Jacksen and Jennah handing out candy too.

Change of Plans

We have been planning for the past month for Jacksen to be a Ninja Turtle for Halloween. We bought a turtle shell at a resale shop about a month ago, and have been adding to the costume as we go. Jacksen really enjoy thinking of things that will add to his costume and it really makes him proud of what he has come up with. One year we made a homemade spiderman costume and worked hours perfecting it, only to have Jennah win the costume contest in a cowgirl costume that we already had and she really didn't care about. Jacksen cried and cried. So on the way home from working all day in Bristow yesterday Jacksen told me about 6:00 last night he wanted to be a Ninja instead of a Ninja Turtle, although they may sound quite similar they are very different (his school party is today!). I explained to him we had worked for so long to get the Ninja Turtle costume together I really thought he should wear it. Knowing Jacksen takes such pride in coming up with costumes I thought maybe we should let him do it and so after thinking about it I told him if he could come up with it that he could do it. So here he is as a Ninja. I wish he would have thought of this easy free costume a month ago! Maybe all three of them can be Ninjas!

Family Reunion

We survived Jonathan's annual family reunion. This year it was at Lake Murray. It was a beautiful lake and we went just in time for the all the fall colors. Although it was the perfect time for the foliage, it was not the perfect time to be sleeping in a tent! Not only was it too cold to sleep in a tent but the tent that we borrowed from our sweet friends only had a net-like material on the sides of it. We covered the sides with blankets, but they kept falling off. Yes, we froze! Don't think we will be sleeping in a tent this time of the year again. Holiday Inn for us next year!!
These are all pictures Jacksen and Jennah took this weekend. They thought it was so pretty there. They wanted to take some pictures. (One reason I don't mind having a cheap digital camera.) They took some pretty good pictures.

My Newest Project

Anyone that knows me can tell you I love to stay busy. Most of the time I like to have two or three things going on at the same time (anything to keep from staying at home and cleaning). I do try to focus most of my "projects" on church related activities. I am one that loves to start new things. I love dreaming something up, planning it out, preparing for it, then actually seeing it happen successfully (well most of the time!). It is so rewarding.

So, I have been thinking about this for a long time and am finally going to follow through with it. My cousin attends a large church that offered a frozen cooking class. I thought this was a great idea. I wanted to put more of a focus on the importance of family mealtime. I went to the Focus on the Family website and found some interesting studies on family meal time. It said only one-third of families in the U.S. eat dinner most nights together. One study showed when teens ate with their family at least five nights a week they were less likely to be on drugs, to be depressed, and to be in trouble with the law. Another study followed a group of sixty five families for an eight year period. They found eating family meals together to be more valueable for development than playtime, school, and storytime. So now I am convinced this is a good thing to start in our home town. Not only will this encourage families to eat together, but it will give me and several others from our church a chance to meet others in the community and invite them to get involved in our church.

I am so excited to start a new project! If anyone has any great recipes that can be frozen I would love to try them.

Learning to Let Go

Today Jacksen went on a field trip to the Air and Space Museum, without me! I'm sure many would be surprised to know that I am a control freak when it comes to my kids. Besides the week they spent in daycare they have always been with me. Of course they will spend a weekend now and again with Grandparents and going to school, but besides that they are pretty much with us 24/7. I knew this would happen sooner or later and it has finally come. Jacksen had a school trip and Jennah has afternoon pre-k. Normally I would just take her out of school, but she had a double ear infection and bad allergies and missed two days of school last week. So she really didn't need to miss. We have great friends here that I am sure would keep Jennah and take her to school, but I just don't like to ask anyone unless they are family. Jonathan stayed at his Mom's house because we have a car in the shop and we live an hour from his work. Usually Jonathan can kinda talk me through this type of thing, but he wasn't here. I was up tossing and turning all night. I know it probably sounds silly to most. It really is hard on me. I just always think of what could happen to him if I'm not there. Jacksen really didn't care if I went of not. I am so embarrassed, but I teared up when leaving his classroom. I called my Mom for support and she wasn't very sympathetic. She just said this was just the beginning. I guess I just need to learn to let go. On his way out this morning I said Jacksen stay with the group and don't talk to anyone you don't know. He said, "I know mom!" I'm sure he will be fine.
In other news its huntin' season, and Jacksen is ready. He found all his camo and his gun (not real). He goes out in our backyard almost everyday and climbs the tree and practices.