Three Weeks!!!

Oh my.......it's hard for me to believe it's been three weeks since my last post. Can you tell I've gotten out of bed for good?!!

Let's see, what's been going on......maybe you don't want to hear about it....then I don't have to play catch up......hmmm. I guess I could just give you the highlights.

Mom had her surgery, she is doing great, recovering well. Maybe not as fast as she'd like, but still doing well. The pathology report was negative for any cancer, they removed it all when the did the colonoscopy, but there is no way to know that they got it all in the colonascopy for sure without the surgery. The negative results were wonderful and we feel very blessed to know the Heavenly Father is looking out for us.

Kathy was here for two weeks and that was so wonderful. She took complete and total care of Mom, my only concern was finding time to visit at the hospital! We were very sad to send her home, but Kathy's social life just wouldn't allow her to stay! Trent, her son was married over the weekend, and this week she and Larry find out about a surgery for Larry.

While Mom was at the hospital we got to spend four days at the local resort, we had a minor smoking incident with the furnace on Sunday afternoon, and we wanted to test whether the house was actually affecting us or not. As we still hadn't had a day where all eight of us were healthy since June 12th. The only one it made a difference for was Brent and we're pretty sure it was allergies for him, not a mold or other issue in the house.

I also went back to the Dr. to get lung x-rays again, as I thought I had pneumonia, again. But thankfully I didn't. The boys all came down with a virus right after I got out of bed in August, so that contributed to my illness. I was very, very good and took it easy for weeks after I got out of bed, so it was frustrating to be so sick again!

While at the resort, we had people come in to fix the furnace, which was a motor on a fan, and we had some people come in to see if they thought we had a mold issue. They didn't think we had a mold issue, but we do have a water issue in both bathrooms. So now we're waiting on insurance to see if it will pay for replacing the floors of both baths and the kitchen, as the water is a couple of feet into the kitchen. They have a nifty little gadget that tells them these things. It's not standing water per se, it's that the underboards are damp/wet.

The first week of Sept. Amanda went back to school, the boys started a more structured routine again, and Brent worked 12+ hrs a day doing a work week. Can I say how happy I am that he's not doing that anymore!! This was just a fill in for his former department, while they trained a new guy.

Last week Brent took the week off, except Wed. and we worked on winterizing the cabin and farm. You can see some of what we did over at Mom's blog. (Grandma Cancy's blog, in the side bar) At the farm we FINALLY made progress on the garage. Just one large pile of stuff in the middle and then some boxes on the shelves to go through!! YEAH!!! That was driving me CRAZY.

And during that time we had fifteen new baby chicks hatch out and added four more hens to the nesting boxes to sit on four eggs each.

We still have things to do, but we're hopeful we'll be able to get them done, as they will not take as much time as the stuff we got done last week. We need to get them done quickly as you never know when the weather will turn cold, and then it's miserable to work in. One year we had snow in late Oct.!

So this week we're back to real life. Brent is off to work, and we're back into the structure of a routine.

Bedroom Makeover

Here is the one picture I've managed to get of our bedroom. The dresser at the foot of the bed and the window trim are actually a very light minty green, emphasis on light. Most people who see them in person call them white, until they look closely. I have yet to do anything about window treatments or wall decorations. Someday.

Right now my time has been taken up with changing up our main floor living spaces. The kitchen got a "new" table. It's the table from the school room, it was originally given to us for the kitchen, but at that time I did not have enough chairs to go around it, now I do (they were given to us free), even if they don't match. I'm hoping to come across some benches for the long sides of the table, but for now what we have works for us.

The office moved to the school room and the office room became a den. We do not have a whole room devoted to a school room at this point, the kids never worked in it. I hand out their work and they disappear to their rooms or all of them go to one room......anything we need a table for is usually done in the kitchen any way.

Here is the bedroom picture and then I'll tell you a little more about life here lately.


I also moved living room furniture around, but not anything drastic, just a refining of the area.

I've been working on the house for two weeks, maybe more, I can't remember, and it's very slow going for me!! I don't have my stamina back yet, so I'm hampered by that. Then of course there's all this other stuff that people think they need, like meals and clothes and to be taken to their activities! Actually the kids have been wonderful and Mom, Brent and the kids kept the house very well while I was in bed. But it had already fallen into chaos because I never finished unpacking and getting a place assigned for everything. That's what I'm working on now, and purging the house. I'm not a keeper, I'm a thrower, the problem with that for the moment is that everything is landing in the garage. The garage that the kids and Mom cleaned and organized in June, for Brent's Father's Day.....it makes me sick to see it right now.

We had to empty the basement due to water issues and that is all in the garage also. Yes, it's a mess, a very big mess.....but it'll get better, someday.

Back to the den, I painted the den last week, or was it the week before......I think it was both! And it now has an air hockey table in it. It was given to us last Tuesday by a family whose kids had outgrown it. And it's why we have a den and not a homeschooling room....well mostly, I was already leaning towards not doing a full out school room in the old office room. So that just made my decision easy! I painted the den the reverse colors of my room, cause that's the amount of paint I had leftover. The walls are the light mint color and the window and door trim is the blue color, then we did the baseboard trim in the same blue/white color we used on our bedroom ceiling. Maybe you'll get a picture of that.....and maybe you won't!

This week has been taken up with Mom and her surgery. We had her surgeon consult on Monday, scheduled surgery for Thursday. Her best friend Kathy flew in on Tuesday. Wed. I recovered from coming home at 2am in the morning after picking up Kathy at the airport (she was a victim of the FFA misfortune that happened Tuesday.) Thursday Mom had her surgery and today I spent the morning spinning in circles.....well not really, it just felt like that. This afternoon I went to the hospital with Amanda. Kathy took Amanda and they went off school shopping, school starts the 2nd for her, and I stayed with Mom. Kathy enjoyed her break from the hospital and Amanda enjoyed huge success at the sales today. So we were all happy.

Also making us happy and having us feel very, very blessed is that last week we got not only an air hockey table, but Wed. Brent brought home a 42 inch TV and Thursday he brought home a freezer, and a front loading washer and dryer set. The washer stopped working on the family and they don't know why. Brent has some talent in troubleshooting washers, so we'll see if that will work with a front loading machine. If not, our local washer repair shop will look it over and see if it's worth our while to fix. I would love to have a front loading machine and even a repair fee will be cheaper than a new set!! So you can see why we feel so blessed. We had run out of freezer space due to the 50 lbs of green beans we froze over the last three weeks. And this freezer showed up in the nick of time, as I was seriously thinking about tracking one down and buying it.

I know I'm destined for chaos while I have so many kids in the house, but usually it's organized chaos and right now.........not so much. So be patient with me, I'm still here, still recovering, and still trying to post.

Fat Cat

This is Skipper, who really should have been named Garfield. He's as lazy as Garfield and lives to eat. Here, he was laying on my bed and he rolled over, just like a dog, and had me rub his belly! Too funny.

These pictures don't really show his fat, but believe me he's REALLY fat. He had an extra belly pouch by the time he was 7 mths old.....I'm talking FAT.

Doesn't Max look so innocent....he's probably waiting till I turn my back to do something to the cat. He's so nasty to the animals that he's banned from touching anybody but Happy. We're not sure why, but either he's never nasty to him, or we just don't see him hurting Happy. We think it may be that he has a concept of Happy being able to really hurt him.....but we're not sure. I just keep praying that he's not growing up to be an axe-murderer.....I've never seen a kid so intent on torturing animals, especially at his age, he should have gotten past it by now.



And this is short and sweet, because we're in the middle of overhauling the house AND we got a Wii Fit today!! I've never gotten the house satisfactorily organized since we moved in and it's so bad that I HAVE to do it NOW, it's driving me crazy!!!

So if I'm not here tomorrow, I'm painting, moving things around AND taking the kids to the beach, fair or pool....we haven't' figured it out yet....

A Boy and his Toys

As I mentioned, Thursday we went shopping and each of the boys bought something they'd been saving their money up for. Most of them bought watches, Lee had a watch, just needed a battery.

To preface this story, I need to explain that when Max was at the library a few weeks ago he found a My Little Pony book. (Which we've gotten to read at least once a day, and sometimes more. He's mostly memorized it at this point) I'm sure you can see where this is headed...... I think I mentioned to him that I had My Little Ponies when I was a little girl. He got all excited and threw his hands out wide and said "I"m going to get them ALL!!" It's been awhile since I was in the "pink" aisle, as the boys call it, so I wasn't sure if MLPs were even still around, but that didn't deter him, he was going to get some.

Well, they are still around, or are around again....and he fell madly in love with a stuffed one. A very large stuffed one. As large as our little dog. He hugged it, petted it and talked lovingly to it. So there I was in the middle of the "pink" aisle with two kids who were VERY obviously boys, one of whom is petting this VERY pink pony and talking to it......... And there was another Mom there with three little girls, picking out a birthday present for somebody.

I pointed out to him that he wouldn't be able to take it anywhere, that for it's sake it would have to stay in his room, and wouldn't he rather have the regular, rubber MLPs, which he could buy FOUR of for the price of the stuffed one. And they could be taken anywhere he wanted......

He was convinced and proceded to pick four of them. Jayden tried to convince him that he should get a set with a house and stuff, but Max was very happy with his four ponies. (And can you imagine being that Mom and listening to this conversation!!! LOL!!!)

Then we met up with the rest of the gang in the watch area, where I got to talk Max out of a pink Barbie watch.......... Usually I'm able to swallow his pink obsession, even in public, but I'm afraid I shrank from explaining a pink Barbie watch to people.....I tried for a Dora the Explorer watch, but that was a not go. Then he found a pink and black watch, but the band wouldn't fit, then there was this pink and silver watch....but it didn't apeal to him, for some reason. He ended up with a very nice, DARK purple watch, no explaining needed!!! Thank goodness.

So here he is, sleeping with his four MLPs and Silverhoof, his pink pony Webkins. You can barely see her, tucked under his chin. Brent had to convince him that horses sleep standing up, cause he had them all laying on their sides in a row next to him, and he was pushed against the wall, they took up so much space!

And I have to admit that I breath a huge sigh of relief, when he finally falls asleep.

And interestingly enough, he didn't pick all pink ones. Even though I pointed out all of them. He's had a grand time with them. Now he's on the look out for MLP books because his library book has to be turned in soon! And if you're a Grandparent, looking for a Christmas gift......well there's still the large stuffed pink pony........

One last note, after a few times typing pink, when I went to type pick, I kept typing pink!!

A new bike

Thursday we had a nice evening as a family. It started with a 3:30pm appointment for Than with an allergist. He's been suffering from congestion since last fall and nothing we've tried has gotten on top of it, including multiple different allergy medicines and nasal sprays. So I dropped off Collin, Lee and Jayden at the library, that's about 5 mins. down the road from the Drs. office. Amanda stayed in the suburban with Max in the parking lot, Max was watching a movie and we thought he'd fall asleep! But instead, Amanda feel asleep......

The plan was for Brent to pick up Amanda and take her to the DMV, because she had misplaced her drivers permit several months ago, and it still hasn't surfaced. The DMV was open later on Thursday. He picked her and Max up and got her permit.

In the mean time, Than had a scratch allergy test for the usual environmental allergies and for milk, which were all negative. Then he got to do a breathing test, followed up by a chest x-ray. Everything came up as normal. So now he's on antibiotics for a possible long standing infection and on a different nasal spray. Plus he's rinsing his nasal passages once a day. He says the rinsing helps and I have a few friends who swear it helps, I can't quite make myself try it.......

We all came together afterwards at Pizza Hut. Three of the boys had qualified for the Pizza Hut personal pan pizza certificate at the library. The others didn't make the age criteria. Brent had gotten a gift certificate at work that day, for good performance, and so we had a free dinner!! It was so much fun. The older kids sat at one end playing word games and Brent and I had some time with Jayden and Max, with the older kids asking our help once in a while for answers.

From there we headed into Wal-mart, as several of the kids had been saving up their money for various things and I needed some groceries. Everyone got the items they wanted and we had a good time. Then we headed to Fleet Farm, to get rat poison, and so Than could look for a bike. He's been keeping an eye out for a few months and was very excited to find one that night!!

So here it is.....


He's very pleased with it..

We had a such a good time that night and I'm very pleased with our efforts to get in more family time together.

Family Time

One of the changes in my focus now that I'm recovering is to make sure we're putting family time up front and personal. So when we had unexpected time Wed. and Brent and I were figuring out what to do with it, I suggested he take the kids out and throw a ball or something with them. They love it when he does it and it's literally been a month or more since he's had just fun time with them.

So he went out and they decided to throw two frisbees around the circle that they made. So they would call someone's name and then throw them the frisbee. They had so much fun!!

Here is Than and Lee getting ready to launch their frisbees.

Lee throwing one to Than.

Collin and Than meeting in the middle. They would race to get a frisbee if it fell short of the person it was intended for.

A big launch by Lee.


Max throwing to Brent. He has a pretty good throw, he could get it across the circle at times.

Here is Jayden getting the frisbee.....

Winding up........

And it's OUTA there!!!

Two brothers having fun.

Nice throw Lee!

The orginal plan was that Brent would play with them for 30 mins., then we would work in our office for 30 mins, then we'd get ready for bed...... I went out at 30 mins to snap pictures and tell them that their time was up. But I noticed Amanda wasn't out with them. We sent Lee in to get her, as ALL of the kids were supposed to come out at least for a few minutes. Then I had to wait to tell them time was up, and before I knew it, both Amanda and I were sucked in!

Throwing the frisbee : 60 mins. Cleaning the office: 0 mins. Time well spent.

Brent and I had to laugh. Amanda said on her way back into the house that she hated it when that happened, we thought she meant, that we end up doing something fun, and because she's oblivous to anything around her, she misses out on it, or comes in late. But she meant that she hates it when she's not happy about doing something, like coming out to throw the frisbee, and then ends up really enjoying it and having fun!!

Maybe some day she'll learn that Brent and I really are cool parents........ha ha......

beans

Monday, the older kids were sent over to the cabin to pick the beans. Paige went with them. There they picked over 37 lbs of beans in a little over an hour, including a distraction courtesy of Happy.

If you have read my 10inthecabin blog you know that we have these ground hog things here that create huge holes in our pasture. You also know that the dogs have treed two of them in the past. Well this time I guess Happy was determined to take care of the situation by himself. While picking the beans the kids saw Happy running by the garden with a ground hog in his mouth!! He kept dropping it and picking it up. When the kids got to them, the ground hog was pretty injured, so the older boys shot it, to put it out of it's misery. Which Paige took exception to....poor Paige, she was staying with us to see what farm life was about......she got to see up close and personal!!

When they came home, we went swimming for the rest of the morning. In the afternoon while Max and I napped, the older kids got to work snapping beans......and snapping beans......and snapping beans..........and, well you get the picture. They also watched two movies while snapping.....they were at it for awhile.

They were still at when Max and I got up. Max jumped right in and helped, well at least that's what he was trying to do.......

Mostly he stood in the way of the TV and bothered Paige.......

After dinner Brent and I blanched them. Here is Brent pouring them into the pot.

Here is the sink set up. We poured the beans into the cold water in the bowl in the sink and after they were cooled put them on the cookie sheet with a towel on it.

Jayden was right there helping anywhere we could use him.

Paige using the vacuum sealer.

And the boys watching....

Collin writing the date on the bags. We did the sealing and writing in fits and starts....because there were so many helping hands, Brent couldn't keep beans in front of them. They would watch the Olympics and then they'd come in on commercials and pack whatever was on the table and mark them, then go back to watching TV until the next commercial.

Jayden and Max really didn't have much interest in the Olympics, the beans were waaaayyyy more interesting to them. I'm not sure why. We packed the beans in zip locks for the first bit, but them Brent pulled out the vacuum sealer and that worked really well, and we used it for the rest of the beans. WELL, that got Max and Jayden's attention!!! They were RIGHT there. I had to make bags, which you do by taking a roll of plastic that is essentially one long bag, with no seal on either end. Then you cut it to size and use the sealer to seal one end. Then you have a bag to put the beans in. Then you activate the vacuum part and it finishes off the bag by sucking out the air and sealing the bag.

It did not take long before they had taken over making the bags!!! BOTH of them..........



Oooohhhh my aching head!!!! Not really, Brent just caught me adjusting my bandanna! But working with those two at the end of a long day, really had me holding hard to my last nerve.

And tomorrow we get to do it all over again!

x-rays and swimming

I had my check-up yesterday and my lungs are clear. However I was told to expect to continue to cough for another three weeks and perhaps take as long as another three weeks to get back my stamina....such fun. I'm very, very grateful that my lungs are clear however and am looking forward to being out of bed more!! I've been cleared to do what I'd like, as long as I don't tire myself and it's recommended that I take a rest in the afternoon. So I guess my naps with Max will continue for awhile!

I've taken the kids swimming the last two days again, and this time I got some outdoor pool pictures.


Here is page, trying to get up the nerve to get back into the pool. They've been filling the pools this past week and they just use a hose and non heated tap water, so it's COLD in the water. She had been sunbathing with Than and Amanda, who you can see behind her, and wasn't real excited to acclimatize to the water again.

As I went to take this picture, Max walked by and I had visions of him dripping water on his brother! So I had to tell him to leave them alone.

I use the term sunbathing loosely as it has been mostly overcast with some sun this week. But it evidently was shining enough that their faces got too hot! Too funny for me to see them sunbathing.
Collin too had been sunbathing, but I missed him doing it. Here he is in the deep end, standing flat footed, well it's not quite the deep end, almost.
Here's a better picture of our newest swimmer!! He's such an eel. Tuesday he was diving for a penny and swimming underwater already!! He's so happy about being a swimmer and I think even prouder, because his brothers all told them that he's younger than they were when they learned to swim....which I'm not sure is strictly true, but if they want to boost his self-esteem, I'm all for it!! Because of the age differences, Jayden tends to get left out mostly, so I was very happy to let them heap praises on his head.
And poor Max...he was freezing and I couldn't be inside, the humidity was too much and I couldn't breath comfortably inside that day. Plus he can't sit in the hot tub and get warm, like his siblings, so here he is, telling me and showing me how cold he is......
Here is his solution. He was interested in seeing that his siblings were sunbathing, but by the time he got over there, the sun was behind the clouds, so instead he had me lay his towel over his entire body!
And Jayden thought that was a good idea also...........

They did warm up I promise, I didn't bring home any ice cubes!

swimming

Look at this!! I finally got pictures up!! I really, really prefer to have posts with pictures, I think it's much nicer to have both pictures and words...so I'm glad to finally have gotten some on here!!

These are from Friday at Fox Hills

Here is the main indoor swim area. All six kids are actually in the picture, really. You'll have to click on the picture to see Jayden though.....he's in the pool to the left and just past Than and Amanda by the hose. You can just barely see his little head poking up! Don't forget to click the back button on your browser to get back here, unless of course you're done reading already. I have no idea what Than and Amanda are talking about, but I can tell you that whatever Lee and Max are talking about, they aren't happy with each other!! Such body language, or is it just body language that I can read, cause I see it so much?

The hose in the above picture is running into the pool and refilling it, thus making it very chilly in the pool! So the older kids all warmed up in the hot tub every so often. Max is very sad, the rules recently changed and now he has to wait until he's six to be in the hot tub. So he wrapped up in a few towels and sat in the sun with me. Here is Lee in the hot tub.
And Collin in the hot tub.....
It took me multiple times to get a decent picture of this girl!! But here she is in the pool.
Jayden is soooo excited, he finally has learned to swim...well dog paddle.... So he spent the entire time working on it. It's not a good picture, but it is a picture of him in the water without his flotation body suit! Of course then Max didn't feel like he should have to wear his, as he of course can do everything his brothers do!!! But he's not quite there yet.....
Lee swimming in the pool.
Lee underwater in the pool.
Jayden grinning fit to be tied, he's sooooo happy to be a swimmer now....did I mention that yet?
The tables I hang out at, while they swim inside. We have been eating lunch there so that the kids can stay longer. Usually my laptop is out on the table, but Friday I was reading instead.
There is an outdoor area also, but of course I forgot to get pictures of it!

I'm doing OK. I had to stay in bed all day yesterday and today, but am feeling better than I have so far. I have an appointment Tuesday, and am hoping to find that my lungs are clear and I can get back to real life!!

Hope you all enjoyed the pictures!!

well....

I felt a little dragged down, but not too bad. So no horrible repercussions from yesterday, thank goodness.

However, I may still pay tomorrow.....you'd think I'd learn the first time, but I must have a harder head than I thought! Today all I did at home was tell the kids to get their chores done and make sack lunches. Then I laid down until they were ready to leave at 10am. We left and went to swim again today. It keeps them busy and wears them out, which makes things at home more peaceful. I usually wear them out working, but I don't have the stamina to direct them and most of what we have left to do, needs an adult working alongside of the them.....

So I took them to the pool and I sat and played on my computer, the same thing I'd have done at home.

Then I came home and laid down with Max for his nap. I did get up to help get dinner started and then I laid down again, because I really wanted to go shopping tonight. Brent was going into town already, so I knew he could drive and all I would have to do was shop. Well that took a little more than I thought it would. About five mins into it I almost called Brent to have him come get me. He had a meeting with someone else for about 30 mins, while I shopped.

I managed to work through it and got what we needed. Which included ANOTHER pair of shoes for Than, the kid is growing like a weed again! We heaed over to the library where, Brent took the kids into the library so that they could get more books to read, cause the TV is staying off mostly, after we stopped and got a cone on the way home.

So now, yes I'm tired, but I feel OK. I'm just hoping it's not adrenalin that I'm running on. We'll find out tomorrow I guess. Tomorrow I'm staying home and in bed all morning, unless I feel really, really good, as in yes I'm finally healed, good. Then I'm getting up in the afternoon to go to a friend's house for her daughter's b-day party. It's the same friends we went to for the fourth of July, so the kids will be able to swim there.

I feel good right now and I'm crossing my fingers that it means on I'm really close to being done with this junk, only time will tell. I have an appt. next week for more x-rays, so those will tell a more clear story.

On a different note, one of the things I tackled at the pool today was paying bills. It's been a long journey, but I'm getting closer to feeling like I might have a workable plan to be a better steward over the money we have. We're very blessed, thus the blog name, and I've been working for several years to really get a handle on our money. Right before Dad died, I got introduced to Dave Ramsey's course, Financial Peace University. I did some looking around and found a lot of positive things written about him and what he teaches. Heard some personal stories from people I knew, which were amazing and awesome.

So since then we've been trying to implement what he teaches and today I spent some time surfing different blogs of people that are working on the same thing.(I'm gonna really miss all this time to just surf from blog to blog!!) It was very inspiring and gave me a real lift. We've seen a positive change in our money handling since we've been working Dave's plan and it's nice to see it working in other people's lives too.

Here's a few links I've enjoyed....

http://www.thriftyfloridamama.net/ I love this family's determination, the husband has been working two jobs to help get rid of their consumer debt. Plus she has a really long list of other blogs of people who are "snowflaking" their way out of debt. Which is a term for adding any little amount of extra money to your large snowball, that Dave teaches you about.

http://www.calcxml.com/do/det07?skn=38 I was very pleased to find this debt calculator last night on http://www.providentliving.org/, which is one of the websites that the LDS church has up. You enter all your debts and payments and it tells you when you'll have it all paid off, if you follow that plan. I have not entered ours yet, but I hope to soon.

http://www.paidtwice.com/ I love this site's title, the full title is "I've Paid For This Twice Already". Which of course is referring to having bought an item with a credit card and then carrying a balance for long enough that you've paid for the item twice over between orginal purchase price and interest! She also has some great tips and finds.

whew!!

Well I might have over done it a tad today! I got up and helped get the kids through their chores and made pancakes, from scratch, with a new recipe I found. Then I laid done for a bit. It was 83 degrees with 94% humidity....do you know what 94% humidity feels like? It's just this side of raining!!! The floor in our kitchen was damp, as our AC is not working and we have all the windows open to catch any breeze possible.

So we went swimming. It was the first time in 2 1/2 weeks that I sat behind the wheel of a vehicle. Very strange. But I did fine, we went to our local resort and the kids swam for 3 hrs, why I played on my laptop (free wifi) and watched them swim.

Then we came home and the older kids got lunch while I laid down. Max came and joined me after he was done eating and he napped for 2 1/2 hrs. I should have napped but I came across this post (http://www.moneysavingmom.com/money_saving_mom/2008/03/cvs-101.html) and got sucked in. I was supposed to wake Max up after an hour and a half because he's been sleeping 3-4 hrs at nap time, but then is awake off and on ALL night and that is very wearing on his parents. I was not successful, he stirred an hour and a half into it, but then he went back to sleep. So I woke him up two and half hours into his nap and I had to pick him up and carry him downstairs to get him awake. As long as I was on the bed, even sitting up holding him, he'd go back to sleep!! So he better be ready for bed tonight!!

When I brought Max down I got started on dinner and pulling together the different things Brent needed for running his errands tonight and writing some thank you notes. In all I was upright for over 2 hrs. Then I laid down again until we went to the cabin to pick stuff from the garden with some friends. We just can't keep up with all of it and we didn't want to waste any of it. Now I'm home in bed, with three boys snuggling with me, can I say how much I love my king size bed and my wireless laptop!!

I'm feeling like I might have over done it. Hopefully there won't be to huge of repercussions. This is the first day I got back up after being up all morning....I forgot that though, so I didn't exactly take it easy.......

still doing good

I'm so happy...I know, I've said it before, but really, I'm so very happy at how well I'm doing. I was up again this morning and able to direct and help the kids with chores and such. Then I laid down for the rest of the afternoon and most of the evening and got back up to help with Family Home Evening and then get the younger two kids in bed.

For FHE we talked to the kids about fire safety and what they should do and where they should go. We also found out that none of the three alarms in the house worked. Two had no batteries and one is malfunctioning. Probably a good thing we checked them, huh..... I have been having panic attacks at night about the kids knowing what to do if there is a fire at night, so I'm pleased to have done this much and we'll continue by doing fire drills randomly and to get new and more alarms in the house. We're also planning on getting some carbon monoxide monitors and fire ladders for the kids rooms.

I felt like I could have gotten up this afternoon, but I'm wary of overdoing it and having a relapse. I really don't won't to go back to where I was, thank you.

I found a cool site today. I've been hearing about digital scrap booking here and there and I've started looking into. I've been mostly looking at photo sites, like Kodak gallery, shutter fly, etc... I like what I see and I may still use them, but today I found a site that is specifically designed to print books and they have free software that "sucks" your blog up and spits it back out in book form!! How cool is that!

I wanted to do some memory books for the various kids/seasons and such, but I also wanted to do a book of my blog and I think this site is perfect for that. I had heard that there was a site/place that did it, but I don't know if this is that one, but I'm so excited about it. I've sucked my 10 in the Cabin blog up and have spent the last several hours editing it!! So much fun and I'm so excited about it, in case I didn't mention that.

So here's the site: http://www.blurb.com

being happy in small things.....

I'm sooooo HAPPY!!!! I was up for about three hours yesterday morning. Just puttering and directing kids in chores, then I cut 4 of the boy's hair and Brent's. Then I went to bed for the rest of the day. BUT, it doesn't seem to have heavily affected me. I was a tad bit more tired today, but was still able to be up for about 2-3 hrs total, not all at once. My longest stretch was about 1 1/2. That is sooooo much better than before!!!!

I do have a bit more coughing, but I think in general it's OK, as it's getting the nasty stuff out of my lungs. I think it's a balance, don't do enough to tire myself out, but do, do some so that I slowly work back in the norm. We'll see.

I'm just so happy to be able to get out of bed and STAY out of bed for more than 30 mins, which was my record before yesterday.

We're all back home now, three of the boys came home Friday night and Than came home last night. He got two very beautiful sunrise pictures and really enjoyed his sailing trip. It's amazing to watch him mature.

I was on another board with some internet friends and they were talking about how many teens they had, and we'll have two in Sept., when Than has his birthday. Then it made me want to figure out how many I would ever have at one time. If I figured it out right for about 9 mths, all the boys will be teenagers!! Than will be 19 and Max will be 13, so it will be the extreme ends, but they'll squeak in there. I think our garden will have to really grow in square footage to keep up with them by then!!!

Hey check out this link, it's super cute! http://www.maniacworld.com/twin-baby-moose-in-sprinkler.html

the pressure, the pressure

Acckkk!!! I want the first post of this new blog to be perfect!!! Of course I'm not going to get a post that "I" consider perfect, so I just need to write it and get on with it!!

I thought I'd share with you a few some sites that have really touched me this last two weeks, well one week, as I was out of it the first week.....

First, I'm sure you heard about Randy Pausch and his passing on July 24th. I've seen some of the clips of his lecture off and on since he did it last fall, but I've never taken the time to actually watch it and today I did. I also watched his time management lecture and both were so incredibly moving. They are both 1 hr and 16 mins. So I'm just going to link to them, instead of awing you with my computer geek knowledge of putting a video on my blog. Well OK, I don't know how to do that yet, but I'm going to learn and soon!! So here's the link to the Last Lecture and from there you can do a search for the time management one if you want to see it, too.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji5_MqicxSo

He also has a book and I'm hoping to get my hands on it soon. Here is the website for it.
http://www.thelastlecture.com/index.htm


Because of the last year and a half life events that we've experienced, first Mom's heart attack, then Dad's death, and Collin's tumor, and now my pneumonia, I've been thinking a lot about my life. How I live it, how I conduct myself, what I'm teaching my children, what I would leave behind if I died now. I've been on autopilot for several years now, mostly trying to survive the whirlwind that is Max. But now he's coming down a few notches, other parts are settling in my life and I can look up and breath again. I have to admit that I'm looking at my pneumonia as a huge chance to do this reflecting and possible redirecting of my life.

So here is another site that has given me considerable pause for thought. She to has a book and it's actually on it's way to me. So I look forward to that. http://37days.typepad.com/37days/


That's probably enough for my first post. It at least gets it done for me and hopefully gives you food for thought.