How can it be?

How can this adorable cuteness:




Turn into this:



Thank goodness within a few minutes he was dry and back to the cute little fluff ball again!
I hope he doesn't hold it against me for posting him in this not so flattering light!

The newest member to crawl into our family

Oh the joy I feel (said with sarcasm dripping from my voice)
Arianna's class has been doing a special section in school dealing with habitats, characteristics etc of animals. To help them with this they got frogs, snails and crabs delivered to school. The great
news came when Arianna came home a few weeks ago and said they could have one of the animals to bring home! Oh how my heart leapt for joy! not so much.....
There was NO chance of a frog coming into my house- I can't stand them so we ended up with a crab.
Sadie the crab now resides down in Arianna's room and she is totally her responsibility. Arianna absolutely is thrilled so that makes me smile- the crab- she's going to have to grow on me- still not so thrilled on my end :)

Birthday Party

While we have Andy home we wanted to get a Birthday party in so last Saturday we all went out for pizza and did some celebratin!


Looks like Bob's having a good time! (sorry Bob- I couldn't resist)



Here's the whole gang



These 2 always have a great time together




Here's Andy


One of the Birthday's we celebrated was my dads. Here he is opening our present to him. Nick made that clock for him.




Here's a closer look. I think he did a great job!!

Relief

For about 1 1/2 months now Halle has been having headaches. Scary headaches that she was telling me would make her vision blurred.
I brought her in to the Dr and her neurological exam was fine and he thought it might be pressure from sinus issues.
She occasionally still complains of them so the next step was the eye Dr.
I just got home from the appt and Halle has glasses coming her way. She is a bit far sighted but what we think is causing her problem is what they call
convergience insuffiency.
From what I understand when you try to focus on something your eyes have to go inward a bit to "converge" or focus on the words you're trying to read.
When you have this problem the muscles are a bit too weak to do that easily so it causes extra strain on the eyes to work properly.
Apparently it's a common problem and not too big of a deal. Kids quite often grow out of it but in the mean time glasses with a special prism lens will help. If she continues to have headaches there are eye exercises also.
The Dr feels confident this is what is causing her problem and when she complains of blurry vision she is probably seeing double.

I'm so relieved. When your kids are having health issues- I don't think there's anything worse. Even though I figured it had to do with her eyes there's always that nagging fear in the back of your head that it's something much more serious.

We picked out glasses- They were the first ones we put on and they are SO cute on her and bonus- they were the cheapest ones- way to go Halle!!!!
She is actually very excited about them now that she has seen them. She wasn't before we went so this is good. Hopefully we get them before Spring Break Vacation.
She only has to wear them while at school and reading- not when she's outside so hopefully they won't break within the first month!

It's that time of year

A little team work:





Makes for a lot of fun!!

Halle's big surprise

Before Christmas I contacted Halle's teacher and asked her if the class would be interested in writing letters to a soldier who was serving and was away from home at Christmas. Of course I had 1 particular soldier in mind- Andy!!
She was very excited about this and the class wrote such cute letters to him.
When I found out that he was going to be home before school got out for the year, I asked him if he would be willing to go in and talk to the class. He said he would and today was the day.
I didn't tell Halle because I wanted to surprise her. She had been asking me all weekend if Andy could come to her class and I kept brushing it off with my standard
"we'll see" answer.

Here she is when she came in from recess and saw Andy in her classroom:



Andy did a little talk and then let the kids ask him questions. They were surprisingly quiet- I thought they would have tons of questions. They did ask a few and then the teacher put some of the pictures that Andy brought along up on the screen so he could explain them to them.
The kids really liked it and at the end Andy gave them all a coin from Korea to take home. He did a really good job and I was proud!

Arianna may have a problem

I happened to glance into the kitchen while Arianna was doing her homework and this is what I saw:



I had to take a 2nd look because I thought she had grown a tail!!

Apparently Oscar got roped into keeping her company while she did her homework.

Oh happy day

After over a year of not seeing my nephew- he returned home on leave from the Army Sunday. Our whole family gathered at the airport to see him come in. The girls have been anxiously waiting for him all week so they could hardly wait!



Here he is arriving:



Heather:




Laura:


Halle running into his arms:




Arianna:



The whole family:



My dad and Andy:



We've got him here for 3 weeks- I hope he enjoys every minute of it!

Any ideas for me?

Well our vacation is quickly coming up and I'm trying to get some things figured out.
We will be driving to Tennessee.
That means 11-12 hours in a car with 3 kids. We've got the dvd thing covered already but I'm trying to figure out some other things for the kids to do in the car.
I'm going to go to family fun.com because I know they have some print outs that will be fun for the kids.
Anybody have any fun games that you play in the car or any other travel ideas for me?

Health update

I thought I would update you all on what's been going on with my "sickness."
I have continued to struggle with not being able to eat without getting sick and I finally have a diagnosis.
IBS- Irritable Bowel Syndrome

The reason I'm posting this is because I'm looking for help. Does anybody out there have this also or know anybody that does?
The GI Dr said I had an infection or food poisoning that left me with this.
I'll just tell you I will never eat at Applebees again because this really is a nightmare. He told me he thought it would resolve in 2 weeks- well it's been 1 and it's not resolving and frankly from what I've learned online this is a life long thing. You have to figure out what foods trigger your symptoms and try to avoid them.
I've been doing a lot of research on line so I'm trying a few things. I went to the health store today and the lady there was very helpful. Her best friend also has it and guess how she got it- yup food poisoning!
When I worked at the Dr's office I saw people with it but I had no idea how life changing this is.
They suggest no dairy at all and a low fat diet or gluten free.
I really can't eat any fast food anymore and just going to restaurants is extremely difficult because you don't know how they're cooking the food or what all is in them.
I had broiled chicken last night and picked all the crust off so it was only meat and did the same with the potato wedges and still got sick last night.
Going to peoples homes for dinner is a problem and Holiday dinners will never be the same.
I have only been able to eat chicken breasts so I can't eat what my family is having for supper. For someone who loves to cook and bake this is just plain depressing.
This has to get better- I'm so hoping some of the things I learned from the support group forum will help me. My first concern is our vacation in a few weeks- I'm really going to have to plan ahead for that one.
I keep telling myself- this could be so much worse- It could have been some life threatening illness and it's not so I'm going to have to keep reminding myself of that.

If anybody has any info or helpful suggestions, I would really appreciate it!

Just for fun

No smart alec comments!!!!!

You Are a Cashew

You are laid back, friendly, and easy going. Compared to most people, you have a very mild temperament. You blend in well. You're often the last person to get noticed. But whenever you're gone, people seem to notice right away!

What Nut Are You?

How about a little different perspective

Well I don't know about you, but I'm so tired of only hearing bad news.
Trust me I am very well aware of the economy and how everything seems to be falling
apart everywhere we look these days.

I want to shift focus today. Here's what I'm thinking.
I'm asking everyone that visits here today to leave me a comment of something positive.
Share your good news. It doesn't have to be anything huge- Certainly we all have something to be thankful for!
Maybe if the people that stop by after you read the comments they will smile reading the good things that are happening in our world- I know I will!

I'll start- my good news is that it's only 30 more days till April. I consider winter over once April hits so we're soooo close to Spring weather and some greener grass and flowers!!

Date night

Mark and I have been trying to have a date night for a couple of weeks. He had it all planned out on Valentines Day but that night I was sick and last week Saturday didn't work either so finally we got to go out this past Saturday.
We didn't have anything fancy planned- it's just nice to get out without the kids once and awhile.
The guys at his office started dieting this year and he's melting away to nothing. He's at his goal already and has lost his 20 pds. We needed to do some jean shopping for him so off to Kohls we went. It took trying on quite a few pairs but we finally found one he liked. I think it was almost as challenging as shopping for womens jeans!
After that we went and saw:


It's been a long time since just the 2 of us went to a movie and we really enjoyed this movie.
There were a couple parts that had some language issues but all in all we loved it!

After that we just headed to Panera for supper. It was so yummy. We are really exciting people I tell ya because we were home by 7:30!! Isn't that pathetic??
It was a really nice afternoon and night though- we really have to do this more often!