Happy Birthday Monkey!

Today is Monkey's 6th birthday. She is very excited about her birthday.  

She was born at 11:27 a.m. and was just beautiful. After all the problems I had nursing Lady Bug, the only thing I was concerned about with Monkey was whether she would nurse well!  She did great immediately. That was such a huge relief.

I need to post pictures, but we have a baby shower to attend, so I will have to get to the pictures later. Stay tuned...

Ah, the wind

I went out to get the mail this morning and it is windy again. But, today it feels different. The wind feels soft. It is the perfect temperature. 

So, since I'm miles behind on the laundry, it is going on the clothesline today so I can enjoy this wind.

I am SO behind!

I think I'm back to talking to myself on this blog when I actually get to updating it! That's just how bad I've been. So, if you are still out there reading at some point - "Hello!!"  Glad you are still here!

We went to my niece's graduation this weekend. I hope to have some more time soon to upload the pictures to share. We had a lot of fun. I went up early to help with cleaning and set up of the party. Jeanette was doing great on Thursday, but pushed herself too far and was feeling really crummy on Friday and most of Saturday (the day of the party). Sunday was much better though and that was the actual day of graduation. I'm so glad that she was feeling good then.

We stayed at a Looper's house in the same town. They were out taking their oldest daughter to grad school. So, I can't decide if we were in a bed and breakfast or semi-house sitting. :) It was very nice though. And, we did get to enjoy a short visit when they returned before we had to leave.

I will soon be the proud owner of a wireless router. That may help me get back on the stick of blogging. While it has been nice outside, I have a hard time staying down in the dungeon (the basement) especially if I send the girls outside. 

My blog is one year old now as of the 14th. 

I am going to bed. My laundry is still out of control. The dishes are getting closer to being managed. The clutter and toys are going to drive me over the edge...

Review time again

I'm slowly checking things off my "to do" list for May. It is always so busy this time of year!

*Brian and I played a gig this weekend. Moszowski's piano concerto and a premier piece. We always like this gig. It is a short rehearsal schedule, they feed us and the pay is pretty good. That always helps especially this time of year - with two birthdays this month and our house taxes due (I'm still grumbling that they moved it up from June...but, that's another story)

*Mom and Dad watched the girls while we did our gig. So, for Mother's Day I got spoiled by my Mom! I came home to a clean kitchen and the rest of my laundry done and folded. Thanks Mom!

*Lady Bug's new Webkinz (her birthday present from Gma, Gpa, Angela and Travis) took a side trip back to Gma's house. Gma made things all better again by mailing it back. It arrived in one day.

*I had my evaluation (mentioned in my last weekly review). I will get my raise this year - I passed. I would certainly hope so! I do all my jobs to the best of my ability. I see them as my service to those around me and I enjoy that.

*Childbirth classes will finish this week and so will several more of my lessons. I think I have 3 more students who have another lesson to make up. Otherwise, the schedule is freeing up a bit more.

*My niece graduates this weekend. I'm so excited to see all the family again. I'm also very humbled by a Looper friend who has offered her house for us to stay in while we are there for graduation. They will be traveling with their daughter to grad school. I will do my best to be a good "house sitter". What a sweet offer and what a blessing - we were going to get a hotel for Saturday night for sure, but now we can save a little more money. And, we will get to visit with them a little when they return, but unfortunately it will be about the time we need to leave - so, it will be a short visit. 

*Brian found out that he will have to move out of his classroom for next year. It is unfortunate because he has a nice large room now for his music classes which allows him to teach the way her really feels is best - with lots of movement, instruments, etc. The good news is that they gave him two connecting rooms. It's not ideal, but will at least offer him more flexibility than if he had been given just one of those tiny rooms. At this point I told him to be thankful that he HAS a job and that this was a minimal inconvenience. I'm kind of excited because I'll go help him organize the two rooms. I like organizing. (if you saw my house - you'd NEVER guess that one...I have kids, I home school and hold 4 part time jobs - cut me a little slack  ;)  )

Have a great week. I'm taking my lap top, but I'm not sure how much I will get to get on it!

Growing Like a Weed

We had Panda's  three year well child appointment this morning. Everything went just fine. She grew 5 inches this past year! Wow!  That surprised me. She's actually in the 50th percentile in height. My kids don't usually make it past the 25th percentile in height IF they actually reach the 25th percentile.

She seems to be the most "normal" of my three kids. She actually answered the questions our pediatrician asked (might help that he's her god father). The other two always played shy. She goes to bed easily. However, she is NOT potty trained yet. She knows all her colors, animals, animal sounds and many letters and numbers. 

It will be fun to see what she does this year. With two older sisters teaching her everything, the possibilities are endless...

Happy Birthday Ladybug!

Nine years ago at this blog post time (thanks to blog scheduling), I gave birth to our oldest daughter, Ladybug. She came 10 days before her due date, which was a little bit of a surprise. She was 7 pounds, 1 ounce and just beautiful! What a sweet little blessing. She did give us a bit of a scare. She was in the special care nursery for 20 hours because she had some breathing issues. I was so excited when they released her back to us - I didn't care that it was in the middle of the night!

I'm going to have to work on a little picture montage from birth to nine years. Her first several years were before my digital camera, so I'll have to try some scanning to get those on here.

The time has flown so quickly! She is a really sweet girl. She is very creative. She loves animals. She is cautious and reserved - thinks things through carefully. It's so much fun to watch her grow.

She's so excited about her birthday that she is still up as I type this (in advance - it's actually late Tuesday night). She is a night owl like her mother - go figure! She'll probably be up at the crack of dawn ready to celebrate, so I'd better get myself to bed!

Jeanette's treatment schedule

I found out Jeanette's schedule. If you would, please continue to keep her in your prayers. I spoke with her today and she is feeling really well and is trying to utilize as much energy as she can while she feels well to get ready for Rebecca's graduation.

May 5th - surgery for a port implant at 10:45 a.m.

May 11th - first chemo treatment in the morning.

June 1st - second chemo treatment

Will visit with the oncologist sometime after that treatment

June 22nd - third chemo treatment

Surgery about 3-4 weeks after that treatment and then they will evaluate how to proceed from there.

Jeanette got her hair cut and purchased a wig. My nephew, of course, had to model it himself! 

I will go up for Rebecca's graduation a couple days early to help decorate, etc. and then will stay a day later to help clean up and put everything away. I'm getting excited to be a part of the fun! My girls are excited to get there because they have 2 new baby kittens. I'll know where to find Lady Bug!

The week in review

I can't seem to keep up with anything these days! So, here's what has been going on (the condensed version - trust me - you don't want the full length version).

*Panda has been adjusting well to her hearing aids. Today she wore them the full day without complaining. I meant to have pictures of her up with her hearing aids. In fact, I meant to take pictures when she got them, but I forgot the camera. Duh.

*I'm still working Tuesday and Wednesday nights.

*My Saturday morning lessons are now done and 3 more students will also finish this week along with my Thursday night group class. The lesson schedule will ease up for me pretty soon.

*We did some major cleaning of the toy area over the weekend and sadly, we are NOT done. 

*Brian's parents came to church with us on Sunday and then took us out to Montana Mike's for lunch to celebrate Lady Bug and Monkey's birthdays.

*We have a robin in a nest in the tree outside our front door. We can see it easily from the front door. We are hoping to see some baby birds soon!

*We have had a few glimpses of the sunshine the past couple of days. I'm looking forward to more sunshine. Rain is nice but, it could be a bit more spread out. I know, picky picky...

*I have my evaluation at the hospital tomorrow. I have a few things to air at that meeting. I spent many, many hours completing 15 CEU's worth of reading on car seats. (which was the most relevant reading I could find - and, it was rather interesting) All because I'm a (failing) perfectionist. (I know, you can't tell by my poor grammar and punctuation in this blog...) I had to have those CEU's to get the superior rating in my evaluation which also would add another percent to my raise. Now, the 1 percent on my salary with the 10 weekends I work would add up to, oh somewhere around $15. I almost didn't do the reading because it certainly isn't worth $15, but I couldn't stand to be marked down on my evaluation. Phooey. The stupid things that I do.

Whoops, got to go. I don't hear the dryer running anymore. Time to do more laundry...

I thought of a title earlier....

Must be the age. The title escaped. Oh well. This is going to be another mixed bag of a blog anyway!

Thanks to all of you for my birthday wishes. You are very kind and I really appreciate your thoughts! :) Consider yourself cyber-hugged! 

I had to wait until today to read them, including those of you who sent wishes through facebook because of our storms. I spent part of my birthday in the basement partially under a desk hiding from possible tornadoes. We did have rotation over our city, but thankfully, no tornado touched down. One of the schools Brian teaches at had damage (it is outside the city limits). They weren't sure weather it was a tornado there or straight line winds.

I got a very nice birthday gift today from a sweet friend. She came over and cleaned my bathroom. I mean CLEANED. Like washed the curtains, dusted the exhaust vent, cleaned. And then she went from there to cleaning a few windows - the windows in the back door and front door. Brian almost had the Windex bird commercial moment after she did that! That birthday gift was priceless. AND, she said she's not done - she will come back again and do some more. What a blessing!

I enjoyed some beautiful singing in full harmony from Lucy's clan. They inserted "belated" in their song which made me smile. We were all a little too busy with the storms to worry about my birthday yesterday! They apologized and there is no apology needed!!! 

We got Panda's hearing aids today. That went very well. She wore them the entire day with no problems even though Mary (our audiologist) told us that it would be perfectly normal and fine if she needed a little adjustment time getting used to wearing them. I think seeing Monkey wear them all day just made her think that it is normal to wear them all day. She did great!

After the hearing aids we went to Sears to return some items and then to Great Gma and Gpa's. The girls were well behaved for both of those stops. 

The trip to Walmart was a different story. Monkey decided to have a full blown, top of the lungs, screaming, melt down in Walmart. She wanted to ride in the cart (was told to walk), started talking very disrespectfully, was told to stop or we would leave. She did not stop, so I turned the cart around and that is when the melt down occurred. I picked her up, plopped her in the back of the cart calmly and rolled right back out of the store - with her screaming - "no, no, I don't want to leave!" the entire way. And then she threatened to not get out of the cart and into the car. (which didn't work - because it was cold out today and she didn't want to stay outside in the cart anyway!) Soooo, she got to stay home with daddy as we went back to the store later with the other two girls. Hopefully a lesson learned.

I'm going to call it a day. Hope you have a good one!

Thanks Mom! (and Dad, of course)

38 years ago, my mother gave birth to little 'ol me! I was her first baby and there were not classes or the information that we have today on what happens during childbirth. It was quite the experience. And yet, it must have been worth it because I have two younger sisters.

So, what am I doing for my birthday?  Laundry. Probably dishes. Hopefully avoiding tornadoes. I'd rather have a nap. I thought I'd blog quickly before our storms hit. We're in a tornado watch until this evening and have storms headed this way pretty soon.

But, yesterday Mom and Dad stopped by. We had pizza and ice cream cake - YUM.  

It's been a busy week again:

*I worked 4 days this week at the hospital which reminds me to ask you to please keep one of my co-workers in your prayers. There are things going on her life that I cannot discuss for legal reasons, but she could use some prayer support for sure.

*I heard from Kevin (Jeanette's husband). She will start chemo in a couple of weeks. She is scheduled for 6 treatments at this time, three weeks apart. After the first 3 treatments, they will do more testing and possibly exploratory surgery to see how the treatments are going. If all is well, they will continue as scheduled. If she is not responding to that medication they will switch at that time. They told her that 80 percent of women who receive this treatment respond positively and 50 percent of those are successful cured. I'm praying for Jeanette to be in that 50 percent of the 80 percent!

*We started our Apologia Science - it came in on Monday. I love, love, love it! We are doing the sea creatures. The cool thing is that the second chapter is on whales and a museum nearby is featuring a whale exhibit. Field trip!

*The hot pockets I made have been wonderful. Hmm... what shall we have for lunch? Ham, hot dog or roast beef? One minute in the microwave, add some fresh veggies and fruit and presto - lunch is served.

I'd better run before the storms hit! Have a good week!

Blogging Absence

Yes, I'm still alive. Most of you know that anyway. Since KMEA, I just haven't gotten back into the habit of blogging. And now, with nice weather it makes it more difficult to blog since my computer is in my basement (and the office has no windows - I hate that!).  I really need a wireless router so I could blog a little while the kids are outside on the laptop, but I'm not going to buy one right now.

Here's what we've been up to or will be up to in the near future:

*Lots of school work. I ordered Apologia science - the zoology series, especially so we can start studying the sea creatures before our trip when we will get to go snorkeling and see them in person. I'm excited because the order should get here tomorrow!

*Baking. I made more hot pockets with my Tupperware bread recipe because I'm tired of figuring out what to have for lunch. Now I have 10 days that I won't have to think about! Yay!

*Panda gets her hearing aids tomorrow. It should be a pretty easy transition since she's see Monkey wear hers all the time.

*Still praying for sil, Jeanette. She will see the oncologist on Tuesday to find out the plan for treatment. Since they found these cancer cells early, we are very optimistic that she will be treated and given a clean bill of health. We really appreciate your prayers. It will still be kind of a long road for her and not without a few fearful thoughts creeping in every now and then.

*I found a swimsuit. That's a major accomplishment because I hate swimming suits. I don't think I look good in them and I'd prefer to be very covered! I also found one for Brian for $7.50. That was even better!

*I had the privilege of meeting another Looper and her children - Julee - who stopped by on Tuesday. We had a nice visit and our children enjoyed playing together. Now that she knows where I live - I hope to see her again if she ventures this directions again!

I'd better stop with that. My dear husband is doing some of the dishes that I messed up while making the hot pockets. I should go and help.

I'll try not be be such a stranger on my own blog!  :) Thanks for stopping by!

Dog Pile Dad - The Musical

We went to Good Friday services tonight. I wish I was one of those blog writers who could eloquently summarize the sermon or have other profound thoughts about the service. Having three children and a service at 7:30 p.m. prevent those kinds of deep thoughts  (from me anyway). We sat in the "kid zone" as usual and participated in the pew wrestling of the growing weary children. 

The girls wanted to listen to the Classical Kids Vivaldi CD on the way home, but since they were poor miserable sinners during the service, I told them that we were going to listen to Issues, etc. on the way home instead.

So,  if you put our kids in the back of the car without their entertainment, you get a musical. This one was provided mostly by Panda who was singing her chorus "Dog Pile Dad" for an entire 30 minutes! Mixed with her composition was the counter choruses provided by Ladybug and Monkey who were singing "Time to Say Goodbye" and "You Raise Me Up" respectively. (and no, "You Raise Me Up" is not an Easter song...but, I digress...)

I'm going to have to listen that Issues topic again....  And, my face hurts from smiling and laughing for 30 minutes.

Prayers Please

Doctors found that our sil, Jeanette had cysts on her ovaries. She had a complete hysterectomy on Monday. Everything went very well and the dr. said he did not see any evidence of cancer. 

Yesterday results came back showing that there was cancer present.  At this time, I don't know the details. I received this information from my mil, because Brian's brother just couldn't make any more phone calls. But, it sounds to me that this has been caught very early. When I find out more, I will update. I just don't want to call yet while they wait for information - I'm sure they are tired of saying that they don't know what is going on yet.

Lady Bug's Solo Recital

Here's the new dress Lady Bug chose for Easter and her recital. It's really pretty!

Here's Lady Bug playing Andantino:

I Got Points!

I listen to Table Talk Radio and enjoy the show very much. Evan Goeglein was a member of our church while he attended college before entering the seminary. I've been hassling emailing him- asking for some Table Talk Radio Points for at least 8 of us from church who listen regularly. 

He visited our church today and preached a very good sermon. After church we had a pot luck dinner and then Evan presented on his trip to Madagascar. It was very interesting. I didn't know very much about Madagascar.

After his presentation on Madagascar, Evan presented me with some Table Talk Radio points:


Another member of our congregation asked Evan to see his "key to salvation" that he talked about on an episode of Table Talk. Here it is:

Now the explanation (paraphrased - I should have taken notes...): Evan attended a college where the professor gave the students each a "key to salvation" and asked them to turn it back in later and tell him what they were going to do for God's kingdom.  Evan decided to keep the key, since it was given to him unexpectedly - without him seeking out the key - which is how salvation really works. God seeks us and gives us salvation without our cooperation. Christ did the work of salvation for us.