Dinner is in the crockpot.

Thanks to Kristen at We Are That Family my family is going to eat well for a while. I won her giveaway from Homemade Gourmet. I am so excited to to try all of these yummy meals out. Tonight we are having Chipotle Raspberry Chicken. Doesn't that sound yummy? For more information on Tami, the founder of Homemade Gourmet, check out her blog Around the Table with Tami.

Guess what?

Do you like the t-shirt I gave my niece?

Happy 91st birthday Grandpa!

This picture was taken last February while my Grandpa was staying in Texas with my Aunt for a couple of months. My mom and dad (in the picture with him) were visiting him on their way to Arizona.


This has been a hard year on Grandpa. He continues to battle congestive heart failure. My dad had to take him to the ER this morning because he was so nauseous and having dry heaves (sorry about the tmi). They ended up admitting him so he is spending his birthday in the hospital. Poor Grandpa. They are thinking it is from a change in his medicine but wanted to monitor him overnight.

This is a picture from Christmas day.

I love you Grandpa!

Wordless Wednesday - Throwing in Green!

Zack's first MSU track meet. He took first place! Way to go Zack!!!

See other Wordless Wednesday participants at 5 Minutes for Mom.

Thanksgiving

Here is everyone relaxing before lunch. Expect for Mark who must want to eat soon because he is carving the bird.



We have outgrown my mom's table. I see that as a good thing. Wink! Mark and I offered to sit at the counter with Kaylyn and Libby so they didn't feel like the kids were being pushed to the curb... er, counter.



Ready for dessert. This is when it pays to sit at the counter. Maybe Mark had ulterior motives after all. We have mom's pumpkin pie and my raspberry cheesecake. Even though my mom makes the best pumpkin pie ever (in my opinion) she doesn't care that much for it so she asked me to bring something for her.


Emily LOVED grandma's pumpkin pie.



Lunch is all cleaned up now it is time to go over the sale flyers and give grandma ideas for Christmas.



That would be Mark opening a whole can of trouble...



That would be Zack teaching his daddy a little lesson.



That looks like me saying "boys stop that you are going to break something".



I hope you all had a wonderful time of food and fellowship with your families!

Wordless Wednesday-Cutest "floor cleaner" ever.

See other Wordless Wednesday participants at 5 Minutes for Mom.

Happy Birthday Kaylyn!

A little late again. My poor blog is full of cobwebs.

Kaylyn turned 14 a couple weeks ago. We usually celebrate on Sunday's with cake and ice cream but because life has been so hectic we squeezed it in on a Tuesday night and I made tacos for everyone and then we had cake and ice cream.

Kaylyn has been asking me for a chocolate cake with chocolate frosting for the past couple years. Her Grandma Hill made it for her every year but Grandma passed away in 2005 and Kaylyn has been missing her cake. The problem is my mother, uncle, and myself get headaches from chocolate so a double chocolate cake is way too much for us. I came up with a simple solution that I should have thought of long ago. Provide 2 desserts. I had one happy girl this year. Wink!



It was also nice to have Grandpa join us. He loves all his Great-grandkids. Emily thinks he is pretty cool too because he gives her rides on his walker and she thinks she is pretty big stuff on it.

Mono? Really? She's 10!

Libby started running a fever on Sunday afternoon and fell asleep on the couch. I kept her home on Monday because of the fever and noticed that she was complaining a little about her throat hurting. She rode along with me to bring Zack back to MSU. She slept pretty much the whole way there and back. When we got home she went to her own bed and slept. At dinnertime I pulled out a flashlight to get a look in her throat. She was very swollen, red, and white ick (that is a very medical term) was on her tonsils.

Tuesday morning I got her into see the doctor. They did the swab of her throat for strep and swab of her nose for a virus. The strep test came back negative. The doctor looked in her ears first and found that she had an ear infection in her left ear. Then she put her hands on Libby's neck to feel her glands and her reaction was shock. I hadn't even thought to feel her neck and when I did I couldn't believe it. Her glands were so swollen it felt like baseballs. Then she looked in her throat and again couldn't believe just how swollen her tonsils were. The doctor ordered blood work because she was quite certain that Libby had mono. Apparently it is going around by us although I haven't heard of anyone else that we know with it. She looked just miserable. She also tried to answer the doctors questions with motions because it hurt too bad to talk. The doctor sent us off with 2 prescriptions, one for the ear infection and prednizone for her swollen glands.

We headed over to have her blood drawn. Poor thing was already becoming dehydrated from not wanting to swallow so it was really hard to find a vein. The nurse ended up finding one in her hand to use. Libby had been doing fine but the minute she realized that the nurse was going to put a needle in her hand she lost it. The look of fear in her eyes just killed me. The nurse stopped for a minute and I explained to Libby that it was really no big deal and it wouldn't even hurt as much as her flu shot. Libby calmed back down and after it was done agreed that it really didn't hurt.

On the way home we picked up her medicine. The pharmacist told me the prednizone had to be taken with food. That would be a challenge since Libby won't hardly swallow water. So we got home and I seen that it could be food or milk. We went for the milk. Then I gave her the liquid medicine for her ear. Then it was time to take the prednizone, 5 of them. They are really small pills and if you have ever had them you know how awful they taste. They must not be coated. So we both agreed it would probably be best to take all 5 at once since they are so small. BAD IDEA! She started gagging on them right away. Up came everything, milk, pink medicine, and the pills. Ugh! Then she ran to the bathroom and continued to heave. Poor kid!

I called the doctors office and they suggested I bring her back in and they would give her the first dose of prednizone via injection. I knew that was they best option but I was so not wanting to tell Libby. She took it fine. I think by then she had lost all energy to fight. We get to the doctors office and Libby pulls up her sleeve for the shot and the nurse says, "I'm sorry hunny but this one has to go in your hip". There was that look of fear again but no tears this time. She did say that that one stung bad.

Long story short she does have mono. She has been doing a lot of sleeping. Hasn't had much of an appetite. Her swelling has gone way down. Her fever left yesterday. She is regaining energy. She has gotten a week off school. And we have told her she has to stop kissing boys. Wink! Who would have thought a 10 year old would have mono? Not this mom.

Do you Skype?

I have fallen in love with Skype since Zack left for college. He will call me on his cell phone on the way back to his dorm and say "Mom I will be in my room in 10 minutes. Wanna Skype?"

Do you know what Skype is? It is a software application that lets people talk with video online. And here is the bonus... it is free!

You know how hard it can be to get 2 words out of a male teenager on the phone but with Skype I can see him and he is so much more engaging! I also think Zack's ADD keeps him from being able to focus while he is on the phone. "Oh look a bird." This way he has something to focus on while he talks.

I like to snap still shots while we are chatting. Here is Zack chuckling with his room mate during a funny conversation. Zack had already told me that Chris's girlfriend was coming up for the weekend and planning on staying in their dorm room so he was setting Chris up in this conversation knowing how I would answer. He asked me what I thought of that so Chris could hear. I said, "Chris will have to answer to God for that decision." So this picture I snapped as Zack was saying, "Dude did you hear my mom? She said you will be in trouble with God." They are so cute aren't they.

Zack also snaps pictures of us while we are talking. Here is one from the other night. I was sitting on the floor in our bedroom when he called. You will often find me on the floor when I am working on the computer. I think it is comfortable. You will probably never catch Mark sitting on the floor. I made him join me (under much protest) because I didn't feel like moving. Ignore the laundry waiting to be folded on the bed behind us. Apparently Zack gets his lack of focus from his father who was caught watching tv while we were talking.



In case you Skype my account is "zaankali6".

Update on my sister.

This is a picture of Jodi with our niece Emily taken at Zack's Open House this past June.

I want to honor my sister's privacy while still giving you an update because she really appreciates and feels all the prayers being said on her behalf. The bad news is her bone marrow biopsy came back with the cancer cell count at 70-80%. That is really high. The good news is she has no lesions on her bones and her heart is healthy. She will start chemo this week Friday. Please continue to keep her in your prayers.

Thank you!

Been busy?

Who hasn't right? But my blog is shriveling up. So I thought I better post something and since I don't have time to write creatively I thought I would just share some pictures instead. After all they do speak 1000 words right?

Youth hunt '09





Art Prize '09

The doll Anna is holding is a class project. It's a computerized doll that is designed to give the students an idea of caring for a real baby. Both Kaylyn and Anna have the class and they were both ready to be done with caring for the baby after only one weekend. Success!



Libby likes having her picture taken. Can you tell?

Check out the bronze "statue" in the next picture...

See a diference?

It is a real live man! Isn't that crazy?

Please pray

Tuesday night was a rough night and I am still living in a bit of a fog waiting for the dust to settle in hopes to get a better view of what is going on.

My oldest sister, Jodi, has been dealing with some unexplainable health issues this summer. She was told she was in renal (kidney) failure. She was referred to a Nephrologist (fancy name for kidney doctor) who ordered a biopsy of her kidney. They took 7 biopsies last Wednesday and sent them off to the Mayo clinic for testing and had an appointment scheduled for Oct. 1 to review the results.

Tuesday she received a call from the Nephrologist. It's never good news when they call you. He had gotten some of the results back and had to tell my sister that she has cancer of the blood. It is called Multiple Myeloma and is a cancer of the plasma cell. It is an incurable but treatable disease. You can read more about it at MMRF. The Nephrologist has already set up an appointment for my sister with the Cancer and Hematology Center for this Friday.

Please keep Jodi, her husband Randy, and their 3 children; Derek (20), Brandon (18), and Kendra (16) in your prayers. The boys had to learn about this via phone call as they are both off at college right now.

This is crazy!

After seeing this you will want to keep your kids even closer to you in public.




That poor man. Living with that much anger can not be easy.

Wordless Wednesday - MSU move in day!

Final goodbye picture....

"Quick honey, one last Zachary sandwich..."


"We love you Zachary!"

See other Wordless Wednesday participants at 5 Minutes for Mom.

Worth Framing!

Libby heard me telling Anna about this post I made on Twitter this morning:

I would really like to just get away for a long weekend somewhere warm and lay around in the sun with nowhere to be and no one needing me.

Then I showed both of them this header from Kat's blog and said I will just have to imagine myself sitting in that red chair soaking up the sun.


Later in the morning after I came down from taking a shower I found Libby painting and here is one of the things she painted just for me....


I will be framing it and hanging it in my bathroom. I just love the compassionate heart of my sweet Libby!