Tiptoe through the Tulips

I can't seem to change my wallpaper here. I've done it before, but it eludes me now.
Anyhoo.

We have pretty tulips blooming and drooping outside in the rain today. We just need some sun so they can shine. Tulips are such a sort of elegant, happy flower and they just want to show off a bit, so please, please let the sun shine.

We stayed home today and Zach was getting pretty creative by the afternoon. He took pieces from a game, Block Head, and made them different instruments to sing his new song with. The song was about Elmo and it's simple, but he sure sang it loudly and proudly. :) I taped a round of it, but it's late and I don't feel like uploading it now. Maybe this weekend, unless the sun is shining.

Flocks

Today is just beeeeautiful. 84 degrees when I checked, and rather windy. I took the kids to a park and ate and chatted with a friend. Being outside today reminded me of growing up in Colorado Springs, and specifically being about 10 or 11 yrs. old. Free as a bird! Too young to care much about boys (except for Chad), or getting a job, and old enough to be roaming the neighborhood with your friends to your heart's desire. Oh, those were good times. We'd take off to the nearby park, or walk to Quik Way for candy, or McD's for a happy meal (if we scrounged enough money), or up to Rattlesnake Hill. OOOooooohhh, sounds scary, but it wasn't, just cool to us. We never saw rattlesnakes, thankfully. I consider those treks, adventures and the afternoons seemed endless.

Flash forward ("Lost" reference) to, today. I am still free as a bird, but only briefly. I fly with a small flock and often times I carry the little ones, but at least I don't have to do it by myself. We have "flocks" or bird friends that come and fly with us for awhile, especially when the wind gets turbulent.

I am thankful for friends. Some have come into my life, sometimes just for a season, but I'll never forget. Family runs deep, and is the bulk of my life, but friends also brighten my day, gladden my heart and lift me up when I might be needing it. Maybe it's because we can choose our friends, and family is just there (not to be taken for granted) when we're born. Isn't it even better when our family is also our friends.

I love my husband, our dearer than life children and our little life we're carving out here. Better than all of this is we can be together forever!

Bytheway: Avery's bump on her head is shrinking, yay. Zachery is fully potty trained (for a little while now, but I didn't want to say anything in case I jinxed it).

Franky

I'm a little sore and a little sunburned. Eric was home today! He's at work now, but we spent the day playing t-ball with Zach, cleaning out more leaves, trimming the bushes (which Eric got carried away with and one is quite sparse now) and ending it with a little bbq.

Then tonight, Eric came in to say goodnight to Zach before leaving and Zach gave him a hug and said, "oh, thank you for being here and playing baseball with me." so sweet. I could live off this day for weeks.


Zach driving his car today!

On another note, an ill one. Avery fell out of her crib two weeks ago, and she has a huge bump on her forehead. It makes me ill everytime I look too closely at it. poor thing. Thankfully she is acting normal and smiling. It's starting to turn dark, but what is really bothering me is, is that it's not shrinking. She looks like frankenstein, on one side. We've called and been to the doctors. Someone said that sometimes these calcify and the bump never goes away! The horrors, poor kid and daily reminders to me of my bad parenting.

I'm pretty squeemish, blood, needles, stories of painful accidents all make me lightheaded. I have passed out, total in my life, 9 times and almost 2 others just from hearing how someone else got hurt. Last week I accidently deflated Avery's g-tube and it came out, but what grossed me out was having to put it back in. I share this only to illustrate a point. I'm not good with icky, painful human stuff, and you'd think by now I was more jaded to all that, but no. I've got to buck up, change and not freak out, just as soon as Avery's head is better.


Lumpy


Avery looooooves taking a bath

Happy Easter

This Easter weekend was great. We had the sun shine, although it was a bit chilly sometimes. We have a few flowers blooming outside and that makes today feel like Easter.

We had church of course and family came over to visit and help cheer Zach on for his finding-of-the-easter-eggs. :)


A good friend, Bonnie brought us this cute Easter treat. I love the little bunnies in the jar and hate to mess it up, but combined it makes smores. yum






She needs to eat more chicken too!

Big Red

Do you have any products you buy that you love, where brand really does make a difference to you, or a product that makes your life easier and you don't do without it? I'd like to know. :) Here is my list (in no particular order):

1) Hidden Valley Ranch dressing - I didn't really like ranch dressing at all, until I tried Hidden Valley and I think it's not only really good, but this is where brand matters. It's great as a dip for baby carrots too.

2) Big Red gum - I never really bought gum, maybe to chew after eating out, but I rediscovered the Big Red and yum-o! I think the cinnamon/red hottiness flavor really cuts the edge off my hunger, and the flavor really lasts.

3) Magic Eraser - One tough cleaning sponge-like-thing that works great, love it.

4) New Skin - This is a liquid bandaid. It comes in a little bottle and applied with a brush, like fingernail polish. My hands were really dry and kept cracking, very painful sometimes. I tried the liquid bandaid and my cracks stopped getting bigger and were able to heal. It does burn a little if the skin is broken, but you can take it. :)

5) Oxy Clean (powder)- I didn't know you weren't supposed to get this on your hands (hence the dry, cracked hands), but I never did read the warning label. This is a little laundry magic, with a little elbow grease. I like this product, but I haven't tried everything, so I don't know if it's the best, it just works well.

6) Aquaphor - When my hands get really dry, I'll rub this into my hands at night and in the morning, they're good as new.

I feel like I'm trying to sell you something, but I'm not. There are just some things that I think work great, or taste great and so there you have it.

I am curious to know some of yours.

Enough Space to Sleep

Yesterday we spent some time cleaning up our yard and I loved it (well, except for the wicked rosebush thorns)! The yard still has work to do, but it looks much better after cleaning away the dead leaves to find little sprouts of something coming up. This is our first spring/summer here so we don't know what was growing here before, but we do remember that when we were looking at this house, there were plants growing all over. Yay for us!

We trimmed the rose bush's and we just hope we didn't take off too much or do damage. I love roses and couldn't be happier that we have some bushes growing, hopefully, here. How do you care for roses? If it's blood they want, I've already given some.

We watched conference at home and I love the relaxed style of listening to the prophet and hearing the beautiful music, all in sweats.

Eric bought Zachery a planet egg coloring kit. Zach has been anxious to color eggs and has asked everyday if we could, but I kept saying that we had to wait for dad to be here to do it. During our break, he got to color them and tonight, put glow in the dark stickers and paint on them! Don't you just love glow-in-the-dark stuff!

We watched "Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium" this week and at one point, a doctor asked Mr. M. what the boy had been doing up on a chair. Mr. M. replied that the boy was just making sure Mr. M had enough space to sleep. Then, when the lights went out, Mr. M's room had glow-in-the-dark stars all over his room! :)

Fuzzy Memories

March of the Penguins is on and I'm fascinated, I can't stop watching.

I came across a book from college. Not a textbook, but I did read it. It's "Fuzzy Memories" by Jack Handey. Here is one fuzzy memory, "Sometimes it's hard to tell if something is actually a memory, or you just dreamed it. So I asked my boss if I called him a lying, stinking thief, or I just dreamed it, and he said I just dreamed it. Whew, that was close."

Awhile back I mentioned that I would write a little everyday, well that isn't happening. Truth be told, somedays it just isn't exciting or even a little interesting, or sadly, I just don't notice (or too tired). Then I read my sister in law's blog, Somer, who always writes these thoughtful posts that show glimpses into her beautiful heart. Or, Jocelyn's blog, "We Talk of Christ" and everyday life. Then there's me :).

One of our cars is temporarily out of commission, still. It's not a big deal (and I'm thankful we even have a second car), but there are times we, meaning Zach, needs to get out. On the bright side, I'm getting more done at home than normal.

Avery and Zach are sick. They seem to have what I had 3 weeks ago. I remember when I got sick I prayed that the kids wouldn't get it, and they didn't. Now they're sick and I'm not, and I'm happy that's how it is (if it has to be). Sunday night Avery was really congested and her nose didn't seem to stop running. I checked on her and she looked blue, so then I checked her blood oxygen level/pulse ox, and it was 65! Her cardiologist didn't want me to get a pulse ox machine so I wouldn't get worried , but I am glad we have it. Anyway, I was nervous and checked again later and her number went up. I told Eric that if it was still low in the morning I was taking her into be checked and I'd need the car. Thankfully, I didn't need to take her in and she was smiley and chatty in the morning, and pink. I do want some oxygen though, just for times like the previous night.

We are very grateful that Avery is doing well, overall. I can forget about any troubles she used to have. If I HAD to pick something to have go wrong for my child, I would be fine choosing this. After her repair surgeries, she should be fine. Voila, it's done. There are a lot of more difficult situations out there and so I'm glad for Avery, and Zachery and all the gray hairs they give me. :)