Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Happy Gotcha Day! (yesterday, actually)

One year ago yesterday (July 26), one scared little boy was placed in our arms. I am not going to reflect on it all too much here as it will probably make me start crying. :) In honor of the day, we had Chinese for dinner and watched the videos from China. Wow, Emerson has totally changed in a year. Amazing! Please go here... http://lilbubbamakesfour.blogspot.com/2010/07/gotcha-day.html if you want to read about our Gotcha Day.



Gotcha Day- July 26, 2010





Paperwork Day- July 27, 2010

Sunday, July 10, 2011

Many, Many Posts

Hi, All! Just wanted to let you know that I went blog crazy the past few days. I am finally getting close to being caught up with our summer thus far. I may still post a few pictures from the past...if time allows. Anyways, I just wanted to give you a heads up to keep reading and reading (if you so desire) until you finally bump into a post that you have read before. :)

Puppy Chow

Have you ever made puppy chow for humans? It is a delicious little treat. I have not made it in years because it has peanut butter in it and for many years now we have had children too young to have peanut butter. Now, that everyone is old enough, we made a batch. The kids had fun helping. In the following picture, the kids are jumping up and down which is why it is blurry. They have bags of melted chocolate and peanut butter covered cereal that they were coating with powdered sugar. (Remember, I never said it was a low calorie treat!)



Time with Sydney

Sydney and I had a wonderful time together going to see a movie, eat a treat, and do a little shopping. Perfect girls' day out, huh?! We were planning on seeing the Judy Moody Not Bummer Summer movie. However, we decided it must have been a "bummer" of a movie as it was showing at only local theater at ONE time only. It was not a time that we could go; so, we had to come up with a plan b. So, we went to see Monte Carlo instead. It seemed to be for older kids; but, we still enjoyed it and had fun talking about it. I still refer to it on occasion with her. One of my favorite parts during the whole movie was when she snuggled up to me. Oh, so sweet!!!! After the movie, we went to the Cheesecake Factory for...well...cheesecake. Imagine that. :) Ron does not like cheesecake and out of all the kids, I knew Sydney would be the one who might enjoy it. After we had our fill, we went shopping and she helped me pick out a new purse.


She chose a red velvet cheesecake. Look at that smile!!!!


I love how she is just so relaxed. She even mentioned on the way home how nice the evening was without the fighting, whining, etc. that we usually have going on at our house. She needed this time out with just Mom. (Mom enjoyed it too!)

Just for kicks and grins, I took a picture of my pineapple upside down cheesecake. It was just so pretty and delicious too.

Time with Max

Max has been begging and begging to take me to Dave and Buster's. So, we finally got the opportunity to go on June 28 and we had a blast together! It was so much fun to spend time with just him. We had dinner together there and then we were off to play games. The first thing he had me try was a flight simulator. (Probably not a good idea right after eating. Ha, ha!) We were both able to do it at the same time. I sat there and just giggled. It cracked me up. I had so much fun! Max got a kick out of doing shooting games with me. Let's just say...do not stand in front of me if I have a gun. I shoot anything and anyone who gets in front of me...giant spiders, aliens, and unfortunately, there was a little friendly fire. I felt bad even though it was just a game! LOL! We earned a lot of tickets. Max picked out a football for himself and a piece candy for each of his sibs. After we ran out of tokens, we decided to go get some ice cream. It was a great evening!


Max loves flying games...


driving games,

and cotton candy ice cream with sprinkles. I had cookie dough with chocolate chips. Yummy!

5k

On June 25, my sister, the littles and I walked a 5k. It was so much fun to just walk and talk knowing we were helping dogs all the while. We were not really in it to win. We just did not want to be the last to cross the finish line and we weren't! I am not sure if this time is good for a 5k; but, it is our time and we are happy with it. :)


We kept joking that the littles were really working hard. My sister was surprised how heavy they were. Trust me I noticed...especially when pushing them uphill. :)

Gotta keep your feet dry...



Happy Father's Day and the 4th of July

Happy Father's Day and Happy 4th of July! Ok, so I am late. :) We decided we wanted to get Ron a new tent for Father's Day since 5 of us barely fit in our old one last summer. I started doing research on the internet and the littles and I even went shopping for one. I just could not bring myself to buy one. You see, Ron is an Eagle Scout, the highest level in Boy Scouts! Hmm, he is a tad more qualified than I am to pick out a tent. The kiddos worked together to make him a paper tent with all of us in it to show him his gift. Then, he had the pleasure of picking out the one he wanted. My only request was that it should be one that could be set up without the usage of words that would require all the children to stay indoors. :)


Here is the tent that they kids made. Sydney even made a moon on the side.


It is really too dark to see it in this picture and of course, I did not think to get one before Ron took it down. It is a two room beauty. :)



Sydney loves to collect lightening bugs.


Go, Emerson, go!


Here is Veronica trying to get some bugs too. Gotta love her wild hair! Max and Sydney are in the background; but, they hard to see.


Emerson enjoyed his first 4th of July fireworks. Check out his shoes. Yep, they are on the wrong feet. :)


I LOVE this picture of Max watching our fireworks! Max got to go with Ron this year to pick them out at the store.


Here is a family tradition...homemade ice cream sold by a local church at the holiday flea market in town. Yummy!!!! I love that family of mine!!!!

Saturday, July 9, 2011

Health Updates on my Boys

Where to start?! Well, Ron went in for his hernia surgery on the Friday before we left for vacation. It was pretty much an all day event with lots of waiting, listening to an old lady named Violet yelling about the pain and wanting to leave to get to her daughter's doctor's appointment, and the juggling of picking kiddos up from school, etc. I was thrilled when the doctor came out to tell us that all went well, that Ron did not even need the mesh as the area was small and that we would be allowed to go back to see him soon. Ron was doing great. He is one tough guy. He did not even want the prescribed pain meds to be filled before we left. His incision was causing some discomfort; but, what hurt him the most was from them intubating him! He brought a flashlight to me to have me look at the back of his throat. Oh, my goodness! It was so red and torn up. I felt so bad for him. Ron, half jokingly, says that it looks like everyone in the room got a turn to try sticking the tube down his throat! Now, as if that is not bad enough, we soon discovered that the doc had fixed the wrong hernia!!!! We can visible see that the hernia is still there. At first, we were thinking/hoping that it was just swelling from the surgery. Nope, the darn thing is still there. When Ron went in for his follow-up the doctor asked when the new one had shown up! Ron explained that was the one he was supposed to have fixed. Now, please explain to me how the doctor discovered this obviously much, much smaller one that is not even close to the location of the original one. Did he not mark the location of it? Please tell me he was not just digging around until he found it! Anyways, please keep my dear hubby in your prayers as he will be going in once again to try to get the correct one fixed. The surgery is scheduled for July 20th. He is planning on circling the hernia and pointing arrows towards it this time!!!!

Max is scheduled two days later on July 22nd to have a hernia repair as well. We will be having an exciting week that week, huh?! Now, do not be jealous! :) Please keep our big boy in your prayers as well.

Emerson is almost finished with the "dreaded" medicine that the GI doctor had put him on prior to our vacation. I cannot remember if I had blogged about this or not. I was warned by a nurse and a pharmacist as to how nasty this medicine is. They were giving me all types of advice on how to give it to him. Well, with all that being said, we decided not to start it until after we got home from our trip. We figured the neighbors would not appreciate hearing him screaming while we gave him the nasty medicine. Plus, again, it was medicine for his GI system. Need I say more? Kudos to Emerson because he did an awesome job taking it and it really was not a big deal what-so-ever! Let's say a prayer that this does what it is suppose to do and his system gets back on track. We have some serious potty training to do before preschool this fall. Ron and I took him to see the Cranio-Facial doctors again on July 5th. They said that his ear tubes are looking good as well as his cleft palate repair. Great news!!!! I am not even going to go into the grueling details about the awful wait. We are so sick of how doctors are never on time! It is all so inconsiderate of the rest of us. Ugh!

VBS



The theme for vacation bible school this year was Pandamania. Max and Sydney were in different crews. Sydney requested to be in the same crew as her friend Kailee; so, that was a lot of fun for her. Max was a loner this year and did not request to be in with anyone. He is looking forward to being a helper next year. Wow, he is getting old!

I had the pleasure of helping out with Veronica's preschool group. In hindsight, this might have been a mistake though. I LOVED being with her and her friends; but, she got cranky and mopey with me around. I do not think she would have behaved that way if I were not there.



Emerson had the opportunity to stay in the childcare room. Normally, I am not a fan of leaving our children with people I do not know; but, I thought this was extra important for him to have the opportunity to see that Mommy leaves and then comes back. This was rough for sure. There was only one day that he went in, waved, and said "bye" to me without any tears. He did make a friend though. One of the older boys, Garrett, who was helping out in that room really took to Emerson. Garrett was even asking if Emerson would be in the preschool next year for VBS because he wants to be sure to be where he is. Very cute! Garrett was actually in Webelos with Max this past year.