Happy Birthday Humor

So, I know this starts off looking like a typical Happy Birthday video... but watch toward the end, it get's funny after the song is done!

Bailey's Video

This is Bailey's first fifth grade homework assignment, just thought it was to cute NOT to post!  Enjoy!

Another Recipe

Mmmmmm!  So, I talked last time about how I made the Raspberry Rhubarb jam... it was good.  It is good, but not the tart flavor I was looking for.  Then I found this one.  Vanilla Rhubarb Jam.  AMAZING!  It smells amazing, it tastes amazing and was easy to make!  (Note, I did not cut up the rubarb as small as the author, that takes way to much time, therefore I have chunks of rhubarb in my jam, but that doesn't bother me).  And, yes, I know Rhubarb is not in season, but that's the great thing about Meijer, they carry out of season vegetables (or whatever you would classify Rhubarb as).  I also did my canning (sealing) in the over... it worked.  Amazed.  And, I didn't have to get my big pot out, again!

It's almost over....

Summer is almost over.  I'm happy and sad all at the same time!  I really dislike this humidity that we have been experiencing the last few days, thankfully we spent yesterday at the beach adn the water was wonderful, today we tried to go outside a few times, but came back in shortly to wipe the sweat off. 

We rode the bus to school with Elliot last week.  Tons of fun.  He is so excited to go to Young Fives.  I'm excited for him, but the closer it get's the smaller he seems to me, going out into the world on his own.  We will both be fine though.  We always are! 

Another thing I've been doing is canning.  Yup, taught myself to can last weekend.  I did plenty of research, especially after I saw that you could get botulism if you don't can salsa correctly.  That is some scary stuff, definitely don't want to spread that to anyone!  I can't find the recipe that i used, but that's ok, I don't plan to use it again, I wasn't a huge fan.  It's not bad, just a little to "tomatoey" and not spicy enough. 

Then this week I had to use up some jalapenos so I made some Hot Pepper Jelly, which is great poured over cream cheese with Wheat Thins to dip in it!  It's also good on a hamburger as I figured out tonight.  Yum!  Super easy too, that took me about an hour (gotta love the food processor)!

And tonight, I wanted to make raspberry jam and decided I wanted Rhubarb Raspberry Jam.  I struggled to find a recipe that I could can as opposed to freeze, although I'm not sure why... eventually I found and settled on this one.  I'm still smiling every time I hear a jar pop.  If you've ever canned you so know what I mean!  I did try a little right out of the pan, after burning the tastebuds off my tongue I decided it was a bit sweeter than I like, but the kids will like it.  Now I'm on the search for a tarter recipe.  And maybe I'll settle on freezing it this time too!  In fact, I may try this one!

(OK, this post was more about saving the recipes that I used for future use than updating anyone, sorry)

A list to sum it all up...

Yikes.  It's been a while.  Sorry.  Life is busy.  Summer is busy.  But fall is busy too. 

Anyway, I will try to sum the past few weeks up in a short list in no particular order.

1. We went camping.  It went great, the kids had a great time.  I have never been to tri-ponds before, but we really enjoyed it.  We were quite a walk from the pool and bathrooms so I did a lot of walking that weekend, which turned out to be a good thing.  I pushed myself and I was feeling better, or at least significantly recovering, upon our return!

2. Landon is now a teenager.  He got a phone for his birthday, something he has wanted for a long long time, but we've resisted.  It is definitely nice that he has one now though!

3. Our house has gone from light tan with brown trim to a dark gray with white trim thanks to my wonderfully talented husband and some other fabulous helpers!  Love it!

4. We went to Green Lake with my brother and sister-in-law for the day.  The kids always have a great time tubing, sea-doing (spelled wrong???), swimming, and boating!

5. I started babysitting again after taking 7 weeks off.  We all missed our buddy!

6. Bailey hit double digits!  Growing up into a beautiful girl!

7. We have spent some great days at the beach and now that I know it's not that bad, we will definately be squeezing in as many more of them as we can!

8. I still can't swim, which makes the beach and camping a bit harder.  Luckily I have great kids and friends that will swim with Lila!  Can't wait to have this scar all healed up and closed, although I think this summer is out of the question at this point.  There may be some water arobics in my future though????  :)

9. We have been spending LOTS of time in the backyard playing on the swingset, in the sprinkler and in the kiddie pool  When I say kiddie pool, I mean LITTLE.  Like maybe 3 feet across.  But, it's perfect!

10.  Lila discovered that she LOVES pop.  In her own can.  Caffiene free preferably!  :)

11.  The shingles are gone!

12. Football starts way to soon.  Meeting tomorrow night and then practice in two weeks.  Games are a little bit later this year, which makes getting to the games so much easier.  And, making it even easier is the fact that I think all but one is home!

13.  This picture has nothign to do with anything, but once you look at it you will know exactly why I had to add it!  So adorable!

14. I am not planning on doing a Race for the Cure team this year, thank you to those that joined last year, and to those that have inquired about doing it again.  But, while I'm not planning on doing one, my friend Lindy has started a team and I would encourage you to sign up on that if you were thinking about doing it!  Click here!

Family "Rules"

Just created this quick and wanted to share!  You are welcome to save a copy and print one for yourself, the original is a 5x7, just FYI!
Hoping to do a full blog post tomorrow or in the very near future!

Better Days

I'm hesitant to say that things are looking up.  The shingles seem to have gotten a little/lot better in the last 24 hours.  They aren't gone, but they are better.  They have been replaced with some muscle pain in the center of my abdomen, but I'm going to go out on a limb and say that that is normal. 

I've been inactive for so long though that even a little bit of activity (read: walking to a chair set up outside and sitting down) is quite exhausting.  But that will get better.  I would think.  In time. 

So anyway, just wanted to pass that info along.  I apprecaite all of your prayers, I am so blessed!

Stuck in Bed and Pinning

I've found the most relief from the shingles when I'm laying still in my bed.  Not getting up and down, just laying here.  Every once in a while (who am I kidding, daily) prior to getting sick and having surgery I wished for a day where I didn't have to do ANYTHING.  But, now that I've spent the last almost 4 weeks laying around doing nothing, I'm over it.  Compeltely over it.  I want to be up, playing with the kids, going to the beach, cooking dinner, even cleaning the bathroom.  Yup.  I said it. 

I've watched a lot of "First 48" today, a little Hoarders: Burried Alive and I've done lot's of pinning!  I'll share a few of my favorite things I've found today.  I've found lots! (click on each picture for a link if you wish)

Pom Pom Flowers

Crochet Rug from old T-Shirts

I LOVE color!!!!



LOVE this color combo.  Maybe for Bailey's room re-do (someday)!

And this Pesto Bread.  Although, I can't read the recipe, so I think I'm out of luck, but I like to improvise, I'm sure I could come up with something!

That's only a very very small portion of all the pinning I've done today!  Feel free to see more here!

Ugh, the pain

It's horrible.  The pain has not gotten any better.  I'm miserable.  While I don't want to complain, I'm reaching out to my blog readers to see if anyone has any great ideas for pain relief (besides rx drugs).  I've tried an ice pack.  That didn't work.  I've tried wearing baggy t-shirts.  That didn't work.  I tried wearing a fitted shirt.  That didn't work.  I don't know what to do anymore.  I'm frustrated, I'm in pain, I just want to stay in bed all day.  Post your ideas.  Please!

2 steps forward, 1 step back

I knew it was to good to be true.  I was feeling great last week.  I couldn't believe how good I was feeling.  But Thursday I started getting pretty sore again.  So sore in fact that on Friday I called and asked for more vicodin.  I couldn't figure out what was wrong.  My skin was soooo sensitive.  It hurt to touch anything on my abdomen.  And then in an ambien haze of absolute pain on Sunday night I saw it.  A spot that very closely resembled shingles.  Seriously.  I just had shingles six months ago.  My worst enemy (who doesn't really exist) doesn't deserve to have shingles EVER, and absolutely no one deserves to have them twice.  In six months.  So, needless to say, I'm in pain.  Lots and lots of pain.  I would rather have surgery again than shingles.  Basically the only thing that relieves the pain is to lay in bed very very still.  Yuck.  I'm sick of laying around. 

Luckily I started some meds today and last time I was on these meds it went away pretty quickly.  Praying it does the same this time!

While at the doctor today he also "cleaned" out the wound again, took out the "debris" which is as gross as it sounds.  This whole packing the wound thing is getting old and from what I hear I have a ways to go.  Blech. 

In just two short days I will have a teenager in my house.  Seriously.  Almost 13 years ago I was  barely 20 years old about ready to have my first child.  Scared to death of what that mant.  He has been such a blessing to us, Love that boy!

Wishing everyone a great and safe holiday weekend!

Summer Reading

The weather so far has been good for pretty much nothing.  It's almost the end of June and we have done nothing summery (never mind the other obvious reasons for that).  It's wet, cloudy and cold today.  Landon had a baseball game last night, I wore a sweatshirt and jeans and was still freezing cold.  He has another tonight.  It's a home game, our home park is always very windy, meaning it will be about 10 degrees colder there. 

So, what do you do to keep your kids reading for the summer?  We used to participate in the summer reading program at the library, but we rarely completed it, not because the kids didn't read, but because I wasn't good at getting back to fill stuff in.  So, we don't do that anymore.  Last year we tried reading a set amount of time per day.  That was great for about a week, then we got busy and out of the habit and that went out the window.  So this year we are trying something new. 

The kids can read as much or little as they want.  But, thier screen time is directly affected by thier reading time.  For every minute they read they earn 1.5 minutes of screen time.  They can save thier minutes for the whole summer, I'm ok with that.  Landon is better at this than Bailey.  He currently has about 600+ minutes banked up.  Bailey might have 30.  600 minutes is a lot of screen time, but I know that there is very little chance that Landon will sit inside for 10 hours playing wii or watching tv.  Bailey on the other hand... well, we don't have to worry about it really.  Two very different kids, same mom and dad. 

Happy {summer} reading!

Messy

**Warning**** You may not want to be eating while reading this**

Ugh.  I feel like my house is such a mess!  Such is life.  We do indeed LIVE here! 

I'm feeling pretty good.  For the most part.  I'm really wanting to be back to normal.  I know for a fact that I'm doing much more than I should be doing.  I'm doing more than I should be doing if I was 6 weeks out from surgery, much less 2.  I'm very very sore.  My muscles hurt.  The scars I don't necessarily feel.  Which is a good thing considering I have a gaping hole in my stomach where they opened one spot back up.  (Yup, it's as gross as it sounds).  I have to bandage that twice a day to get it to heal correctly.  Good thing I don't have to really look at it. 

OK, enough of that fun stuff. 

Have you discovered Pinterest?  If you need another time waster in your life I would definitely encourage you to check it out.  It sucks up a lot of my time (but let's face it, what more do I have to do right now), and I'm sure it could suck up a lot of your time too!  :)  Happy pinning!

Happy Fathers Day

Happy Fathers day to all of the wonderful fathers in my life.  My father, my father-in-law, my kids father.  All amazing men!  Thank you.  I'm especially thankful for my husband.  Wow.  He has been absolutely amazing these past few weeks.  He has worked full time (and then some), he has been an amazing dad, nurse, house cleaner, cook, driver, laundry washer, furniture mover... this man has doen it all!  And for that I am so greatful.  Never do I doubt that he loves us, never do I doubt his committment to his family.  So greatful for him!

Healing is going great!  I seriously thought that it would be much roughter than this.  But, like I said last time, that doesn't make it easy either. 
Most all activity is limited. 
I've spent a LOT of time on the couch, in bed or in my chair outside.  When I do to much walking, I know it.  Yesterday we went to a baseball game for Landon (in the scorching heat), the field was much further from the car than I was used to but I walked back and forth twice.  I can tell today. 
I'm still not taking pain pills until night time, but that may be because I want to convince my husband that I am capable of driving too!  :)  Where I am planning on going I don't know, but I know that I need to get out of this house!!!! 
I have a LOT of bruising.  There are bruises lining my scar and there is a LARGE one in the middle of my stomach.  It hurts. 

Many people have asked me if I'm happier with the results this time.  YES!  I am SOOOO much happier.  My chest looks 100x better, but honestly, I'm thrilled with my tight stomach.  It's no secret that I had a tummy.  My muscles just weren't what they were suppposed to be, my skin was stretched, it wasn't pretty.  But now, it's all better again!  LOVE it!  I recently had a birthday and received lot's of gift cards for shopping and I can't wait!  (first I need to be able to walk though...)

Landon is back from a great week at camp!  He's spent lot's of time with his family this weekend and I'm sure he can't wait to get back to hanging out with friends every day!

Bailey has been gone ALL weekend.  She got to spend Friday night and all day Saturday with her friend Sadie and then went to Michigan's Adventure today with the neighbor.  She will be TIRED!

Elliot get's to start both swimming lessons and VBS tomorrow.  He is not excited about either one.  Or maybe it's that he's tired and just needs some sleep!  I don't get to help with VBS this year for obvious reasons.  I will miss helping out.  I've been helping for... ever.  But, it will be nice to have time with Lila as well.  Maybe.

One week post TRAM Flap surgery

One week ago I was cut open on the operating table.  What a change in a week.  Seriously.  Going into the surgery I was really worried that I was going to be immobile for a while.  I had heard rough things about recovery from this surgery, but I was prepared for it.  I had heard of a lot of pain.  But I was prepared to be asking for lot's of pain meds.  No problem. 

It has not been all sunshine and lollipops.  There is and was definitely pain involved, but nothing like I expected.  For a variety of reasons I have gone from taking 2 dilauded pills every 4 hours to taking 1 vicodin every once in a while.  I'm not letting myself feel a lot of pain or being stubborn about taking them, because one thing I've learned is that pain pills serve a very good purpose.  On the other hand, I do not like taking them because they make me SO tired.  So out of it.  So anyway, pain pills aren't a bad thing, I just don't need them as often as I thought I would. 

I've still got four drains attractively draped from different angles of my body.  I still have to empty them a few times a day.  But, on the bright side, I am able to shower and wash my hair this time. 

I can not stand up straight yet, my skin is just still to tight.  Nor can I lay flat.  The couch has been my home!

I'm tired.  My body is working really hard to heal itself right now, it's not leaving me much energy to do anything else.  So, as much as I want to get out of this house, it's just not going to happen. 

I can't lift up my dear Lila, but on the flip side of that, we are able to snuggle on the couch and watch The duck song on YouTube or read Brown bear!

And, she's still as spunky as ever, finding a way to get exactly what she wants. 

And... I really am kind of excited about this Tummy Tuck I got!  It was an added bonus, and I'll take it!  Now, to keep a flat stomach!  :)

Thank you for all of your prayers and support, we've felt all the love! 

6 days post-op

Feeling pretty good. Honestly this isn't as bad as I expected so far. But who knows. Thank you for all of your prayers, help and notes of encouragement.   Its all been so appreciated.

Kristi is now celebrating in Jesus' arms.  Her positive spirit and warm smile will be dearly missed here, but she is so blessed to ne made perfect again.

Lindy has received some discouraging news this week.

Please keep them and their families in your prayers!
Thank you!