Update for the past week (Part 1)

Well, I'm even gonna back up a bit more...The weekend of Brent's birthday we went to the circus. It was okay....kinda fun for the kids...the 'clowns' weren't really clowns...just really well-dressed people. But they were funny. There were a couple things that I didn't like cuz I thought they weren't appropriate for children, and let's face it...it IS a children's show. But other than that, it was very entertaining. I personally did NOT like the up-in-the-air trapeze stuff or the things that made you think they were falling, but the kids loved that part! Here are some shots. They are a little blurry at times, but you can still see what they are. The boys took a couple shots of me and Terry too! :)

The following week (May 8th) was Terry's surgery. You have seen the first update from that....I will provide another. On Sunday of last week (the 11th..Mother's Day!) he woke me up in the middle of the night saying he was bleeding. So, I got up and checked him and he continued to bleed all day long. I called the dr and left them a message for them to call us on Monday so they could tell us what was okay and what wasn't. They finally called back on Monday afternoon and suggested that he come up and be seen on Wednesday. So on Wednesday afternoon, we drove back to St Louis where the surgeon found another fistula going in a different direction! She went ahead and opened it there in the office and let it drain. She said the draining would slowly stop over the next week, but that we had to watch it for infection.

So far so good. No infection so far, but we're still watching it closely. Terry goes back to work tomorrow (he's already cleared to go back) and he's on restricted duty (lifting) for a month. My concern is that he will wear himself out in the first few days, but I know he needs to go back to work...for his sake and mine! LOL

This past week, while Terry was healing and while we figured out what was going on with the bleeding, mom stayed and helped me out... Well, literally she did most everything for me, cuz my brain was SO not with it! But we took some time to do some crafty things with the boys and I got the idea to do something we used to do at Six Flags: make sand people! :) So I went to Dollar General and found some jars with necks on them and came up with these:

On Thursday, we had a field trip to the Electric company...they explained to the kids how electric works, ways to save on electricity, and ways to be safe with electricity. Then at the end they gave each of the kids a new tree-sapling. :) The boys are VERY excited about that part....and have been looking all over town for those 'green boxes' where the underground cables are. :)

On Friday, Mom and I took the boys to the park to let them ride their bikes....it was really fun to watch them be able to just GO. At our house all they have is the driveway and with Brent's new bike, he needs more space to ride. Anyway, here are a couple of pics and a video of them playing.

Part 2 coming soon....

Terry's latest

Well, Terry had his 4th surgery today for his 'butt' issue. :) They put a plug in and the goal for it is to adhere to the tissue around it and then dissolve...hence closing the fistula. That's the goal anyway. He's more uncomfortable than sore at this point, but he's also very heavily medicated! LOL He's been given instructions to not 'scoot or sit' for a good long while. Perhaps up to a month...which could be interesting to say the least. He can only lay and stand at this point. So we'll see how long it lasts and how well he handles it all.

The boys stayed home with mom while Terry and I went to St Louis. They helped clean house and were so excited when we got home. They met us in the driveway and hardly let Terry out of the van! Mom will most likely stay here through Sunday, when dad will come get her. But that is all dependent on how Terry seems to be doing.

That's all for now....time for bed! What a long day! :)

More Birthday

Well, life is fun when you can truly surprise your kids! :) We, of course, got Brent a new bike for his birthday. So we blindfolded him on the front porch while Terry brought it up from the basement. This is his reaction when he saw it:

Here are more shots of him just waiting for Daddy and Grandpa to finish the adjusting process.


Here are a couple videos of him riding this bike for the first time (and for those who've never seen our house, you get a pretty good shot of it in the background and can even see our little bitty garden at the side of the house at the end of the second video):



After we came in from the bike time, Mom had a couple gifts for the boys that she made: Blankets! :) Brent's is Star Wars themed:

Clayton's was Cars themed and he went a bit nuts when he saw it. LOL I tried to get a shot of his facial reaction, and this is what I got:

But then we got him calmed down a bit and I was able to take these:



But then Mom turned the blanket over and before I could get a shot, he flopped himself down on it! LOL

Obviously he liked it ALOT! :) Brent liked his too...they both also got pillows of the same material and of course they slept with them. Then this morning, when they got up, they both came out of their room carrying their new pillows and dragging their new blankets. It was really cool.

After we showed them their blankets, we ate supper (Brent's choice): lasagna! :) It was so yummy! I use real ricotta cheese (not cottage cheese) when I make lasagna...and halfway through the dinner, Terry gave me a really nice compliment. He said it tasted just like (or better) than Olive Garden's lasagna! Go me!

So all in all a good birthday so far for him, I think! :) We are planning on going to the circus on Saturday night as well. It's the first time either boy has ever been, and a first for me in 20 years! Can't wait!

Recent Art

Here are some recent art projects from our house! :) These first two are Brent's creation. He used the Color Wonder Finger Paints from Crayola and painted on one side then folded it and left it for several days. He opened it up a couple weeks ago and said, "Mom look! It's a volcano that's exploding!" I really liked it!


A couple weeks ago, we took a field trip with some other homeschoolers to Horizons screen-printing shop. We found a homeschooling logo that we liked and they came up with a screen for us. We told them we'd want to tie-dye the shirts afterwards and so they got these special shirts for us. Anyway, the kids got to actually screen-print their own shirts and watch them go through the dryer/oven thing. Well, we finally got around to tie-dying ours this week. They turned out SO cool! Here is the boys modeling theirs:


And of course, this is me! :) (Just for you Sunny!!!!)

Here are my niece and nephew's shirts that we did for them. I really like her shirt the best! :)

Birthday bash...

Well, we had B's 7th birthday party this past weekend. What fun! It was the first time that Baby Chase got to come home to Salem so we had a double party! Brent wanted a Spiderman cake, so this is what I came up with...he actually loved it! LOL


It was quite humorous...I forgot the candles at home that Brent wanted on his cake, but there just happened to be a "7" candle at Janice's. But we'd already sang "Happy Birthday" to him when we realized it all...SO, we lit the "7" and sang again! LOL

After pestering us to finish eating and doing the dishes, we finally let him open his presents. He got this really cool tether ball thing from Aunt Darlene. (Remember those??? I used to LOVE to play with the tether ball at recess!) But this one is a bit different than the ones I remember...this one uses a tennis ball and rackets. I can't wait to play with him! The second pic is the Moon Sand he got from H. I'm not so sure about Moon Sand...they played with it (and have been begging for it for weeks!) but it's more messy than the advertising leads you to believe. But isn't that always the case? Either way, they had fun playing with it this morning, so that makes it cool!



We are celebrating with Grandma and Grandpa tomorrow night and mom has a couple of really cool things for both boys! :) We are also giving him his birthday present from us too...a BIKE! (Shhh...it's a secret!)

Will post more pics when I get them done!

Time for the Weekend!

Brent is SOOOO excited about his birthday party this weekend. He's ready to see Chase and ready to have his Spiderman cake and all that goes with parties! (Read: PRESENTS! LOL)

I spent all of yesterday afternoon and evening (well, night actually) working on a baby blanket for Chase. I have just procrastinated (hard to believe about me, right? HA!) and waited till the last possible moment to make it. But, oh well. I truly enjoy making blankets for people, even though I'm not the greatest seamstress (I know NO fancy stitches) and can't sew a straight line to save my life! LOL But, nonetheless, I keep sewing! Chase's room is in the farm/barnyard theme, and I happened to have this material in the basement. (The closeup one is a more detailed look at the center panel.)

So I'm sewing along...haven't touched the computer all day in order to check email or anything...and we go to put the boys to bed and I holler in to Terry, "Don't turn the computer off!" at the same moment he's clicking "Turn Off Computer". Of course, he didn't know, so he says he'll turn it back on. No biggie. Well, I finish sewing the blanket, finish putting supper away (yes, the dishes are still sitting there!) and see he's still playing his computer game. Oh well...I'll get ready for bed. No biggie. I start to walk back down the hallway towards the schoolroom and Terry meets me halfway there and the hallway is dark. I said, "You didn't turn the computer off again did you?" He just hangs his head. He said, "I'm so sorry." I laughed and said, "Wasn't the whole purpose of you turning back on so I could use it??" LOL But by this time it was 11:30 and I was going to bed! I figured my computer time could wait till today!

Oh well...c'est la vie, right?

Mid-week Slump

Well, there isn't much to tell. We had a fun/busy weekend, but nothing out of the ordinary. On Friday night I went to work on my scrapbook stuff at the church building...I got several pages done on C's book, but am still only at month 2 of his life! LOL Oh well...a little progress is better than NO progress! :)

Then on Saturday, we had a very laid back day until it was time to go to Guess Who's Coming for Dinner at church. We ended up at the Watson's with some other people and not only did we have FUN but we had VERY good smoke ribs! Go Scott!

On Sunday, we had normal life through the morning and then in the afternoon, the boys and I went to a baby shower for some friends of ours. He is precious!!! Brent got to hold a newborn baby girl while there and was completely enamored with her! I made the comment that perhaps if they had a new baby around the house, they would quit asking for a dog! LOL Some of the other moms there looked at me like I was crazy... They said, "You can't give a baby away when they get tired of it...a dog you can!" I simply told them that in our house that isn't true...once we get a dog, we'll have it till it dies, cuz with our kids there is no giving away anything! LOL So we'll see what happens!

Monday, we got to go see how screen-printed T-shirts are made at Horizons. VERY COOL! I remember when I was a kid and my dad did screen-printing for some extra money, that they had a max operation of 4 colors and it was all manual. Well, now, they have a 12-color machine..and it's automated! I was in awe! Then the boys (and the other kids that were there) got to screen-print their own t-shirts with a cool homeschooling logo on them. Next, we're gonna tie-dye the shirts so we can all wear them when we're out at homeschooling functions! So excited!! :)

Yesterday, mom came down and helped me do more spring-cleaning/organizing. We worked on the boys' room primarily...rearranging it and giving them more 'play' room so that hopefully they will actually play in their room more! :) But while Brent and I were organizing the toys and weeding some of them out, mom and Clayton cleaned up the kitchen... Clayton actually swept and mopped my whole kitchen! WOW! Now that I know they can do it, guess who will be mopping from now on?? haha!

Anyway, today has been spent doing school and working on my Bible class for tonight. This weekend we are going to Salem to celebrate Brent's birthday (he'll be 7 next week!!!) with the rest of the family. Plus, baby Chase will be there for the first time, so I can't wait! :)

Tae Kwon Do Pictures (Finally! From January...)

Well, I'm finally getting all my pictures uploaded from the camera and figured I would go ahead and take the time to put them here as well. These are from the boys' Tae Kwon Do tournament in January (and apparently I didn't post about how they did!!!! Sorry....)

Brent got 2nd Place in Form and 3rd Place in Sparring. Clayton got 3rd place in Form and 4th Place in Sparring (hence, the medal not the trophy). They both had alot of fun, although Clayton and another boy had meltdowns during the sparring time. They were from the same school (thankfully) so there were no hard feelings...they were mostly just VERY tired and VERY hungry and had just about had their fill of the day. :)

These two pictures below are just really goofy pictures. Mom and Dad were trying to help us get some good shots of the boys with their trophies and they were just punchy....they started acting weird. (What's new about that huh? LOL) Anyway, the first one here, I intentionally didn't remove the red-eye, cuz with their tongues hanging out and weird looks on their faces, I thought the red eyes make it look cool! LOL The second one, was just Clayton being Clayton and trying to be goofy when the camera clicked. (His timing is so impeccable sometimes!)



We don't have another tourney until August, so hopefully by then my life will be more organized (yeah right!) and it won't take me 3 months to get pictures on here! :) Till then....

Thursday School Graduation

Clayton has finally graduated from Thursday School! (My baby!!!) :) The graduation was last Thursday night and he was SOOOOO excited! :) Of course, he did well....he's Clayton! :)


Miss Faye is the Bible Class teacher (the Blue Class) at Thursday School. She and Clayton had formed a very special bond this year and have both expressed how much they will miss each other next year. We love Miss Faye! :)