Things kids say....

While at the dr's office a couple weeks ago for my swimmers ear, Clayton was playing with the chairs there in the little exam room. He had a couple cars he was rolling back and forth on it...it was one of those ones that a little squishy and has air under the vinyl cover. Anyway, he found a pin-sized hole in the vinyl and was playing with pushing the seat down and the air blowing up on his face. He said, "Mom, come here and sit here..." I said, "No, I need to stay up here on the table." He said, "But, mom it will be much more airy if you sit on it!" :)

Then a few days later, Brent informed me that there are 3 meanings to the word "hot". I said, "well, I know of two...you tell me what you think they are." He said, "There's 'hot' as in temperature hot, there's 'hot' as in spicy hot, and then there's 'hot' as in, 'Wow, she's hot!'" LOL I just had to laugh...what else can you do when your 7-year-old says that to you!?

What a wild week!

There's been alot happen over the last week or so. The most interesting of which is that Terry had an interview last week. !!!! It was something that took place over the course of 3-4 weeks and it was finally agreed upon by all involved to have him come for the interview. We decided that I should go too in order to check the place (town) out so that if we/I didn't like it, we wouldn't waste anyone's time or money with a second interview. However, we found out that in a town the size of 20,000-30,000, there is only one congregation and only has a membership of 90. That just sends up red flags to me on their evangelism.

Terry enjoyed the idea of the job and thinks he would do a good job with it, but considering the church situation, it's pretty much a done deal that it wouldn't work. There would have to be a lot of things just fall into place for it to happen. Plus we would be further from family...no so good for the grandma's!

Now, the hotel they put us up in was something else! LOL It was the Brothwell Hotel (Terry kept calling it the Brothel hotel....LOL) and the room we got was TINY! We went and bought a disposable camera so that we could take pics of it...I'll post them when I get them developed. But Terry was able to open the bathroom door and touch fingers to the door and the wall across from it and span the room. The closet was bigger than the bathroom...and the bed was tiny too!

Then to make matters worse, he ended up with food poisoning on the way home! He was just sick before we left the town and we ended up stopping 6 times (in a typically 4 hour drive) for him. I bought him some Pepto and it helped some and by the next morning he was fine. But oy....what trip.

On Saturday, we took the boys to see Wall-E. What a CUTE movie! We all (mom, dad, Terry, me and the boys) were laughing through the entire thing at the slapstick humor and the silly stuff that happened. And it was CLEAN! A true family movie! Take your kids...you'll be happy you did! We plan on getting it when it comes out on DVD.

Last night, Terry's mom and sister came down to watch one of the boys' T-ball games. Then we came back here and had supper and got the kids showers. Terry and D (sister) ended up staying up till 1 (or later) talking. Oy...I went to bed. I just can't stay up like that anymore!

Oh, and we posted one of Clayton's paintings on Ebay last Friday. If you're interested, feel free to check it out. We're so happy with how it's going!

Recent Recipes

Well, I don't have much to say at this point, but I have been coming up with some good suppers (at least I think so anyway!) and thought I'd share them!

Bread-crumb Baked Fish

I had some bread crumbs in the freezer (I like to make up a whole bunch of bread crumbs and freeze them so I can have them whenever I need them!) and wanted to coat the fish somehow, but I didn't want to fry the food (baking is SO much better for us!). So what I did was rub some EVOO on the fish and then put the bread crumbs on top of the fish fillets and sort of pressed them into the fish. Then I baked them for about 20-25 minutes on 375 until the crumbs were golden and crispy.

Let me tell you...YUM-O! I liked it, but the boys didn't like it so much. Mom was here and she liked it too. Terry of course, prefers it pan-fried. LOL

(Oh, and just in case you don't know how to make your own bread crumbs, here's how I do it (it's simple!). Just toast up several pieces of your favorite bread (wheat is best, I think). Allow them to cool completely, and don't butter them! Then break them up into manageable pieces and put them into a food processor. Then just process them away to your desired size of crumb! Put in a large storage bag and freeze. When you need a cup of them, just pull out what you need and reseal the bag, then stick back in the freezer! Easy!)


Last night I made:

Taco Soup (YUM)

2 lg cans chili beans

1 can corn

1 can hominy

1 can butter beans

1 1/2 lbs ground beef/ground turkey mix

1 lg can of diced tomatoes

Throw it all in a pan and simmer. Top with salsa, sour cream, shredded cheese, tortillas chips, lettuce, etc. Very good leftover as well!

Tonight I'm making:

Shepherd's Pie (sort of!)

I didn't have any frozen corn, but had one can of corn that didn't go in the Taco Soup. But I had some frozen green beans (the long ones) and just precooked them a bit in the microwave. While I was boiling the potatoes for the top, I mixed Ground beef/Ground turkey mixture, 2/3 of a large can of cream of chicken soup, green beans, and the one can of corn in a bowl. Then I transferred it to a casserole dish.

Then I mashed the potatoes with the remaining 1/3 of the soup, 1/2 stick of butter, and 1/2 block of cream cheese and poured (plopped!) them on the casserole. Then baked it till the potatoes get brown and crispy on top.

YUM!

Over the weekend, I made a wonderfully weird fruit salad. I don't know the name of it, but I call it Grape Salad:

2 bags of Green Grapes (or 1 green, 1 purple)

1 block of cream cheese

1 16 oz container sour cream

tons of chopped pecans

powdered sugar to taste

Blend cream cheese, sour cream and sugar till smooth. Add pecans and grapes and stir till well-coated. Refrigerate to allow it to firm up. It looks weird, but its SO good! It's like a dessert but you don't feel guilty after eating it cuz it has fruit and nuts in it! LOL

Enjoy!

Reports are on the way!

I called and they apologized for the delay...Dr. Worth was working on some extra stuff for the boys to do at home to help them. (Isn't he great?!?!?!) So they went into the mail today and we should be getting them soon...I can't wait!

Recent activity

This past weekend, we were in Salem, after going to St Louis for Terry's appointment. He's been released!!! I am so thrilled! LOL She is still concerned about one small area, but said that as long as it doesn't get any pain or heat in it, he's okay. Yippeeee!

On our way back to J's on Sunday afternoon, there was a snake in her driveway, and she HATES snakes, with a passion. Since she was sitting in the front seat with me, I figured she saw it and I just ran over it to kill it for her...well, Terry tells me later that she probably didn't see it and would've been fine if I'd have just not said anything. Oy. Anyway, we go over to look at it when we get out (me and the boys that is!) and I call Terry over there. This apparently was a mama snake and she had eggs inside her still! Well, not anymore...now they were laying on the driveway cuz I squished them out of her! I felt (still feel) so bad about it! You can see the eggs in the pictures below. In the left one, there is one egg off by itself that you can see. The others are still attached to her. And poor thing, at this point, she was still alive. We did put her out of her misery though....

Over the last few weeks, as you know, we've been raising tadpoles into frogs. Well, here are a couple pics of our attempt at this. Naturally, the frogs all died within a day of becoming frogs (which created a major issue with the boys regarding pets!), but at least we got to see the process happen! ;)

Brent has lost his 2 top-center teeth over the last couple of weeks. Hehe. He's so cute with them gone and even talks a little funny without them. Here's a picture of him without the teeth...notice Clayton in the background peeking into the picture? LOL

Dr. Matthew Worth

Well, I'm finally finding (taking) the time to write this. I figure if I don't just take the time, I won't ever find the time, so time to write! {Warning: It's a long read!}

At the Homeschool Expo in St Louis, Terry went to hear Dr. Worth while i was in another session. He came and pulled me out of my session and said, "You have to hear this guy...he's so on top of things." So we sat in on the next 2 sessions where this guy talked basically non-stop for the next 3 hours. Wow! We knew at that moment, we wanted the boys to see him and get evaluated. He was describing Clayton (especially) to a T.

So our appointments were for June 5. The first thing he did was sit down in a room with us (me and Terry) by ourselves to discuss the boys' history, medically and developmentally. We also discussed any concerns that we had and any things that threw up red flags for him during the talk. Then he started with Clayton. He had C come in to an exam room and he started by having C stand with his eyes closed and raising both arms at the same time to the point of being level. Then he would touch one of C's fingers and say, "Touch your nose with that finger while keeping your eyes closed." So C would do that. This happened several times with different fingers. Then he put his arms back down and had to repeat the process with his hands palm down (the first time was palm up). One thing he asked us during this part was if Clayton had ever broken his right elbow. We said no, and he pointed out how hyper-extended C's arms/elbows were, and said that is a sign of a neurological mis-connection or misfire. (who knew???)

Next he put C back up on the table and showed him a long piece of cloth with red and white stripes. He told C to look straight at him but as he passed the cloth in front of him, to count only the red stripes. It was wild to see what C's eyes did as he counted! They drifted off in the direction the cloth was going...which apparently isn't supposed to happen! So Dr Worth said, "Well, because of that, you get to wear some special goggles!"

He puts these wild goggles on C's head and turns on the TV in the room...we can see C's eyes on the TV screen! First he noticed that one of C's pupils is slightly larger than the other. Next he has him hold something in his hand and look directly at that while he spins C very slowly on a rotating chair (just a regular office chair). C's eyes were bouncing all over the place with the distraction of his surroundings, but would always bounce back to the object he was holding. Then Dr reversed the direction of the spin and C's eyes didn't do it as bad, but they still did it. This apparently isn't supposed to happen either. A persons eyes aer supposed to stay still while focusing on that object, even while spinning.

Next, while still having the goggles on, he pushes C up to the laptop there on the table. He shows C this red ball that is going to go from the left of the screen to the right. He tells him to look at the middle of the screen and count how many times the ball goes across the middle of the screen. Well, as he's counting, C's eyes are everywhere, almost jittery and jumpy. They do this same thing in revers (ball going from right to left) and his eyes are the same way. Then Dr spins him to the right (slowly) several times and has him repeat the ball thing again...and his eyes are a bit better and not so jumpy. WOW!

Next, still with goggles, he has lines (black and white) going from the top of the screen to the bottom. C is supposed to count the black lines as they cross a certain part of the screen. Well, the idea is for the eye to move slightly up and down, but smoothly and not jumpy-like. C's eye's didn't move at all. He said it's almost like there's no connection going from the eyes to the brain. Then they did it with the lines going bottom to top and that same thing happened...nothing.

Oh, and one thing he did (without the goggles) was to have C stand with his right hand flat (palm up) in front of him and place his left hand on it, palm down. Then he was to turn the left hand back and forth tapping the right palm and just keep doing it. Then they reversed it (right hand on the left), and went back and forth again. Apparently, the hand you write with is supposed to be more consistent and steady in this process, and C's weren't.

After the goggles, he had C go play a game with a nurse (was a video game type of thing that measured reflexes and responses). We found out later that when he did this, C's responses were way off. He was either ahead of or behind the timing, depending on if it was left or right side, when they are supposed to be equal.

For Brent, he did the same things...same type of tests, but Brent's weren't near as extreme as C's. When Brent did the lines moving up and down on the screen (with the goggles), his eyes moved just like they were supposed to and we were able to see the difference in the two boys. And to see just how extreme C's situation was.

After he examined and tested the boys, they went back to the waiting area with mom while we went back into the consultation room. Dr Worth then spent the next hour (give or take) with us describing what he saw and his thoughts on treatment. Brent, he said, is dyslexic. But he gave us some ways to help with that part of the brain...things we can do at home. With Clayton, he suggested Interactive Metronome therapy to help with it. There are certain areas of the brain (and I'm not really sure of all the names of it all) that aren't functioning properly due to an inability to process what they are receiving from another part of the brain. If I'm not mistaken, it mostly deals with the Temporal Lobe, Frontal Lobe, and the Cerebellum. (Now, I could be wrong on some of that, but I hope not! LOL)

He said that with Clayton, he thinks that C would be the type of kid that would fall through the cracks in the PS system, cuz he doesn't test severe enough to warrant an IEP or special therapy or special instruction, but he also isn't on the 'normal' side enough to be able to function properly in the PS setting. He told us that it's probably a good thing we homeschool so that we can see and catch these things with Clayton so that we can get him the therapy he needs so that learning is a joy for him, not a burden.

{ Did I mention that I LOVE Dr. Worth???? :) }

It was so very nice to have the validation from a professional! I/We have known in our guts that something wasn't right with C for a while now, but everyone we mention it to says, "Oh he's just a boy" or "Oh, he'll grow out of it, you're just over-reacting". Grr...I got so tired of those comments! I knew in my gut that something wasn't right with my little boy and I finally have someone willing to help me work it out! And it's good for C, cuz now he knows that he is okay and that alot of it isn't his fault...but it is fixable so he won't have to get so frustrated and have meltdowns for no reason, like he's been doing.

Now we just waiting for the official 'report' from Dr Worth's office...which he said, "When you get this, it's gonna be filled with medical jargon....CALL ME, and I'll go over it with you." (He's so helpful!!) Once we get that and get going on the process of therapy and other solutions, we'll see how things turn out. :)

Catching up

Well, I haven't posted in a few days (as some have pointed out! LOL) and I thought I'd give a quick run down of what's been happening, then come back later for a more detailed report on one of those days.

Last Tuesday was the boys' first T-ball game..and they WON! :) (Of course, at this level, they don't really keep track of the score, but Brent happened to overhear someone mention and score and he has been sure to point that out to everyone he tells!) But they had so much fun and one of the kids that was on the other team is a kid who has been in nearly every activity with Brent since they were 2! They were in a gymnastics class together early on, then went to preschool together (at Little Pirates when Brent was there) and then were on the same T-ball team together last year. !!! Brent was so excited to see him that every time they were near each other, they started chatting. It was really cute to see Brent play 1st base and then when J batted and got to 1st, you could see them chatting the whole time they waited for the next batter!

Clayton is really enjoying t-ball! He got to play the pitcher position last week for a good part of the game. I tell you, if they would allow heckling at this level, Clayton would be the one to do it! He was bent over, hands on his knees, staring the batter down! Then as soon as the batter would hit, C was the one that was telling everyone else what to do: "There ya go..go get that ball! Now throw it to 1st! Yay....good job!!" Crack me up!

Thursday we took the boys to a neurologist in St Louis (that we had met at our homeschool convention) to have them evaluated. I will tell more details about that later when I have more time, but let me just say now: AWESOME! We were so impressed and have such confidence in this doctor!

Friday night we went to see the local rodeo...a first for the boys. WOW. Half-dressed women and girls, a dirty clown, and lots of 'dead' time in between the stuff. Oh, don't get me wrong...it was fun. But there were times when it got really boring for the kids and it sorta ruined it for them. C really liked it, but Brent got really bored at the end. There was bronc riding, bull riding, calf roping, and barrel racing. Clayton and I did NOT like the calf roping part...it's just SO cruel. Dad and mom were with us and Dad said, "What's wrong with it? It doesn't hurt them." I just said, "Okay, we'll take you out there, let you get chased by some gigantic animal like an elephant, have someone throw a rope around your neck that causes you to stop suddenly, fly up in the air and land on your side...then have someone come and grab your hands and feet and tie them together while everyone is yelling and cheering. No, it doesn't hurt a bit." :)) (Can ya tell I have a problem here??) When I was a kid and we went to the rodeo (I was maybe 6) I boohooed when the calf was roped and cheered when the calf got away! I was sorta the enjoyment of the other rodeo-goers, but so what. It's cruel, plain and simple.

Saturday night, the boys went to stay with mom and dad since we were going to church with them the next morning. So after they left, we mowed and weed-eated the lawn, went and got a movie and Chinese (I've been CRAVING chicken lo-mein!) and just had a relaxing night at home. Then on Sunday we went to worship with mom and dad and enjoyed a potluck with their congregation. Afterwards, we went to do some shopping for poor Terry, who has been running around with holes in his pants for some time now! Well, after only finding 1 pair at Value City, we went to pick the kids up at mom's...they were watching Lord of the Rings and we decided to watch it with them. Then at 5, the disc ended and I realized (for the first time) that this 1st movie had 2 discs!!! So of course we had to stay and watch the second one! LOL Afterward, mom made supper for us all while Terry and I went to WM to look for more jeans for him....and a good thing we did! They were cheaper than Value City!! :) So now Terry has a new wardrobe and won't go around falling apart....if only we can get the rest of him healed, we'll be in good shape!

This week we only have one t-ball game and then Terry's followup appointment in St Louis on Friday morning. After the appointment, we're headed to Salem for the Smith reunion this weekend. It will be our first trip in since the end of April, so we're all really looking forward to it. The boys especially since they can swim in the pool!

Oh! Which reminds me....Last Friday, I went to the dr cuz I have been having severe ear pain in my ears, mostly my left, and it just wouldn't go away. I thought maybe it was allergies and stuffiness, but the Claritin and Zyrtec I've been taking wasn't doing anything. Plus, I've been getting spots of blood on my Q-tips occasionally. So, I go in and the dr looks in there and tells me I have swimmer's ear!! He says, "Have you been swimming alot?" "No...haven't been in the pool since last year!" I say. LOL Oh well...now I'm doing ear drops for a week...I go back tomorrow to check up on it all. But the bad thing is now I can't swim with the boys this weekend, and Terry can't swim still cuz of his stuff...so someone else will have to be in the pool with the boys all weekend. Aww...I know, really hard for them, huh? LOL

Okay, off to make lunch for Terry. I will post more details about the Dr. Worth visit from last week in a bit....

What kids miss out on by being Homeschooled...

A few days ago, someone on a Yahoo group I'm on was asking for help in the decision of whether or not to homeschool. One of the members posted the below (and graciously gave me permission to share it):

Recently a speaker at our homeschooling support group said to tell reluctant relatives to volunteer at a school for a day and see what school really is like nowadays. Most likely, they remember their own school experience, which was 50 or more years ago! Those schools do not exist anymore. Even the school that you remember as a child is not like that anymore. Go and see for yourself and take your mom...walk the halls of your local high school and see.

Yes, homeschooled kids do miss out, this is true. They miss out on the daily fear of violence, bullying, name calling or sexual abuse. They miss out on exposure to a constant string of expletives, sexual talk and innuendo. They miss out on regular exposure to drugs, sex, homosexual agenda, mundane lessons that teach to the lowest (slowest) common denominator, bad teachers, and constant peer pressure to conform to the world. They also miss out on being taught a worldview that hates God and teaches that truth is relevant because there is not black and white. I have met a large quantity of homeschooled children in the last 18 years and I find the vast majority of them to be superior in social skills to their public school counter parts. There are always shy kids and out-going kids, regardless of schooling choices...those are personality traits.

I found this to be so true and really summed up much of what I believe. I'm so glad my kids are missing out!

Tiring weekend...

On Friday night, it was so unbearably hot in this house that Terry suggested we go out for supper! :) I was working on the checkbook when he got home anyway and he could tell it had been a hot and tiring afternoon. So we let the kids play outside for a little over an hour and then went to eat. While we were eating, one of the waitresses...wait, they're servers, aren't they?....commented, "You've got a couple of very well behaved little boys there." Of course we said thank you and the boys just looked at me in awe! LOL But they had been very well behaved that evening...I think it helped to get their sillies out before leaving to eat.

After that, we went to WM and did some shopping, and of course forgot about 4 things! Argh...that's what I get for not making a list! But we didn't get home till about 9:15 and by the time the kids watched a show and got to bed, it was really late.

Oh! I forgot to post this the other day, but on Wednesday night in the middle of the night we were awakened by our smoke detector (the one in the boys' room) going off! Talk about a rude awakening! We were both out of bed and checking all the rooms...and there was nothing. So Terry figured it was the battery in the detector and changed it, knowing we'd have to change all of them. (And oddly, this must be a God thing...I was just thinking right before I fell asleep that it had been awhile since we had changed the batteries and I needed to remind Terry to do that this weekend!) Well, then on Friday morning, the kids and I were outside and I heard another detector going off...this time the one in the schoolroom! So, needless to say, when we got home Friday night, Terry went through and changed the batteries in the rest of the detectors. Scary for a bit though! My heart was literally pounding OUT of my chest that night!

On Saturday morning, I woke up with my eyes burning and told Terry we HAD to turn the air on...my allergies wouldn't let me take much more of it. So he and the boys we outside while I made breakfast and washed off the air conditioner. But we didn't turn it on at that point....Terry wanted to take the time to put weather stripping on the windows before turning the air on. :( So...we did. But after doing only 1 window and realizing how hard it would be to get them all done before we had to leave, he decided to stop after one. LOL But by the time we got the air on, it was 82 in the house and only dropped to 78 by the time we got home that night at 10. !!! It was hot and the AC had to work! But it got the moisture out of the air and that helped tremendously!

That evening, we had a area-wide church picnic in Cape that we went to. It was alot of fun and the food was GOOD! The kids had fun playing and didn't even get into that many fights! LOL Afterwards, we got invited back to some friends' house to visit for a bit. The kids played and didn't want to stop even at 930!

We got the boys to bed that night and everyone went to sleep. Then at 3 AM, there came a HUGE lightning and thunder storm! Instantly, we had Clayton in bed with us, and then while Brent was coming in, he realized he had a bloody nose (which lasted nearly 30 minutes...he's SO my son!). So by the time I got them back settled in bed, promising the storm was over and they could go back to their room, it was pushing 4. Well, wouldn't you know it...about the time I get back to sleep, I hear thunder. Another storm was moving in and here comes Clayton back in our bed! So I just left him at that point. I needed sleep! But then we OVERslept and missed Bible class and barely made it in time for worship!

After church, we went to Cape to do some shopping and eat lunch and then we came home and crashed. Took the kids to the part around 630 to ride their bikes (since we had missed church!) and then came home and spent some time as a family.

All in all was a very nice and busy weekend. But we had fun. We worked together and tried to get some rest for the crazy week we have coming up! :)

End of School Year

Last Friday night, our homeschool coop did an end of school-year dinner together. We all brought some of 'show-off' pieces from the year and the kids got to get up and sing all of their songs from States Classes that they've been doing all year. Miss E has been a WONDERFUL teacher to teach all of our children all 50 states through this year! Wow....she is GREAT! About half way through the year, the kids started taking a state each and gathering the information and giving a presentation on each week. Brent did 3, and would have done more if he could have! LOL Here is a video of their States Song:

Recent Promotion...

The boys (as you may remember) were promoted recently to yellow belt at Tae Kwon Do. Well, the picture of it was in the paper a couple weeks ago and I got a color copy of it from the newspaper office! (They were REALLY nice about it!)

Our Tadpoles have legs!

Recently, a friend of ours was able to find a whole slew of tadpoles that we all divvied out and brought home to raise. We've had them in a container (probably equivalent to a 10 gallon aquarium) about half filled with water...there are 7 tadpoles. Slowly over the last few weeks, we've watched them grow in size. We feed them the boiled, frozen lettuce that we were told they liked. Well, yesterday we looked closely at them and noticed that they have legs! Their legs have officially sprouted and the more exciting parts begin happening now. (below is an example of what they look like.)

Well, then last night I was making more lettuce for them (boiling it) and I got distracted with Clayton. Next thing you know, I started catching whiffs of this burning smell. But I had the windows open, so didn't think much of it at the time. Then Terry comes back and says, "Did you mean for this thing you have on the stove to burn?" Well, DUH! Of course not! So I ran to the kitchen and saw that it had burned dry...only lettuce crisps were in the bottom of the pan and they were VERY black! Oy. So I set it aside and was worried about ruining my pan. BUT, thank goodness, this morning I was able to soak it and scrub it and it seems to be fine. :) Whew!

Hopefully soon I'll be able to post some pictures of what our frogs look like as they get bigger! :)

Update for the past week (Part 2)

...Continuation of update....

Also, while at the park, we happened to sit under a flowering tulip tree. I had planted a tulip tree when I was in 4th grade on Grandma and Grandpa's place, but I've never been around it when it bloomed. But this on we were under on Friday was really pretty. I got some pics of it too! (I know you're SO suprised by that!)







After we got home from the park, we made supper and ate...Terry actually got to eat at the table with all of us! :) I had made Mahi Mahi, so we had lemons with it and the boys decided to eat the lemons (which I still can't figure how they do that!) and they got a bit goofy with them. I just had to capture them on camera!









On Saturday, we got some things done outside (planting the trees in the garden, mulching the hostas, etc) and I got a bit camera happy! I took a couple of movies of the boys (below) and several pics of the 'scenery'. I just couldn't help myself! LOL


We just had to laugh at this next video!

This is a couple shots of one of my hostas in front of the porch! It's HUGE!

I took these next shots from my front porch about 6:30 that evening...the clouds were rolling in and it looked like it was gonna come-up-a-storm! It was really pretty....the camera doesn't do God justice!

Terry has gone back to work today and I'm thankful that he has. I needed him back at work as much as he needed to go! However, after talking with him this afternoon, I know he's already very tired (and a bit cranky!) and will most likely go to bed early tonight. So hopefully he's on the mend and our schedules can start to get back to normal! :)

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! :)