So wow, I'm apparently horrible at blogging now...my goodness! To be fair, we had a horrible year this past year and I've been running on fumes most days at best. So here's what's happened since I last got up the nerve to post anything!
April - we had a great birthday party for Timothy, we surprised him with a real live puppy dog that we named Joey. She's a border collie and has been great for him. For a kid that's scared to leave the room by himself to go to a different part of the house, this dog has been such a blessing. That being said, she has had some tummy issues and is totally attached to her squeaky ball and drives me crazy most days! Thankfully, no one got sick in April! I joined a team to do a weight loss challenge that started mid-March and ended in early June. So for most of the Spring, I ate next to nothing and worked myself back into running and weight lifting. I was doing awesome until early April when I decided to go back on birth control and then all the weight loss stopped...but I ended up losing about 20 pounds so that was cool and I'm hoping to shed about 20 more by this summer!!
May - we celebrated Brandon's birthday and ended the school year for Timothy. I ran a 5K color run (in 27 minutes!!) and ran a personal best of 4.5 miles in under 45 minutes!! We also found out that Brandon's office was being moved about 30 minutes south of where it was located on the army post. We made a (crazy) decision to put our house up for sale the last weekend of the month and it sold for more than we were asking in two days. It was such a whirlwind. In the middle of all that, Timothy's new GI doctor decided to do a breath test to test for Fructose Malabsorption and it actually came back negative. You have no idea how happy I was to know I wasn't crazy and there really was something going on with his stomach! It's a strict diet, he is now gluten free, mostly dairy free, and low sugar/fructose and I learned more about chemistry and cell make up than I had planned on knowing outside of my school years, but it's helped him out so much!!
June - so we found out our closing date was the middle of July and started looking for a new home to buy. The trouble was, there was literally NOTHING on the market. It was the main reason our house sold so fast, the market was so slow and we couldn't find anything. It was just a little stressful :) Charlotte finished out her year of preschool and we said goodbyes to all her old teachers and specialists. We were really very sad to have to leave her preschool program, they were great and she has grown SO MUCH since starting there! The rest of the month was spent cleaning and getting the house ready and packing.
July - we decided to just rent a house and take our time looking for something new. No one would let us sign anything less than a 12 month lease so we're stuck here until next summer. It's a decent house, but we didn't unpack much and I already don't like it...I think it's just that I know it's not mine :( But it will do and we're grateful we didn't have to worry about a house payment during the shut down. Charlotte went to Princess Camp for a week and LOVED it this year, no tears at all! Timothy went to summer camp in July and Brandon went as a counselor. I had to provide all his food, that was fun, but at least I knew he wouldn't be in pain and getting sick the whole time he was there! We also coordinated a bike parade and cook out at church for the fourth of July and VBS at the end of the month...I told everyone that asked I would sleep when I'm dead, no time for sleep when you're crazy busy!!
August - it was hot! Timothy was still playing baseball so we did a lot of baseball games! We surprised the kids with a trip to Great Wolf Lodge to thank them for putting up with us during a crazy summer. We also decided to go ahead and start our school year with Timothy. I knew I would need some time to break into it full time and get used to new curriculum so we took our time the first few weeks and enjoyed lots of playing outside too.
September - we went camping on Mt. St. Helens. The kids loved it and I think the dog did too! My parents had gotten us a huge tent for Christmas this past year and it fit us all great! We only stayed one night but the kids spent pretty much the entire time climbing on a mud hill and playing in the trees. Before we came back we drove up to the observatory at the rim of the volcano and Charlotte has not stopped talking about watching the video about how the mountain "kasploded". We also went to the Puyallup fair and I ended up spending the entire time taking the girls around to look at all the animals while Brandon and Timothy rode all the rides. The girls were terrified of all the loud noises!
October - we had planned to go to Harding for Homecoming...and then the shut down happened. Brandon was home for about a week before being sent back to work and we finally got a normal paycheck last week from it all. It was a tense month. We figured it was probably not the best time to be leaving on a vacation. We did some fun stuff around home though, a lot of local business offered free stuff for shut down employees and we took advantage of as much as we could! Our whole family went to NW Trek for $21, it would normally be over $50! We did a lot of fun Halloween stuff for school and the normal things like carving pumpkins and trunk or treats at church. Timothy went as Wolverine, Charlotte as Rapunzel and Caroline as Belle.
November - so far it's been a little rainy. I went on a hike with a friend and her kids, I carried Caroline for most of it in the backpack on my back...she weighs well over 30 pounds. When we got back I put the stats in my fitness tracking app and it said I burned over 1500 calories :) We took last week off of school for Halloween (definitely a perk of homeschooling) and ended up taking most of this week as a sick week, Timothy had another puking mucus episode and it threw me off. So I'm hoping we can get back into the swing of things next week. I'm building back up to another 5K, I want to do a Jingle Bell run on Christmas Eve!
In addition to our homeschooling, gluten free, dairy free, made from scratch-rebelliousness...I thought it would be cool to also throw in essential oils and quit using medications. We started using them in July and since then, between Timothy and I we've come off six medications!! I love them and love to tell people about them so you've all been forewarned in case I start lecturing on the evils of western medicine :) I would totally post some pictures, but I'm guilty of taking them and then never actually downloading them from my phone onto the computer so I'll work on that :)
Thursday, November 07, 2013
Monday, March 11, 2013
I Should Be Sleeping
Yep, it's totally 11pm on a Monday night and I was asleep on the floor until about half an hour ago when I realized I needed to get online and order some stuff for church...and then one thing led to another and now I'm wide awake so I might as well update this while I'm at it! I did promise to do better, right? Since the last post, Charlotte and Caroline have both had stomach bugs ( at different times) and I've been to the doctor twice to try to figure out what's going on with me...long story short, looks like I need to go back on some birth control to regulate myself better...and all of that adds up to another very long month!!
In addition to still being sick, I had to coordinate the winter fundraiser at the kids' school...it was a Spell-a-Thon...it was OK, but I'm really glad it's (almost) over. All that's left is handing out prizes. Brandon has been busy making some big changes in the children's education program at church (and the reason for me having to wake myself up to order sticker labels and bags tags and things) so he's been working really hard on all of that. He even got to preach this past Sunday, I was so proud of him, he did great!
The kids have been OK, other than still being sick. Charlotte ended up missing almost a week and a half of school and then came back for a couple of days and then they had a 6 day weekend break for the holiday in February. So she's still adjusting to being back in school full time and not taking it too well. We've had a lot of fussy days. Caroline was doing great, had a great birthday and then she got sick and has been super clingy since then. Timothy didn't get sick but has been really emotional lately. Needless to say, I'm exhausted!
So the big change was Caroline's birthday! I can't believe she's two and I'm not pregnant...it's weird, but I'm so glad she's growing up and our family is moving into the next stage of life. She had a great birthday, Brandon was able to come home at lunch and stay home for the rest of the day with us. She got to go to Bible class and had a lot of people singing to her all day! We had her party last weekend, she is very much into Minne Mouse, so it was a fun pink polka dot day. At two years old, she loves Minnie Mouse, books, baby dolls, princesses, dressing up, playing outside, swings and slides, her scooter, and her brother. She likes to eat pizza, strawberries, grapes, chicken and she loves milk. She can say pretty much anything you want her to say, the girl talks ALL THE TIME!! She loves to sing, her favorite song is "We Will Rock You". She is such a sweet feisty little girl, I think we're going to be in trouble when she gets older!
The other big change we've had around here is that we decided to go ahead and pull Timothy out of school and begin homeschooling. It's a decision that has been a long time coming and we finally felt the time was right. We had planned to wait till he started 2nd grade, and then that moved up to Spring Break and then I got a letter in his bag about Spring conferences and how she wanted to meet with us before the end of the month and we decided to just bite the bullet and do it now. So today was our official "first day"! We didn't do much, I'm going to give us both some time to adjust before jumping in too far! For anyone wondering the reasoning behind the decision...there are many reasons. The most important being that we felt we needed to take a larger part in making sure his education included God in it and we plan to use the Bible to teach a lot. I also think it's a better fit for him. He is so far ahead of the rest of the kids in class academically, but behind in maturity, so it's been a constant struggle all year and frankly, I'm tired of picking him up every day and seeing him in tears about something that happened that day. He has plenty of "socialization" opportunities already, so I'm not worried about him missing out on being with other kids. He had also picked up several bad habits that just plain needed to stop! Today's first day went great, like I said, we didn't do much. I know it will be a hard road, but I think the benefit is just too great to outweigh the costs. We plan on keeping Charlotte in preschool for now, she's getting so much extra help with Occupational Therapy and Speech Therapy that I think she needs to be there...and we may keep her in for Kindergarten...but past that, it's all about being together as a family and learning together.
The not so big change that's happened (well, it's big in that it cost $ and time on mine and Brandon's part, but not really a big deal) is that we finally decided on a color and painted the inside of our house! It was the ugly "builder beige" and the people that lived her before us had painted a wall in the living room dark red....and now all of that is gone and replaced by a beautiful "gentle rain" gray! I also chose a bright yellow for the wall in the kitchen, gotta have some color in there, right? I'm so excited to decorate now, I'm getting all crafty these days! My next project is making my own curtain rods and burlap curtains...we'll see how that goes!
Anyway, that's been our month in a nutshell...not much else going on for the rest of the month besides my birthday and that is shaping up to be a pretty uneventful day! The first week in April is Spring Break for Charlotte and we are doing an early birthday party that week for Timothy to surprise him with a puppy for his birthday!! More to come on that later, she's adorable and I know he'll be excited!
In addition to still being sick, I had to coordinate the winter fundraiser at the kids' school...it was a Spell-a-Thon...it was OK, but I'm really glad it's (almost) over. All that's left is handing out prizes. Brandon has been busy making some big changes in the children's education program at church (and the reason for me having to wake myself up to order sticker labels and bags tags and things) so he's been working really hard on all of that. He even got to preach this past Sunday, I was so proud of him, he did great!
The kids have been OK, other than still being sick. Charlotte ended up missing almost a week and a half of school and then came back for a couple of days and then they had a 6 day weekend break for the holiday in February. So she's still adjusting to being back in school full time and not taking it too well. We've had a lot of fussy days. Caroline was doing great, had a great birthday and then she got sick and has been super clingy since then. Timothy didn't get sick but has been really emotional lately. Needless to say, I'm exhausted!
So the big change was Caroline's birthday! I can't believe she's two and I'm not pregnant...it's weird, but I'm so glad she's growing up and our family is moving into the next stage of life. She had a great birthday, Brandon was able to come home at lunch and stay home for the rest of the day with us. She got to go to Bible class and had a lot of people singing to her all day! We had her party last weekend, she is very much into Minne Mouse, so it was a fun pink polka dot day. At two years old, she loves Minnie Mouse, books, baby dolls, princesses, dressing up, playing outside, swings and slides, her scooter, and her brother. She likes to eat pizza, strawberries, grapes, chicken and she loves milk. She can say pretty much anything you want her to say, the girl talks ALL THE TIME!! She loves to sing, her favorite song is "We Will Rock You". She is such a sweet feisty little girl, I think we're going to be in trouble when she gets older!
The other big change we've had around here is that we decided to go ahead and pull Timothy out of school and begin homeschooling. It's a decision that has been a long time coming and we finally felt the time was right. We had planned to wait till he started 2nd grade, and then that moved up to Spring Break and then I got a letter in his bag about Spring conferences and how she wanted to meet with us before the end of the month and we decided to just bite the bullet and do it now. So today was our official "first day"! We didn't do much, I'm going to give us both some time to adjust before jumping in too far! For anyone wondering the reasoning behind the decision...there are many reasons. The most important being that we felt we needed to take a larger part in making sure his education included God in it and we plan to use the Bible to teach a lot. I also think it's a better fit for him. He is so far ahead of the rest of the kids in class academically, but behind in maturity, so it's been a constant struggle all year and frankly, I'm tired of picking him up every day and seeing him in tears about something that happened that day. He has plenty of "socialization" opportunities already, so I'm not worried about him missing out on being with other kids. He had also picked up several bad habits that just plain needed to stop! Today's first day went great, like I said, we didn't do much. I know it will be a hard road, but I think the benefit is just too great to outweigh the costs. We plan on keeping Charlotte in preschool for now, she's getting so much extra help with Occupational Therapy and Speech Therapy that I think she needs to be there...and we may keep her in for Kindergarten...but past that, it's all about being together as a family and learning together.
The not so big change that's happened (well, it's big in that it cost $ and time on mine and Brandon's part, but not really a big deal) is that we finally decided on a color and painted the inside of our house! It was the ugly "builder beige" and the people that lived her before us had painted a wall in the living room dark red....and now all of that is gone and replaced by a beautiful "gentle rain" gray! I also chose a bright yellow for the wall in the kitchen, gotta have some color in there, right? I'm so excited to decorate now, I'm getting all crafty these days! My next project is making my own curtain rods and burlap curtains...we'll see how that goes!
Anyway, that's been our month in a nutshell...not much else going on for the rest of the month besides my birthday and that is shaping up to be a pretty uneventful day! The first week in April is Spring Break for Charlotte and we are doing an early birthday party that week for Timothy to surprise him with a puppy for his birthday!! More to come on that later, she's adorable and I know he'll be excited!
Monday, February 04, 2013
Catching Up
Well it's been a long time since I've posted in blog land...we have had a rough few months over here and I haven't had time to do anything.
So, the last time I posted we had ended the crazy trips to the ER and for a while there in the middle of October things were going well. Then Timothy started throwing up again, and again, and again until finally I took him back to the doctor. He was complaining that his stomach hurt constantly so she did some blood work and referred us to a GI doctor. We saw her and she she did an x-ray, said he was mildly constipated (which I thought was weird, with all the puking) and ordered an endoscopy. So, we went through all the prep for that and he came through the procedure fine and all the results came back normal...awesome.
In the middle of all that, Charlotte and Caroline took turns having colds and coughing their heads off. A couple of weeks before Christmas, we all caught a stomach bug. Between Christmas and New Year's we all got hit with the worst cold I've ever had in years and years. Mine turned into a sinus infection. For others it was bronchitis, pneumonia, the flu, stomach issues...you name it, we had it! So needless to say, it's been hard to find time to get on the internet for more than a few minutes at a time!
In the middle of all the sickness, we had Christmas shopping, tree decorating, a trip to the mountains with all the family, school ending and starting again, busy busy times at church, me trying to coordinate a fundraiser at the kid's school...I'm exhausted. And here I am, up at almost midnight because, again, we're dealing with a sick kid and planning to take two of them to the doctor tomorrow.
It seems like these crazy germs are everywhere so please pray for us and I'll pray for you and maybe the groundhog is right and this horrible winter cold season is almost over! And hopefully I will be able to be on here more regularly...and maybe add some pictures...because a certain little girl I know is turning two in a few weeks (yikes)!
So, the last time I posted we had ended the crazy trips to the ER and for a while there in the middle of October things were going well. Then Timothy started throwing up again, and again, and again until finally I took him back to the doctor. He was complaining that his stomach hurt constantly so she did some blood work and referred us to a GI doctor. We saw her and she she did an x-ray, said he was mildly constipated (which I thought was weird, with all the puking) and ordered an endoscopy. So, we went through all the prep for that and he came through the procedure fine and all the results came back normal...awesome.
In the middle of all that, Charlotte and Caroline took turns having colds and coughing their heads off. A couple of weeks before Christmas, we all caught a stomach bug. Between Christmas and New Year's we all got hit with the worst cold I've ever had in years and years. Mine turned into a sinus infection. For others it was bronchitis, pneumonia, the flu, stomach issues...you name it, we had it! So needless to say, it's been hard to find time to get on the internet for more than a few minutes at a time!
In the middle of all the sickness, we had Christmas shopping, tree decorating, a trip to the mountains with all the family, school ending and starting again, busy busy times at church, me trying to coordinate a fundraiser at the kid's school...I'm exhausted. And here I am, up at almost midnight because, again, we're dealing with a sick kid and planning to take two of them to the doctor tomorrow.
It seems like these crazy germs are everywhere so please pray for us and I'll pray for you and maybe the groundhog is right and this horrible winter cold season is almost over! And hopefully I will be able to be on here more regularly...and maybe add some pictures...because a certain little girl I know is turning two in a few weeks (yikes)!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
.jpg)
