Thank you

 Y'all are amazing. 

Thank you for all the support and love that you send us in each way that you send it. The texts, the posts, the calls, the hugs- we are so blessed to have each of you in our tribe. If everyone had a tribe like you guys, the world would be pretty darn near perfect!

I have good news that you all have earned with your love and intercession for me:

One, I have the MRIs scheduled back to back week after next so two, it'll be only one stick (provided veins cooperate, so keep praying about that, haha) and three, one single appointment and four, they've already called in a sedative for me. Can you FEEL that weight fall off my shoulders? Could you hear it as it hit the ground and crumbled? I almost cried. I was so relieved when she told me she had a spot for back to back MRIs that it looked like I was doing Snoopy's suppertime dance. Thank you, Jesus, and everybody who is covering me! 

You guys are amazing. Don't just pray for me- turn your attention and power to Gaza, Ukraine, the Caribbean islands destroyed by Beryl, a local shelter; pick a crisis and send some of your love that way as well. There's never a shortage of need and I think we all underestimate our power to affect change. For starters, you could be praying for safety over kids this summer as they head off to camps or that they have enough to eat without two meals at school, summer boating safety, Fourth of July activities as they generally involve explosives and alcohol, and so on. Adopt a cause and go be a champion. You won't be alone and we are so much stronger together. 

The next step is the surgical consult next week. I'll keep you posted, but I am very much looking forward to upcoming posts about people other than me! 

Thank you for everything! Be safe celebrating July 4th!

Icy snippet

I took these with my phone yesterday on my way home from taking the Care Bear to work, hoping I could get them onto here quickly - or at least more quickly than it'll take to upload the multitudes I took on the real camera. Aunt Chris, especially, make sure you click on them to see them bigger. The busted icicles that had fallen from the trees looked like so much broken glass, and it was probably just as dazzling in the sunlight. I was very thankful for my sunglasses!

Those of you not in areas experiencing ice and power outages and ridiculous wind, good for you. Shush. ;)

On the third Monday before Christmas my true love gave to me...

An outage of e-lec-tric-ity!

All the power on the west side of town is out. And I hear sirens. Never a good sign.

Good thing I wasn't planning on going anywhere today!

And let's evaluate:

Dryer full of wet sheets

Washer full of wet clothes

Can't vacuum, no power

Not enough dishes to wash by hand

Hmm, guess I'll just keep the fire going!

Happy Monday, everyone!

Exciting times

We can say truthfully that things are never boring around here. For example:

Dada got home safely from his two-week China trip. He'd left on a Saturday morning, was gone all that week, over a weekend, and came home the following Friday night. Then he needed to sleep most of that weekend to get back on our time zone. He had a very good first experience from the food to the people to the haggling that is shopping. The worst part was probably the neverending plane rides there and back!

While he was gone, I took the kids to church, dropped them off in their Sunday school rooms, made my way to the sanctuary and lasted through one song before I was paged. Damon was standing against the wall, sobbing his heart out, and refusing to be comforted. I ended up in the lobby, holding him on my lap in my metal chair, until he fell asleep during the offering. He woke up just in time to go collect the big kids and head home. Kids-1, Mama-0.

Monday after school brought Carrie home coatless.
"Where is your coat?"
"I left it at school."
"What were you doing when everyone else was putting theirs on? Didn't you notice you didn't have yours on?"
"Nobody else was wearing theirs, either!"
"..."

Tuesday night, I asked Carrie to please tell Liam to finish up in the bathtub. This included rinsing, getting out, draining the water, getting dry, then getting pajamas on. I hear hysterical laughter from upstairs but proceeded to finish the dishes and cleaning up the kitchen, more fool me. By the time I made it up there, I found a still-soapy Liam in the tub along with a fully clothed Damon. Kids-1000, Mama-0...

Two Thursdays later was the first swimming lessons for the big kids. Their classes are in the evening, while Damon has one right before lunch. We're at the Y a lot! Anyway, Liam is old enough to be in the male family locker room. So I pop Damon in the child care section, go through the female family locker room side and watch their classes. When they are done, they are instructed to rinse off the chlorine, get changed, dry, into pajamas, etc. so we can go home and go to bed. It's a school night, and I have to rescue Damon before the child care part closes. Carrie gets done, I get Damon, and we are waiting, waiting, waiting. A towel-clad Liam pops out into the hall with his swim trucks in his other hand, proclaiming with just a tinge of panic that his stuff is gone. Turns out, he was in the wrong locker bay and his stuff was intact on the other side. However, it takes eons for him to find it and get dry and get dressed and get packed up and get his coat on.............

I tell Carrie, "I am SO GLAD Dada's job will have him home more now. Next time, I can stay home with Damon while you take care of yourself after your lesson and Dada can do the guys' locker room with Liam." She sags against the wall in relief.

You get the idea. There was something like that every.single. day. I was overjoyed to see Dada come home. My Girlfriends all suggested I dump the kids on him every single night of the following week, but alas, it was not to be.
"Did I mention that I'll be gone Thursday and Friday of this week? Um, and of next week?"
"..."
Life- infinity, Mama-0.

Fast forward to this Thursday past. Once again, there's a clean, dressed, book-in-hand (she's wised up) Carrie in the hall. I get Damon, and we wait. And we wait. And we WAIT.

Carrie sets her book down and marches into the guys' side. "Liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaam!"  She finds him still in the shower. No joke.

He does eventually make it out. To the tune of FORTY MINUTES AFTER HIS CLASS ENDED.

This week, we'll take sleeping bags. And snacks.

That Friday, he confided to me that he'd been scrubbing the shower walls. They were nice and shiny when he was all done.

Paging Alexander, once again. Is there room in that suitcase for me to join you in Australia?

So Sunday night, as some of you know, well, most of you on the Facebook nation know, one of our wonderful wintry windstorms swept through. It was powerful enough to knock down wires in more than one spot, and we lost power just as we were ending dinner. I'd gotten groceries, some Christmas presents, and had snuggled babies at church earlier in the day. We got candles and flashlights and headed to the basement as our tornado watch devolved into a tornado warning. We even took Triskal down there, which was a first or second time only, as Newfies are not big fans of stairs and they're bad for their hips so we purposely never encouraged her to be anywhere but our main floor.

So we're as snug as can be (and may I add that spending a decent amount of time in the basement makes one take a serious look into redecorating so that they're more comfortable furnishings for extended stays?), the warning subsides, we head to bed, and wake up the next morning with still no power. A two-hour delay turns into school being cancelled. Are you even kidding me!?

No. They weren't. Okay, so there's no school. What are the kids doing? Cross my heart, they are packing suitcases. Where are they going? To camp in the front yard.

...

Yes, that's what they said. They were going to move out.
"Did you not notice that school has been cancelled because of inclement weather? And you want to try to set up a tent in that wind? And it rained yesterday so the ground isn't going to be dry?"
"Auuuuuuuuuuuugh, FINE."

At this point, I quit keeping score.

Thankfully Dada came home at lunch and treated us all to Bob Evans. We stuffed ourselves silly and spent a little bit of time in the bookstore nearby to stay warm. "CanIhavethat? Canwegetthis? CanIhavethat?"

I received an ecstatic text from our next door neighbor saying the power's back on. Hallelujah! Let's go home and turn on the heat!

We were blessed. Yes, the power was out for 20 hours, but we didn't lose anything in the fridge or freezers because we'd kept them closed and the groceries were fresh and unopened. It only rained before the power went out, otherwise the sump pump wouldn't have kept up since there was no electricity and we could have flooded again. I haven't found any shingles in the yard, our garden gnome Virgil Eugene is merely laying down instead of smashed to bits, and our cars were undamaged. It could have been so much worse. They were on the other side of town. Some of the same areas that were hit by the tornado when Damon was born got blasted again. The outage taught the kids to not depend on the iPad or the Wii or the TV to entertain themselves. A little, anyway. And nobody got hurt. Blessed.

Tucking in

I was just tucking Carrie in for the night and I was telling her how beautiful she is. Our conversation went like this:

Mama: You're so beautiful. Gorgeous skin, tiny little nose, great big eyes, long gorgeous eyelashes, pretty eyebrows *pauses to breathe*
Carrie: And big feet.
Mama, giggling: And bunny feet. And pretty eyebrows-
Carrie: And no butt! *laughing*
Mama, giving up but also laughing: Yes, and no butt. Good night, you nut. I love you.

My brother has 28-30" of snow at his house, my in laws lost power but it is back on, and we can still see grass in some places. We have drifts that are taller than the kids' knees, and yes they played outside this morning, but our wind has calmed a good bit and we're not supposed to get any more snow. We hope the rest of you are dug out, toasty warm, and satisfied with your Saturday! =)