She had a birthday...Shout Hooray!

I think I say this every year, but I'm fairly certain I'm not old enough to have a 10 year-old daughter!!

KatieJo turned 10 yesterday and had a great day.

She had a manicure and pedicure earlier in the week and I repainted her nails for her birthday.

She also got to go shopping and picked out some new clothes earlier in the week for her present from us.

So she put on one of her new dresses and then we headed to Wally World to get some treats for the movie we were taking her and some friends to.

After picking up her friends we headed to the theater and watched Mirror Mirror.  Cute movie!

I think all the girls had a fantastic time, and felt pretty special because none of them get to go to the theater very often.  

After the movie we came home and had her mint chocolate cake (chocolate cake on the bottom with mint chocolate chip ice cream layered on top then frozen and stabilized whip cream and crushed mint chocolate oreos on top) and she got to open her presents.  

She said her day went way too fast.  I would agree, but it was fun none the less!

Our beautiful girl in her Easter finery.  

 getting ready to get her friends

 Happy Birthday!

20 Questions with KatieJo:

1. What is your favorite color? purple, aqua and brown

2. What is your favorite toy? Don't have one. 

3. What is your favorite fruit?  grapes

4. What is your favorite tv show?  Alvin & the Chipmunks

5. What is your favorite thing to eat for lunch?  Peanut butter & honey sandwiches

6. What is your favorite outfit?  Shorts & a t-shirt (like Daddy)

7. What is your favorite game?  Monopoly Deal

8. What is your favorite snack?  orange

9. What is your favorite animal?  Dog

10. What is your favorite song?  Child of God

11. What is your favorite book?  Beverly Cleary books

12. Who is your best friend?  Shelby

13. What is your favorite cereal?  Frosted Flakes

14. What is your favorite thing to do outside?  Ride a bike

15. What is your favorite drink? Pineapple Juice

16. What is your favorite holiday?  Easter

17. What do you like to take to bed with you at night?  Buggles (her teddy bear she's had since she was 2)

18. What is your favorite thing to eat for breakfast?  German pancakes

20. What do you want to be when you grow up?  Math Teacher

Guest conducting

In the fall Stuart got a call from an old colleague asking if he wanted to come back up to Curlew and be the guest conductor for the Panoramic Music Festival that he took kids to when he worked up there.

He has been so excited all year!  The kids and I were excited as well because any chance we get to visit the Haddenhams is exciting!

We got there Thursday afternoon and it was raining...HARD!  In a typically city rain is an inconvenience.
In Ferry County it can be a tad.....muddy and debilitating.  

When we headed up the dirt road to Holly and AJ's we realized how bad it was when the road we were driving on was missing HUGE portions of the actual road.  Then, thankfully we have Ruby who is 4-wheel drive because their driveway was washed out....I should have taken pictures!

Friday morning Holly, Phillip, Maija and I drove Stuart into the school and then headed into town for a little grocery shopping.  We tried to go back at one point, but the grater was on the driveway fixing it so that we could get back to the house so we left for a little while again.  

It was still incredibly muddy when we left for the concert Friday night, but at least it was driveable!

When we got to the school this is what I saw.....  

 Man he looks good in a penguin suit!!

The choir wasn't terribly large, but it is a small schools festival and they sounded AWESOME!

This is a picture standing at their house looking out at one of the pastures.

the sheep!

 Holly and AJ live on 40 some odd acres and have 12 horses (one of which is a miniature pony), 8 dogs, 2 cats, 4 guiney pigs, a ton of sheep and 1 bottle fed lamb who has to be the cutest thing I've ever seen!

Phillip thinks Holly is his, and his only.  Holly too thinks Phillip belongs to her.  So when he asked if he could ride Duece Holly got out the riding gear.

 And here we have a VERY happy Phillip!

 Samuel and Duece looking good!

 KatieJo thought this was the greatest thing ever especially since she wants riding lessons for her birthday.

 And I'm pretty sure Maija had her dreams come true being on that horse.  She LOVES loves LOVES anything to do with horses!

 After doing chores at Cathy's we came back and played games....like Quelf.  Love Quelf, and LOVE playing it with Holly, Cathy, AJ and Stuart.  HILARIOUS!  If you're wondering that is wrapping paper around Cathy and Holly does have a box under her shirt.  You really have to play the game!

 Then there were some Jedi fights.  As it turns out AJ really does know how to fence.  Samuel....not so much. 

 And we got to eat homemade ice cream in homemade waffle cones.  Holly even made me sugar free cones with sugar free ice cream!

 And last but not least we got to ride the Ferry TWICE.  Maija was convinced there were sharks in the Columbia River.  And Phillip wanted to go swimming.  The rest of us just wanted to get back into the car because the wind was cold!!!

Chickens everywhere!

A friend of mine recently popped my bubble about how chickens who lay the eggs you buy in the store are treated.  Since then I've wanted to get our own chickens.  Well, we went to the Farmers Exchange on Saturday and found some cute chicks.  We went looking for tomatillo plants and ended up bringing home 8 chicks.  

For the record, I will NEVER eat one of these chickens.  We (not the collective me & Stuart we....just the me we) only want them for eggs and as pets.  

The only way one of them will become dinner is if it's a rooster.  We can't have roosters in town...not that we really want one.  

They're cute little things and I love the sound of chirping inside.  It makes me feel like it's spring for real outside!!

We bought 4 Leghorns (think Foghorn Leghorn from Looney Toons...they'll look like that), 2 Rhode Island Reds that lay brown eggs and 2 Ameraucanas that they call Easter egg layers because they lay different colors like...blue.  

It may not be terribly cost effective as far as eggs go.  However, they are a fun project for the kids and are a fairly easy pet.  

 This one is Terri....as in Terrell Davis the football player...can you see why?

March madness

Mary's  I mean March update.

Mary....this is really for you.  This time my blog has been updated...LOL!

March...really?  Wasn't it just December?

Samuel finished basketball season a week ago and started spring soccer this last week. 

 WHEW...I feel like a chicken with my head cut off some days!

We are also starting science fair projects.  KatieJo is doing how different sodas, juice and water affect the shell of a chicken egg.  And Samuel is doing which bag (biodegradable bags, plastic & paper) & leaves biodegrade in soil the fastest.  I like science projects.  I despise ones we have to document EVERYTHING.  And take pictures of EVERYTHING!  Oh well.  It's always fun to see them learn something.  

Stuart is coaching middle school track this spring.  Thankfully the season is just 6 weeks!

KatieJo had her eye check this last week to see how therapy is working.  She's doing great in therapy, however in the last 6 weeks her eyes have gone from a -1.25 to a -2.  That's a huge difference for 6 weeks!  Apparently getting older and closer to puberty can do that to a person's eyes.  She and I had a chat.  I thought we had an understanding that she wouldn't get any older etc.  But she insists on aging....some people's children!  She's excited though because with the new prescription she got to pick out new glasses.  This time the frames are red....I happen to think they're cute.  But then again I'm partial to both KatieJo and to red.

Phillip also had his eye exam this last week.  He's been going about every 3 months.  At first it was because he was blinking ALL the time.  Like turrets blinking.  So she put him in glasses.  Which helped, but not enough so she upped his prescription.  And now he's getting bifocals because although he isn't blinking like crazy anymore he's not using his focusing system correctly which means he isn't very good at sorting, counting out groups of items, playing memory etc.  It's not that he can't count or sort it's that his eyes don't want to focus on it and so it's hard for him to do.  So, bifocals it is.  Once he gets them we get to use 3M tape or post its when he is doing close up work to remind him to use the bifocal lens.  

As for me and Maija...well we've "joined" a group of moms who get together every morning for an hour at someone's house (we rotate) and help clean or purge or do whatever project needs to be done.  It's amazing what 5 women can get done in an hour that would take one person FOREVER!  

So far we've gone through my kids toys and got rid of 3/4ths of them, cleaned another kids room, 

de-cluttered a back porch, organized and purged a linen closet, cleaned floors, organized a pantry, hung shelves, and cleaned up a back yard.  

It's so much more fun to do these projects with others!  I don't necessarily need the group to get my projects done, but some of the others do and hey....I'm a social person so it makes my day go by super fast.

Phillip's 5!

It doesn't seem quite fair all of my kid are growing too fast!

Phillip turned 5 on Saturday and somehow he seems to have aged over night, and grown a couple of inches. 

He is so excited to be five!

He's been planning his birthday forever.  Every couple of weeks he would tell me which cake he wanted and what presents he wanted for his birthday starting in about June.  

He's finally settled on a red cake.  Thankfully I have a friend who has a superb red velvet cake recipe who is going to make the actual cake (because she won't share the recipe) for me and then I'm going to decorate it like a mushroom with his beloved smurf toys on top.  Well, I'm not sure they are beloved yet those are a surprise for his birthday party.

He is having a combined party with his best friend Lexi who is 3 days older than him at a local gymnastics gym.  They have an awesome array of toys including bounce houses for the kids to play on.  

It's really hard to believe that he's so big!

I'm so grateful that he's ours!

Happy Birthday Phillip!

now....20 questions with Phillip....

1. What is your favorite color? Red

2. What is your favorite toy?  Papa Smurf

3. What is your favorite fruit?  Blueberries

4. What is your favorite tv show?  spiderman

5. What is your favorite thing to eat for lunch?  biscuits

6. What is your favorite outfit?  Spiderman costume

7. What is your favorite game?  Hungry Hungry Hippos

8. What is your favorite snack?  Grapes

9. What is your favorite animal?  Monkey

10. What is your favorite song?  Love One Another

11. What is your favorite book?  On Monday I was a Monkey

12. Who is your best friend?  Lexi and Jaylen

13. What is your favorite cereal?  Pops

14. What is your favorite thing to do outside?  Play with my scooter

15. What is your favorite drink?  Rootbeer

16. What is your favorite holiday?  He likes "Holly-days" with mom's friend Holly

17. What do you like to take to bed with you at night?  My green toys

18. What is your favorite thing to eat for breakfast?  German pancakes

20. What do you want to be when you grow up?  A missionary

Tubes

Maija has had at least one ear infection a month since school started. 

Her doctor finally sent her to an ENT last month and lo and behold they wanted to put tubes in her ears.

I wasn't shocked, and am a little grateful that they wanted to.

She had surgery Monday morning (2-6-12)

To "calm" her down they gave her some liquid medicine.  

Really the medicine was to make it easier to put the mask that the anesthesia went through on her, and to make parting with mom and dad easier.

She was so funny on the medicine!

At one point I covered her legs and she looked down with a shocked expression on her face and said:

"Oh no, my legs are gone!"

She couldn't sit up on her own, not for lack of trying.  However, when she did she'd just start falling over slowly.

Stuart wanted to let her try to walk. As funny as that may have been we were worried she'd hurt herself.  

After a while she just started staring at the ceiling while smiling and giggling.

The surgery itself literally only took about 10 minutes.  

And instead of having to wait for her to completely wake up we got to go right back so that we were there when she woke up.  It was hard watching her be so confused as she was waking up and she kept saying "MOM, MOM I CAN'T HEAR YOU"  

As it turns out between the anesthesia and the cotton balls in her ears she couldn't hear me.

She's doing great and here's hoping no more infections!

I had pictures, but blogger is having issues uploading them...sorry!

The big "reveal"

Have you ever seen the movie Miss. Congeniality?  

You know the scene at the end of the movie where she says that she's vaguely aware that she's proud of her breasts?  

I feel that way....about my entire self.

I have lost approximately 60 pounds.  Truthfully I didn't think it was that much until I realized that KatieJo weighs 63 pounds.  I've LOST my "child"!  

WOW!

And I feel great.

I've discovered I love being a girl.  I have bought new clothes and turned from "frump girl" into a girl who isn't afraid to go into public.  I have nice clothes that I have thoroughly enjoyed shopping for, perhaps a little too much.  However, I am a frugal shopper so they have all been DEEPLY discounted or found at a thrift store. 

I've discovered I really enjoy wearing makeup every day along with jewelry.  Who knew that I was a fashionable girl hiding in a fluffy body?!?!?!

See the smile in the picture below?  I love that smile.  I never thought I'd say that.  But I think in all of my 31 years (shhhhhh...don't tell the kids they think I'm 23) on this earth I've never felt so good.

I can go up stairs and not be out of breath.  I can exercise and not feel like I'm going to die!  That's HUGE in my world!  

Oh, and I've started wearing belts.  I NEVER would have done that before.  But shockingly enough I like them.  GASP!  I think something is on the verge of freezing over.

Even the kids have noticed a difference.  Although Phillip did draw a picture of me and Stuart a few weeks ago and then said "Mom I drew you fat"....I prefer to think that's what he thinks I used to look like.

KatieJo keeps asking me if I've lost weight to be skinny, and really at first I would have said yes that's why I've lost weight.  However, I've now realized that I am a MUCH healthier person and truthfully that is why I have lost weight.

Could I stand to loose some more weight...you betcha.  However, I'm very happy where I am right now!

And what makes it even better is Stuart's reaction to me.  Because I feel good about myself he seems to be OVERJOYED.  He's always seen me the way I now see myself and for that I'm so grateful!

So now for the "before and after" pictures......

 

What do you think?  Can you tell a difference?