November Review

Wow! What a month. Talk about ups and downs. November was quite the wild ride.

It started out normal enough. Even with Emily & kids visiting, a denstist appointment, a dead possum outside our house, and Daylight Savings Time messing up the kids' schedule, the first week was fairly normal. Kaden had a bit of a cough, so I had planned to call and make him an appointment on Monday, November 8, but forgot. Tuesday morning it was too late to get him into the doctor. On our way to Pratt he vomitted 2 times, and then 3 times on the way home!

By Wednesday morning, I was sick too, that night Cindy joined in, and Thursday morning Ryan got it as well. So Friday morning, November 12, we all 4 laid around the living room watching T.V. and generally looking and feeling miserable. Cindy had been particularly out of it all day. Around 1:30 in the afternoon, she was asleep on the couch and suddenly woke up screaming bloody murder and pointing her finger in her mouth like something hurt. I tried to calm her down, but she began to pull my hair, hit, and scratch at me. It was like she wasn't really awake or aware of what she was doing.

I passed her on to Ryan to see if he could get her calmed down. She screamed for a few more minutes and then suddenly, she went completely silent. Her eyes rolled back into her head, her back arched back, and she began to violently convulse. Ryan screamed at me to call 911. In a panic, I called, yelling over the phone for them to hurry because by this point, she was not breathing.

Ryan moved her to the back porch to lay her flat and to keep from scaring Kaden. She was completely non-responsive and loked dead. Finally she began to gasp for air and we had our frst glimmer of hope. I was still terrified and begging the people on the other end of the line to hurry. All I could do was pray.

I ran outside to make sure the ambulance could find us. It was pouring down rain and I was in my pajamas, but I didn't care. When the paramedics arrived, she was still non-responsive and didn't flinch when they poked and prodded. Her heart rate was extremely high. We took an ambulence ride to the hospital and as I was admitting her, she had a second seizure. By the time Ryan arrived, they had her hooked up to an IV and were monitoring her very closely. She remained so still, silent, and decidely un-Cindy like.

A few hours after receiving the IV, she began to come around. By evening, she was terrorizing the ICU! They wanted her to spend the night for observation, which was quite the adventure. She had been sleeping for days, and now she wanted to play. We were very relieved she was okay, but wanted to know why this had happened. She did not have a febrile seizure, so the only guess is that the extreme illness caused it. However, we will be seeing a pediatric nuerologist to follow-up.

Meanwhile, poor Kaden was with Grandma & Grandpa and still very sick. Since he had respiratory issues on top of the stomach bug (which may have been rotavirus thanks to Cindy), he took much longer than the rest of us to recover. We finally got him into the doctor on Monday, November 15 for antibiotics, anti-nausea medicine, and breathing treatments. By the weekend, he was back to himself, talking non-stop!

So that was the low point of our month. The high point was Thanksgiving. Jon, Emily & the boys, Uncle Mark & Aunt Gale, and Nancy & Eugene joined us at Mom & Dad's and we had a great time. We enjoyed good food, played games, and went shopping. What more can you ask for? Now we are looking forward to the Christmas season and hopefully staying healthy for the remainder of the year!

To leave with, here is a picture of Cindy wearing a dress that I wore as a little girl as well. She wore it Sunday and it looked so cute!


Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing

I'm Lazy!

Well, I promised I would be back to post pictures of all our activities in October. But after uploading all of them to both DropShots AND Facebook, I just really don't want to upload them yet again to Blogger. So, you can go to DropShots to see ALL the photos, or view my Facebook albums to see my favorites:

2010 Part 2 - Photos from June through mid-October

2010 Part 3 - Photos from mid-October to present

October Happenings

October has been a busy month so far! It started off with the Barclay College Auction on the 2nd, the birth of our new newphew, Jacob, on the 4th, Isaiah's 2nd birthday on the 6th, a trip to Branson with Ryan's parents the 8th through the 11th, and then Harvest Farms Pumpkin Patch on the 16th. Phew! Add school, church, some illness, Ryan's birthday tomorrow, and other activities to that list and October is just flying by.

I will try to update with photos on all of the afore mentioned events soon. In the meantime, you can check them out at DropShots. The password is my son's name. ;)

Just ONE Second

That's all it takes for Cindy to find her way into trouble! When we picked Kaden up from preschool today, he was running a little late. As I helped him put away his paints, round up his backpack, etc., I lost track of Cindy for ONE second. When I found her, she was decorating herself with a black marker!







Life is never dull in our house!

Health Update

I appreciate all the prayers for my health. I saw a cardiologist yesterday. He has me wearing an Event Monitor (records my EKGs when I have symptoms) for 30 days. I am actually praying that I will pass out in the next 30 days. Why? Because getting it recorded is the only way we are going to figure out what is going on!

I had more bloodwork done today and it all came back fine. So my cholesterol levels are okay. I am scheduled for a stress test on September 21, but I really don't think it will find anything since I am not overweight, have regular cholesterol levels, and am not really having much chest pain. My problems include numb hands and feet, being dizzy and lightheaded, and extreme fatigue. So I really think passing out with the event monitor on is about the only thing that will really help.

So pray I pass out. LOL! Thanks!

Back to School!

Kaden had a great first day of preschool yesterday. There are only 4 kids in his class - Kaden, Aiden, Hunter, and Rachel (poor girl!). From what I can get out of him, it sounds like the first day was spent building walls out of blocks, putting together puzzles, cutting & gluing a duck, and enjoying chocolate milk. I had to drag him out of class and he was jumping up and down screaming, "I love school!" The teachers got a kick out of him.

Here's a picture of the big school-bound boy:




Since Bubba was wearing a backpack and getting his picture taken, Cindy thought she had to as well:


We have had beautiful weather here. It was nice to finally let the kids get outside and play on Monday. The extreme heat along with my health has kept us indoors for far too long. I'd say the kids had a good time playing outside, judging by these photos!





They had dirt in places you wouldn't think you could get dirt! You should have seen the inside of Cindy's diaper. Oh my! But they had a good time and had a nice long bath afterwards, so it was worth it.

In other news, I will be going to a cardiologist tomorrow morning. I am still trying to find answers to the dizzy/fainting spells. Hopefully we are getting closer. I'd appreciate continued prayer!

Scrapbook Pages

I am so far behind on my scrapbooks. Since I am on several Creative Teams, I scrap pages by the kit assignment, not chronologically, so that leaves a lot of "gaps" in my scrapbooks that I need to go back and get caught up on. I have 2008 finished up through June. Now I need to get busy finishing out the rest of the year (approximately 15-20 pages worth) so I can get a book printed and move on to 2009. I'd say I've done about 1/3 of 2009. Meanwhile, I'm working on pages with photos from this year as well!

Anyway, I am really excited about how many pages I've gotten done in just the past few weeks. I've been scrapping like crazy. Much of this is due, in part, to a special Guest Creative Team position with Bella Gypsy. They are one of my all-time favorite design teams, so this is like a dream come true to work with them!

In the month of July they are releasing 15 new kits. That is a crazy number. Most designers release 2-4 kits a month. So that's why they decided to hire on a few extra girls for the month to help out. They told me I could work with as many of the 15 kits as I'd like, but to do at least a minimum of 4. Um, yeah, right! Like I'm going to miss out on a chance to get 15 Bella Gypsy kits for free! I'm planning to work with all 15!

Anyway, here are the first 8 pages I have done for them. You can click on the images to see the full credits and purchasing links if interested. The first page, using "Family Tree" was a collaboration kit with Jessica Edwards. I'm on her team as well, so that page did double duty.

And those are just the pages with kits by Bella Gypsy! I've also done several pages for Jessica Edwards and have scrapped some pages with kits from other designers as well. I hope I can keep up this pace and not get "burnt out". I really want to be caught up!

The 4th of July

Yes, the 4th was almost a week ago and I'm just now getting around to blogging about it! My sister and her family moved to Kansas City over the holiday weekend. Unfortunately, Ryan was on call, so we could not go and help. So that left just our immediate family alone for the 4th.

We had a laid back, pretty boring weekend. It rained off and on pretty much the whole time. We had planned to BBQ after church, but ended up just broiling our chicken in the house. It was yummy though!

That evening we went ahead and put the kids to bed at the normal time so they could basically "nap" until time for fireworks. Cindy couldn't figure out what was going on when we woke her up at 9:00! We loaded up the van and went and parked in the library parking lot to watch the group that had gathered with their fireworks in the old West Hall lot across the street.

Since it was still raining, we just opened up the van hatch and sat in the van. We had to wait awhile for the rain to stop, but then we got a great show! Cindy wasn't sure what to think of it at first. She clung onto me for dear life. But after she woke up a bit more and saw how much her brother was enjoying it, she had a great time. I love the expression on her face in this picture:


Here's Kaden and I enjoying the show:


And here's a cute picture of the kids from earlier in the day:


Hope everyone had a great holiday! I'll be back in a bit to post some scrapbook pages I've been working on lately. I haven't posted my pages in a long time!

Cindy Sue is TWO!

Today is Cindy's birthday and she is officially 2 years-old. She's been acting like she's 2 for quite awhile, but now it's for real! Here's the birthday girl smiling ear to ear earlier today.



We had a small, family birthday party for her yesterday afternoon. She was cranky, cranky, cranky but cheered up by the time the cake rolled around.

Oops!

I did it again. I let the blog get away from me! So, here's what we've been up to since I last wrote. I think I'll go at it backwards.

First off, yesterday was an exciting day. It was Father's Day, Kaden's referral day anniversary, AND Kaden went to the movie theatre for the very first time! Four years ago, on Sunday June 18, we took Dad to the movies to see CARS for Father's Day. I cried all the way through it. We'd been waiting 7 long months for a referral, and I thought it would never happen. I was at an all-time low. But, just 2 days later, on Tuesday, June 20, our lives changed forever. At 3:00 p.m. we got the phone call we'd been waiting for and a little while later I saw this picture for the very first time:



It's hard to believe that it's been 4 years and he is now all grown up. It just so happens that his referral day and Father's Day were one and the same this year. We surprised him by taking him to see Toy Story 3 at the theatre. The look on his face when he realized where we were and what we were doing was priceless. He did a great job sitting still and being quiet during the entire movie. He loved it!



From June 10 through June 16, we visited Ryan's family in Indiana. We stayed busy the whole time we were there visiting the farm, watching a parade, going to a museum, having a combined birthday party for the kids, getting haircuts, and enjoying the pool and pizza at a hotel. What a whirlwind week! There are far too many photos to share here. I believe I took almost 400, but you can check them all out on our DropShots website.

Other than that, we have just been enjoying summer and all that it brings such as the pool, sprinkler, the summer reading program, and playing with friends. It's been a little rough not having a normal day-to-day schedule, but we are adjusting. It will be over before we know it and then we'll be back to the daily grind. Hopefully I will actually post again before that happens. LOL!

Just for Fun!

I think everyone knows that our family loves Star Wars. Well, here's the proof! LOL!



Click HERE to play a very special version of "The Empire Strikes Back".

Long Overdue Post

The month of May came in quickly and has yet to slow down! Here are some highlights from the past few weeks.

May 2 - Since Cindy's Gotcha Day and Kaden's birthday come so close together, we decided to celebrate Cindy's special day a week earlier to avoid confusion. So, we took the kids to the zoo for a morning of fun!





May 7 - Cindy's 1st Gotcha Day! Can you believe she's been home a whole year? It's been quite the adventure. Growing from a family of 3 to a family of 4 was much harder than I anticipated it would be, but I wouldn't change a thing. Just for fun, I had all of us dress in the same clothing we had on a year ago for a photo. Good thing Kaden had another identical shirt in the next size up!






May 8/10 - Kaden is 4! My baby boy is growing up. He had a Buzz Lightyear themed party on the 8th and I think he had a good time. Here's a trip down memory lane for you and some photos from his birthday.









May 9 - Mother's Day. Nothing too terribly exciting and we didn't get any pictures, but I got a 4 hour nap which I really enjoyed and I got money towards a massage. When my parents asked Kaden what he got me for Mother's Day, he told them, "We got Mommy money for a sausage!"

Next week Kaden will finish up his first year of preschool and we will officially start our "summer". Both kids are very excited for the kiddie pool to open Memorial Day weekend. Hopefully it will be nice and warm that day. I'll be sure to have the camera ready!