Under the Sea

Sadie made this amazing diorama for school and it was so well received that it didn't come home for me to take a picture. She was adding things to it right up until we jumped in the car to go to school, so there weren't any pictures before it was turned in. So, since it has made the rounds of the school and been off to see the principal and is now sitting proudly in the classroom awaiting next years bragging, before it can come home. I went down to the school to take its picture.

And since I love both the creator and the creation here, another picture.
Its is truly wonderful, you should see it up close. A masterpiece of paper mache, paint, and clay.

My Sweet Girl

I awoke this morning to what I thought was crying. Ella was playing just outside my room, so I asked her to go check on Maisy. "She's asleep on the rug." Strange, but not unheard of; she often gets up, decides she's still tired, and goes back to sleep. I must have been dreaming when I thought I heard crying.

But then it happens again, so I go in to check on her and find her on the floor, damp and whimpering in her sleep. I look at her bed and see that the pillow is wet, her hair is wet and then she starts to convulse like she is going to throw up. I run to the bathroom with her and she throws up in the tub. Evan comes in and rinses it out and draws her a bath while I change her sheets.

I hear Sadie call, "Mom, Dad needs you." And I run.

Maisy is asleep in the tub and can't keep her eyes open. Evan is holding up her head to keep it out of the water, but she is asleep in his arms. "She must have had a seizure."

Maisy is sleeping now. Her hair is clean after I climbed in the tub and washed it. She barely opened her eyes when I rinsed the shampoo out. She has on clean jammies we pulled over her head while her eyes stayed closed. Her little body is exhausted and it breaks my heart to see her like this. It has been about eighteen months since her last seizure and every time is just as scary as the last. I wish I knew what brought these on, what causes them to happen, and how to make it stop all together.

Milestones

Notice anything unusual about this picture? Maybe the crooked front bottom tooth. We noticed Maisy's two bottom teeth were loose about ten days ago, but today they were really wiggly. Then one was crooked.

So, Evan gave a good tug, and out it came.
This little tooth threw Maisy back on the ventilator when it broke through the gums. It was her first little tooth, the one she got while still in the hospital.
I love this girl and I am so proud of her. She is growing up so fast and just because I think she is so cute, one more picture.
Oh, and she also took the scissors to her hair again. I love those curls too, Rian, so she had better not cut them all off.

I didn't sign up for this.

So this was my night, Evan was on-call and got paged just after dark. Just as he hurried out the door he said, "Make sure the chickens and the lambs get put away." Sure, no problem. I took a flashlight and went out to the pasture in my flip-flops and white skirt; Ella came along to help . Immediately the lambs began to jump up and step on my feet. I'm saying, "No!" and "Get down!" which they totally disregard. I get almost to the lamb's little corral when I see the BIGGEST, BLACK tarantula. Ella screams,I take a deep breath and move on the chickens.

Most of the chickens are in their coop. However, two are perched on top of the door. I start to close the door slowly so I don't hurt their feet. One jumps down and I hurry it into the coop, always keeping an eye on the tarantula. The tarantula has now seen the chicken and began to hurry away from the chicken and towards me. I grab a rake to protect myself and use the rake to scoot the chicken to the coop. Ella is standing off to the side, "Mom, I'm freaking out!" At this point I'm standing on a ledge trying to avoid the spider which crawls past me, so I try to get the other chicken down. She won't budge and is squawking at me. Meanwhile, a mosquito is buzzing around my ear and threatening to add a twelfth bite to my farmer's tanned arms. When I begin to scream, "I am not a farm girl. I am a city girl and I did not sign up for this!" Ella says, "Sorry, Mom. I'm too scared."

Now would you believe that not one of those animals responded to my little tantrum? At least the tarantula had moved away from the lambs and I could hurry them into their corral. Sadie came to my rescue. We hurried them into the corral and shut the door. Then she shook the coop door until the chicken started to wobble, grabbed the chicken right around the middle, and tossed it in the coop. Then she felt bad for tossing it and snuggled with it for a few minutes.

Luckily she was scared of the spider too, because she totally showed me up. I am not a farm girl, but my daughter might be.

Evan's first job out of school was at Freeman Hospital in Joplin, Missouri. Maisy was born there, Sadie and Ella celebrated birthdays and started preschool, I served in our church's young women's organization, all in Joplin. We lived in Joplin for two years, until following Maisy's six month hospital stay, it became evident that we needed more help from family and to be near a children's hospital.

Last night, 75% of Joplin was destroyed by a tornado. I have been so sad this morning as I saw the devastation and I have yet to find out news on our friends. Please keep them in your prayers. Locally we are making hygiene kits for the Heart to Heart Foundation. We are still in need of combs, bandaids, and ziploc bags. Thank you.
The photos are of the church building we used to attend.

Getting somewhere

It seems like we have been in the midst of remodel for ages, but yesterday we started to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Here are some before shots I too from my cell phone on move in day.

The left side of the great room.

panning to the left of the fireplace...
right of the fireplace...
and right wall.
The first thing we did was demolish the fluorescent light boxes around the windows.
It felt pretty good to rip those down. At this point we sprayed the popcorn ceiling with water and sent a scraping to a lab to test for asbestos.
Sure enough, we had asbestos. Here we are preparing to move out again and so professional can come in to scrape the ceiling. We decided to have the siding replaced with drywall while we were out of the house, which also meant replacing all the trim. Once they scraped the ceiling we discovered the beams were not structurally sound, so they came down.
Evan and Jack have been replacing the old ivory electrical boxes with white.
We sanded and painted the doors and trim white. I love how clean a coat of white paint feels. We replaced the light fixture over the dining table, painted the window sills white, painted the brass parts of the ceiling fans iron rubbed bronze, and replaced the front and back door knobs (that was functional and not just aesthetics).
Yesterday we finally painted the walls and touched up the trim.
We also installed wall sconces using the electrical from the old light boxes.
The wall sconces are so much prettier than the light boxes, especially at night. I'm not a fan of fluorescent light. The wall color works well with the marble floor and the brick in the fireplace.
You can see the color of the kids bedrooms through the doorway. All the colors we picked for the house seem to be shades of grey, the great room being a beige/grey, the kids rooms a blue/green grey, the kitchen and laundry room are a pewter grey and the master bedroom a blue grey. The flow is nice and there is so much natural light in this house it can handle it.
Now we just need to arrange the furniture, hang pictures, and decorate the room. I also want to paint the wood built-ins white. It isn't good wood, so don't feel too bad. I'll keep the photos coming if you'd like.

I heart her heart

I hate to follow an "Ella has a sassy little sense of humor" story with a "Sadie has a kind heart" story, but here goes.

About a month ago Sadie came home from school and told me about a classmate that was moving. I knew that this classmate wasn't always very nice and had created problems, so I asked her how she felt about it. She responded, "Well Mom, I know she has had a more difficult life than I can imagine, and has spent a lot of time in foster care. Now she is going to live with her dad and I'm really glad for her." I gave her a hug and told her I was glad for her friend too.

Then about a week ago Sadie came home with news that she was invited to sit at the cool girl's table. Not sure how I felt about that and sensing her reluctance, I asked how she felt about that. (I sound like a therapist, don't I.) She told me that she told them that was okay she would stay at the table with her other friends. She said that she feels "in her heart" that unless they want to include everyone it is not a group she wants to be with.

Monday morning, as I kissed her goodbye, I whispered to her how amazing I think she is and reminded her to follow her kind heart. I love her heart.

Special Olympics

I had the privilege of helping out at the Special Olympics for the school district. The kids were so enthusiastic, I was proud to be a part.

I'm not sure how Maisy felt about the whole thing. She kind of seemed bothered that her routine was disrupted .
She liked the idea of the ball, just not so much the letting go part. Some of the other games she couldn't care less about.
Jack came and helped. He was great about handing out water bottles from the back of the wagon. He was very confused that it was called "Special" but he couldn't participate. "Aren't I special too?"
Yes, buddy we're all special.

Its in the mail

I haven't been sewing much. I'm kind of going through withdrawl. I have been crocheting a lot. The thing about crochet is that you can take it anywhere and you can set it down and pick it back up without trying to long to remember where you were. Most things have been shipped off, but I do have quite the accumulation of ruffle scarves. Hopefully for Etsy this fall. Here are some of my little travelers.

A cowl for my sister-in-law.

A shawl for my mother-in-law for Mother's day.
A cowl for my sister.
And a cowl for my mom.
Terrible pictures, fun projects.

Vintage

While looking on Craigslist for a desk I asked Evan when "vintage" came to mean dirty and ugly. The girls asked him what vintage really meant and he explained.

A little later Ella was in the kitchen and called out, "Mom, this floor is really vintage." My clever girl, that's why we call her sassy pants.

Waterfront

When we bought our house we knew it had a great yard, that's why we bought it. We didn't count on it being riverside, but as of yesterday, and a couple of scary hours, we now have waterfront property.

Unfortunately, with water after a drought comes thirsty animals, some not so friendly. Along with that I am so nervous when the kids play outside because I'm terrified of drowning, but kids are drawn to water. Also water makes mud and we have white floors, so the mop bucket is constantly full (another drowning hazard.) Did you know I am a worrier?

So there you have it, we now have a river in our backyard. Lambs, chickens, and a river, oh my!

Solar

Last night we all worked together to make Ella's science project. Of course, we had a lengthy discussion about who goes to Jupiter. Since girls outnumber 2 to 1 it was decided that boys do, in fact, go to Jupiter.

Ella was very excited to take her solar system to school today. And I did not know that Jupiter has 63 moons or that Ceres and Eris now join Pluto as dwarf planets.

Puddles

Sometimes I find that Maisy struggles between the emotions of feeling like a big girl, like a six-year-old, and the physical limitations that make her more like a toddler. One of these areas is diapers, she hasn't grasped the concept of the potty, but she no longer wants to wear diapers. So, she takes them off every chance she gets.

This morning, as I was finishing preparing a lesson for church and everyone else was asleep, Maisy came in sans diaper. Her nightgown concealed this fact until I saw her frozen in one spot with an "uh oh" look on her face. I cleaned her up and then set to cleaning up the floor. Now, I don't know if it is because there was a momma deer staring at me from the window (and you know how I want to be a Disney princess) or because I had just been studying beautiful talks and scriptures, but I realized a few things from that puddle.

First, sometimes we have to do things we don't want to. Even though we may think we are at our certain place in our lives, there are many ways we can be shown where we really stand, whether it is still in diapers or still cleaning up after little ones in diapers. Realizing that there is a greater plan than we can see or understand helps.

Second, a puddle, whether it is water, juice, paint, or potty, needs to be cleaned up right away or it will be tracked everywhere. This is kind of like the crazy extras we put in our lives. The words we listen to and the things we see, not just of the media variety but also of the gossip variety.

And third, small mundane tasks may build up and often become a little annoying, but if we take them one puddle at a time and follow them with a little tickle time they aren't so bad. “… And by very small means the Lord … bringeth about the salvation of many souls”

Mr. Hoo

I found this little guy at Walmart in the garden section next to the gnomes. I thought he was pretty cute and for $10 I decided he should come home to live with my owl obsessed girls. However, the terra cotta wasn't doing much for them.

So I sprayed it with a little primer and almost left him at this point, but decided he would fit better in their room if he was purple.

This picture doesn't do him justice, so you'll have to check back to see how he looks when their room is all done. I do love spray paint.

Little orphaned lammies came to our house to stay.

Evan came home from work yesterday with this story about these three lambs that had been orphaned. They have been living on a farm in the next town over, but because of the drought they have no pasture to graze and they haven't been thriving.

We went to see them after school and I'm afraid they melted our hearts. They came to live with us today and the kids are loving them.
They are still bottle fed three times a day.
But I ask you, does this look like the yard of a city girl?