What'cha Do, Catch a Bug?

A few days before Brianne's 2 month checkup she came down with a cold....or what I thought was a cold. At the doctor's office the nurse checked her oxygen saturation levels and they were too low, in the mid 80's. (they are suppose to be in the mid to high 90's). Anyway, along with a few other symptoms the doctor decided to admit Brianne to the hospital. Thus began our 7 day stay in the hotel Carillion. Pneumonia? No, RSV? Negative. The diagnosis? Broncihitis...Pulmonary distress...Respiratory distress... call it what you will, but what she really had was one big, really nasty cold. She just had a difficult time over coming this viral attack. Brianne had some improvement, and in the end, when we finally got to take her back home but on oxygen. Little viral bug.....go away! Leave my little girl alone!

"Back home again....it's good to be home....I just wish this big brother of mine would lay off the wrestling moves for a while"

A Private Space Just for Me

Delaney has been wanting a place to call as her very own bedroom--a private space for just her. All of her older siblings have one, she should have one too! right!?. Since a separate bedroom isn't possible (even the boys have to share a room, it's just partically divided by a wall) I changed her bed from a bunk bed setup to a regular mattress supported by wheat barrels. I put the bed in front of the closet; this created a special little nook that with a baby gate creates a little island of her own. She's so happy--yes Liam can still get in, but not so easily, I just remind her that Cailin's room is separated by a curtain and Liam gets in her room quite easily too.
Now sharing a room with Brianne and Liam is more tolerable. ( not that she's had a grudge about doing this, she just wants a place to call her very own too.)

And to those, who know me ohhh so well, NO I won't be rearranging this room. I'm not about the move those wheat barrels again.

A Party and Pancakes

A party and pancakes....that's how we celebrated Valentine's day this year. (plus reading Junie B. Jones' 'The Mushy Gushy Valentime's Day' book with Cailin, Delaney and Liam- because "Hurray it's February 14th and it's Valentime's day, and what better way to celebrate that wonderful day, that is what I'd like to know?" :)--as quote by Junie B. herself.)

Lucky for us, another round of snow showers didn't spoil our Valentine's party with our home school group. We met at the Methodist Church to have fun with games, food and sharing Valentines with our friends. Why, because, as Junie B. say's "Who wants to miss a party, that's why!" and Delaney's outfit "was a treat for the eye's I tell you!", (all are dressed in their red and pink best!) so we didn't want to miss that one now do we?

"Yahoo....red frosting, cause I think there is nothing better in the whole wide world than that stuff. Mother looked at me very curious.But she must have found me simple adorable because out came the camera and she was snaping pictures. I guess there is nothing more adorable than a two year old with a red frosting mustache." thought Liam in true Junie B. style.

Liam was eager to distribute his valentines cards.

A bingo game with 'yucky blucky candy hearts' for markers. The game was fun, but most kids readily told us of their dislike for the candy hearts--too bad for them, I suppose.

Ahhhh, another fun game.

Sunday afternoon....the kid's are crazy hungry for lunch as we came home from church. Barry and I made them yummy heart pancakes, dyed pink, of course, topped with whipped cream and cherry pie filling. Mmmmm, what a delicious way show our love.

"I am precious! Simply a treat for the eyes, I tell you."

Happy Valentine's Day.

_________________________________________

And what about us, what did we share with each other? Well when Barry asked me "chocolate or flowers?" I said "nothing, not this year dear, we have to many medical and heating bills." As I said this I took great comfort in the words by Elder Robert D. Hales, "It takes great faith to utter those simple words "We can't afford it".......so why do I feel like such a heel right now?

Barry actually did give me wonderful and loving gift--no money spent! Apparently last night, as we put Brianne down for the night, she really wasn't asleep. However, I was so tired I fell asleep before she let us know. Barry took her and spent another hour or more rocking and cuddling her...all the while he let me sleep. It may be overly simple, but when I found out the next morning it really did make me smile and show me how very much he loves me. I sure do love him--how hard he works, plays and loves me and our family. As for me, I hope to send him to bed early, because we really are tired.

Two Months Old

Ahhh, my little girl is two months old today.
She's starting to interact with us. Daddy gets lots of smiles, as he loves to tickle her gently under her chin. She's also enjoying floor time with some of the kids. Connor likes to play with her using the rattle and Delaney 'plays' Littlest Petshop with her too. Of course Liam enjoys spending time with Brianne, however she tires of that quickly --poor Liam, he's trying.
But her favorite place to be is in Mommy's arms, after all that stimulation, quite cuddle time is the best.
I love those beautiful blue almond eyes and chipmunk chubby cheeks.

Equality for all

It's that time again---time to share our presentation that we've been working on for the past few weeks. Our theme was on the civil rights movements through out the world. We had great projects on many brave people, Gahndi, Rosa Parks, Helen Keller, Ceasar Chaves, Martin Luther King Jr., Jackie Robinson, Harriet Tubman, and little Ruby Bridges, (among others).

Connor presented about Ceasar Chaves.

Noah D. asked for Jared and Connor's help in showing how Jackie Robinson help to break the color barrier for baseball.

Cailin told about Harriet Tubman, we learned that she worked tirelessly with the underground railroad during the 1860's, but later in her life she also worked to secure women's rights too.

We watch a movie about 6year old Ruby Bridges. She was one of the first black school children to help desegregate the white only schools in the South. She was treated horribly, but through strong family ties and faith in God, she perservered and overcame this great challenge. Ruby, later in life, built a foundation that encouraged diversity in the schools. Delaney really enjoyed this movie and gave a brief synopsis of it to the group.

Ahhh, it's not history group with out the food. Who knew that if you google 'civil rights foods' that you'd get quite a few hits. The yummiest food was that Baked Fudge. Apparently during the bus strikes many people created cottage type industires to make money to further the cause of civil rights. The fudge was a favorite by many people of the time, and for us too.

We had some interesting discussions in our home the past few weeks. I'm glad they find it ridiculous that you'd judge a person by their skin, religion, where they live etc.

A "Howwwwwwwwling" good time at Great Wolf Lodge

A few years ago, when Barry came back home from Kuwait/Iraq, we took the kids to Great Wolf Lodge in Williamsburg for a fun special treat to celebrate Barry's arrival back home. We promised the kids that someday we'd go back again. That 'someday' finally came. Someone in our home school group posted an email about the Lodges great 'home school days' and the rates were hard to beat......so off we went for a winter mini-vacation.
We spent 2 fun filled days in the balmy 84 degrees of the indoor waterpark (this time in Concord/Charlotte NC). The days were filled with slides, climbing structures, tubes and fun. In the evening the younger ones enjoyed story time at the grand clock in the lobby where the animated forest animals and creatures told a story set in the deep dark woods.
Again, a great time was had by all, well, it took Liam a bit of time to get use to the activities and cool water, (even though they said the water was 84 degrees, it definately didn't feel like that, next time we'll go back to Williamsburg). And, there will be a next time, this just may turn into a biannual event.

Hi Ryan here! My feelings on this trip are pretty good. I especially loved the racing mat tubes. The howling Tornado stunk big time. Its not fun going down while sitting in the front and looking backwards. The totem slides were fine. See ya later.

Arrival to the lodge was an exciting event, the kids were eagar to change into swimsuits and jump into the water.
They had a cool tidal wave pool. Every 5 minutes or so you'd hear the 'howwwwling' the timber wolf and then the waves would start and crash into the shore of the pool. This became Liam's favorite place to be. He loved to be held in Barry's arms with the waves crashing around him.

Here, atop Ft. McKenzie, the kids had fun climbing and playing with the various water buckets and squirting things to play with. The slides that came off this structure were Delaney's favorite place to be. If ever we 'lost' her, we'd know where to look, she was most likely coming down one of those slides or running back around to go down once more.

This is Delaney on one of her favorite rides, the totem towers. Really fun water slides.
This is part of a pool, where you crawl across fake logs, or lilly pads. They are covered with water, which makes them slippery.

One of the greatest things about this trip was watching Delaney as she took on the different rides and gained confidence in herself. When we first arrived, she would do very little by herself. As Vicki stated, she discovered the water slides on the Mckenzie and that all changed. Little by little she tried several of the different rides and became quite the explorer. On the second day she was dragging me off to all types of rides.

There were a few times that she got a little scared. She usually remarked that some part of a particular ride had "creeped her out". But she was a good sport about it.

I found that I am not as near as limber as I once was. Climbing stairs all day to get to these rides is hard on a bald fat man. My knees didn't let me forget it either.

Cailin decided that I needed to ride the Howling Tornado with her and Connor. I think that it was not so much as a confidence builder to her as the fact that I was the center of entertainment. She started out by making me promise "upon my soldiers honor" that I would ride this tornado with her. I will definitely be watching for any other times in life that she comes at me with this phrase. It usually means that something bad, very bad, is about to suck you in. She just needs someone along for the ride.

It is funny in life how all those laws of nature that you learn in science as a kid, can come back to bite you. Let me "preach on it". You see, the Howling Tornado is one of those rides that uses gravity and water to move things along. The Tornado is situated about 2 stores above all the other rides. It always felt like at least five to me. After you have endured the climb up of all those steps, you get to set in a tube. The tube is a floating device that seats four. This device is disk shaped, with four places to sit in. When I say sit in, I mean it is a hole that you place your "forth point of contact" in. Your legs and feet are placed towards the center. You have two handles to hold onto. There is a youth that looks just old enough to shave that is up there to help you get all situation. I found that these very bored youth, are not too proud of poking fun at you. Ryan rode this ride with us once. He was very concerned about not being the person who went down backwards. This engaging youth pointed out that I was the one that "had gravity on my side". He was right.

The ride starts off harmless enough, just a couple of gentle curves. Then you can sense that a big change is coming. You plunge down about 50 to 100 ft. It is straight down. I am not so sure of what keeps you from falling out. True to this kind youth's words, right before we hit the big drop, the tube had swang around and I was the one headed down backwards. That is bad enough, but I should point out here that the designers of this ride forgot that lights are still needed. Not only are you free falling, but you are doing so in the dark. Not real pleasant. But we all survived. I'm not sure just how. Cailin acted as if she was extremely scared of it all. But I was having none of it. She went down at least twice more, where she insisted that my presences was needed.

Liam is a water bug. He really loves to be in it. I think it would have been nice if the water temperature was a little higher then freezing. Like Vicki said, the folks that run the place were always quick to tell us that the water was 84 degrees. I had one guy tell me that any higher would run the risk that bacteria would grow in the pools. I assured him that he need not worry. No self respecting water bacteria would ever grow in such cold water. Liam stayed in so long that his lip turned blue. But he is a trooper. He loved the wave pool.

All in all we had a great time. We came home in the mist of snow falling. Some of the fakes were as big as half dollars. Very pretty. I hate driving cop cars in the snow. Barry

Connor: The best ride for me was the howlin' tornado,

it was very fun. This place for a week would be an

ideal vacation. I also liked the wave pool which even

tastes like the ocaen.

At the top of Ft. McKenzie, there is a bucket that will hold over 1,000 gallons of water. Every 5 minutes a bell will clang and then whoosh, the bucket empty's it's contents. Many kids clamor to get under the large pail. You can't see Delaney and Cailin in this picture, but Ryan's there holding Liam.

This is Delaney. I liked the kitty pool and i like the dump bucket. I'm scared of the innertubes.

I like the wave pool. I like the canyon river run, but it was kind of scary. Sometimes you go side to side. I like the racing mat, but it's scary going down the hill. I like the going down the slides in a two person innertube.

This is the story time.

More sleet, snow and ice was in the forcast for our area. Soooo, we left the fun in warm waters early enough and hoped to get home before it started. We made it--as got onto I81 the snow started to come down. By the time we hit our driveway the snowflakes falling from the sky as big as the palm of Liam's hand, huge and beautiful. I tried to get a picture of them, but they didn't come out so well.

A break from the winter cold

A bunch of us gathered at a local pool to get away from the cold icy winter outside yesterday...(Thanks Jamie, what a great idea). We all had a grand time. I'm glad that I was able to get there, our street still hasn't been scraped yet, but our van pulled through, and we we're able to join our friends for an evening of balmy warm fun.

With great trepidation, Delaney braved the water slide. One trip down was all it took--she was hooked- she loved to go down and did just that many times.

Although he was grumpy at first, Liam, along with Amber, had fun in the warmer waters of the therapy pool.

Sadly Barry couldn't join us....work called again, and Ryan didn't want to. Ahhh, teenage desires to be all alone for a few hours--I really couldn't blame him for that--and yes, I know he was on the computer the entire time we were gone, but lately he's been really good about sharing computer time, so I let him indulge.

A Baby Mozy Wrap

A week ago, I got a great gift in the mail. A friend of mine sent me 10+ yards of fabric and the directions of how to wrap it around me and Brianne to form a baby wrap.

It's definately the next best thing to sliced bread.... it's so darn wonderful. I now have two hands to grocery shop with, (although Barry still has to come with me to help with the other little ones).

I can cook dinner now and I can clean the house to boot.

Brianne loves it. She calms down if she's fussy, our closeness helps lull her to sleep. I wish I had one of these when the others were babies. Thanks SO MUCH Tiffany. What a gift!

It's definately winter this year

For the past few years we've had miniscule amounts of snow for the winter season....unless my mind is failing me--which is entirely possible-- I really can't remember having any significant amounts of snow for the whole season of winters past. We'd have a big snow fall here and there, but not a year of multiple snow storms. Ahhh, this year has changed that, (not that the season is over, it's just that the amount we've had so far exceed what we've had for quite a while).

A week before Christmas we had a storm that dropped around 18 inches. This storm created quite a havoc. The snow plows couldn't keep up with the snow, the interstate was a mess (not to mention local roads). A simple 3 hour trip to Charlottesville to pick up my parents turned into a 6-7 hour trip one way. Some of the on ramps were blocked not only because the road wasn't plowed, but semi trucks had slid and ended up blocking the entire area. Barry and Elizabeth saw multitudes of abondoned cars along the roadsides.

Another lighter snow fall came sometime (I don't remember when, but it was enough to make snowmen with). Last weekend we had another significant snow fall....the kids discovered the fun of sledding down the hills at the local school. Then another snowfall came this past weekend thus bringing more fun in the white wintery mix. This snow storm brought us around 10-12 inches. To bad for us, we missed the fun that Brian and Risa and the others up north had, They got 30+ inches. Their car was entirely covered, only the antenna was in view.

Liam definately wanted to join the others in the fun, but cold overcame the little guy and wanted in for his promised hot chocolate.

Playing ' king of the hill'

The hard work of snow comes into play now....shoveling the driveways.

Ryan, Connor, (and with this last storm Cailin too), have turned into wonderful snow plowers. They have even gone around the neighborhood trying to earn a few dollars by shoveling driveways. They come home with sore backs and achey arms, but thrilled with a few extra dollars in thier pockets. What's even better than that, is watching how happy they are to help others who need it without pay.

I can honestly say that I'm not sick of snow yet....I'm still lovin' the white stuff.

(I wonder how much more snow it will take to get me to change my tune?)