Glad We Did It

Its done! Grace had her last day of preschool this week and was perfectly fine with it. Hallelujah!
Thankfully, Grace brought home her "school pictures" on her last day of preschool. These are the pictures, paid for by the check, that started it all. See story here.
I feel I must apologize to my sweet Grace for passing on to her my pasty white skin. I fear that for the rest of her life, in the last winter-early spring, people will ask her if she's feeling well and she'll only reply, "Yes, I'm fine." But all the while be cursing them (and me) because she is NOT ill or under the weather, she is just white. Pasty white. Grace will blame me, I blame my mother and she blames hers. It's a viscous blame game.

One more thing, I hate props. This picture is 40% Grace and 60% props. I don't want pictures of props. I wanted pictures of my child. Crazy me!
(I apologize if I just totally offended you b/c you love picture props. Its okay. We can agree to disagree and still be friends.)

Having said ALL that, our Grace is stinkin' cute. She love, love, loves that dress and made sure, days in advance, that it was clean and hanging in her closet for picture day. Grace was so proud of herself for being big enough for "school pictures". Its true. Look how big she is. She's a giant that's all but outgrown her winter clothes. I can hardly believe she was my butterball baby just a few years ago. Grace makes me smile everyday with her hilarious made-up words, lyrics and stories. There is never a dull moment when Grace is home.

I love you my Gracie Anne

Not On Speaking Terms

I'm pretty sure that every blogger on the Wasatch Front blogged about the cruel April Fool's trick Mother Nature played on us today. We awoke to driving snow. Sick and wrong!

So, I've decided I'm not speaking to Mother Nature until she's ready to act like an adult. No more of this flipsy flopsy snow two inches in the morning then melt it all before sunset.

I've decided to hol' up in my house and not leave until the REAL SPRING arrives. I'm sure my kids will object but . . . that's what daddy's are for, right? (just kidding, I promise)

So to show Mother Nature my protest I'm NOT blogging about her today. NOPE, not me.

Instead . . .
I spent a good part of the day in the kitchen. Therefore my kids spent the better part of the day in the kitchen. Heaven forbid I should be . . . (gasp) in a different room! Oh, the horror!

Where I am, Joseph is. Where Joseph is, there are cars. Therefore my kitchen was invaded by cars today. Kids and cars. I think, one day, I'll miss finding cars in my cupboards. I love it.

I am loving my kids' stages (for the most part). It would be nice to walk from room to room without feeling like a mama duck leading her ducklings around but that won't last forever.
I was tired today. I was short with the kids a time or two but overall it was a good day. This evening we all snuggled in my bed and watched a movie. I love that my kids like that. Can I subtract one or two little annoying things then freeze my kids just think this forever?

I love my kids and yes, I love matchbox cars.

One awful day last week . . .

One horrid and awful day last week . . . we ran out of raisins.

Joseph wanted raisins but he'd finished them at breakfast.
I am, apparently, a rude and inconsiderate mother for letting our cupboards go bare of raisins.
It caused supreme sadness in our kitchen.
Thankfully Joseph got over it because I still haven't remembered to buy more raisins, and its been . . . gulp . . . a week.
I'll go put that on my grocery list right now.

Upon Request

As requested by my younger brother, Sam, here are the pics of my hand from the last few days.

I woke up one day last week and had, what felt like, two burns on my left hand but I didn't remember burning myself.

By bedtime, both spots had begun to blister.
And I woke up to this. And they freakin' hurt.
I drained them but they didn't got away and they didn't start to heal.
The next day another small one appeared on my right hand (sorry no pics).


The doctor thinks its a staf infection. She sent "a sample" to the lab to make sure and gave me an antibiotic to get started on. The blisters seem to be getting a little better.
Sam, I'll keep you posted. Thank you for the concern and I love you.

It All Started One Day When . . .

It all started one day about three weeks ago when Ella broke out in hives. For the first few days I thought I'd figured out what was giving her the hives: new laundry soap, petting kittens at the pet store, etc. But when the hives came back day after day at different times and in different environments I was baffled and called her pediatrician. The hives looked like this but covered her whole body including her face. She was a pitiful, weepy site.

A quick trip to the pediatrician revealed that Ella had a viral infection (the kind that just has to run its course) that was manifesting itself on her skin. Very common apparently. Who knew?
That quick trip also revealed HUGE tonsils. Alarmingly huge tonsils, though no infection there. Thank heavens!
We were referred to an ENT (Ear, Nose and Throat) doctor who got us in within a few days. We met with him on Tuesday and . . .
Friday morning we were in an outpatient surgery center getting Ella's tonsils and adenoids out.
Ella was nervous the morning of but after Adam gave her a blessing she calmed right down and we had a pleasant morning, just the two of us. (Thank you Angie and Randy for having Grace and Joseph spend the night so I could focus on Ella that morning.)

Waiting in this first little room Ella got a "new cool bracelet", a grown up hospital gown, very fun no slip socks she got to take home, crayons, coloring book, a new doll and bright pink medicine that made her sleepy and very silly.

The anesthesiologist then wheeled her off in the special surgery wagon and I was escorted to a different little room to wait. Less than an hour later I was escorted to yet another little room where Ella was waking up. She looked so pitiful. Pitiful and strange. I didn't get a picture of it but she had a dollar bill taped to her forehead. Apparently she won a bet with the anesthesiologist.

Upon waking up a little more she asked for her new doll and said "Now I have ten dollars."

What a funny girl!

It took about an hour before Ella was ready to go home. The nurse put her in a wheelchair and wheeled her to the door while I went to get the car. And would you believe that I'd left the lights on that morning and the battery was dead? Believe it!

After more waiting and waiting, security came, gave us a jump and we were FINALLY on our way home. Ella slept nearly the whole rest of the day and that night.

She did awesome the first week until yesterday. See yesterday's post for details.

Miss Ella is doing wonderfully today. She even went to her best friend's house for some calm play time (yeah right). The whole experience hasn't been too bad (knock on wood). Once Ella learned that taking her pain medication wasn't optional (because it really hurts) its been smooth sailing. I am thankful we were able to get this done while she's off track and could take plenty of time to relax and recover.

Upon Waking This Morning . . .

There are a handful of people who, upon waking this morning said, "I think I'll try my best to annoying Emily out of her mind today." They did an awesome job!

Okay, that was a little dramatic since the people are nearly strangers but that didn't make them any less annoying today.

I'll be giving you the "Reader's Digest" version of these stories so as not to annoy you out of your mind.

Today was picture day at preschool. I made sure the form and check made it safely into a "teacher's" hand this morning. Somewhere between the teachers hand and the photographer's hand the check disappeared. GREAT! that's awesome!

Angie (who I carpool with and drove today) was sweet enough to go back up to the school, talk face to face with the really annoying people, get frustrated and write them another check.

That is annoying enough but in the midst of all this Angie accidentally discovered that the supervising teacher (who is pregnant but not due until April) got put on bed rest THREE MONTHS AGO! They didn't feel it was important to let the parents know that there would be a sub in the school for the rest of the school year. I knew I hadn't seen her in a while but since I only drive once a week and the monthly newsletters kept coming home signed "Summer" I assumed I was just missing her. Nope, no!

I have been toying with the idea of pulling Grace out anyway since the work they were doing has become "non-educational" (like devoting a whole week to fairy tales then spending the week talking about Disney movies). Today was the last nail in the casket for me. I am happy to say that Grace will finish this month (since I already paid for it) and then be done with preschool. That, my friends, will be money well saved!

Next, Ella had a tonsillectomy last week (that post will come tomorrow). She's been remarkably well until today when she started to get some drainage and the pain really kicked it up a few notches. (Isn't she so stinkin' cute?)

About 4 pm I called the doctor's office to ask about the increased pain. I'm asked to leave a message on the nurse's voicemail. Great! I'd love to (please note the sarcasm). Two hours later the PA finally calls back and said there was some mix up with the phone numbers (note - he called me on my phone.) Anyway, after talking to him, him calling some pharmacy then calling me back, he decided to change her pain medication. Great. He was going to call the prescription into the pharmacy and I could go pick it up. Double great. Until I got to the pharmacy 30 minutes later and NOTHING! It hadn't even been called in yet. By this time its 7 pm, my kids are getting cranky since bedtime is upon us and the doctor's office is closed, all calls go straight to voicemail. UGH!

Since I'm not going to/can't wait indefinitely at Walgreen's I put everyone back in the car and head home. I notice I have a voicemail but didn't miss a call which means Adam forwarded the message to me from his phone. It is a nurse at the doctor's office saying she tried to call me four times but it was busy and how it is so much better to talk in person but she guesses she'll just have to leave a message as a last resort. (Really? What cell phone on earth gives a busy signal, it would just roll to voicemail if I missed the call and I did not miss FOUR calls since I was WAITING FOR THE CALL.) My phone number doesn't have a Utah area code but it is a similar area code and is often mis-dialed. Don't be all condescending to me when YOU can't dial correctly, four times. If I didn't write 8 0 1 as the area code it probably means my area code is not 8 0 1!

Okay, I'm done.

Except to say that I just called the pharmacy again out of curiosity and her prescription is ready and waiting. That's wonderful considering Adam's not home and all my kids are asleep so I can't go get it. P E R F E C T!

I guess half an hour is too quick to expect someone to call in a prescription for a six year old in pain.

Silly me!

Okay, now I'm really done.

p.s. I'll be fine tomorrow and happily posting about our first tonsillectomy ever! promise.

Life is Consuming . . . .

Life is consuming my . . . well, life. Ever feel like you're busy all day and half the night and you barely scratch the surface of what "needs" to be done? Welcome to my life!

I'm working on time management and prioritizing and therefore will be rejoining the civilized world. And by civilized world, of course, I mean the blogging world. I can't promise exciting and life changing posts but I'll do my best.

FYI, I'm finding that this little goal Adam and I set for ourselves for our 10th anniversary is terribly consuming (time, mind, body everything consuming). I'm finding that I NEED to talk about it b/c it is such a big part of life right now. So, as not to bore and/or annoy I'll try to keep the running talk exclusively on happyme. Click at your own risk!