Chicken Pox

A quick story to lighten the mood today.  We saw some turkeys in our yard this morning.  I pointed them out to Sweetie and Tank who were sitting in the kitchen.  The conversation went like this:

Sweetie:  Oh look, there they are!! 

Tank:  Cool!

Sweetie:  You have to be careful if you are outside with them because they bite.

Tank:  I know!!  Mom even got a bite on her forehead once.

Mom:  No I didn't.

Tank:  Yes you did, you showed me that mark!  The one on your forehead.

Mom:  You mean the scar that I have from chicken pox??

Tank:  No it wasn't chicken, it was from the turkeys.

Mom:  I think  you're confused... my scar is from chicken pox, which is not actually from a chicken (or a turkey), its a type of rash. 



Well, it made me laugh anyway.  :) 

Summer has been crazy around here.  Crazy weather, and lots of restless kids.  Its hard finding things to keep them all occupied.  They like to play outside but the mosquitos are horrendous this year, so we have to be relentless on the bug spray.  Especially since Twister has such an allergy to them.  Have I shown you this picture before??

He swells up like crazy with a single bite.  The picture was from last year, but we've had some doozies this year as well.  It helps when I get some hydrocortisone on it immediately. 

Anyway, this summer is going well despite our crazies.  :)  We're excited for next month when we are going on a small vacation and meeting up with my old college bestie and her family.  :)  It will be a blast!! 

Just a pic for today

Migraine blessing

As background, I am a migraine sufferer.  Before kids, I would get them a couple times per month.  During pregnancy and breastfeeding, I usually got a reprieve and got them far less often.  I was telling my BFF last week how it had been almost 2 years since I'd had a migraine.  Huge blessing.  :)  However, somewhat ironically, last Friday I got a migraine. 
I'm the Teachings for our Times teacher in our Relief Society (our church's women's group). I was scheduled to teach on Sunday.  For me, the best way to "treat" my migraines is to take medicine when I get the aura, then get to sleep.   So, that is what I did.  Unfortunately, it didn't kick the migraine this time.  I woke up on Saturday still with an awful headache.  I rested, I napped... I took medicine, but I could not focus at all. 
I knew I needed to finish preparing my lesson, but I was feeling completely useless.  I could see the words on the page, and I thought I was reading them, but I could not seem to retain them or make any sort of coherent thought about them.  I wanted to pass off the lesson to someone else, but my "backup" teacher was out of town and I didn't feel right about passing it off so late to anyone else.  So, Saturday night, I sat down at the computer and forced myself to create an outline.  I really don't even remember any of it making sense STILL at that point, but I got some questions ready to ask and made some handouts with quotes from the talk I was supposed to be teaching. 
I went to bed early hoping to kick the migraine and wake up with some clarity of thought so that I could fix the lesson plan I started.  No such luck.  Still foggy and hurting Sunday morning.  Begin super praying.  lol.  really though, I was not feeling capable of teaching, so I prayed as hard as I could muster that the Spirit would teach the lesson that day. 
As I got up to teach, I hoped that the migraine would melt away for at least the time I had to stand up there.  It didn't.  But something else happened.  Despite my feeling as though I couldn't make a coherent thought, and could hardly read the words on my paper, I WAS able to teach.  It was as though my spiritual self took over for those 45 minutes.  I had people tell me that they never would have known I had a migraine unless I had told them.  My body was weak at that moment, but the Spirit was strong.  I honestly don't remember a lot of the lesson, but I know there was good discussion and a feeling of peace and hope in the room. 
The Lord doesn't always remove our physical challenges, but He DOES strenthen us when we are striving to do His will.

Debating

So, here it has been almost a month... again... since I last wrote.  Somehow, life is super busy with 5 kids.  :)  Who knew? Lots of laundry, lots of dishes, cooking dinner, sweeping floors, picking up toys.  I could go on, but I know you all know.



So, I've made the decision to go back to school.  I'm starting in the fall at the local community college.  I have a handful of pre-requisites I need to take, then I'll apply for the nursing program there for Fall of 2013.  I'm really excited, but also really nervous.  I took all but 1 of the pre-req's to get into the nursing program at BYU.  I tried to take the last one twice, but withdrew before I failed.  To be clear, I have always been a good student.  I got good grades in HS, and got into BYU.  At BYU, I got mostly A's and B's.  However, when I tried to take the anatomy class there, I failed every quiz for the first few weeks before I withdrew.  Granted, I was newly married and didn't want to spend every waking hour in the lab studying cadavers...  but I DID study and I was failing.  So, as I mentioned, this makes me nervous to go back.  Especially to start with Anatomy as my first class.  But, I have to believe I'm at a more mature place in my life, and I know I can do it!!!  I worked for years as a medical assistant doing most of the things the nurses did, but getting paid a fraction of what they do.  No longer!!!   I will get those magical letters to add on to the end of my name and I will LOVE IT.  :)


As for my business, I've not been doing much with it.  Every once in a while, I'll get an order off of my website or Etsy, but not very frequently.  I don't feel much push to promote it myself.  Its really a hard thing to do online.  I usually got the most sales during the craft shows I would do each fall, but with me starting school this fall, I don't think I can manage juggling shows as well.  So, I'm a bit in limbo about what to do with my business.  I suppose I can just put it on hold and see what happens with life.  It would be nice if I could figure out a way to sell my art without putting all the work into a show where I may or may not sell anything.  I'd also like to branch out a bit and try some new crafty things.  Anyway, I suppose this is just ramblings.  I'm not likely to close up business to the point of refusing a new order if I got one.  So, I guess I'll just see how things roll.

The kids are all doing well.  They are anxious for summer to show up here.  Although, weather wise, we've hardly had spring!   We had 2 days last week when it was in the upper 80's, then 2 days later the high was 45!!  I would love to have more than a fleeting 70 degree day.  Just a week or two in that range is all I'm asking. *sigh*

I'll leave you with a few pictures from the last few weeks.  I feel very blessed, life is good.

 Being three is exhausting

The trampoline is "hair-raising" fun. 

Fun for the boys at Papa's house

Tank's phonic spelling.  Someone is not allowed to touch the remote every day.  LOL.

Digital Scrapbooking

So, I'm way way way behind on scrapbooking in the sense of putting pictures together to make cute photo books.  I think the last page did was for when Tank was born.  She's 6.  Where does the time go??!  Anyway, I'm thinking about digital scrapbooking as an alternative to get it actually done.  I found the shabby princess site that has a handful of free designs available to download and this is what I did today.

I think I could get into this.  :)  Any of you have any great sites you want to share for getting more templates?

Guess who is . . .

taking steps!!!  Just in time for her upcoming birthday!  I'd say she is walking, but its still not her preferred method of getting around.  Though, she does LOVE the attention she gets for it.  :)

Funny story, she was taking a couple steps between my Mom and I.  As she got close to either of us she would sort of lunge forward and fall into our arms.  Adorable right?  :)

Twister could not handle the amount of love and praise she was getting for this.  So, he says, "Look Mom, I know how to fall too!"  He walked from behind my mom over to me and fell into my arms.  :)  Hilarious.  He could NOT understand why we thought this was so funny.  It was charming and amazing when Cinderelly did it.  Why not him?

Children's museum

Just a few pictures of our family trip to the children's museum. You tell me who you think was having the most fun. :)