Palm Sunday

Today is Palm Sunday, one my very favorite Sundays. I always feel like I can share in the excitement, Jesus is coming, Jesus is coming! Make ready your hearts, make ready your homes, prepare the way!

It took a lot of zooming and cropping to get these photos, there was a lot of whacking each another with palm fronds that I edited out, but I think there are a few nice ones here.

I love love love Bella’s pink polka dotted dress. It is the kind with crinoline so it puffs out. She is such a girly girl.

This next one is Jacob’s “I’m about to really whack someone with this palm frond face”. 

 

This is his, who? me? whacking with palm fronds, no way. (AKA oh, Mama is looking so I’ll put it down face.)

Bella and her Daddy.

 

Bayou City Art Festival

 

We had so much fun at the art festival last year that we couldn’t wait for it to come around again this year. The weather was perfect and thank goodness we were all sufficiently recovered to all go.

Will & his Mom Theresa

 

The kids – I have to post both because one is a great one of Bella and the other is a better one of Jacob.

  

When you go with kids there is always a lot of sitting down and resting, snacking or using of the bathroom. Here the kids have fun with their Grandfather Bobby. This was taken right before Jacob and Bella spilled their waters simultaneously.

Right after this we saw Jessica’s Mom Rose. We saw her near the pink portapotties. Bella loved that they were pink and decided to go many many times.

Here is a short video of a musical group. Bella went right up really close to them and I thought she would clap or dance but instead she just stood there doing this new thing she does where she sucks her thumb and sort of picks her nose all with one hand. She’s very talented.

 

Here is another short video of Jacob playing the didgeridoo.

 

Bella explores the metal art. We’ve been on a metal art kick lately – we have a bee, a dragonfly, and a frog out in our front yard and a chicken and a pig inside by our fireplace. We didn’t get anymore this year, but Bella had fun checking everything out.

 

After we ate and shopped and looked and mooned over impossibly beautiful and expensive art we sat down in an open area and the kids just ran around.

  

There was a huge tree stump that the kids loved, they would run over to it and get up on it and then run back to where we were sitting.  I don’t have adequate words for how tired and dirty these children were at the end of the day!

 

Of course I had to take a picture of this dragon. Turns out this dragon costs $38,000 dollars. Oh my. That is nearly double the cost of my college education. That is more than the down payment on a house. I told the artist’s brother that for $38,000 dollars it better take me work and back every day. Artist’s brother was not amused and informed they would not be back next year because “Houston just wasn’t their clientele.” When I asked what he meant he replied, “Our clientele doesn’t take a bus to buy art”. Hah.

 

 

Another thing happened that I thought was hilarious. I was taking Bella to the bathroom and a woman said something to me about the length of my skirt relative to the bathroom floor (I was wearing an ankle length denim skirt) and then she says “Honestly, I don’t know how you people get around dressed like that”. 

I’m not sure to which “people” she thought I belonged  – maybe Pentecostal  or Mexican or hippies or I don’t know what.  It is highly amusing to me that my hemlines and my hair have gotten long enough to be “different”.   What a world we live in when you stand out just for dressing the way millions of women do all over the world!

But in general I had a great time chatting with all the artists and with all the random people we met during the day.

Heading out after a long fun day.

Garden Journal II

Bella Bella, how does your garden grow? 

I’m just enjoying watching things grow in the garden. Most of the plants are noticeably larger.

The strawberries and chives look about the same. I’ve been eating the chives on my eggs, so they are cut down a little. 

 

 

I really like having things on the windowsills. It’s nice from the breakfast room to have something pretty.

All kids like to be outdoors but Bella really really loves it. She is happy to run and slide,  play with her fairy play set, or just sit in the sun.  I love these because one captures her sweet dreamy face and one captures her happy face.

 

The week from H E double hockey sticks

Sheesh, it’s 9:30 Friday night and all I can think is, please Lord is this week over yet?

To catch you up here’s a timeline

Thursday 3.18.2010

Bella has an upper respiratory infection, goes to doctor and is put on antibiotics.

Saturday 3.20.2010

Bella falls and chips tooth, we go to the dentist and get xrays, luckily the antibiotics she was already on, worked for the tooth thing too.

Sunday 3.21.2010

Jacob starts running a fever.

Shaun starts to feel terrible with allergies, sinus and horrible back pain

Will starts to feel bad.

Monday 3.22.2010

Shaun & Jacob stay home in bed. That night we notice Jacob is covered in a rash.

Tuesday 3.23.2010

Dog has diarrhea all over master bedroom carpet.

GOODMORNING.

Nothing beats stepping in cold piles of dog poop at 5:10 AM.

Will actually goes into the attic and pulls out the steam cleaner and cleans the carpets and then goes to work.

Jacob goes to doctor: he is diagnosed with Scarlet Fever (Scary talk for strep throat plus a rash)

Shaun goes to doctor: she is diagnosed with a sinus infection.

Both are put on antibiotics, Shaun is given muscle relaxers.

Wednesday 3.24.2010

Will stays home with Jacob. Shaun goes to work, Bella goes to school. Will starts taking antibiotics (he had an unfilled script)

Entire family is now on antibiotics.

Shaun takes muscle relaxer and goes to bed.

Will wakes Shaun up from deep drooly muscle relaxer sleep because Bella has started to throw up.

Will cleans sheets, bed, floor. Will actually went out to Kroger to buy carpet cleaner (Spot Shot is da’ bomb, waaaay better than Resolve)

Shaun cleans Bella and sets up a bed for her in our room. I am like that sister that gets married in Sixteen Candles, only not the getting married part. Despite my state I notice to myself that we are working great as a team. We are pros at this. We know to set up three or four layers of sheets and towels so we can just strip off one gunky layer, clean her up and all go back to sleep. We know to get four or five big t-shirts (so we can pull it over her head without it getting all in her hair and face)  and leggings for her to sleep in and have them ready to go by the bed and to put her hair back in a pony tail. We know not to let her have any water no matter how much she wants it, we know to let her suck on an ice cube instead.

Poor baby. She is sick at 11,1,2 and 3. I am like a pit crew in auto racing, I can get a child completely clean, in fresh PJs, with clean bedding and the nasties soaking in vinegar in like 1 minute flat. I think a couple of times she hardly even woke up.

On the other hand, I hardly slept, positive she would choke on her own vomit and I would sleep through it because I was on drugs. Instead I was awake aware of her every move. So I just lay there and listened to her breathe. Then I worried that Jacob would be sick too and I wouldn’t know and I made Will get up and check on him.

Thursday 3.25.2010

I stumble my way through the work day. Will’s Mom is home with Bella, who has stopped throwing up but is now running a 103.5 temperature. What???

My back is still killing me. While rubbing on it I find a LUMP, just to the left of my spine above my hip. It is about 1 inch in diameter. I make Will feel the lump. It is freaky and scary and I want it to not be there. I try not to think too much about it. I resist googling.

I call and make appointments for Bella and myself. I take more muscle relaxers and sleep well. I do not dream. I do not move or lie awake thinking about tumors on my spine.

Friday 3.26.2010

Bella wakes up and has no fever. Do I keep the appointment or what? I decide to still take her, just in case. We are headed into the weekend and I really don’t want her to be having urinary tract or ear infections or whatever.

So I work from home and we both go to the doctor. The really nice thing about a family doctor is that they can see both of you in the same room at the same time.

(Side bar – so this probably means I am going to switch pediatricians AGAIN, kind of, still at Kelsey Seybold but all of us under one guy. He is awesome, I didn’t understand before that a family doctor knows pediatrics, you don’t have to have a separate one.)

Bella’s diagnosis was more about ruling things out, probably just a stomach flu. She seems fine now and no one else has it (yet) and it seems unrelated to Scarlet Fever or anything else. Not food poisoning or a virus because it was just vomiting and not diarrhea. Wow I’ve never type the word diarrhea so many times before. It’s such a weird word, DIARRHEA. DIARRHEA. Ick.

Me, I am SO relieved to say I do not have tumor, I have a back mouse. A back mouse is old school non medical jargon for a knotted muscle. The doctor was sort of excited to see it because he had heard of it but never dealt with it first hand. I am going to have to take an anti-inflammatory for a while (and the muscle relaxers). And he recommended massage and stretching. It hurts because it is underneath the band of muscle I use to bend over. And you know, you can’t just not bend over. Not when you are a Mom and there’s kids to bathe and laundry and stuff in the oven.

In case you lost track that is:

5 doctor visits

6 prescriptions

1 throat culture

1 kidney infection screen (they thought that could be causing my back pain before I found the lump)

1 dentist visit

1 set of dental x-rays

um yeah.

So I’m waaaay ready for the week to be over and you are probably ready for this post to be over (if you are even still with me!) Please, pray for wellness for our family! And pray that we can deal with the doctor bills which are going to be off the hook. I’m fairly sure we hit our deductible (and it’s only March).

Aww... Easter 2008

 

Awww... Easter 2007

 

Heavenly Homemaker

I just love the Heavenly Homemakers blog. She has a new all natural, healthy cookie recipe e-book out now and I so want to win it.

I myself, of course work outside the home. But I still consider myself a homemaker, otherwise what the heck do you call all that cooking, cleaning, folding and laundry? :)

It Never Gets Any Easier

When your little ones get hurt.  On Saturday the kids were playing chase and next thing I know Bella was screaming.  You know that I am seriously hurt scream? So Will and I are going over her, asking where does it hurt where does it hurt, and then we see her teeth. And she has streams of blood between all her top teeth and oh, her front tooth has a corner chipped off it! And the the whole tooth was pushed out of place, higher and back from where it should be and the gum looked bad.

I called the dentist who kindly left her Spring Break plans to meet us (her office is at the Woodlands) and an x-ray turned out that the root was not broken and she explained the tooth should move back into position as the gum heals. Whew, if the root had been broken then she would have lost the tooth.  There is still some chance the tooth may darken due to trauma but there’s nothing to be done about it and the tooth itself is fine. I was so relieved. Will and I weren’t sure if it warranted an emergency visit but the dentist said anytime they hit a tooth like that and especially if it is moved out of place, it is a good idea to go in.

Shortly after the whole tooth thing I was on the landing folding laundry and Bella was on the top step and she fell! I mean she stepped off into thin air and toppled down 7 steps to the landing. I was totally freaked out, she is FINE but it scared me to death. And my nerves were already shot from the whole tooth thing (the falling happened before the dentist visit).

So now I am feeling uber protective of her, not letting her go up and down the stairs by herself (which she has been doing fine for months) and today she was clattering around in her dress up shoes and all I had were visions of her falling and chipping out more teeth!

Random picture time

Bella and her new BFF – Josh Beasley!

At the Woodlands mall playscape along with 57 million other people

Now I know I’m Crazy

Tuesday night I sort of had the night off. Will belongs to a bible study class called Dad’s With Young Children and someone wonderful decided it would be fun if the Dads and their kids all went out for pizza together. So I had nearly two hours all to myself. I immediately changed into comfy clothes and my first inclination was to find the remote and hit the couch. But then I thought why not use this one night off and turn it into several nights off? So here is the breakdown of what I did:

6:05 – Cook 1 lb of ground chicken with salt and onions. Set aside to cool (This will be added to a jar of Green Chile Stew to make a 5 minute dinner some other time)

6:10 – Cook up another 1 lb of ground chicken, this time added basil, oregano, salt, pepper, onion and garlic. Once browned, I added 1 large can of tomato sauce and a bit of olive oil. Cooked for ten minutes.

6:20 Poured into casserole dish with 8 ounces of cottage cheese. Without washing the pot, added 4 cups of water, brought it to a boil

Meanwhile:
I cooked two packages of Better Crocker instant mashed potatoes & added a tablespoon of yellow mustard & sprayed a 2nd casserole dish with Pam

I also got out the vacuum sealer and sealed up the following from Monday night’s shopping trip:

4 pork chops
6 chicken breasts bone in (2 packages of 3 each)
The above mentioned pound of ground chicken

6:30 The water is boiling so I add 8 ounces of whole grain pasta and let it cook for 11 minutes.

Meanwhile:
Spread ½ potatoes on the bottom of the casserole dish
Chop up 1 package of link turkey sausage

6:40 Drain pasta, add to casserole dish, add mozzarella cheese and cover.
Lasagna Casserole – DONE.

Added mustard and some Worcestershire sauce to the sausage & browned it up (just used the same pot as the pasta – didn’t even rinse it)

Meanwhile: Open can of sauerkraut, get out Swiss cheese & Caraway seeds

6:45 Put browned turkey sausage over 1st layer of baked potatoes, then layer sauerkraut, then another layer of mashed potatoes, top with Swiss cheese and caraway seeds.

Sausage & Potato casserole - DONE

6:50 PM : Clean kitchen, put away vacuum sealer, put casseroles in fridge and meats in garage freezer, wipe down stove & sink, prep coffee for tomorrow and unload dishwasher, rotate laundry.

7:05 – Curl up on sofa with a good book for nearly 40 minutes of blessed silence, with a clean kitchen, a stocked fridge and freezer, and a happy heart, knowing I won’t have to cook again until Saturday!

Garden Journal

Saturday we went to the nursery and got plants, we got them all planted and Will put down fresh mulch and removed a dead tree and moved around a few other things in the yard.

Moving a palm to the back left a hole in the front bed, Will had the perfect idea of half burying a round pottery bowl, I think it came out so lovely.

I love the white and green gladiolas, I always think they look like hands praising the Lord!

  

This plant is in the corner of the front bed

More purple around the tree, one of Bella’s favorite spots

 

And even more purple on the front porch

In the back yard a few more pots of flowers

By the swing set

On the back porch - begonias

On the windowsill

 

Strawberries

 

Chives

 

And of course new plants for the container garden:

Basil, cilantro, two types of tomatoes and dill. In the middle is rosemary, the only thing from last year that made it through the winter.

The children spent a lot of time outside this weekend, it was so beautiful, although the tree pollen means everyone has runny noses.