Snowdown, Super Bowl, Sickness? Stupendous!

Life is moving right along.  I was reminded on Monday of my need to focus on what task at a time and not try to do everything at once.  Some days are easier than others.

Last weekend we went to the Snowdown parade in Durango.  We haven't been in quite a long time.  The thought of taking 3 small kids downtown where there could be 10,000 people lining mainstreet made us cringe.  Thankfully the kids are much more able to handle the walking and the cold.  Especially if there's candy involved.  And there was plenty of that.  And the fact that they could cheer on their friends who were in the parade.  It turned out to be a rainy night but it wasn't miserably cold AND the parade was actually enjoyable...except for the streakers in a thong.  Some peoples kids!

Mark tried to go ballooning on Saturday but the weather wasn't cooperating so he got to go to breakfast instead.

Sunday we went to a Superbowl party and the cable wasn't working at the clubhouse.  So for the first half of the game we ate lots of food and had time to chat with friends.  It was actually really nice.  Eventually we went back to the host's house and watched the most exciting part of the game.  It turned out to be a great night with friends.

Here's Kate enjoying the recent sunshine we've had.

Monday morning Kate woke up feeling awful.  Headache, body aches, runny nose, coughing, fever... No good.  What was planned as a peaceful Monday turned into lots of running around.  I did school with the boys, made a dr appt for Kate, finished making a meal to take to a family at church, had a coaching call for the writing program I'm doing, had the internet go out for 2 hours and made calls to our provider, took Kate to the dr, switched out the modem, picked up a prescription (Kate has Influenza B - a milder, but still miserable, form of the flu), did a little shopping for meds and a working thermometer, delivered a meal, came home and crashed!  All with a wonderful headache.  I'm not complaining just stating the facts.  It was a crazy day.  Not a terrible day though.  A good reminder to take the time I do have and accomplish things one at a time.  That way when the margins of life get sucked away, I have some breathing room.

Kate has spent the last couple days holed up in her room.  Poor thing has gone through a couple boxes of tissue.  She has quite a mountain of them!

(Don't worry.  Right after I took this picture we cleaned them all up in a big trash bag. I didn't know how bad it had gotten!) 

I think she kind of likes the alone time and the ability to pick what she wants to watch on TV.  She has one in her room so she's all set.  But she doesn't like being away from friends so that's been hard.  She also really hates the Tamiflu we've had to give her.  We keep encouraging her that the few seconds of a nasty taste are worth feeling better sooner.  She's been a trooper in getting it down but not without some tears.  No one likes to feel yucky but when you're especially sensitive to how you feel...it can be unbearable.  For her and the rest of us.  I had prayed when the rest of us were sick that she would stay well.  And she did.  I think God knew that if she got sick when we all were we'd have a lower amount of compassion.  With it just being her I can focus more on helping her.  It's still challenging but not nearly what I had feared earlier.  She's been working really hard on staying away and taking her meds.  She knows it'll help in the end.  She's come such a long way!!

Today we've been dealing with our dog, Mishka.  Two weeks ago we noticed his ear swelling.  Took him to the vet and we discovered he has food allergies which caused lots of itching which caused him to scratch so hard he broke a blood vessel in his ear - hence the swelling.  He had a little minor surgery to drain the blood then got to wear the cone of shame for a week.  I was hoping after the first day or two he'd realize just how big his new head was.  Nope.  He was constantly running into people, walls and doors.  We were all super excited when he got it off.  We became super diligent in watching what he ate.  The food we had been feeding him was on the allowable list but we have to monitor the people food he licks off the floor or dishes when we're loading the dishwasher.  We've been so good about watching him but he hasn't really seemed a whole lot better.

This morning Mark took him back in and it turns out he's still having an allergy attack.  Now he's on an even more strict diet but thankfully no cone of shame!

Mark and I have planned a weekend away with the kids coming up in a couple weeks.  A fun way to celebrate Kate and Kale's birthdays.  We're going to Albuquerque and staying at a hotel that has an indoor water park.  We're all looking forward to a change of scenery and the kids are super excited to swim!  We've haven't gotten away as a family and just played since this summer and we could all use some play time.  Things don't slow down a whole lot for us just because it's winter so we need to carve it out for us.  Hopefully we're learning!  I had a woman tell me the other day that we have just 18 summers with our kids.  Wow.  Talk about perspective!  It goes fast and I really don't want to miss it.

Gone Fishin'

 Mark planned our Fun on Friday outing this week.  He's been wanting to take the kids fishing for a long time so we decided to invest in fishing poles for this, and future fishing trips while camping, and head to the pond near our house.

We've got this wonderful fenced in pond that is for residents only.  It has a sandy beach that was perfect!  We will definitely be visiting this in the summer when the kids can swim in there! Or at least wade in the water and build sand castles.  Can't wait.

Mark was a busy fisherman.  He had to get all their poles ready and put hooks and bait on them (I know nothing.  I did not fish.  Ever.).

The pond had apparently just been stocked.  The kids would cast out and then reel it in with a fish.  Seriously almost every time they threw their line in the water they caught something.  Granted it was 3 inches long but it was thrilling none the less.

Mark could barely keep up with the release part.  I wasn't much help.  I can't say I've ever been thrilled about touching a fish, pulling a hook out of it's mouth, and then releasing it.  I need to practice though because if our kids continue to fish like they have been Mark won't be able to handle it all.

 After a little bit I started marking down a tally.

Kale caught 11 - including the biggest one caught that day.

Kate caught 8 - I think she would've had more but she didn't fish nearly as long as Kale did.

Jack/Jill caught 3 - We were a team effort and even though he liked it, he'd rather just eat lunch.

Mark caught 1 and it was tiny - that's only because he was so busy releasing all the rest of our fish!

 Kate went to put her sweatshirt on and we found a bug laying eggs.  She was grossed out...

Happy campers on the way home.  I loved that it was a five minute drive!!

Future Fun Friday Adventures!

 Thanks to Uncle Sam, Craig's List and a little deal hunting, we were able to finally (after several years of wishing and hoping) to get ourselves a little trailer!

It's not a 30 footer with slideouts and tempurpedic beds (haha! as if!) but it's our little cabin on wheels and we're thrilled :)

 We are looking forward to camp outs, marshmallows by the fire, hikes in the mountains, creek walking and little mini-vacations.  The possibilities seem endless to us at this moment.  

We realize this ain't tent camping no more!  It's a bit more work than just setting up a 5 person tent.  We figure give it a couple tries and listen to the advice of the numerous wise campers we have in our life and we'll survive and have a blast getting out of Dodge every now and then.

Adventure numero uno is at the end of this month for Mark and Kale.  There's a men's retreat in Moab.  The maiden voyage is coming up!

Fun on Friday 35 (I accidentally posted 33 twice...)

FF hasn't been happening as regularly thanks to birthday breaks and stuff. We had fun on a Friday but it was labeled birthday fun :)

This week, instead of a FF outing, we invited our awesome firefighting captain friend, Mike Krupa, to come teach a fire safety class to our kids and their homeschooling buddies. I realized that kids in public school usually will get a visit from the fire department and teach them fire safety. I wasn't sure about how to teach that without scaring my kids. Kale tends to be very sensitive to things like that. He doesn't want to go away to college ever. I would expect that from an 8 year old...hopefully he'll feel differently when he's 18.

Krupa came to the house and did an amazing job teaching 9 kids ages 18 months to 8 1/2 years. Not an easy task! The kids already know and love him which made it so much fun. He was sweet, funny, patient and just wonderful. I was so blessed he came.

See the concern on Kale's face?Our youngest student, SomerAt the end of his presentation he went out to the car (the kids were bummed he didn't drive a big fire truck!) and got his gear. That. Was. Awesome.
They had a blast trying it on.
The girls weren't as interested in dressing up so no pictures of them. At one point during Krupa's presentation he was asking the kids about the different ways they could get out of their rooms. He asked them what they should do if the door was blocked. They said go out the window. At this point Kale leaned over and quietly said to me that Mark and I needed to get each of the kids their own sledge hammers....yeah right. He's a thinker that one! I told him that I was confident he could open the window without a sledgehammer :)

20 Things I know

1. This week was unusually tough
2. This is the new Lite Brite (a Christmas present Kale got this year). I totally had a Lite Brite growing up.
3. Snow is fun to play in every once in a while
4. Revelation from God is sometimes tough and at the same time freeing (much more on that in a later post)
   
5. Shopping at City Market - while they by far, have the best produce - is horrendous with my three small children and I do not think that I will be driving a car cart through their ridiculously small aisles, dropping yogurt (and having it explode over and aisle and having to find a nice young man [look at me calling a twenty something guy a nice young man...] to come clean up after me) and begging my kids to please stop singing at the top of their lungs anytime soon. Done and done.
6. Learning how to coupon and save money is overwhelming.
7. Balancing my check book is overwhelming.
8. In my last post I said there were 5 fish and 2 loaves and it's actually 5 loaves and 2 fish. Awesome.
9. This month is already overbooked and I don't like it. Somehow I have to plan a party for my almost 8 year old and do it stat!
10. We are having dinner tomorrow with our district superintendent.
11. I don't think that I fully understand the love of God and what that means for me and my life.
12. Waking up 45 minutes after you fell asleep to a screaming 3 yr old who can't open the door to let himself out of his room to go pee is not a fun way to wake up. Heart be still.
13. Trying to get my husband to read a book that has blown my mind is challenging. (by the way - I highly recommend 7 by Jen Hatmaker)
14. Fasting for one day from facebook, blogs, words with friends etc. was awesome, hard, wonderful and convicting. Hard to admit addictions...
15. My dog sheds a lot and I've got to get better at brushing him daily!
16. In the next 3 months while I am also working we have: 3 birthdays (Kale, Kate and Mark), an anniversary (our 12th), the Daddy Daughter Dance, a baby shower, a women's breakfast, my niece Lilah's 1st birthday, 3 book clubs, lunch with friends, a few early morning coffees with friends, dinner with friends, small group, a fundraiser banquet, a parenting conference, life and school. Whew! One day at a time people.
17. I need to purge my house.
18. I need to purge my clothes.
19. It's been too long since I've spoken with my family.
20. Fun on Friday is basically about shoveling and playing in the snow, drinking hot chocolate, blogging, playing games and being family. I need a break from swimming!
    

Fun on Friday 33 - {swimming. again. with friends}

I'm getting pretty bad in the taking pictures department. When I plugged my phone into the computer and no new pictures pulled up I knew I was in trouble. Especially since we swam with friends this time!

But alas there are none. And since posts about my kids without pictures aren't that exciting I'll try and keep this short. Maybe I can tell a funny story about a child to keep you entertained....

We went swimming this past Friday and met our friends, the Blegers. It was really great for the kids to have other people to play with other than Mark and I. Kale and Kate had bought themselves goggles with their allowance so they had a great time trying them out. After swimming we all went to lunch. So this was a FF with F[riends].

That night for our small group we watched the movie Courageous. Seriously an awesome movie! Such a great story of what it means to be a dad and our responsibilities as parents. I HIGHLY recommend it!

Saturday we dug out Kate's bedroom. Every other month or so Mark and I have to go in and rescue Kate from herself and her stuff. She, like me, gets overwhelmed and can't handle the mess. The poor girl tries to keep it clean and has to pick it up everyday but then something will happen, she'll get behind and then it's all over! So we rescued her.

That night we watched Secretariat as a family. It was a sweet movie and enjoyed it. Not as good as Courageous but good :)

Yesterday we had church and then had some friends over for an afternoon of food, Quelf and Just Dance. Can you say good times?!

I'm trying to slowly work into Monday now....

I'll throw in an update too. Mark had his interview last week with 2 supervisors. It went well. He's met with each of them previously so it wasn't too stressful. It's been great to know that we can have peace because God is in control. Next week the District Supervisor, Sam, (the final decision guy) will be coming down to meet with Steve and Mark and preach on Sunday. We will hopefully be able to spend a little time with him to get to know him and have him know who we are. Mark was told that they were hoping to have a new pastor in place by Easter. Holy cow! That's still over 2 months away. What a process! Apparently Mark and Steve were the first 2 to turn in their applications so they still are receiving applications and doing interviews. Crazy! So we continue to wait. I'll update when there's more.

And my sweet story as I was putting Jack to bed the other night.
J: My tummy hurts and I need medicine (he hasn't asked for any in a long time).
Me: I don't have any. You're ok. It's time for bed now.
J: But mommy! My tummy is going rumble rumble.
Me: It is? Are you hungry?
J: Rumble rumble. And He fed 5000!
Me: ? (I had no idea he knew the number 5000 and I had no idea what he was talking about and where the conversation was going)
J: Yes. With 5 (holding up 5 fingers) fishes and 5 (holding up 2 fingers) bread.
Me: (finally catching on to what story he was telling me) Who fed 5000 with 5 fish and 2 bread?
J: Jesus!
Me: Yes he did Jack. Wow. Didn't know you knew that story.
J: (with very wide and serious eyes) And then he died on a cwoss!
Me: Yes. And then what happened (thinking he'd say something about how He rose again)
J: And then He went to jail or someting....

Love him.

Fun on Friday 33 - {swimming. again.} and Semi-homemade...

Nothing too exciting to report about our Fun on Friday. Swimming again. The kids have been swimming deprived so we are trying to make up for it. And since we have a pass...well that's what we're doing while it's cold outside. Although I have to admit that swimming isn't my favorite thing. Well let me rephrase that...sitting in a shallow kids pool watching my kids splash around while I freeze my tail off isn't so fun. Swimming itself is nice...in a hot tub! I swam a couple laps (4) while we were there and was saddened at how out of shape I am and how truly difficult it is to swim and swim and swim! And I was on the swim team at 6 years old for crying out loud! Maybe that's what I'll do when we go to the pool. I'll swim and get a work out and let Mark watch the kids. Hmmmm. Wonder if I could convince Mark? Doubt it.

Anywho. So like I said, not much to report there. But I thought I would show you a couple things I've been doing lately.

First off, I got this awesome Bible (an Inductive Bible) for Christmas from Julie and Mike. I saw that Mark's mom owned one and decided it looked amazing. So I've been doing Bible study everyday and marking the snot out of my Bible. I'm in highlighter heaven! I used to study my notes in college this way and it's taken my Bible studies to a whole new level. It feels like someone gave me a shovel and I'm discovering stuff way beneath the surface. Seriously. You look for key words, phrases, concepts. Ask the 5 W's and the H. Mark names, dates, places. It makes you think! I love it. Have I mentioned I love it? :)

Anyway, I get up. Read it. Drink coffee. And see this. Perfect.

We also did a little semi-homemade project that's been going around in my head for a while. We really needed a coat rack. Really. So I looked for one to buy and was appalled at how much they were! $100 for one?! No way! At least for a decent one. So we tried to figure out how much it would cost to build our own. We figured we could make it for $50. And that's what we did on Saturday.

Mark bought the wood and the hardware (paint made the project more expensive but it was under $50 for the wood and hardware) and had them cut it to length.

The kids and I painted it. No pictures of that since I was trying to monitor 3 excited kids while Mark was outside fixing the steps of our front deck. These are the legs at the base. Then we attached them to a 6 foot 4x4 post. Drilled in the hardware. Fixed the cap on top. Voila! (is that even spelled right?)
And that was our productive weekend!

Fun on Friday 32 - {Swimming!}

Yes it's been over a week since I last posted. This week was busy but at the same time uneventful. Nothing really blog worthy. I suppose I can post pictures of my kids' new beds from Ikea and the pictures my sister sent me from sledding... and maybe I will. Later.

For now I'll post a couple cute ones.

On this day that the Broncos will play, I had to post my little niece Tebowing. Hysterical! This was totally not staged and not on purpose {she's only 10 months old!} but hilarious none-the-less. Love her! And I seriously think Tim Tebow is awesome. Kale was given Tebow's autobiography for Christmas and we've been reading it together and this guy is an amazing role model. Such a sweet and generous person. I get tired of people making fun of him. He never asked for it and certainly doesn't deserve it. He loves people and he's not ashamed of his Savior. I admire him. He challenges me!

As for our Fun on Friday we headed to the Rec Center to go swimming. The church blessed us with a 6 month family pass and I have a feeling most of the next months will be spent swimming! Now I just need to get them lessons....
We had lunch afterwards and then small group last night.

Today is being spent relaxing. Maybe finally taking down the outside Christmas lights.

Maybe.

Fun on Friday 31 - {Discovery!}

Yesterday was a fun-packed Friday if there ever was one!

The trick to these posts is doing some of the same things but taking different pictures of us doing the same things...

We decided to go get a special doughnut breakfast at Doughworks in town. The kids love doughnuts and I was excited about a sesame bagel with cream cheese. De-lish. Aaaaand there were no pictures taken to document the doughnut eating.

BUT

I tried to make up for it the rest of the day.

We headed over to the Discovery museum.
And played with mustachesAnd then we hung out at home until our staff Christmas party!
The men: Steve, Bill, Ben, Mark and Nick The glowing ladies: me, Kelly, Jen, Kristen and Lori
The kids were being watched by some wonderful, wonderful kids on staff and the adults enjoyed a fabulous meal at a fancy tableAnd then played a fabulous game of Pirate Bingo.
Kristen and Jen won our two gag gifts. Kristen-a tampon angel and Jen-the big blue M&M! Such troopers!We are so blessed to work with such amazing people. Unfortunately we were missing our youth pastors. They had an emergency to attend to last night. And of course we are still awaiting what we will do about a senior pastor. But for now, I am so thankful for the gift God has given us in these people. We are truly thankful!