Sick

Both A and J came home with colds today. They are both sneezing, sniffling and snotting like crazy. Sigh...the week before last it was A and R with stomach bugs. A seems to be the common denominator. She needs to take it easy but is much too busy with life to do that. Oh well. I sprayed lysol on all the door knobs, light switches, phones, computer keyboards, faucets, etc. They don't seem to feel real bad, and so far no fever. We are thankful for that.

Hunting and showering

Well, J had another first yesterday. He went hunting with Bampa. I have no idea why his eyes are like that but it's kind of funny. He did well but they didn't see any deer. Surprised?
He also went to bed for the first time without me in the house. Because I was at R's bridal shower. T has put J to bed plenty of times but I've always been in the house. They both did fine. And the shower was really nice. Look at these cute little cookies my SIL found.

And this is the cake.

Here is the bride to be.

She got a lot of nice gifts and only one repeat.
Her fiance called while we were at church today (he is at boot camp). The whole church got to say hi and then he got to listen to us sing. R was singing with us this Sunday. It was pretty cool.

Much better today

Today was a much better day overall than yesterday. J had no problems going to school and even got a good report from one of his teachers. He did more sight words than he's ever done and has the 2 times table memorized, or just about. He read a book to me tonight, one of his regular "bed time books" that we've been reading to him. This kid came home 2 1/2 months ago unable to read much of anything. Wowzer.

My throat is okay. It looks kind of gross but doesn't feel as bad as it looks. It's a bit sore right now but that's after a day of normal talking activity and even a small amount of singing earlier today. I'm quiet for the rest of the night now.

T's foot is looking better again after a couple of "iffy" days. We're thankful for that.

Thanks for the prayers. Please keep praying for J's full healing. He has a lot of "past" to work through.

Hmmm....

...not a very good night last night, Horrible morning with a capital H (worse one yet since J has been home), calming down and making some breakthroughs with reconciling the past=progress. It wasn't pretty, it wasn't fun but I think we made some progress with J. And we are so thankful for his school.

Remember that spot on my "I had them out 30 years ago" tonsil? It was an abscess that I had drained/removed today. Throat is a little sore but nothing unbearable. The weird part was that the school called while they were working on me. I had told them about our difficult/Horrible morning and when my phone rang and it was the school, I freaked just a little bit, just briefly. The doc laughed and said to tell them I had needles in my mouth. I had needles in my mouth?!?! They just wanted to let me know that J had settled down and was doing okay. My mouth was quite numbed so I slurred a response and thanked them for calling.

Thanks for praying for Stellan. He has some more hurdles ahead of him but seems to be doing quite well given his circumstances. You can check his progress at www.mycharmingkids.net

Please pray for Stellan

I'm not even sure how I found this blog but please check them out and pray for Stellan and his family. We waited 4 years to get J here and understand the "mountain after mountain after mountain" thing and the endless list of things going wrong but I don't even want to imagine the helplessness that McMama is feeling right now. www.mycharmingkids.net

Fall

The huge amount of huge acorns that have been raining down on us and that continue to rain down on us brings a whole new meaning to the word "fall". Our yard is literally covered in them. I tried to take some pics to show you but they don't do it justice. And I have no idea why the second and third one are vertical. I don't know if it's blogger or my computer. Anyway, here are the acorn pics.

See? They completely cover the ground. We have not seen this many at one time in the six years we've lived up here. Like I said before, if the quantity of acorns is truly related to how bad the winter will be, we're in for a wild winter. Let it snow.

In other news, my romantic nephew asked his girlfriend to marry him this evening by getting his buddy to fly them over my brother's farm just after dusk where he had written out in Christmas lights "Marry me!" Yes, with an exclamation point not a question mark. They've been dating for several years and of course she said yes. We were all down on the ground watching them fly over and then we had a little engagement party. They are a very sweet couple. So that's two weddings in the family in the next several months. Zoiks! Congrats to P and M!

A is sick again. I'm not sure what's up with her but I wish she'd get over it already. R has been fine since about Thur. afternoon. ??

Happy Fall.

Ahh, Saturday

We had another dry night and J didn't wake any up this morning. Hallelujah! It didn't help T and I sleep, nor R either. We all woke up at our usual times. Sigh...but it did give T and I some time to talk. That was sweet.

Both girls seem recovered from their stomach bugs. My mom, R and I did some wedding shopping yesterday. Zoiks!

T drove home his "new to him" Jeep Wrangler Sahara yesterday. It's not new by any sense of the word and has well over 100K miles but he is a happy camper. I hope he drives it more than the '66 Chevy Stepside that sat in the driveway for 3 years. The Wrangler would be one of his "dream" vehicles, along with a late 60's, early 70's Dodge Coronet. This allows A to have a car to drive but she is going to be responsible for gas and insurance. She is job hunting.

Wow, the wind came up and it's raining acorns on the house.

Happy Saturday.

What the day will bring

The girls seem better. They both went to school this morning. R made it through her 2 classes but T had to go get A and bring her home. J seems okay even though he's had diarrhea off and on this week. He ate 3 pieces of chicken and two plates of rice if that tells you how he's feeling.

We had a ROUGH night with him again last night. He couldn't get settled down and never really got to sleep good. I think he was over tired and over stimulated. I spent an hour with him, then T spent about 40 minutes with him and we thought he was out for the night and were brushing our teeth when he came down again saying he was scared. I stayed with him for about 30 minutes and then we tried to go to sleep. He was up again bursting into our room before either one of us had fallen asleep. That's a rude awakening when you're just dozing off. T took that shift. Then we laid in bed until like 3 a.m. thinking every sound we heard was him coming back down. He got up this morning like nothing was wrong. Go figure. When asked about it he held eye contact and genuinely said he was sorry for keeping us up. We're working on ways to help him deal with his fear. Sigh...

We've had a few more dry nights this week. Hallelujah. After paying me a dollar for choosing to throw away a used but perfectly good, dry overnight pant he decided that there was nothing wrong with re-using them if he didn't wet them. Smart boy.

He lost another tooth yesterday so now both top "canines" are missing. He has figured out that he can make some really silly faces by sliding his bottom lip behind the four front teeth and into the holes that his missing teeth left. It's quite funny.

If the old tales of judging how cold and snowy the winter will be by how many and how big the acorns are, we're in for a rough winter. Our house is surrounded by trees and our yard is literally covered with huge acorns. I'll try to take a pic to show you. They hit the house and make pretty impressive noises. My parents live next door and one of the acorns hit my mom in the head one day and she thought it might have broken the skin. They are BIG and there is an ample supply. To that I say, let it snow, let it snow, let it snow. We want a nice 6-8 inches at one time. That's a big deal where we live.

You just never know what the day will bring.

Yuck

The Puke and Heave Show came to our house today. Both girls were home with stomach bugs. They may or may not have gotten it from J, who informed me at about 8:50 Monday evening, after about 45 minutes of trying to get him asleep, that he had diarrhea all day at school. Sigh...hopefully tomorrow will be better and the rest of us will remain well.

I started a small list of the long list of things that J says that absolutely crack us up on a daily basis. I thought he was really getting the hang of the English language the other night when he called his daddy a "dweeb", at a time when T was being a dweeb. We laughed hysterically and then he used the word wrong over and over because it made us laugh the first time. Some of his mispronunciations are; the other day I was making pumpkin soup and when it was time to put the cabbage in he kept referring to it as garbage. He still hasn't figured out the difference between DVD's and tv. He asks us to pause the tv or to fast forward commercials. And the other day when we asked him to turn off the tv for dinner, he said, "Aw, they are going to give papilonni next." He meant that Pippi Longstocking was coming on next. He refers to anything that gets you wet (bath, ocean, swimming) as a shower. He told me he wanted to "shower in there" last week at the beach while pointing to the ocean. He called all covers on his bed "sheets" when he first came home. He now knows the difference between sheets and blankets but calls the blankets "banklets". He had the hiccups yesterday and I asked him if he had hiccups and he said yes. About 5 minutes later I hiccuped and he said, "You have 'hock its' too?" He cracks us up.

Finally, some pics

Whew! We've been so busy this last week. I'm glad we're through that and can move on to planning a wedding. Zoiks!

We had a good time at the beach. J loved sleeping in the camper because his bunk was right over our bed and he knew he wouldn't be by himself. He liked the beach. He got to see dolphins and a fisherman caught a shark and he got to touch it. He found his first fossilized shark teeth. He enjoyed roasting marshmallows, although he likes to make torches out of them before he eats them. We played some card games and dominoes and found that he loves to win but he's not the best loser. He's working on his sportsmanship.

He rode his bike all over the campground and made a few friends. One family called him "Juice Box" because the two year old thought that's what he said his name was. Talk about lost in translation. When we were leaving they were all standing in their campsite and waving and hollering good-bye Juice Box! It was quite funny. One of them accidently hit J in the eye with a large sand shovel. His eye was bloodshot for a couple days and it cut the skin right in the crease at the side of his eye. Scary, but after a couple days under an awesome bandaid (nexcare) it looked really good.

J had his first basketball practice on Wed. He did well but he doesn't understand all the rules and he would pass as soon as he got the ball. He's good at guarding and blocking.

He also went on a field trip without me for the first time. Oh, and we've had several dry nights this week too. Always thankful for a dry night.

In other news, R's book has not been ordered yet but as soon as we have some we'll post some ordering info. The wedding plans are coming along.

A is in another play. Like we needed something more to do. She's also in some dance thing with a friend.

T has a bum foot. The doc can't figure out what it is but they drew a little fluid off it for a culture.

I'm just busy.

Okay, some pics. It was cold the first couple days at the beach but at least the sun was out.


J with his first shark tooth. It was a pretty nice one for his first find.

One of his goals was to build a sand castle.

His didn't turn out quite like he wanted but he had fun working on it. A and her friend E, who went with us, built this sand castle. It actually stayed for a couple days until someone ran it over with their golf cart.

This is E, A and J catching some waves. It was cold but we were at the beach and weren't going to pass up an opportunity to catch some waves.

Ooo la la.
The trees were turning colors and I snapped this pic on our ride home from the beach.

The day after we got home J came downstairs in his chaps, cowboy hat, laser guns and sunglasses. This is his cosmic cowboy look.

Today has been a beautiful day here and we went for a walk after church.The fall colors are really coming out.


This is a weird tree that got bent over but continued to grow. The branches are curving up but if the tree was straight they'd be pointing down. Feel a little sermon there?

Ah, the boys doing boy things. Like knocking dead trees down so they can feel big and strong.

We have mutiple sink holes on our property. This is one of them. It goes about 8 feet down and is about 8 feet long.

Some more fall colors.

It's been very rainy here so all the "wet weather creeks" are flowing.

J telling me something.

Oreo the labrador retriever mix retrieving a rock or stick from a pond.

So, now we're up to date on pics. And probably on to another busy week. J has a lot of funny little sayings and words that he mispronounces. I'll try to make a list of them and post them some time this week.