Happy New year in 2012!

2011 has been a long hard year fraught with never ending trials and tribulation.  So often I can look back and say I am grateful to have gone through the trials I went through, that I would whole hardly choose to go through those trials again because of the growth that took place that would not have otherwise taken place… 2011 is not one of those years; although I can say my life was still greatly blessed. I am so thankful for all the blessings the Lord has given me to help me get through the tuff times. I am grateful for all the people who have acted as instruments of God to help great blessing pour out on me and my families head. We were so richly blessed this past holiday season, I don’t know how so many people knew of our needs, and yet I have never felt more love for myself and my family. As I say goodbye 2011 I am so Thankful to say the Lord will never leave us alone in are time of need, no matter what the future has in store for me I know the Lord will be there. I also know that so many others are so willing to listen to those sweet whispering of the Lord and be there for us as His hands. No matter what 2011 was like for you I hoe 2012 will be much better, Happier, and more peaceful!  Happy New Year!

Dogs are not the same as cats

This is Toby he was our dog for 12 days.  I have deiced Dogs are not the same as cats Dogs are the equivalent of a two year old.I could not handle the dog any more so we gave him away. Ryan Sammy and Toby were always fighting over toys and then Toby deiced he was the boss and would ignore the rules like stay off the furniture.  My children then asked for hamsters (Dumbest move in the world they all know how I feel about rodents) lizards, iguanas, parakeet, a canary and fish. I asked if they were looking for pets or food for Sarah the one cat we keep.  I also said no more pets mom is to stressed to deal with anymore pets we got rid of our fish before because I could never remember to feed them and neither did anyone else. I feel bad but at the same time I feel like I need to keep my sanity.  I wish I could give them another pet but I don't like reptiles I will never have a rodent, birds are too messy and noisy They want something they can cuddle but I want something that does not take a lot of mom involvement.  Toby was cute but man with 8 kids and one depressed hubby it was just to much.  We love cats but Jason has to be able to breath, so I guess we are down to just Sarah.

Much to be thankful for!

November is coming to and end I am so excited to be seeing the end of 2011.  This year has been full of so many challenges and I know in the end are corners will be smother our surfaced will be more polished ans I feel like we will shine like a diamond.  The girls are doing well Alex still has a limp but both legs are healing nicely.  Alex has to concentrate to walk with out a limp.  It is interesting Alex being Right dominate  had a hard recovery with the right leg, she was slower then Emily to get up and go but when she did she ended with no limp.  Emily is Left side dominant and she was fast to be able to get up and go put had a limp still at 3 months out.  Then the girls went in for their other leg and Alex was up and moving quicker she was better on her crutches first out of the wheel chair but she has a limp.  Emily struggled more in the beginning and she does not have a limp.  I guess if you have to have the same thing done I would say do your dominate side last!

Jason has topped out of three types of asthma controller medication: he is on three Allergy medications and about to get shots.  she has also been on an extra steroid predisone; but he still is having trouble breathing.  We found out he was allergic to cats but not dogs.  So we got rid of the kittens.  ( I am officially the meanest mom in the entire world and will wake up on Christmas morning with nothing in my stocking but a mouse saying ha ha you are so mean you can have this SANTA.  Well I hope Jason is wrong about that considering I have a major phobia about rodents, and will understand that Jason needing to breath was really important.We did get The family a new pet, a dog.  He is a 4 month Golden retriever - White lab mix.  He is a very good calm dog.  He has not barked yet in 4 days he listens and is potty trained.  We are working on more training but so far he is real good.   Jason went from hating the dog to think he was not to bad to loving him in the 4 days we have had him.  He lets Ryan lay all over him and try to ride him.  I think we have gotten our selves a good pet.I am going to take a picture with my phone and see if I can upload it on her other wise it will be a coupe days before I post a picture.

We signed all the paper work and I believe the bank officially owns the rental.  All I can say  is never rent your property out!  There are good renters out there but all it takes is one like we had to do about $40,000 in damage and the place is destroyed.  I hope some one buys it cheap from the bank and can fix it up but it is heart wrenching to know I will always be left with the image of walking in to that house and seeing all the damage and those 30+ cats.  I do not hate  the lady who did this I pity her life what a sad existence that you had no one and brought in all these animals to try to feel your life and how very sad to think you laid down and died in the huge piles of animal feces.

I am grateful for my family I love them all so much and I am grateful for our thanksgiving tree, this year we made a tree on the wall then every day for the month everyone put a leave on it saying something they were grateful for.  Tomorrow we will have 100 leaves on our tree!  What a joy it is to see and hear all the things the kids are thankful for.  This is going to be our new tradition and I am excited to watch how things change each year.

Summer came and then it went.

I can not believe how fast time as gone,  We had a crazy summer. Emily tuned 12 and started young womens and then went to girls camp for the first time an Alex was there for her second year.  Jason turned 9, Katie 6 and Sammy 4.  Then on the 24th of June Alex and Emily had surgery to correct their Femoral anteversion (in-toeing due to twisting of the thigh bone). They had this on their right thigh.  The possess was long.  Basically the doctor had to going and slice threw the thigh bone, in the girls case he had to rotate each of their bone 30 degrees.  Then he place a meddle rod through the leg and inserted pins or screw to keep in place.  He did this all with only two incisions one at the hip about an inch long and the other just above the knee which is only 1/4 of an inch long.  before the girls woke up he would but in a pain block (Basically the same thing as an epidural except it is in the hip and goes down the leg only.  This would help with the majority of the pain.  The girls still had to be on oxycodone and Valium but this helped with the majority of the pain.  Emily came through hers with flying colors; Alex had some problems with hers when he did the block it went up instead of down, since she was asleep he did not know this.  When they brought her to the recovery room she woke up with 100% of the pain.  They had to put her on Fentanyl and keep giving it to her until the anesthesiologist could do another block.  I have to say it was the worst thing I have ever gone through watching my child be in so much pain and there was nothing I could do about it except try and talk calmly to her.   then she would start to fall asleep but her oxygen rate would drop and we would have to rouse her then she would scream out in so much pain, once again they would have to give her more Fentanyl and we would start the whole process over.  When they put the second block in they sent me away I had to go find a place in the hospital where I could cry I hope I never have to see one of my children in that kind of pain.  


After her block and everything was stable she came up to her room, the girls had conjoining rooms so we just left the door open and I was able to be with them both the whole time.  Emily was better off that entire day then Alex, But I keep talking with Alex and showing her how her sister was doing and promising her it would get better and that this was not the normal thing.  Luckily Alex does not remember allot about it except that she was  in a lot more pain then Emily.
They had no cast because the pins support all the weight for the leg.  they used there crutches for 4 and 4.5 weeks.  The Doctor said they could quit using them after three but they still felt it hurt to much so we let them deiced when to stop using them.  Then they went down to one crutch and then just to walking.  We were able to see the bone growth at 3 weeks after and again at 8.5 weeks. there has been allot of bone growth the breaks are not fully healed but both are looking good.  The girls still walk with a limp but there right leg is straight.  They will go back in and have the left leg done on the 27th of September. which will be 13 1/2 weeks from when the first one was done.  They are nervous for this they know what kid of pain to expect.  This time we have lots of ice packs on hand so they can continually change ice packs, we know to just give pain meds every 3 hours that Valium will cause them to sleep lots.  And this time they will have to go back to school.  This time we will be renting a wheel chair to help the girls be able to get around while they are at school.  Alex is afraid of the block not working right again but I told her it is really unlikely.  


On July 5 Ryan had surgery to correct his eyes it is called bi-medial recession it basically corrects the eye mussel and makes them work together.  Basically Ry-ry had two lazy eyes and this makes it so they can both work together.  David to has the same problem when he was two we took him to several ophthalmologists and they all said it would correct itself they were wrong, When Ry-Ry go referred to this ophthalmologist ad he was willing to fix the problem we had him look at David, David will be having the same surgery on Tuesday.  The sad thing is while it should work good to make they eyes appear to be looking together there is only about a 5% chance that it will actually work so thew brain tells both eyes they can see at the same time. We are praying that we are one of the lucky ones and this will work he has very littl depth perception because they don't both work together.  Ryan's recovery was fairly quick he was a little ornery being two it was hard to get him to talk about it, he also deiced he would not take any medicine, and he gave up eating for a week.  So the trick was to put ibuprofen infant drops in his cup of chocolate milk, he would drink his milk and be happy about 20 minutes latter.  Daddy tried mixing it in so e pudding once, to bad Ryan saw him but something in his pudding then he refused to eat the pudding and cried for an hour before I came home and fixed him a "good" cup of chocolate milk.  With David being 11 I hope we don't have to mix his ibuprofen in his milk. 

In August David had his birthday and turned 11 3 days latter the kids started school on the 17.  It is nice having them back in school after a long summer.  Katie is in 1st Brandon 2nd Jason 4th David 6th Emily 7th and Alex 8th wired to think next year I will have seven of my kids at the same school.  then When they go to high school they will go just to the regular public school.  I will try and post their 1st day pictures but I took them on my phone so I will have to figure how I can send them to the blog if possible.

I love doing my girls hair

Here is one blog I go to for ideas http://www.princesshairstyles.com/  they also do contests for hair related things right now they are doing one for gimme clips, you should check them out.

Love notes for Mothers day!

I love the sweet little notes You get for mothers days and the gifts kids make for you.  I got a beautiful macaroni necklace today, I will always cherish it as if it was a string of pearls.  Eric explained to me that when you look at a gift made for you by a cub scout remember paint = love the more paint the more love they are expressing to you.
I wanted to share a few love notes I revived today.
Dear Mommy,

You look like a rose,
You smell nice like a rose,
You’re as gorgeous as a flower,
You sound like a fun rollercoaster,
You’re as sweet as Ice-cream,
You’re the best Mom ever. 
You’re as fun as Sara (The Cat),
You’re as busy as a bee,
You’re fast like a cheetah,
You’re nice like a cat,
You’re fun like a rollercoaster,
You’re the best Mom ever.

Love Jason

I think you are the best. You are the most terrific cool tool there is. I made this just for you because I love you.  Brandon

Mommy, Happy mothers day I love you so much! xoxoxoxoxoxoxxxxxooooooxxxxooooxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxooxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoox love Katie (with the o's being hearts of course)

Clean dishes makes me think of you. Love Brandon

I found out my favorite think is to clean

Dear Mommy,

Happy Mothers Day. You are the best. We love you. I hope your day is the best.  Thanks for making me feel better and loved when it was the worst day of my life Friday.  You made me feel like it was okay that I did not get to reach  my life long dream of becoming a cheerleader.  You will always be a cheerleader to me.

Love Emily.

Mom I love you! Thanks for being my Mommy. I love you even when I am mad at you. you are the best! love Alex

Mom you are a flower to me. I love you David.

then I had to cute little love notes from Sammy an Ryan which I know say I love you mommy the way any 2 and 3 year old can.  Ryan made me a cookie flower today and was even nice enough to let me have a bite.  I got hugs and kisses and pictures from everyone.  The girls put money together and got some from Dad and bought a beautiful Glass vase and some silk flowers, because just like the flowers their love for me would never die.  The bought chocolate and a cute little shirt.

I love being a mom, and have to say the cute little notes and slobbery kisses make all the other things worth it.  All though I do sometimes enjoy the peace and quiet. 

Where does the time go?

I can hardly believe it is March, half way though March too.One month ago today was Brandon's birthday.  Brandon has always been my little "Alma".  When he is bad he is absolutely horrible, when he is good he is an angel.  Brandon loves red, and Matter (from cars) his favorite show and toys are Rescue Hero's.  He love Scooby Doo, and macaroni and cheese.

Happy Birthday Brandon.  

The only way to eat Ice cream!

A fun website

here is a fun web sight to go to http://hairbowsforgirls.blogspot.com/2011/01/winter-giveaway.html they have the cutest dresses they have cute bows a dresses you can buy.  right now they are doing a give away with a cute little dress you can get.

A new year!

Well I am excited to be starting a new year.  Christmas break was WONDERFUL!  I love that Eric works so hard so that he can take time off to be with the Family!  Christmas Eve until the 2 is just family time  We play games and had a wonderful time.  I very generous Santa left the kids a WII (Thanks Santa they love it).  so the kids got to play a lot.  They can hardly wait for the weekend when they can play again.  We added killer bunnies and munchkin to our collection of games along with Simon says from the 80's and Hungry hippo.  We also found a copy of old McDonald had a farm.  The little ones love these two.  Then we also played some of our favorites Ticket to ride, Scotland yard, Settlers of Catan and clue (master detective).  We have numerous games but it is save to say we had a great time.  At the end of it all I was g;ad to get back to my normal schedule.  Emily and David start practices for Willy Wonka this week.  I will be helping out with this so my life will continue to as crazy as ever. Things are changing with Eric's job  All I can say for now is Thanks Obama and blethhhhhhhhhhhh to all that voted him in.