on the MEND!!!

I have spent 2 weeks in my room...thank goodness I have a laptop to keep me sane! I had gone to Urgent care on day 3, tested negative for strep. Back to my regular Dr on day 8, still negative for strep & told to take 1g of tylenol with 800mg motrin, back to a new Dr on day 10 & given a Zpack antibiotic. By day 12 I could tell an improvement but day 11, 12, 13 REALLLY tired -maybe from my body trying to fight that RAGING HORRIFIC sore throat I had for 10 STRAIGHT DAYS!!!!!!!!!!!
Today I am feeling better after being on the antibiotics and more rest...THANK HEAVENS!

Sadly Jon has come down with a Stage One pressure sore on his back. About the size of a dime. It is quite painful and requires him to stay out of his wheelchair and in his bed ALL DAY LONG. He is able to keep working on his laptop which helps to keep him sane and feeling productive. We have to keep watching it to see if it heals or progresses to Stage Two. He will most likely be confined to his bed for several weeks.

The older girls have been gone since Wednesday night with Jons parents on a house boat at Lake Powell, they will get home late sunday night. I am SURE they are having tons of fun!!

Sick mom makes for creative girls...

I have been up in my room for 8 days now with this terrible sore throat. I went to the dr's a second time only to hear that its still just a viral infection. He did tell me to up my tylenol dosage to 1g 4xs a day and my motrin to 600-800 3xs a day-SWEET! Hopefully this will manage the pain.

Since I am stuck in my room (REALLY dont want to share this with anyone especially jon!) the girls have had to entertain themselves here at home. One day Rachel decided to go all fancy and put a clean white table cloth on the dining room table and completely set it all fancy shmancy including salad plate, bread plate, etc etc--i thought they got a photo of it -but they did not! I was quite impressed.

They also decided to use my fabulous flip video camera and made "A Cinderella Production" in which Anna was Cinderella, who had mean step sisters Sarah & Becca while Rachel was the fairy godmother and film director. Again IMPRESSED! They LOVED doing this--

They also gutted out their rooms. They decided at 8pm last night to take that on (UGH the mother in me kept saying! My summer plan was to go thru their rooms and gut it out get rid of clothes that dont fit, toys they dont play with etc). They did a good job, but the bulk of it ended up in the hallway with the rest of it being "auctioned off" to anna & becca which really just meant it ended up on the floor in their room too. Dang.
They all surprised me this AM and had gotten everything out of the hallway to the trash and cleaned up the younger 2 girls' rooms.

Im beginning to think i need to be sick MORE OFTEN dont ya think!? I am lucky to have older girls that can make their own breakfasts, lunches & dinners when duty calls. I am lucky to have girls with wild imaginations & dont do too much fighting. Right now they are all in the piano room listening to youtubed songs while dancing--good times!

This wednesday the older two leave to lake powell with gma & gpa to go on a house boat the Goodman family has rented. They are WAY excited! The younger two have a couple of bday parties to go to-so they will have fun as well. Jon and I are going to a murder mystery party on friday night (note to self my inhouse babysitter will be in lake powell-better call for a "real" sitter!). Jon is going to be "Bond, Matt Bond-a devishly handsome rich man" I will be "Countess Alice de Ville-a stunning, weathly widow"! Should be fun-its a black tie affair so we will get to be dolled up-we have been to two of these that our friends put on-seriously SO FUN!

I hope to be on the mends-or atleast functioning with the good dosages of meds! I am done being stuck in my room-i am ready to be at the beach or the movies--thank heavens for my laptop to keep me connected to the outside world!!!

sore throat, sore throat, sore throat....

That has pretty much CONSUMED my life the past 3 days! I am on day FOUR of this retarded sore throat deal. It seriously feels like its sunburned and being scraped with sand paper at the same time. I keep myself loaded up on motrin, halls drops, and LOTS OF SQUIRTS of chloreseptic....bugged.

Ive spent the last days upstairs in my room-I REALLY have to stay away from jon so that he does not get this. Thank goodness I have laptop to keep me company-I would be going crazy. The girls have been good about staying downstairs and keeping themselves entertained. Of course I still manage to keep the laundry going, making dinner (sort of-sometimes its which drive thru!?) etc. I tend to walk down every 3 hours to have the girls pick up the kitchen and put juice away, plates, cups etc. When will they learn huh??

Over the weekend I helped my friend Amy move from one house into another. I am grateful for a time in my life when I am able to help others. There have been many years of me needing to nurse a baby, change a diaper, or as of late see to the needs of Jon. I am grateful to be in this time and season that allows me to help others. It's good for the soul!

I have been TRYING to upload my blog from WAYYY back in 2006 to www.blurb.com but it seems to keep crashing on me etc. So I just give up on it. But I am determined. I have been doing a blog each year and would like to compile it all into a hardbound book as a journal for our family from each year. This idea motivates me to keeping up the blog.

Swim Meets & Sweet Becca!

Summer is still BUSY with swim practices and swim meets for all four girls-thankfully they are all together which makes sports SO NICE! I have to volunteer for SO MUCH because we have them all on the team which requires LOTS OF LONG hours at the meet. A typical meet starts at 5 (but you have to be there at 430) and ends at 9pm or later--geesh! Atleast the snack bar is grub. It is always fun for me to meet new people and get to know them-I was the "scorer" at the meet & the announcer was hilarious and made the meet go by fast. He got a kick out of embarrassing me as I was scoring too--good times!

Thursday was Becca's 5th bday. I love this little girl-she is just TOO CUTE with her dimple and all. Our friend Russell has taught her that when anyone asks her "how come you are so cute?" to say "because i have a big dimple!" She continues to carry some sort of blanket around with her. I love that she does, Jon doesnt care for it much! One time my dad talked her into throwing IT AWAY!!! she did. I told him when she wakes up in the middle of the night, i'd be calling him. He said "i hope you wont be calling me bad names!?" Of course in true mom fashion, my mom made her ANOTHER blanket-YES! both my dad and jon were thinking.."WHAT?!" so funny. She has been using that blanket, only a few weeks ago left it at my friends house, so jon sweet talked me into having kristen "hide" it in our small garage. It has remained in there, but becca managed to find another one. Surprisingly she isnt as attached to this blanket but we shall see. She loves to just SNIFF the fabric-I have TRIED to just use a little small piece, but nope wants the whole thing. Its pretty funny.
We took the family out to dinner (our tradition) and then she got to open her gifts from gma/gpa. Why are bday squeals from 5 year olds oh so cute!!?? We also gave her the gift cards for toys r us and target. The next day me and the 3 other girls went with her to toys r us to pick out gifts-it was so fun to watch. They would each try to persuade her to pick whatever they brought to her. We kept loading it into the basket, then we told her there was only enough money for 2 so pick your two favorites-best way to do bday gifts EVER!!!! She got her balloon and bday crown from toys r us as well--I still need to take her to Target (this will be just me and her tho, that was wearing taking ALL OF THEM!!)

FUN weekend!

We had a fun weekend--Saturday we took off to my parents to hang with my bro Brian and his family, clay was there & russell was there..David my cousin came down with his family from Las Vegas too-so fun to see them all! It is weird for me to sit back and relax (since we have older kids) and watch all my younger siblings, cousins chasing kids, changing diapers, filling bottles etc--i love where we are!! I dont miss those days that's for sure!!

Sunday we did church, and then we took off to Todd's house to hang with jons parents and uncle mark. So fun to hang with so much family all the time-we are really lucky to live so close to everyone. We got to "see" Todd's new guns--so fun!

Monday we again took off to OC--Im beginning to wonder why we live here in Riverside!? Chad was down for the evening-he was surprised that we would all pick up and just come down to see him-that's what I love about jons family-everyone is always so willing to drop everything to come visit.

This week we have Swim Meet (tonight), family portraits (tomorrow), jons Dr appt (thur) no plans friday & im still working on saturday's plans!

Being that it was Fathers Day weekend - I think about my own Father and the things I have learned from him. He is a hard worker. He has worked since he was 8 years old. He had two papers routes. He worked so his sister could serve a mission (who served with my mother & that's how they met later on!). He has ALWAYS been thee most generous man i know! All throughout my life he has helped those in need. He is an honorable man. One of thee most honest men I know as well. He adores my mother & I believe that is the greatest gift you can give your children!
I have married a wonderful husband who is the Father of my children. I married him because he had many qualities that my own Father has. I also married him because I ADORED his father and thought if he is anything like his Father-I will be blessed!

bedtimes...better mornings...too much stress!

I am not a fan of bedtimes, my girls keep switching beds to sleep in, Rachel & Sarah like to keep everyone giggling - I start out at the "nice mom" then end up turning into the "mean mom"! I think by the end of the day having everyone home I am just done with it all! I hate going to bed feeling that way...I guess some nights are better then others and I have to remember that. Rachel has been on my case about "her" bedtime being that she's "12" now and it is "summer". Jon & I will talk it over with her and we will come up with an appropriate time. She likes to just stay down stairs and draw, read or play her Wii.

This morning has been a little easier then last night. Woke up, got ready for the day and ran to Fresh & Easy to grab some cereal for the crew here. They had Trix and Coco Puffs for 99 cents each-not the "healthiest" cereal but for 99 cents-Im game! Brought that back home for the girls and told them after cereal starts chores. So they did their required 2 pages of school work,

dishwasher, cleaned their rooms/made bed, brushed teeth/hair and got dressed. Surprisingly nobody complained and they just got it done. They are now all sitting on the couch playing the Wii together. I love that ALL four of them can play at the SAME TIME!

I am under a lot of stress right now. Cant really say what it is about until it all comes together but Ive been under heavy stress for about 7-8 weeks now. Some nights it is hard for me to go to sleep and some mornings I wake up and cant stay asleep! I do my best to not let it get the best of me, but sometimes I do fail. Grateful to have another "day" to do things differently. Most days are good though! I am in a situation which is completely out of my hands. I know it will all come together, but it is all the before stuff that is rough. Again, it's hard for me to really say till it comes together.

Looking forward to the weekend. We will be heading down to my parents house to hang out with family for Fathers Day. Just a simple bbq/swim type thing. My cousin David and his cute family will be visiting from Vegas so that will be fun!

Today I need to figure out somethings for Jon for Fathers Day. Wish me luck!

beach day, swim meets, fevers oh my!

Sunday Sarah came down with a fever and slept the day away, tuesday becca came down with a fever and slept the day away, today wednesday anna came down with a fever and has slept the day away---time will tell when rachels turn will hit, or mine or jons..yikes!

We headed out to CDM today--the clouds were out, i was a baby and FREEZING! of course the sun decides to show itself 30 minutes before we had to leave...nice. the girls had a blast ( even tho anna just slept on the beach-poor thing!) we met tons of our friends there and have decided my usual "cove" spot will be where we will go from now on-i LOVE that its secluded and we feel like we have the whole beach to ourselves! I am at a time in my life where my kids are bigger so all i have to say is "girls get your swim suits on, find a towel, flip flops and hop in the car" 5 minutes later we are out the door. I felt bad for all the other moms with tiny babies and small children who spent 2 hours just getting their car packed...i remember those days and are THRILLED they are so far behind me now!! I love having our four girls and im so grateful we had them all before jon got hurt. I know that we could have more children even now, but i also know that would throw me over the edge--not cute. People need me here!!! So four will be our number for us. I LOVE that they are all girls and LOVE that they are all so close to eachother, hardly fight YET-im sure the days are coming of clothes borrowing without asking, make up using, boyfriend stealing...good times!

After the beach we headed home in time to turn around and head for the swim meet. I had becca and anna stay home with dad. I had to keep score for the meet-which we SLAUGHTERED the other team (yes im THAT competitive!!) and the girls had a blast. The meets tend to be LONGGGG we got there shortly after 4 and didnt get back into the car till 815!

Hopefully my girls will ALL sleep in tomorrow...we shall see. All in all a great day for us-time for me to go feed jon since he didnt get any dinner with me being gone-poor guy, wonder which fast food joint he will choose!