Tuesday, September 30

6:30am - alarm went off (I use my cell phone). I silenced it.

6:39am - alarm went off again. I silenced it again.

6:46am - Dale went to sit in Daddy's recliner. I got up and sent him back to bed.

6:48am - Alarm. Silenced.

6:57 - Alarm. Silenced.

7:02 - Finally got out of bed. Dressed. Walked around outside for a few minutes. I love early mornings outside. The sky is brightening, the air is cool. Ahhhh....

7:30something. Dale appeared again. "What is that stuff all over you!?" Before he could answer I recognized it myself. In the past few weeks he has had a couple of isolated night-time nosebleeds. He had another one last night and it was a doozy.

They don't wake him up, so he just keeps on sleeping and tossing and turning and wakes up the next morning with blood on everything. Yuck.

Laundry was already on my agenda for today, so what was another set of sheets and mattress pad, right? I threw the pillow away. (Too much info? Sorry)

And speaking of laundry.... I think almost every single item of clothing we own is now clean, with the exception of what we wore today and a few other odds and ends that were hiding. I lost count of how many loads. But I do remember washing Dale's sheets twice. :)

After a failed attempt at Alan's morning nap the boys and I had lunch: peanut butter tortilla roll-ups for them (I had my PB on bread, thank you), apples and carrot sticks.

Got ourselves all gussied up for a trip to the Library:
"Mama! These are my church clothes!" - but they weren't really. He might have worn that particular ensemble to church once waaay back in the summer. Looking decent out in public!?! The horror!

Checked out another arm-load of books for the upcoming school weeks.

Alan had a nap. Dale watched Stuart Little. Okay, so I watched too. I am easily sucked in to tv plot lines when passing by. It's in my genes, okay?

Stuart Little, the movie: cute enough, I guess, but NOTHING like the book. NOTHING. NOTH-ING.

Made supper. Blah-blah-blah. You can imagine the rest.

And somewhere in all that I worked all day: cleaning, picking up, putting away, planning..... you can imagine that too, I'm sure.

And now I'm tired. And going to bed. And setting my alarm for in the morning. Anyone want to guess how that will go? ;)

Autumn Giveaway

I love seasons. I love the change between them and I love ushering a new one in. It would be hard to choose a favorite, but if I absolutely had to it would probably be fall.

Chyrll is hosting a giveaway of some beautiful fall things. Head on over and enter yourself! :)

Whatever "floats" your boat.

So. We went to the big city today.

You never know what you'll see there.

First thing this morning we took Alan in to get blood drawn. This particular location is a rather large building, with kids of all types running around. I feel I can sympathize with most parents who bring their kids there. It's just something we do.

But I have to admit I did do a double-take today when I saw a boy, about three years old, waiting in line with his mother and happily playing with one of these:

On a stick.

If you don't recognize that object, let me put it in its regular environment for you:

My first thought upon seeing afore-mentioned little boy entertaining himself with above-pictured item was "ew."

But then I had to admit that even if it was ... umm..... previously used, it technically comes in contact with only clean water. And the kid was clearly entertained and well-behaved.

And then I just had to laugh and admit that as parents we sometimes just have to do what we have to do.

You go mom of the little toilet-float playing boy. You go.

Random Pics

Dale at the library for Fun Day - Western theme. I wish you could see his boots!
First pic is Dale listening to the story. We're going to have to work on group story-time etiquette; Dale had to get up and point and comment after just about every page. So sorry fellow story listeners!

Working on his bookmark:


At home, just doing stuff:


And again. The colors got really funky in this pic. Alan looks kind of sickly. Which he's not. Believe it or not! ;)

The boys and I had a sleepover at Mimi & Gramps' house last night. Fun!

Greg rode in a bike-ride fundraiser thing for our Children's hospital this morning. It was supposed to be a couple of weeks ago, but we had this thing called a hurricane come through. Can't really ride a bike in something like that!

Anyway.... he'll be home later this afternoon.

It seems like this weekend is the first in a long time that we can just be, and enjoy life without something looming over us. And the weather is beautiful to boot!

I hope you are enjoying your Saturday as much as we are! :)

Fun & Games

Remember I said yesterday that we were going to play one of Dale's favorite games?

Dale was pretty excited. He asks to play this game a lot, and because of the kajillion pieces and various other reasons we don't get it out very often.

So it was a big deal to him to know we were all going to sit down together and play. As soon as Daddy Buffalo was home, Dale began to tell him:

"We're going to play the Moe Know Polie game! We're going to play Nascar MOE-know-PO-lee!"

Ours is one of those *special* editions of a game better known as...

... Monopoly.

:)

Today was another fun day. I took Dale to Fun Day for Kids at the Library.... it was a Western theme, so Dale wore his cowboy boots. That was a hoot in itself, since he's never worn them in public and could hardly walk without a swagger... or maybe that was a stumble...

The hosts read the kids some western-type books, including this hilarious rendition of Little Red Riding Hood. The adults were laughing more than the kids!

Then, after supper, those crazy boys wanted to go OUTSIDE again. All 4 of us played tag, lol. The best part was running while holding Alan while he was 'it'. He had a blast. And we all got exercise! Imagine that. ;)

And then I tried to teach Dale to play checkers. While Alan tried to rearrange our checkers. And whined a lot. Maybe checkers would be a better nap-time activity. We could always go back to Moe-know-polie in the evenings! :)

Retro blogging

Back in the early days of this blog (all of 15 months ago) most of my posts were daily logs of the goings-on at our house, and then for some reason I got away from that.

I'm not sure if our daily life suddenly got boring-er than it had been or I got lazier. :)

But I thought today would be fun to do a flash-back to my old style. Not that today was that exciting.

More like the relatives are getting impatient for fresh bloggy goodness and I'm so out of otherwise creative blog material. :D
So, without further delay....

Wednesday, September 24

Got up at 6:00am to see my man off to work. Took advantage of the quiet early morning to read my Bible. I usually read from Charles Spurgeon's Morning by Morning devotional book, but I just went "free-style" this morning.

It was one of my best Bible times in recent weeks. Psalm 51, 2 Corinthians 3:17, Galations 5:1, 13, Nehemiah 8:10-12.

And I had a cup of coffee too! :)

It wasn't long until Alan woke up, and Dale followed soon after. We had breakfast (scrambled eggs, strawberries, and some yummy cinnamon-raisin bread made for us by a sweet friend at the library).

Alan began asking (rather adamantly I might add) to go outside. And why deny that on a beautiful day like today, you know?

So we went out for a good little while. Poked around in the sand box, played on the slide, and rode the rocking horse.

Then it was naptime for Alan, and Dale and I took advantage of the peace and quiet to read a few books together. I'm really excited with our current school topics; they've all melded together And with the advice of my mom I'm extending them to last 2 weeks to hopefully do a lapbook or two. Like she pointed out: we are on our own schedule! Nothing says we have to fit it all in by Friday!

I'll save all that for another post or two.

Lunch: Dale and I started on bologna sandwiches while Alan finished his nap. Of course, with all the timing of a toddler, he woke up before we were even half-way done. But really.. when WAS the last time you ate an entire meal without an interruption? Isn't that a given of motherhood?

We're trying to pack the calories on Alan, since he's a little stick boy since transplant. Fairly common, we understand. So for lunch, I heated up leftover mashed potatoes and added REAL butter, CHEESE, and SOUR CREAM. Yum-o!

Spent some more time outside after lunch (what's with these KIDS and the great out-of-doors!?!) Thank the Lord for them or I'd miss out on fall all-together! :)

Another nap for Alan and more reading for me & Dale.

I started an impromptu project after Alan's nap. A sure sign he is growing up: I divided up the toys! Dale's have been that way for as long as I remember, and since Alan's had pretty much taken over his little room, it was time. I didn't remove everything, but took 3 containers and divided the majority of his toys among them. Two went in the top of his closet and the third stayed out to go in the toy/book cabinet. What's left is much for managable, and if experience has taught me right, everything will get played with more!

From there it was time to start assembling supper. A whole chicken has been roasted and is waiting on us in the crock pot. I'm boiling okra and made a pan of cornbread. The boys, I hate to say, I stuck in front of the tv. It's been several days (or more?) since they've seen our favorite Wiggles DVD.

In the midst of all the cooking, I stepped on something and knew, whatever it was, it just broke. I'm not sure if I first smelled the vinegar or saw the bloody spatter, but I had stepped on a ketchup packet! How exciting! And how glad I was I didn't have boys under my feet to either A) get in the mess, B) ask a million questions, or C) both!

And now, Daddy Buffalo will be home any minute. Dale has proclaimed he's had enough Wiggles, so I'll pull him in to help me set the table.

I promised him earlier today we'd play one of his favorite board games with Daddy tonight, so he's looking forward to that. We'll just have to figure out what to do with Alan! :)

P.S. - YES, i KNOW... no pictures. Soon, okay? I promise!!!

Going in circles

Most of us have heard about there being three words in the English language that have no rhyme:


Purple

Silver

and Orange.

That would mean every other word has a rhyme, right?

So... can anyone tell me what rhymes with

CIRCLE?

You're not from around these parts, are ya?

I'm pretty sure the folks that programmed my cell phone aren't.

It has a handy little feature that auto-completes your words for you when you are texting. It recognizes the letter pattern from the words in its dictionary and helps you out.

Guess what?

OKRA isn't in its dictionary.

Surprise, surprise.

School update

I haven't posted about school in a while, so I thought I'd update on how/what we're doing.

We're still working through our Godly character traits ... "critters" as Dale called them for a while. :)
I had trouble finding much material on 'forgiveness', but the opposite was true for 'honesty'. Tons on that!

Sound of the week this week was 'st'. I'm using that as my own inspiration to push through and finally finish "Stuart Little". We've only had that from the library for oh... 6 weeks or so? Good grief. But Dale still likes it and wants to finish. I told him we'd watch the movie after we finished the book. Mostly because I want to see Hugh Laurie in a role other than House (which I loved and miss).
I love that no matter what we read, we can almost always find at least one example of our sound of the week in it!

We've been learning about clouds and weather for a couple of weeks. Dale is very interested in the hurricanes. And my they are a-plentiful, aren't they?
And, ironically enough, it is difficult to observe and identify the different cloud types on a cloudy day. You need blue skies for that. Hmph.

Dale is flying through all the workbooks I had. I got them from different dollar stores and he is eating. them. up. His favorite section is always the math. I'm toying with the idea of ordering Singapore Math for him and moving ahead. Anyone want to share any thoughts on that?

Because of computer issues I'm short on pictures, so I'll leave you instead with a list of this week's readings:

Psalm 33:4 (Memory verse)
Other Bible:
Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane
Herod & the Wise Men
Jesus & the woman with the bleeding

Jeremy the Honest Bunny - Karon
The Boy who Cried Wolf (Children's Book of Virtues)
The Honest Woodman (Children's Book of Virtues)
George Washington & the cherry tree (Children's Book of Virtues)
How to Behave & Why - Munro Leaf

I Can Read About Weather
Clouds (Exploring Weather)

Mike Mulligan and his STeam Shovel - Burton
STone Soup - McGovern
GaSTon Goes to Texas - Rice
Going WeST - Wilder
Draw Me a STar - Carle

Take your picc

No matter how much I try to ignore it here in bloggy-land, the fact remains that my little one has some medical issues.

To put it mildly.

Sometimes I forget what a big deal a liver transplant is. I think I do that on purpose. I've never been one to want to stand out in a crowd.

I like to stay home. Disappear into the background and live an average little life.

Yeah. We've blown way past that.

And now, a couple of weeks ago Alan came home from a hospital stay with a piece of medical equipment still installed in his body.

I guess it's not that unusual, but it has taken some getting used to.

After a couple of days of training from our wonderful home health nurse, I all-by-my-very-own-self administered IV antibiotics.

It is amazing the things you get used to and learn to live with. Thank goodness this was a short term thing. We finished 10 days of the antibiotic, and now we are half-way through a 10-day waiting period before Alan goes back to the hospital for surgery. He still has the PICC line, and I flush it once a day. Very sterile-ly. :) And the up-coming surgery? Well, I don't really like to think about that.
There are some things you just don't get used to.

Helpful hint:

Don't wear your regular slips while pregnant even though they are 'nice and stretchy and feel just fine'.

Because later, when you're not pregnant, that 'nice and stretchy' actually means 'the elastic is shot' and these garments will now ride down somewhere between your hips and your knees. And even though, yes, this means this garment is now showing below the hem of your skirt for all the world to see, that will not be your main concern. Keeping it on your body, however, will be of great concern.

Just so ya know.

My life as a mom

You know you are a mom when...

you find yourself singing a song by

while you peruse the children's clearance clothing rack at

wearing a

because you stepped on a

Stressed? Who, me??

I try not to medicate with food. It's a terrible habit for anyone to have. But look what keeps showing up at my house, courtesy of the men in my life: A woman just needs her chocolate sometimes, that's all I'm sayin'.

Praise the Lord for molasses, and other random things

Substitutes can be a wonderful thing.

Lately the boys have had a knack for making a toy out of anything. Here we discovered envelope windows make wonderful kazoos. (In fact, the envelope held up longer than my patience.... and I was the one that started the whole thing!)

Good luck kazooing with your eyeballs....

And then... brass candlesticks make a fine trumpet:

I love seeing what all their creativity can come up with!

And thinking outside the box is helpful for us grownups too. Like yesterday morning - I was already started on a batch of muffins when I discovered I was out of brown sugar. No problem! I just used white sugar with a spoonful of molasses!

And then (I'm a slow learner), I needed brown sugar again last night for baked beans. Handy molasses to the rescue again!