What a 24 Hours!!

I'm feeling quite drained today, yesterday was more excitement then I had bargained for. Jason had a mid-year conference to go to in Florida for three days so we spent this afternoon running around town with Naty, Audrey and Lotty getting some errands done so I didn't have to worried about trying to get them done while he was gone. Had a lovely time, ate lunch out, bought the girls Despicable Me when we were at Target, and then we dropped off Daddy at the airport and went to pick up Kate from school. About 5pm, I was helping Kate and Naty decorate this paper teddy bear for a project in Kate's class when Audrey came up and laid down on the floor next to me. I went to give her a kiss, thinking she was just tired from the day, found that she felt very warm :(

First thing I did was take her jeans off to help her cool off a bit, she then pulled her shirt up and saw this red, spotty rash all over her upper torso. I then followed it and saw it was on her neck and face too! I was home all by myself so as I was taking Audrey's temp (turned to only 100.7 thank goodness) and getting her some ibuprofen, I called my mom at work because my brain tends to freeze up in times like this, so I needed help figuring out what to so because I really didn't want to have to take the other 3 girls to urgent care with me. My dad was on his way home and luckily it turned out my brother was home, so Daniel came and stayed with the girl so I could leave with Audrey for Urgent Care right away. Got all checked into Urgent Care and was told it would be a little over an hour before she would be seen, this urgent care is only about a mile from our house and they keep a schedule so we were able to come home to wait. That was good because I was able to make some dinner for the kids, Audrey ate all of it which was good because she hadn't eaten a lot at lunch. Kate was supposed to have RE at church that night, which I help teach, so she was asking if she could still go. I, of course, couldn't take her but after some discussion my brother offered to take her and pick her up. So sweet and it really meant a lot to Kate :)

7pm rolled around and I took Audrey back to urgent care, so happy we were able to go when we did originally because there was about 4 kids there when we returned, all of whom got scheduled to come back starting at 9:30pm! We didn't have to wait long, which actually upset Audrey because she was having a great time playing with this giant toy hahaha Audrey hates, hates, hates the little finger thing to take her BP, took about 5mins to get a read. After that though, I was very happy that we didn't have to wait long at all to see a doctor! Doctor looked her over and said she wasn't even going to waste our time with a strep test because she was sure that's what it was and she had a strep rash, aka scarlet fever. Even though I know scarlet fever isn't the deadly thing it used to be, it is still some scary words to hear about your child. Doctor prescribed a round of amoxicillin and said if she doesn't feel better by the weekend to bring her back. Urgent care sent her prescription to the pharmacy electronically so by the time we got there it was ready, which was good because it was about an hour passed Audrey's bed time at this point and she was exhausted! Got home, got everyone in jammies, Audrey took her meds and I tucked them into bed. Kate got home from RE and Daniel took her with him to pick my mom from work since my dad was with my girls, so she got home shortly after that and I got her all changed and tucked in. All the girls went to bed about 1.5hrs late so they were asleep pretty fast, thank goodness.

Today Audrey is feeling better, she is acting almost normal, she does want lots of cuddles, but that is fine with me :) Everyone is looking pretty tired because even though they went to bed late, they all woke up at the same time so I think naps and early bed time tonight will be in order! Going to have to get my creative juices flowing because all the girls have been asking to do something special since Daddy is out of town but now we can't really go anywhere since Audrey is sick. Maybe we'll make home made pizza or something. We also have supplies left over from Kate's school project so maybe I can think of something fun to make with those. I am very thankful to the Lord that Audrey is fine and should recover without any complications! God is good! :)

Audrey's rash, she was not a happy girl :(

She is feeling much better today already though :)

This is Princess Bear that we made during all the excitement!

This is the hug and kiss Kate had me send to Daddy last night because
he was still on a plane and she couldn't call him, so sweet!

Snowpocolypse 2011

I know most of you followed my all day Facebook posting marathon yesterday but I haven't blogged in forever so why not now? ;) Yesterday Tulsa had a blizzard and the most snow fall at one time in its history, 13.8"!! CRAZY!! Mom and I had to go out Monday (day before the storm) to get groceries. Jason gets paid once a month on the last business day of the month since he technically works for the state. Fun to begin with but can we say SUPER BAD TIMING this month?? All of Tulsa was out preparing for the storm! We had to bring the kids too which made everything that much more fun. They were really good but of course 2-5 year old + crowd + no nap = Losing of mommy's mind!

Wait, what were we here for??

We survived and actually managed to get most of my list.  Jason was able to beat the storm home luckily since it showed up 5.5 hours late, which was also long enough for the whole city to go "Was this some big practical joke by the weather men??" Hahaha Sleet started around midnight and when Jason got up at 5am to peek outside we had about 3in of snow. By the time we woke up for real about 3hrs later, we had more like 8in!!

Our backyard when we woke up

It snowed hard all day, kids were going crazy, city was going crazy, I'm probably going to hell for sitting around laughing any time the news reported more stupid people of less common sense getting stuck in drifts on the road. When it let up around 4pm we had a whopping 13.8 inches of snow.

Craziness, I don't live on the East coast for a reason people!! LOL Jason immediately got to work shoveling us out, although where we were going to be able to go is beyond me but he gets MASSIVE kudos from me :) The girls of course, who had been begging all day to go out, were now almost hysterical with wanting to go out in the snow. It was still about -11 with windchill so I really didn't want them to go out but my head and nerves couldn't take it anymore. I spent 30mins dressing 4 girls for 15mins of snow play but they calmed down about wanting to play in it so it was worth it!!

Snow monsters on the loose!

Climbing Mount Snow Drift

Running to help Daddy

Our house after the storm

Down the street

Down the other side of the street

Charlotte enjoying herself

Audrey having a blast!

Jason spent all of today finishing digging us out and thanks to a Jeep with stupid huge off-road tires that drove up and down the street to pack down the snow and the snow plow that made it down the main streets off our neighborhood, we will be able to slowly creep back into the outside world tomorrow!! And let's all pray that Oklahoma doesn't see another snow like this for a long, long, long, long, long time!!!

Who knew home renovation could be such a pain!

Ok I'd like to start this blog out with an apology to my dear friend Mary, I totally made fun of how incredibly stressed out she would get over floor and paint samples while building their new house, yeah I about how a melt down in the middle of Lowe's yesterday over floor and paint samples!! LOL

We are finally going to start major home renovations after tax time next year, so we have to start finally picking real colors for everything instead of just "Oh I like A, B, and C" My parents and sister watched the 4 lil monkeys for us yesterday afternoon so we could go look. I literally gave myself a migraine over trying to pick harmonious color schemes! I don't mean to toot my own horn here, but even anyone who took color photography with me will tell you, I can quite to range of colors. Which is already normally annoying, I'll see a new car paint or a house in our neighborhood being painted and for my taste there will be just a touch too much yellow, blue, green in it and it will drive me MAD!! Hahaha So when picking out wood laminate, tile, and paint it seemed every time I found 1-2 of those things I liked when you matched them with something else I liked there was now too much blue or red in the overall theme for me. Yeah it was fun. :p Finally 3 hours later, we found just the right combo!

Oh and on top of all the color scheme frustration, Jason and my style tastes are drastically different too, so we also had to find stuff that kinda met in the middle style-wise. We finally decided on (I guess it's a) mid-range cherry wood for the floors, keep all the accent wood work white, we are going to refinishing our current kitchen cabinets and paint them like an antique white (maybe remove the center of the doors and put in glass), we are found a kitchen tile (like a natural stone looking one) we like but are still going back and forth between actually doing tile in the kitchen or just continuing the wood floor, mostly because we decide to do tile countertops so I'm worried that would be too much tile in the kitchen. Also haven't decided on a paint color for the kitchen, might just wait til the rest of the work is done to see if we want another neutral or add some color. I'm sure I have bored you at this point too ;)

Tiny pic, L-R Possible kitchen tile, counter tile, wood floor, cabinet color

Gift Giving, Thinking Outside the Box

My mother is a very hard person to shop for, always has been! But this year she finally found something she wants all of us to give her and it was such a neat thing! World Vision is a company that you can buy animals, medicine and food to third world countries. You can buy a village anything from chickens to goats, sheep, cows, pigs, ducks! You can also buy medicine and food (the form of emergency food or crop seeds) I think it's such an amazing thing to do and they made it so affordable, 5 ducks for only $30! I just had to share this with everyone, my children are still too small to understand if we did this instead of Christmas gifts for them but I'm sure some of you have older children, family member or friend that this would warm their heart! World Vision can be found by clicking here

Today I am Thankful for...

Instead of being grumpy and whining about how my dear husband failed to tell me until last night that he had to go into work this afternoon (a Saturday) thereby missing a family Christmas ornament making session (not only had to just make it the girls but also meant me alone with 4 coo-coos in a pottery studio, eek!) and missing a nice warmer day that I had been wanting to take the girls to the park as a family. But I won't do that ;) I am trying to turn my frown upside down and list things I am thankful for directly relating to Jason's infuriating job..

1. I am thankful he has a job and a really good job that allows me to stay home with our children.

2. I am thankful he is such a dedicated teacher that he is willing to put in the extra time with his student (even if it's zero hour and probably won't make a difference, aw crap there I go again *slaps hand*)

3. I am thankful he has a job he enjoys, if you have to go to work and be away from your family 12-15hrs 5 days a week, at least you should enjoy your job!

Um, yeah that's all I got. My list of distain is much longer ;)



On to cuter stories!

On our to making our Christmas ornament, we all had a sing-a-long to Katy Perry's "Firework" yes you may think it's inappropriate of me to let my daughters listen to Katy Perry, but oh well :p Anyway, Audrey and Charlotte LOVE singing to this song and it's quite contagious! It was a nice way to help me over my grumpiness of a missing Daddy ;)

Kate and Naty are currently using a bunch of little paper plates we have to "bake pizza" so far I have been treated to a sour cream pizza, a strawberry and sausage pizza and a lollipop, cupcake and bread pizza! Hahahaha I love the imagination of young kids ;)

Just some random cute stories

Just wanted to share some random cute stories of the girls from this past week :)

I was taking Kate to school at the beginning of the week and when I asked her if she was going to have a good day, she told me that Sion (her friend) didn't want to hold her hand out to recess anymore and that made her sad. I told her that just because she doesn't want to hold your hand doesn't mean she doesn't want to play with you anymore. She was quiet for a moment, obviously pondering. I asked if she thought any of her other friends would like to hold her hand on their way out to recess and she told me "Maybe Emma!" I said that was a good idea and she should ask Emma today! She then told me "It will make Jesus happy if Emma holds my hand, because it will make my heart happy and Jesus lives in my heart so he wants it happy!" Hehehehehehe (I do believe either Emma or Sion started holding her again because that was the last I heard of it)

I volunteered to take over the teacher's aid position in Kate's RE class at church this week, the current one was over booked and kept missing so I was subbing a lot anyway. When I told Kate, she got the biggest smile and gave me a huge hug and said "I love when you teacher my church school! It makes it feel just like home!" I was grateful that must mean she indeed has fun at home too, not that Mom is always there to talk at me ;) LOL

Naty is really getting excited and anxious to get to go to both school and RE next year, she is also my most random child ;) So I was sitting at the kitchen table talking to my mom about taking over the teacher's aid thing and Naty comes up and asks if that means she can go now too. I told her no, she said "But I'm as tall as Katy!" Hahaha I said "Yes but you have to be 4 to go sweetie" enter random Naty, "Well if there was a big, mean bat in the delivery (living) room, then Jesus could use his big muscles and scare it away so it won't hurt me!" LOL Yup, that would be classic Naty! ;)

He even saves small children from big, mean bats!

What is really important

So this is a status going around FB today;

My home is filled with toys, has fingerprints on everything & is never quiet. My hair is usually a mess & I'm always tired, but there is always love & laughter here. In 20 years my kids won't remember the house or my hair, but they will remember the time we spent together & the love we felt. Children only get one childhood... Make it a good one! Repost if you agree ♥


I thought it was so true! I will be the first to admit I am not Mrs. Clever or Martha Stewart when it comes to keeping house! I am often behind on laundry, lucky to clean the bathrooms (other then a quick Clorox wipe down) more then once a week, I despise dusting and do as little as possible, I have never cleaned a baseboard, and when I clean the windows it is a real-life Windex commercial with people walking into them thinking I must have opened it. My living room doubles as a toy room and although we have tried many different "pretty" organizers, we always come back to the econo-size catch-all toy box. Not pretty but at least most nights the toys are off the floor. We live in an older house that needs massive fixes, the carpets are 20 years old, the walls are covered in crayon scribbles, the kitchen floor has old stickers stuck to it, oh and best of all the outside is only half painted the beautiful red I picked out 2 years ago ;) The state of our home has bothered me to varying degrees over the last 5 years we have lived here, the worst times being when I have a new friend over who I feel will judge me on it. But as the years have passed, it bothers me less. We are doing our best to fix it as we have money, but 4 small children will really cut into that home project budget ;) To be honest I would much rather spend $40 when we have it taking my kids to the Aquarium or out to dinner then stash it in the "New Carpet Fund" At the end of the day if you don't want to come to my house because it's not up to your standards and you want to think I'm some kind of poor housekeeper (secretly meaning I am somehow and bad parent because of it) then that is your problem not mine. 


My children are happy, healthy and love their home. Some days it very liberating to not feel the need to yell at them because they spilled juice on the already stained carpet, or made a mural on the already scribbled on walls ;) Every night when we sit down to dinner, there is laughter which I will take over a spotless house any day! My montra of late has been "Don't sweat the small stuff" and the things I have listed may not count of your list of small stuff, but they do on mine. 20 years from now, all my kids will remember was the family tickle tournament we had in the middle of the living room, not that we rolled around on stained, old carpet and over countless un-picked up toys. They will remember playing Red Light, Green Light in the backyard on summer evenings, not that there was a pile of laundry to do be done. These are the things I strive for, not to be some unreachable perfect housewife and mother. :) And sense I have been fairly serious here, I insert my trademark humor with one of my favorite images ;)

Amen.