Sick Days and School Books

We received our shipment of school books for the 2010-2011 school year.  Yippee!!!  It is so exciting to see everything the boys will be learning next year.  Sammy will be starting preschool (he'll have two years to work on it, because he'll only be 4-and-a-half when the next school year starts).  Griffin is loving Kindergarten this year, so he'll be in 1st grade.

Here are some quick shots I took of "the loot".

 

I can't wait for next year!  We are having lots of fun this year with Griffin's school, and he is reading well and L.O.V.E.S. his math (he gets time with Daddy every day to do a math lesson), but Kindergarten is pretty basic, and I can't wait to dive in to the new material.  Slow and steady, I know... but it's so hard to be patient!  New books are calling to me!!

2010, Mario, Food and a Cat.

Griffin:  "SAMMY!!!!  YOU KILLED ME!!!!!!!  Now you have to POP me and I'm not the FREEZE guy anymore!!!  Hey, watch OUT for that MUSHROOM!!!!!!"

Sammy: "Oh... okay."

And thus has been much of the conversation at our house lately.  If you have ever played Super Mario as a kid, or your children are...

Okay, I had to take a break, the boys needed me to beat The Water Level for them.

What was I saying?  Oh yes.  Mario.  It's a whole other world.  It is also quite the aerobic activity.  What?  You didn't know that?  Oh, yes.  It helps if you jump up and down while you play.  And kick every so often.  And run back and forth in front of the TV.  Yeah.  Those things can make you work up quite a sweat.  Just ask Griffin.

So I sat down and wrote out my resolutions a couple of days ago.  Drink lots of water.  Eat at home more.  Spend less.  You know, the usual.  I was actually a lot more specific than that, and I wrote out my specific plan, but that is for only me to know.

I don't like people to know what my resolutions are because if no one else knows them, I am only accountable to myself and I don't disappoint anyone but me -- and it's okay if I disappoint myself.  I am a middle child, and I hate to disappoint other people, so I just won't tell anyone what I want to change.  Not exactly, anyway.  You just get the Cliff's Notes.

I have lost 5 pounds so far.  Yay for me!  Now I just have to keep it up.

My ultimate goal?  To be a healthier person.  I don't have a weight loss goal, or really any specific goals in mind.  I just want to be healthy again.  Or maybe for the first time in my adult life.  I have always gone for convenience; fast, easy food is what I have mostly been feeding my family.  Now, I am shopping at Whole Foods at least once a month, and probably will replace my former grocery store with Whole Foods.  It is farther away from my house, so I have to drive a bit, but it is worth it to feed my family well.

I have been making a weekly menu plan for the last month, and it has worked out well for me.  I love being able to look at the menu and see what is for breakfast, lunch and dinner and not coming up to mealtime and not knowing exactly what to cook.  I also write reminders for myself to "take chicken out of freezer," etc. so that I am not tempted to skip meals on the menu because I am not prepared.  Oh yeah.  It saves us money, too.  Anyone who knows me knows that I am an impulse shopper.  Well, not anymore!  Okay, maybe sometimes.  But a lot less often.

I love to cook, I really do, and having quality ingredients just makes it that much more fun.  Here are a couple of the scrumptious things we've eaten this week.

Homemade Bagel Pizzas

Chimi-Ritos (crispy baked burritos)

We are also going to have this.

I didn't take any pictures, but another favorite was the sandwiches I made yesterday.  I toasted bread, then layered Miracle Whip, sliced ham, turkey and pepperoni on one side, then on the other side I put a couple of slices of fresh sliced provolone.  I made the sandwiches on a baking sheet so that I could pop it into the oven (open-faced), and the provolone melted like a dream!  I popped some alfalfa sprouts on the sandwiches, put the tops on, cut them in half, and they were so delicious... I will definitely do that again! 

Also on the menu for the week are Beef Stroganoff, and Chicken and Noodles over mashed potatoes (Great-Grandma Style).

Oh, and before I forget, here is a picture of our dejected kitty Cleo (glowing alien eyes and all) as Mike was taking down the Christmas tree.  She was so disappointed!  She and Miles will go and lay down on the floor where the tree used to be, dreaming of the days when they chased each other around under its branches and played with ornaments that had been knocked off by Gordon's tail.

Insurance is Wonderful

Okay, I know that there are huge debates going on today about health insurance, and many people hold a dim view of insurance in general. But I just wanted to put my two cents (pun intended) out there and let everyone know how thankful I am for my husband's job that allows us to have such fabulous insurance. Yes, we pay a pretty penny for it. But we have also saved so much that we could buy a house with our savings. That is, if we had the money. Which we don't. Which is why we have insurance.

I sat here and added up how much we have paid for my medical expenses this year. Since January, 2009, we have paid $8,433.03 to a bunch of different medical facilities around town. We seem to get a new statement from Empire (Blue Cross Blue Shield) every day for some procedure or another that I have endured. The latest one showed over $10,000 of "procedure", and it freaked me out to think of having to pay for these without insurance! Thus this little activity.

So what was our grand total? I'm so glad you asked! Without insurance, we would have had to pay $118,712.88 since January of this year, and that is just for me! Sammy is a whole other story. He has also racked up thousands of dollars in expenses this year, but we met his $771 deductible and don't have to pay any more for him this year (knock on wood!). His latest escapade, a walnut to the eyeball -- a gift from a neighbor boy -- landed him in urgent care, which we have yet to receive a bill for (or a statement from insurance showing us how much we don't have to pay).

Can I just say again how thankful I am for insurance?

Let's Get Started!

 

We are officially ready to start school! Griffin is doing Kindergarten this year, and Sammy... well, Sammy is going to hang around and do as much as he possibly can with Griffin.

We had a fun "Box Day". For those of you not familiar with Box Day, it is the day you receive your big boxes full of school books from Sonlight, the curriculum we are using. It is an exciting day, full of waiting around by the front windows for the boxes to arrive, cutting open boxes and pulling out brown stuffing paper and books galore, and organizing materials. Here is what our "homeschool shelf" looks like today.

We also have drawers full of crayons, markers, rulers, construction paper, glue, and all of the other essential school supplies. Just look at all of those books! I used the pink stickers on the books to let me know that 1) those are school books, and 2) they are for Kindergarten. First grade books will come with a different color of stickers so that I will be able to tell the years apart and not get books mixed up.

We can't wait to get our greedy little hands on the books and curl up and read on the couch. We also have boxes full of supplies for science experiments. It all looks like so much fun! We can't wait to get started.

I wrote out daily assignment sheets for our first week that tell us what to do every day. I have an Instructor's Guide (the big blue notebook on the right side of the picture), but it has 4 different weekly assignment sheets for every single week (we will do 36 weeks of school), and I don't want to have to flip back and forth to find what we are supposed to do every day, so I'm writing it all out.

In fact, I think I will go get an actual planner when Mike gets home from getting his hair cut. That way I won't have loose sheets of paper floating around everywhere, and I can have our entire Kindergarten year recorded in one place. The mall here has a new two-story Barnes and Noble, with a big school/homeschool section, and I needed a good excuse to go visit there again.

No More Chemo!

I have been a slacker about blogging and posting pictures. Wow. I can't wait to get back in the swing of things! I had my 12th and last chemo treatment yesterday, and I am feeling much better after laying on the couch almost all day yesterday, and getting almost 10 hours of sleep last night. I will meet with the radiologist tomorrow early in the morning, and find out when radiation starts, how long it will last, etc. '

I am thinking about getting an aloe vera plant to help with the skin burns I will most likely get, and I'll probably have a lovely little tattoo in the middle of my chest, but at least it will help the cancer to not come back.

I'm having a party at Mi Ranchito next Wednesday to celebrate, which will be lots of fun. I am hoping my hair starts growing back in the next few weeks. It looks and feels like baby hair right now. I'm just ready to look and feel normal again. I know I will always have "the cancer" hanging over my head, and will always have to be conscious of it and the effects it could have on me if I'm not careful in how I treat my body, but I want to get on with life now and not have IT be in every conversation I have!

I might post about my radiation, but for the most part my posts here will focus on the good and happy things going on in our family's life.

TV Dog

Gordon loves to watch TV with us. He will sit there with his head propped up on the coffee table and stare at the screen for a really long time. Then he gets up and walks around the room and lays down again. And again. And again. He changes positions a LOT. That wood floor must be really uncomfortable.


Recently, we watched Marley & Me. Anyone who has seen that movie and is the least bit sympathetic towards dogs probably cried just as much as I did during certain parts. It didn't make it any easier with Gordon actually in the room, watching the movie right along with us.

He was fascinated by the "bad-boy" dog in this movie, and couldn't seem to tear his eyes away. We even laughed (!!!) at the antics of Marley, which Gordon just couldn't wrap his head around. HE wasn't allowed to do ANY of the things we were laughing at Marley for doing! It's just not fair!

A couple of times, Gordon got right up in front of the TV, when the action was really intense (read: beach scenes or Marley tearing up stuff in his house), because he really just wanted to be where the action was. Poor dog. He must think he leads a very boring life compared to Marley.

What I Did Today

Before:

After:

Monkeys

It was hot and muggy inside the house a couple of weeks ago, and I was on the phone with Bonnie when I just had to say "Hold on, Bonnie, I need to go grab my camera for a second."

Griffin is officially following in his father's literal footsteps, and is climbing the doorposts. Somewhere there is a picture of Mike at around Griffin's age hanging on to the doorpost grinning from ear to ear. Well, now I have my own!

I was a baaaaaad Mommy and pulled a "Do that one more time so that I can get a picture, and then never, ever do it again!!!"

He hasn't done it since, but then air conditioning isn't nearly so handy because the humidity isn't a factor anymore. Hee!

Sammy wasn't quite so adventurous. He got a little way up and decided it wasn't worth the trouble. Good boy!

And no, they don't even try to climb the ladder in the background. Nah. That would be much too easy. It has STEPS.

A Dandy Dandelion

Mike went running outside the other morning saying "I have to show you this!" and he came back in bearing a massive (to dandelion standards) yellow flower. We measured ("what?" you say? -- but of course we measured!) and it was 26 inches tall. A great feat for any plant growing in our backyard. Have you seen the plants we have grown in our backyard? No? My point exactly.

To You

To the person or people who sent me the $100 through Bonnie -- you will never know how blessed I feel because of that generous act. I am overwhelmed with love for... well... everyone, because of your selflessness. I have several options for how I may use the money, but I am taking my time making a decision. I want to use it wisely.

*I could use it to boost my Stampin' Up! business.

*I need some more pairs of shorts (I have 3 now), as I really want to follow my husband's leading and get used to it being warmer in the house so that we don't need to use the air conditioner as much this year. That will save us even more money in the long run.

*We could use it to take our family somewhere special and create some lifetime memories.

*I could get 1,111 pictures developed from Snapfish, which would keep me scrapping for a very long time.

*I could have loads of fun at the local scrapbook or stamp store.

*We could all go out to a really nice dinner somewhere fancy that we don't usually get to go.

So many options!! I don't know what I will choose yet, but I just wanted to post publicly about how thankful I am to have such generous people constantly touching our family's life.

Thank you again!! God bless you.

Good News and Scrapping Stuff

Here is a project I worked on for Bonnie and Caleb's grandma. Caleb's grandpa passed away last week after a tough fight with cancer, and the funeral was held on Tuesday. This card opens up to about 6"x8", and it fit a 5"x7" picture of his grandma and grandpa on the inside. I won't show the picture for privacy reasons, but here is the rest of the card. When open, it will sit up so that she can have the picture and sentiment showing all the time if she wants to.

The front says "I said a prayer for you today."

The inside says

"Praying for friends

to comfort you,

faith to uphold you,

and loving memories

to heal your heart."The back says "And now these three remain: Faith, Hope and Love,

but the greatest of these is Love." I Cor. 13:13

My next project is a file folder scrapbook. I had a ton of pictures that I had taken of a walk we went on several months ago. The light outside was just perfect, and I realized after the pictures were developed that the boys had on somewat color-coordinated clothes, which made picking colors for this scrapbook SO easy! It's not finished yet, but at least the pictures are in it!

And now on to the great news! I had my PET scan on Monday, and my doctor's visit on Wednesday before I went in for chemo treatment #5, in which he told me that I am officially cancer free!! I have 7 more treatments, and then a month of daily radiation treatments, and then I'll be free from needles and this port and all of the unpleasantness that comes from having cancer. I'm so happy!! God is so good. I have had so much support, from money to gift cards to care packages to meals to phone calls and cards and letters in the mail... as well as many, many prayers lifted up on my family's behalf. We appreciate everything so much, it is so hard to show just how grateful we really are, and I know I have forgotten to thank people individually... just know that we are ever so thankful!! God bless you all.