Thursday, March 24, 2011

Brothers

Today Lucas had school in the morning and then went to a friends house for playing and dinner. Nathan hadn't seen him all day. As Lucas walked up the stairs Nathan was waiting for him with his arms open to give him a big hug.





I'm so happy they love each other.

Till Next Time

Jenn

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Chapter 11

I'm not sure exactly how many crazy Emma stories there have been, but I'm sure we are probably at 10. So here is Chapter 11 of the Crazy "tails" of Emma.

Emma has had some stinky breath for the last couple of weeks. It's gone beyond the morning breath I haven't had anything to eat, to the stinky all the time. So I've been looking in her mouth to see if I can find the cause. I saw what I though may have been a sore on her gum, so I thought I'd give it a week or so to see if it would heal itself. But at the end of last week the sore became a hole and you could see what looked like the top part of her tooth through her gum's. So I called and made an appointment with our vet, for what I thought may have been an abscessed tooth.

Yesterday we take her into the vet and explain the story. She looks at Emma's tooth and does think it's something, as well as the stinky breath. She said it didn't look like a typical abscess tooth and that usually an abscessed molar drains through the sinuses and the nose. She asked if Emma chewed bones and thought maybe it could be some trauma that wasn't healing. She suggested trying some antibiotics for a week to see if that would help to heal it. I thought that was a good idea. She wanted to do a more through look in Emma mouth. She opened Emma's mouth and the first thing that came out was "what is that?". I said isn't that just part of her hard palate in her mouth. She says "no that's not normal" What we were seeing was a white thin hard piece at the top of her mouth. So I thought about it for a minute and remember about a time a month ago when we were attempting to decrease Emma's dose of her crazy medication and how she ripped up a wicker basket we had a the front door. Of course the thing in her mouth was a piece of wicker wedged between her two molars. That piece of wood was rotting and causing the stinky breath and the wood was putting a hole in her gum's .

Our vet suggested grabbing some forceps and seeing if she could remove it. She came back in with a vet tech to help hold. So the three of us held Emma and the vet grabbed the piece of wicker with her clamps and got it out. The vet tech was shocked. "Oh my god, oh my god" she kept saying. She was so surprised and didn't have a good poker face.

Luckily Emma is on the road to recovery and the stinky breath is so much better. She is still taking some antibiotics to be sure she heals properly. And the indent in her mouth where the stick was is looking better too.

Wonder what Chapter 12 will be...

Jenn

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Pictures from the Melting

We had two good weeks of really cold temperatures in late February early March. But in the last week we have had + temperatures all week. All the snow is melting, the kids are sleeping better because they are getting Vitamin D and fresh air and we are all happier. Here are some pictures from our playing outside.







Monday, March 14, 2011

And then there were 6







All weekend we had 4 boys in this house. The boys are loving it. They love playing Wii together and reading books and playing Hot Wheels. Today after we got home from school they played upstairs for an hour straight. I was able to get Nathan's birthday party set up, watched Young and The Restless did some surfing and got dinner made.




But I'm missing Lucas. Having 4 kids means your attention is much more divided. Especially since I spent 5 hours yesterday helping the oldest do math home work. Yep that's right 5 hours. And we did another 2 hours tonight. Nathan still takes up a lots of my time. And Lucas and Shaun play so well together that I haven't really seen Lucas. Even reading books at night, the last couple of nights, one of us has been helping with math homework, the other parent reading books to Nathan and the two middle kids read books to each other.

But I can't imagine having 4 all the time and I bow down to moms who do so. I know you just do it. But you have to be a great time manager.

Till Next Time

Jenn

Monday, March 07, 2011

Winter 2011 Playlist

1. The Cave: Mumford and Sons. Hands down my favorite band of late. If you love banjo and songs that build and rock songs you'll love them. If you saw them at the Grammys you'll know what I mean about music building. If you like this song I would also recommend Little Lion Man and Roll Away Stone.
2. Dog Days are Over: Florence and the Machine. I may have been in the dark about this song for a while. It was a song I kept hearing on the radio and loved it, but never heard the name of it. Again the Grammy's (you'll notice a theme here) introduced me to her great voice and then I found this song.
3. Alberta Bound: Brian Adams. Obviously...
4. Stuck Like Glue: Sugarland. I'm not really a country fan, but her voice is growing on me. Besides who doesn't love a song with some reggae rap in it. =)
5. Jumpstart These kids wear crowns: It was a free song from itunes and it's great. Especially for those of you who like pop music (I'm looking at you Alexis and Lesley). I don't think it's a radio song- but it could be. My kids like to dance to it too.
6. Born this Way Lady Gaga: This is a radio song and it certainly sounds like Madonna's Express yourself, but I still really enjoy it. I also like the message.
7. Head Full of Doubt/Road Full of Promise: Avett Brothers. Again a fantastic performance at the Grammys. I've had this song on itunes for a while, as I've loved the song I and Love and You for a while, but this song is on rotate now.
8. Uncharted: Sara Bareillies She has such a great voice and this song is up beat and has a great message.
9. Heavy Metal Girls: Jim Bryson and the Weakerthans: If you follow me on Twitter you know I saw these guys earlier this week. I enjoy their whole album but this is probably my favorite song of all of them. It was great live (as songs should be)
10. Rolling in the Deep: Adele This is from her new album and man this woman can sing it. Tammy introduced it to me and as she says it's a little motown.
11. Firework: Glee Cast. Again a great message and I like Lea Michelle singing it better then Katy Perry.

What's been on your playlist lately?

Jenn

Sunday, March 06, 2011

Sunday Afternoon: Reflections of the week

I've work a lot this week, when I say a lot I mean a lot for me. I ended up picking up two shifts at job number 2 and it was a stressful week at job number one (teaching). So much so that for a while I was wondering how I could find another job. But right now I have a really good balance in my life. If I were to get a new job I would be working more and I don't want to work more. I worked full time this week and it was a lot. To all you moms who work full time all the time, more power to you. But in my usual life I have good balance, I work 4 days a week and one of those days is an evening shift, so I get to be with the kids for most of the day. Darryl is also great about letting me get some "me" time every week too, so I'm lucky. So my life is made up of equal parts of work and family time. I do get to sprinkle some me time in there as well as some relationship time. Sometimes for those hard times at work I need to grin and bear it because it allows me to have balance in the rest of my life.

Till Tomorrow

Jenn