For Ann-I think painting rooms is a a great birthday gift, can you tell?

Davin's birthday gift last year.

One of his Christmas gifts this year.


This is the girls room (you can't see much of it, but we bought the big picture for 10$ and the little for 3$ each. The light switch cover was at a craft flea market.




These are Mikayla's Room-yes I painted the flowers so they are't that great. Her book shelves was this years birthday gift. The light switch plate was last year's christmas gift, and the painting was birthday 2 years ago.

Check out my Slide Show!

Can we really make winter longer?

Thought I would share the latest pictures of our snowstorm. March 31st. The last day of march, went into the first day of April. And people question my intentions for moving to TX?

The Front Yard

The Deer, should be down since Christmas was over 3 months ago.


The Playground in the Back Yard


Can you see how Blistery it is?


I will search for warmer eventually. Since last time I checked, April SHOWERS brought May Flowers.

The Roller Coaster Continues

Good Evening All
It's hard to believe this was my child on Sunday night. She was in the mood and playing well. The occasional comment about wanting to puke, but never happening so the thought was set aside. Happy, playing, enjoying life, was she not?





Then we had some issues. A call from the school that she was going by ambulance to the hospital. Check her website in the links section.
Now we are not strangers to this, but we move along. We truck on, we have to. However, when we arrived at the hospital we were there early and patiently waiting as this is our 23rd seizure in 6 months. We see her smiling face, and her teacher as well. The kindest soul I have ever met. Just someone who loves to give. Now the best person to be your kids teacher, but the hardest person to face when going through this. Someone so selfless, and just incredibly compelled to give your child everything she deserves. Jason truely is the man that every woman wants. Jason lost his son some years back. His son also had seizuers, so he is no stranger and I have no doubt this is as close to his heart as it is to ours. But still, what can yous say but "Thank You" and give a big hug? To know that Camryn felt comfortable and that she had a smile when she arrived, it was all I could do to stop myself from crying when listening to her talk. Lucky we are, yes, lucky.

Now Camryn's CT shows decrease in the right ventricle, and her shunt series shows no disconnect. So the shunt seems to be functioning fine, but the seizures still continue. So we are trucking on with an additional medicine in the hopes that it will work. We have 3 appts for her next week and hope to make every single one count. We will be discussing overdrainage, shunt revision, and resolution. Should be interesting.
This is the latest set of pictures. Elli and Camryn in their love/hate relationship!

Can we please just get out the door?!?

I am not sure what it is about Spring Break that brings out the "senioritis" in us all, but boy has this been a lazy week. For the kids that is.
I am not sure what is going on, but our kids have dragged butt all week. It's like they know that they don't have to be at school, don't have to dress up, and don't have to be mentally prepared to learn. What is it about Spring Break that brings out the "senior" in us all? The all day daydreaming, the wondering what we are doing for summer, the I can't wait to sleep in every day phase?
Example...
This morning I was up early. 5:30, now I know for most that is what time you get up to get the kids out the door for work every morning, but on my days, I tend to get up later to miss the traffic on the other end in hopes that the extra sleep will help my kids learn better at school that day (I know, my own thinking) and it's been working for me. I had dishes done, the laundry going, the house picked up and I was almost ready for work. Then my children awoke. None of them wanting to eat what was available, none of them wanting to get dressed, and none of them thiking that me getting out the door before 9 was necessary. WTH? How can their not-yet-mature bodies be so in tune with my pet pieves? *SHEESH* So after 2 hours of following them, making sure they were doing what they needed to do, Davin says, "I have to pee" to which I respond "Can't we just get out the door?"
As he walks upstairs, I go out to the car and turn the key. I think to myself. Either my kids are really smart and trying to fool me, or they are just so clueless as to what I am saying, cause after all, I must be speaking swahili. UGH

This was our Easter, Can you believe it?

So when I woke up Easter Morning it was day 4 of snow, and it's normal, I know, but here is how blistery cold it looked.






Even the dog thought we were nuts for putting her outside!



But we ventured on and had Easter Spirit in the house!!




The baskets from MIL's Easter Bunny

I forgot how much I love SHOES!

Look at my most recent shopping experience! Can you believe I got these for $25???? I still can't believe it!

Birthday Cakes for Goodness Sakes!

So this is the cake I made for Ariana



I like it for a first try, but it's not as pretty as the picture one. I would like to try it again before thinking about spendying $27 (or 40% off that) for the pan that makes the cake mold easy to frost. I dunno, what do you guys think?

Well Curses Andrea

That's right, Andrea has sparked another interest for me. She gave me this link to make these cards off four sheets of paper, well I ran away with it and kept going. Instead of 10 cards, I did 48. YIKES! Now I am not pleased with them all, but I do like most of them. I will continue to do this, even though I may not photograph all 48, I will share the highlights going forward.

HAPPY EASTER!!!

Good Morning Everyone!
It's easter. I love this holiday! There are so many bright colors in everything we decorate and we get to celebrate with family. The kids colored eggs, made drawings, and even had a visit from the easter bunny. They were sporting their stuff, eager to get dressed for the day and then took another look outside. That's right, we have snow, 7 inches on Friday, 1 inch yesterday, and another inch coming today. It looks like december outside, not March 23rd. So I flip on the news to hear the weather man remind me that I do live in MN and we often have a winter storm on or around easter. YIKES! Sunnier climates are in my future, we'll just have to wait and see how far into my future they really are.

So this is the first easter that Camryn really understands that today is different than any other day. As we reflect back, march/april has been a tough time for Camryn, she is usually being hospitalized or having several tests done before or after easter to help control the odd issues we were having with the shunt. It's sad really. To think that this holiday that I love, brings so many hard memories. Then she runs into the room, excited about the EB visit and says "Mom, he left us a bubble blower!!!" and as I see her cheeks hanging out as she runs away to find the next thing that was bestowed upon her, I just can't help but laugh and be thankful for how far she has come. I really do believe she is destined for greatness. I just can't wait to see it all unravel....

So I will be missing family dinner this year, which like other holidays this past year, I kind of knew I would be missing, so it wouldn't hurt as bad. This year is different. I am not missing it because of a sick kid, I am not missing it because of timing, we just plain aren't doing it. My cousin is still sick. Mike has AML and it doesn't seem to be getting much better, so he is living his life. Which family dinners can be so draining because he doesn't want them to be a 3 ring circus about his health. He just wants to live. And with my mom's testing results hanging in the balance, we all can't help but feel somber this easter. So I made a promise to myself, I will be making happy cards today to make the time go faster, and I want to think happy things of today and remember that it's good things we are celebrating, it is life we are celebrating, it is family we are celebrating.
Live and let Live, I say.