troubles with tonsils, 4-H projects, and credit cards--ugh!

Whoa! What a week! What happens when you combine one tonsillectomy for a three year-old, a jam-packed week full of events for the older two, and no sleep.....one pooped pair of parents!

Brody had his T&A (tonsillectomy and adenoids removed+ear cleaning) Monday, June 23rd at 9:30 a.m. We were home by 12:30 p.m.! CRAZY! The first 48 hours went TOO well! Brody was out wanting to play in the hose the night of his surgery. He also wanted to eat chips. Forty-eight hours later.....it hit. The screaming, the thrashing, the waking up at 2 a.m. and no sleep until 6 a.m. It broke my heart to see him in such pain. I finally gave him the prescribed pain meds Wednesday, and he has done alright. He started sleeping better Thursday night. Presently, he does not talk well still. His throat is full of gunk (DISGUSTING), and he has lost at least 2 pounds. I may run him to our pediatrician tomorrow to have everything checked out. I thought he would be further down the road to recovery than he is now. Our ENT Doc is 40 miles away (in new gas price terms.....$25.00 down the road). This means I'd prefer to run him to our local ped. if needed. We shall see!

EEK! I just realized this week that the kids have NO TIME to get their 4-H projects done! I totally forgot to get them working on them as our summer has been much busier than I had originally planned. Jamie and Noah were feverishly working on Noah's Woodworking I project tonight while Kyla was going around the house doing a survey of how safe our house was for children for her Childcare project. According to her results, I guess we have failed in some areas. Hmmmmm.

The best news all day was I paid off Credit Card #1 (I shall not share with you how many I need to pay off, but it isn't as bad as you may think:) ). It felt good to cross that puppy off my list of cards to pay off and close out. The bummer of it all is I have nothing to show for our debt. We have only used our credit card for a few actual tangible purchases that were necessities, the rest of our plastic card frenzy has been to pay off medical bills from a cough here and a wheeze there among all three kids. I am very grateful we have great insurance to help us out. Anyways, I hope to knock off card #2 and #3 this week. I will keep you posted as I know this news is keeping you glued to your keyboard and monitor..................

Lofthouse Clone?

I've been feverishly working on trying to produce a clone of those simple yet mysterious famous frosted cookies you find in HyVee, Walmart, etc. The closest I've come to is this recipe. I substituted powdered sugar for the granulated sugar and added one teaspoon of cream of tartar. I also used this recipe for the frosting. My kids commented I'm getting VERY CLOSE, but the frosting isn't there yet. Oh well! I wonder when Todd Wilber of Top Secret Recipes will take this on as a challenge. It sure would make my life easier. Since I can't even look at these cookies without gaining a pound, I always dump my product onto our local cookie monster, my boss--Mrs. H. She always welcomes a cookie, or more, two her office.

Greetings Blog World!

Okay, now that I'm typing my first blog, I'm wondering, "Why am I doing this?".....Well, I thought I'd jump in and give it a try and use this as a "digital" way of journaling because I'm so bad at journaling the traditional way.

I know my entries will be a lot over the summer, and then wind down to a trickle during the school year, but I'll do my best!

Kyla and Noah are doing the Knox College for Kids this week and next. They are having a great time. I think it is a great break for all of us as we were all getting a bit grumbly bumbly a week after school was out.

Noah is playing baseball this season. He is getting a little pitching time in. He wishes he could have more, but needs to practice for more consistency. He's in a bit of a batting slump right now. We are anxiously awaiting the arrival of prescription glasses to see if that will help. We hope!

Brody (aka "Cimarron") is really flexing his independence muscles this summer. I will try to stay positive in my posts on this little guy, but he wears out me out to the core! Why do we call him Cimarron? Well, Noah learned about the Cimarron River in Third Grade this year. When his teacher was explaining that Cimarron meant "wild and raging", Noah piped in, "that sounds like my little brother". Ever since, his teacher and I have joked about "Little Cimmy". It's rather fitting! He has been the biggest challenge at baseball games. Jamie is helping coach Noah's team, which is great, but leaves me to chase the very active and strong-willed child. Last night's game was a big failure for little Cimmy. We both ended up in the van in tears in the bottom of the 4th inning.

Jamie is plugging away at the railroad and enjoys his job and the fun co-workers that make the shift so entertaining. The other night, they had "Hawaiian shirt Night" in honor of a co-worker who wears nothing buy Hawaiian shirts...maybe this guy is trying to channel his inner Tom Selleck.

I guess that is all for me now. I have much to do today. Jamie is home and awake today which means I have an ambitious to do list which includes a stop by the library to see if the book 123 Magic available, painting lockers for the boys room (in a SUH-Weet) orange, still trying to perfect my Lofthouse Cookie clone recipe, stopping by school to "escape" and make some copies, sew Kyla's new pointe shoes, drive to dance, and possibly hosting some nieces and nephews for the evening...........