Schoooooool's OUT. FOR. SUMMER!

Well, today was the big day, the last day of school. This year went by way too fast, and I didn't accomplish everything I wanted to do while I had my days free, but that's just how things go around here. It was really sad to see this year end, especially for Preston as this was his last year at Jefferson (they only have kindergarten and first). It was sad picking him up, knowing I wouldn't be going back- although we did have to go back because they gave us another child's inhaler in Preston's bag of meds that they kept at school. I'll really miss JPS. I spent a lot of time there this year volunteering in his classroom and at the school store. I also went to school there for 6 years when it was K-5, so it was a little nostalgic being there and telling P all about where my classrooms were, etc.

I figured that Preston would be the one that was glad break had started and that Kate would be sad, but it was just the opposite. Preston, as much as he complained about school, really enjoyed it and being with his friends every day. Kate is scared of moving up to 7th grade and having new teachers, and wanted to stay in 6th grade!

So now we have to find ways to entertain ourselves for the next 2 1/2 months. We plan on doing our weekly picnics again, and will be doing a lot of swimming and gardening, but there's always days where we just are bored out of our minds, and of course, living in the middle of nowhere really doesn't provide us with many things to do. Please pray for my sanity, too! The kids are already fighting with each other and they haven't been out of school an entire day!

SUYL Deserts!

This week over at Kelly's Korner, Show Us Your Life brings us DESERTS! I have a feeling this week might get me in trouble! I'm a desert eater- especially if it involves chocolate... I have a whole file full of fabulous deserts, but this is my all-time favorite, stuff yourself till you're silly (and about to pop) cake. And it's easy, too! I've tweaked the name to be a bit more family-friendly, so you can make it better than anything you want! ;)

Better than _________ cake

1 box devils food cake
6 oz. caramel ice cream topping
1/2 14 oz. can sweetened condensed milk
1 bag crushed toffee
1 tub cool whip

1. Bake the cake according to the box and let cool. I use a 9x13 pan. Poke holes in the top of the cake with a skewer or something similar.

2. Boil together the condensed milk and caramel and pour over cake.

3. Top cake with cool whip and crushed toffee.

4. Sit back and go crazy!


And here's a good one for hot summer days!

Toffee pie

1 package cream cheese
2 T. sugar
1/2 c. half and half
1 carton cool whip
1 package crushed toffee bits
1 graham cracker crust

1. In a mixing bowl, beat cream cheese and sugar until smooth. Beat in half and half until blended. Fold in cool whip and 1 cup toffee bits.

2. Spoon in to pie crust and top with toffee. Freeze overnight.

I will warn you that this will not fit in a standard store-bought pie shell easily. I've only made it once, but I think if you partially freeze the mixture before putting it in the shell, that it would stand up better and not try to run out.

It is delicious and didn't last long!!!

WOW!

I rarely ever watch Ellen, but I was busy quilting this afternoon when it came on and I just tuned it out. That is, until she had Il Volo on and they blew me away! I had never heard of them before, but, wow! Their voices are nothing short of amazing!

I should have known better...

The Friday before last, I woke up feeling pretty well. I thought to myself, It's the one-week mark and I haven't gotten the kids' cold. I think I'll be OK. I spoke too soon because just a few hours later, my throat was scratchy and I did in fact, have the kids' cold.

Then Sunday, I remarked to Christopher that this was one of the easiest colds I've had in a long time, as I inched upon the 10-day mark and symptoms eased. Spoke too soon again- I woke up yesterday with a monster of a sinus infection shooting pain clear down into my upper jaw. Of course, every doctor's office in town was booked solid and I had to wait until today to get in. By that time, I'd developed a fever and the pain was worse. I'm armed with a z-pack and a continuous cycle of Motrin, so hopefully tomorrow I feel much better. Not exactly how I intended to "enjoy" my last week before school lets out.

Free

For years, Pa has called me the coupon queen. I'm a pretty savvy shopper, and try to save as much money as I can. Every once in a while, I come across a hot coupon that lands me something for free, or better yet, a money maker. And that's exactly what happened here.

I had 21 $1.00 off Ivory soap coupons- they retail for 97 cents at Wal-Mart. I made 3 cents on each 3-pack. Then I had 3, $3.00 Nivea body wash coupons- they retail for $2.50 at Dollar General. I made 50 cents on each of those. I only was able to get two, though, as they only had 2 bottles left. As for the soap... I can guarantee I will NOT be seen on Extreme Couponing anytime soon. Yes, I went online and bought them since we go through Ivory like water, but buying 21 packs at one time was just embarassing. Completely. And to make matters worse, instead of scanning the coupons quickly like all of the other cashiers, this one scanned each one and then wrote her info on each before doing another. It took FOREVER, and the line of people behind me kept growing. But, I think we have enough soap to last us a little while. You think?

Five

via

Five more times to set the alarm clock.
Five more times to pack lunches.
Five more quiet days alone.
Five more days of school.

Say Cheese!

via

Yesterday, we did something we had never done before (at least voluntarily). We gave Preston cheese. After 7 years of having to avoid dairy, we were given permission to challenge him.

I can't tell you how odd it felt. Christopher and I felt really weird about it. We'd always had to be so careful to keep him away from it, and here we were doing this, not knowing for sure if he'd react, worried what would happen and if we really should try it. I'm sure Preston felt a little nervous as well, but he was excited about the prospect of being able to see if he was still allergic. And thankfully, all went well! He even had some more today and still no reaction. I plan on calling in to see what the next step is now that we've had two days reaction-free, and am praying that all will be well!

As we predicted, Kate is pretty upset about this. With her allergy being diagnosed last year, she went her entire life loving dairy products and now can't have them. I'd like to say that she didn't throw a fit, but she did... She felt that it was unfair that he was getting to eat cheese (her absolute favorite) and she wasn't. That will probably be a big adjustment.

If all goes well, this will no doubt be a huge adjustment for all of us. He'll be able to eat more foods, but will still have to avoid nut/peanut/shellfish products. I think this will be an adjustment for family as well, who might think that he's able to eat anything now, though he will still have restrictions. Those other allergens will be challenged under the doctor's supervision since they post the greatest risk of anaphylactic shock, and they don't want to do that until he's at least 8.

Please, if you will, pray that this will be a smooth process and that he will continue to be reaction-free. He's pretty excited, and we are, too. This will be a BIG deal for him, and I just can't wait until I can take him to get a celebratory ice cream cone!

SUYL Main Dishes

This week at Kelly's Korner, Show Us Your Life brings us Main Dishes! I cook daily. I have to. I have two children with food allergies, so eating out really isn't an option for us, nor are most prepackaged meals. Thankfully I enjoy it or I think I'd go mad! I'm going to post a few of my favorites here today, but you can also check out my food blog for more great and easy main dishes/sides, none of which contain any dairy, nuts or peanuts, but trust me, you won't miss them! And I apologize if you stop by there and it's badly neglected. I really need to add some new things to it!

Pepper Steak

This is a super easy and YUMMY recipe that is probably our family's most favorite. You can cook it in the slow cooker too, just cook the meat first and then add it all in and cook all day.

1 lb. cube steak cut into strips
1/4 c. margarine or butter
1 clove minced garlic
1 tsp. oregano
1 tsp. salt
1/2 c. sherry
1/4 c. olive oil
2 14.5 oz. cans diced tomatoes
1 green pepper, sliced

1. Melt margarine in stock pot and heat with garlic until golden. Add meat and cook until done. Add remaining ingredients and cook on low for one hour. Serve over a bed of rice.

Well, so maybe I'm just posting one recipe, but trust me, it's worth the try! If you'd like to see more, hop on over to my food blog.

Easter Bunny

I got this lovely Playboy bunny cake pan to sell on Ebay. It's been sitting downstairs waiting to be photographed and Preston kept playing with it, wondering when I was going to make an Easter Bunny cake. He got to reading it and it says, "Happy birthday to my favorite guy." So he comes up to me and asks, "Mom, when is the Easter Bunny's birthday?" I told him I didn't know and asked why. "Because it says Happy Birthday to my favorite guy on the Easter Bunny pan. Is the Easter Bunny someone's favorite guy?"

Oh, sweet dear! We had a good laugh over that one, Preston!

Band concert, garage sale and field trips

It's been a while since I've been blogging. It's been a pretty busy week and to top it off, I ended up catching the cold that the kids had last week, so I've been pretty wiped out.

Thursday was Kate's spring band concert. We had seats directly in front of her, so we were really able to see her play. They did really well! Mrs. B. does such a great job with the jr. high band and all of the students respond really well to her.


Friday and Saturday was our annual garage sale. I worked all day setting up on Thursday and Annette was here at 6:30 Friday morning to set up her stuff. We did pretty well and I'm glad to see most of it gone!


Monday I was able to go along with the 1st grade class to the Magic House in St. Louis. We had a really great time and I'm glad that I had such a small group to handle- Preston and Jesse. It was hard enough to keep an eye on both of them at the same time! Preston was really excited to go since he missed the class trip last year because he had pneumonia and was still running a temp. I was praying pretty hard that he'd make it this year!

Preston and Jesse before we left

And we really did luck out being able to make the trip because the very next morning, we were at the dr. at 9:00. He has a spider bite that he got over the weekend that really started getting mean looking. They gave him some antibiotics since spider bites are notorious for developing staph, and hopefully this will be the end of the bite.

And it's really a field trip kind of week around our house. First it was Preston's class on Monday. Kate's class had conservation day at the lake Tuesday. It was a cold, windy day and she froze her little rear end off, but I think she had a good time. Today is her big trip, though! The 6th grade class went to St. Louis to watch a Cardinals game. She was so worried it would get rained out, so I checked the weather and it was going to be sunny and 75. That was yesterday. Today, however, it started raining and the game just started a few minutes ago after a 55 minute rain delay. I'm sure she'll have some comment about that one when she gets home! She's been so excited about this trip for a long time, so I'm glad they're playing! I have the game on behind me hoping they'll announce that the school is there and put them on tv!

Happy

Today my grandpa went back to the ortho. dr. for a follow-up. At his last visit, he was pretty discouraged to hear that the bone had not healed. Today, though, it is healing! Praise God! He is now able to put 10-15 pounds of pressure on it. So instead of having to hop, he can now hobble! Baby steps... This is such encouraging news all around because he was pretty discouraged, still, and really needed to hear good news, and that he will be able to be more mobile. He got an order for the health dept. to come out and do some therapy with him on range of motion, etc. so that when he's able to start walking again once the bone is completely healed, it will be easier. I'm so glad everything went well!

Mixed bag

Whew. It's one of those mixed bag kind of days- too many things going on at once! We had a pretty good weekend and enjoyed some nice weather for a change. Old man winter had been holding on for dear life and this weekend we finally got to turn the heat off! It's usually off long before now! And tomorrow we're supposed to have record highs! Extremes. We got some planting done outside Saturday and it felt nice to get some flowers going outside. Mother's Day was pretty busy, but also really nice. We went to Kendra's for lunch and mom's for dinner, so I only had to cook lunch. Nice! The kids made me some sweet gifts, and I haven't gotten a picture of the stuffed heart that Kate made me, but this is a drawing Preston made me at school. It says, "Dear Mom, I love you mom. I love it when you read me a book. I love it when you tuck me into bed. Love, Preston" It melted my heart and immediately found a place on the fridge!
Thursday morning, a guy trimming trees for our electric co. came around asking if he could trim the top of this cedar tree next to our driveway because it's under the wires. We told him we didn't want it trimmed because they hacked away at a tree at our old house and we knew better than to let them go at this one. The guy wasn't too happy about it, but really, the tree wasn't anywhere near the lines.

At 7:00 this morning, there's a pounding on the front door. I drag my pajama-clad, no make-up, messy-haired self to the door to find the foreman of the trimming service. He informed me that they had an easement and had to trim that tree. He wasn't about to budge, so I told him I had to call Christopher, who had no idea what to do. I called his dad, who told me that with the easement, we really had no say in the matter, we just had to ask that they do it as tastefully as possible. So I tell him he can trim it, but not before telling him how horribly bad his trimmers have hacked away at all of the trees in the neighborhood and that we do NOT want that tree to look like our neighbor's trees, which now resemble flat toadstools. I either scared him with my tirade of their disastrous pruning, or he just wanted to be nice, because I couldn't even tell they trimmed the tree! But seriously, who comes knocking on doors at 7:00 bullying people into letting them trim their trees?
Kate had her regular dental exam today. Each one now brings more anxiety for me because I dread the day they say she needs teeth pulled. She still has a mouthful of baby teeth with permanent teeth coming in behind the others. Her poor little mouth is a mess! But luckily, he said that he thinks the baby teeth will all come out on their own (although one is questionable) and that they will be able to make room for all of the others. Now, that of course, is yet to be seen, but I'll take optimism in that area any day! He thinks braces will come sometime after the first of the year once all of those baby teeth are gone. We got an estimate of the damage it will cause to our savings account. HOLY COW! Our out of pocket after insurance alone could send us all on a nice vacation. But it's necessary. It can't be avoided, and in the long run, will be worth every penny for Kate's self esteem. But I can't say that I won't dangle that one over her head now and then...

I'm getting ready for a massive garage sale this weekend. It may top all we've had before, and trust me, they're huge. I've got so much I have to do to get ready for it, and all of my stuff is still in the attic. I might drag it down tomorrow just to have it down.

And if you've ever wondered what I look like, here I am...
Another masterpiece by the great Preston. He nailed my hair exactly- especially today with the humidity! And he even got my highlights in there, using a brown and black crayon! He's a sharp kid, I tell ya!

Baseball has begun!

Preston started baseball practice yesterday for this summer and he did really well. Things didn't exactly start off well being that he took a baseball to the head within the first 10 minutes. They were practicing catching balls and throwing them to 1st to get the runner out. One kid thought Preston was on 1st, and threw it to him, but Preston wasn't paying attention and WHACK!, right above his temple. The coach didn't seem phased at all, but I went out and made sure he was OK and that there wasn't a head injury- there wasn't even a bump and he had no other symptoms. A few minutes later after he'd calmed down, he went back out and had a blast the rest of practice. I'm really hoping that's not a sign of what's to come! I had just gotten done telling another mom that commented on them using real balls (not the softer baseballs) about Preston getting hit in the chin with one last year during a game. Sigh... Really, do they have to use the hard balls with a bunch of 7 year olds?

He got his game schedule and has 9 games. They're starting later this season, and playing through the end of June, so I know there are going to be some HOT days. I guess that's a tradeoff I can take to not have to sit through practice when it's 50 degrees. And as a bonus, his asthma was pretty controlled the whole time! I think we've finally found the right meds. and hopefully we won't need the rescue inhaler.

Here's to a great baseball season!

Gatlinburg, TN

It's Show Us Your Life time over at Kelly's Korner and this week's theme is favorite vacation spots. Gatlinburg, TN has got to be our favorite vacation spot. The kids continually beg to move there, and admittedly, I wouldn't mind as long as Preston and I can find a good ENT there!

Here is a link to our trip there two years ago. You can scroll down on the day 1 page to go to the other 5 days to see all that there is to do.

One day we went to Dollywood and the kids had a great time. We pretty much only did the theme park part of it as they weren't terribly interested in the shops, although we did have to drag Preston away from the glass blowing!
There are so many walking trails through the Smokey Mountain National Park. We chose one with a waterfall as our destination, but mistakenly started at the bottom of the mountain, not knowing you could drive to the top. After 3 hours of hiking UP the mountain, someone informed us we were still almost 2 hours from the waterfall. Needless to say, we turned back. But it was so nice and cool walking through the woods. We saw deer, and evidence of bears. Seeing a bear was on my top to-do of the trip, but we didn't see any.

This was the view from the cabin we rented for a week. It was the Smokey Top Lodge at Jackson Mountain Homes. It was at the very top of a mountain and it was spectacular! I highly recommend their cabins!
And then there's the food. You MUST visit the Old Mill in Pigeon Forge. It was by far the best dining experience. All of the food is served family-style and in large quantities. Go hungry, and you'll still bring home a box of leftovers!

Really, there's just so much to do in Gatlinburg. It surpassed my expectations and I can't wait to go back.

On killing Bin Laden

I've debated whether or not to post about this. It's a sensitive, controversial topic. But my political naturedness prevails.

It's been a long 10 years since 9/11. I remember the day well. I remember getting ready to leave for class and Grandma Lou coming over and telling me to turn on the tv. I remember classes being cancelled. I remember taping a miniature flag to our mailbox. I remember being glued to the news coverage, wondering what kind of world we were living in. I also remember seeing coverage from Pakistan and Afghanistan, and seeing them celebrating in the streets, thrilled at what the taliban had done to us.

Flash forward 10 years, and what are we doing? America is dancing in the streets, celebrating someone's death. Yes, I'm glad he's no longer here. He was a vile, disgusting man with no morals, and he deserved nothing less than to pay for his crimes. But when we are dancing and celebrating his death, we are no better than the enemies that were celebrating our deaths after 9/11. Do we really want to stoop to their level?

Terrorism is not dead. It will always be a reality. Too many people hate us for our freedom. Just because Bin Laden is dead, does not mean we are any safer than we were a few days ago. I fear a lot of backlash will occur nor only from his death, but from the constant coverage of our celebrations. I don't even want to think of what releasing his picture will cause (I don't even know why they'd release that anyway...). We're Americans. Let's not stoop to the levels of radical nations. Let's take the high road, be proud of our country and the men and women risking/losing their lives to protect us, but also have the respect not to celebrate someone's (anyone's) death, even when that person did what he did.

With that being said, you will not see any celebrating or increased show of patriotism around our home during this time. It's just not right.

Trip to the vet

Nonni had to go to the vet today. He has these cysts on his ears. You can see one of them above, but he has a total of four that are about the size of a BB. About a year ago, he had one drained and it went away shortly after. Within the past 2-3 months, the four current ones popped up. We watched them hoping they'd go away, but they didn't. We weren't too concerned, but after several people seemed disturbed by them, we decided we'd take him in.

Now, taking our cats to the vet is NOT a fun experience. Zipper is absolutely impossible and she even scares me. We always get this sweet girl that helps the vet and I always feel so sorry for her because she gets all of the mean cats, and the last time Nonni went, he bit her. Sigh. The vet calls this girl the "cat whisperer" because she does so well with the mean cats. She remembered me today, and I apologized for her always having to deal with us. She mainly remembered Zipper and all of the trouble she's caused. Then there's the issue of trying to cram Nonni, the super-sized cat into a standard cat carrier. He is HUGE, and even the vet commented that he's a monster. He's not fat at all, he's just really long and tall. Back to the point, he barely fits, and I had to take it apart to get him in...

Nonni was actually good today and only hissed a few times. Other than that, he roamed around the exam table and rubbed against the vet and the whisperer. Yeah! He got good news as well. The cysts are the same as last time, and the likelihood of them being malignant is very low. She didn't drain them this time as we decided that since they aren't bothering him at all, that it wasn't worth putting him through sedation to drain or excise them since we know from the last time what they are. She said that some cats are pre-disposed to getting them and they are harmless. So Nonni did not have to go under and stay the night at the vet's! The kids were so happy to see him after school. They were convinced they were going to put Nonni to sleep (euthanized, not sedated) and were glad to see that he was alive and well!

I'm so glad things went well! He didn't even freak out over this huge chocolate lab in the waiting area! Preston was supposed to have his first ball practice tonight, but it was cancelled due to rain and 49 degree high. I swear, this rain is ridiculous, but still having to run the heat daily in May, now that's even crazier!

Recap

Another busy weekend! I'm thinking the next free weekend we have is close to the end of May...

Friday was Preston's ENT appt. I was a little worried going in as he's had this set of tubes for 2 years now. They were supposed to be out in 18 months. When we saw Dr. S. the last time, he said they should be out by this visit, and talked about the possibility of having to go in and remove them if they don't come out on their own. We've known this was a possibility since he had them in when Dr. S. told us to really downplay the whole surgery in case we had to come again. So I was a little worried. Well, one tube is out, the other is still in place. I guess that's good news. He's giving him until fall for the other to come out, so we have six more months. Then he said he'd assess if he needs another set. The child has my ears, and Dr. S. has admitted so (and the possibility of life-long ear issues), so I wouldn't be too surprised if he has a third set. I'm actually curious to see how this right ear does without a tube- last time it was right back to infected within a month...

They tested his hearing as I'd been noticing some things that worried me, and he'd been complaining of not hearing well. Thankfully we got the good audiologist instead of the mean one. While we sat and waited, Preston asked, "Is it going to be that mean guy that made me cry?" For a recap, the audiologist grabbed Pres tightly by the chin, and screamed, "Your mom is paying good money for you to be here, and you're going to listen to ME!" Talk about one MAD momma! Anyway, we got the nice one and he did really well! He passed, too! Yeah!

Saturday was deemed gardening day after having so much rain for two straight weeks. I plan on doing a post tomorrow on our flood pics. It was just beautiful! The kids and I spent 5 hours at Granny and Pa's gardening, and pretty much everything is done. The greenhouse didn't have the sweet potatoes in due to storm damage in the South, so it will be a few weeks before those come in. But I'm really pleased with how everything turned out!

Here are our first 3 plots. The front one has zucchini, cucumbers, beets and tomatoes. The second plot (where the straw is) is our potatoes. The third plot is behind the blackberry bushes and has onions, corn and green beans.
Our fourth plot has lettuce, radishes, sunflowers, cauliflower, cabbage and peppers, and will soon have pumpkins and watermelons.
Today was my brother's 30th birthday, so they were in town for a party. We had a good time visiting and the kids enjoyed seeing Glen. They ask each week if he's going to be there and are so sad when he's not! Happy birthday, Seth!
And for some reason, this picture is out of order. Pa and Preston planted potatoes yesterday. Pa gets around surprisingly well on his mower and keeps it right by the front porch so he can get on and go whenever he wants. He ran along and used the hoe to dig and Preston planted to potatoes. I still can't believe all he does and how well he gets around now! He goes back to the orthopedic dr. in 2 weeks and we'll see if his bone is healing. We're praying for it to be healing so he can be walking again soon, but Pa is ready to tell them to pin it if it's not. He's so ready to be better.
Tomorrow I have to take Nonni to the vet for his ear cysts again. Not looking forward to that...