The Magnet Boards

Here is the magnet board we made for Ashlin's friend for her birthday. She seemed to really like it.


Here is the magnet board we made for Ashlin a while back. We just got magnets for it, so she hasn't yet hung stuff on it. She would every so often tell me we needed to get her some magnets for it and a picture of me to hang on it. Isn't that sweet that she wants to hange a picture of her mom? She is really sweet.


This is a picture of a huge "A" we ended up picking up for her for her room. It was brown and meant to be crafted, so we went ahead and mod podged it too.



This a picture of her on her bed with her crafts. We have plenty more to do to her room, but I am waiting for the right idea to come around and really the time too.

4th of July fun

Many of you have been posting your pictures of all the fun parades and activities you had on your Independance Day. Well I didn't go to our annual town parade (on the 3rd of July) because I volunteered to stay home with Sam who had started running a fever the night before. He continued to be sick the entire weekened following and it turned into quite an event. So any lack of pictures I am going to blame on this. Let me share with you the entire story.

Upon our return from Bear Lake, where we went for a family reunion (you can read about this on my sister Erin's blog or sis-in law Anna's blog- or when I finally get to blogging about it) we had a couple days to recover before Sam came down with a fever. I considered this typical and just waited for it to pass. The 4th of July was day 3 of fever with not sign of improvement. I had to keep him on Tylenol and Motrin around the clock. At night he would cry and wake up because he was burning up and he needed more medicine and a drink of water. Every night. So when there was no letting up I figured it could be something more and went to urgent care on the 4th. The Dr did the typical examinations for things that could be causing fever. There was nothing showing us how it could be viral, still sometimes it is and you never see the reason, so he sent us home to wait it out a couple more days.

It continued to be difficult and I sensed it was not normal so I called the On- call Dr the next day and she said she would definitely get a white blood cell count on him considering the length of time and lack of symptoms. Well I momentarily thought he was on his way to getting better and so I waited until the next day when it was clear he was not. We were now on Sunday--5 days and counting with fever. This time the kids urgent care with peditricians was open and that made me feel good. This lady Dr did take blood to check his white blood cell count, which she found to be elevated indicating infection warranting antibiotic injections. After the blood draw he was already mad about, he had to withstand an injection in each leg of antibiotics --which they tell me really burns. He was NOT happy.

After this all I am thinkng we are finally done and that he will be better and it will be all behind us. However the Dr sait that even though he would probably be fine by the next day that we still needed to follow up with his regular pediatrician. She said if for some reason things aren't better he may need another injection of antibiotic. So we went in the next day (Monday.) Our regular Dr was not in until Tuesday, so we saw a very new, young, nice female Dr. She was worried that Sam was not better after the prior days injections and that he wasn't showing us any reason for infection. We didn't know what was wrong with him and that wasn't good. It didn't appear that was even getting better. Yes -he was still running a fever of about the same tempurature as always- maybe just slightly lower. The antibiotic they gave him was strong and they had given him a lot of it, so it should have done something... So the Dr ran even more blood tests on him, the whole slew for anything it could be. In the end we didn't have a lot of results back yet but we did know that his white blood cell count had come down and that was proof that the antibiotic was helping. So she gave him another injection (just one this time) and told us to go home and we were sure things would be fine and we would move on. Sam HATED the Dr by now especially since it seemed we were going in every day of his life and sticking him with needles. I should also mention that with this young female Dr I mentioned to her that Sam didn't seem to be able to move his neck very well and she examined him and said he was okay for not having meningitis. If they can't move their head up and down that is a sign of meningitis and his problem was with side to side movements. We did however discover he had very large lymph nodes and that was what was hurting and making him not want to turn his head. I made the comment that they were humongous --they really were, it looked like Frankenstein- like big golf balls inside his neck on either side! I made the comment that he must be really trying to fight whatever he has and she just said "yeah" and we moved on. I wish I had gotten a picture to show now, but that is just not what I was thinking of or worried about when my son was feeling so crappy and truthfully I was about in tears throughout some of it.

Well the next day I got a call from our regular Dr who was back (mind you I thought we were already done with Dr's and he was fine) and after looking at Sam's blood work, said it came back abnormal and he wanted to see him. So we go in for our 4th visit to the Dr in 5 days. I took Ed this time so that I wouldn't turn on the tears and be as worried as I was alone the day before (the lady was talking about admitting him and ruling out some serious stuff.) The blood work was abnormal what did that mean? Well the numbers that measure inflamation were 90 and the upper level for normal is 15. We head in and Sam is doing much better the fever is down and he is happier,-- except for the face that he is at the Dr, which he definitely NOT happy about. The Dr seeing that he has been traumatized decides that we still don't have a reason he is sick and that isn't good but he is getting better and is about to say that we should go home and keep in touch about how things go, when we mention how large his lymph nodes are. Well-- he then tells us what important information that is. I tell him I had told the Dr the day before. I mean if she doesn't react at all to that, why would think it was so important? Anyway its a good thing we did mention it because we found a cause for the infection and after all this run around it ended up being fairly simple. His lymph nodes were infected-- the cause of all the problems! Sometimes they help fight infection and sometimes they are what becomes infected. He is at a common age for this infection. The Dr put him on an oral round of a fairly aggressive antibiotic and now he is fine. Hooray! If we hadn't taken care of this the lymph nodes can eventually rupture and then he would've needed a CAT-scan and surgery to drain them. I tell you this in case you ever have to deal with anything like this! The fact that he could actually turn his head as difficult as it was, was a good thing, because when they rupture it makes it so you really can't turn it at all from side to side. I had never heard of this and then all of a sudden I get a call from my brother and his daughter has got it too! Too weird. Where is all of this stuff in the What to Expect Books???

Summer and Smoothies

I love smoothies all year round, but especially in the summer. Fresh fruit is everywhere in great variety all summer long and it makes it easy to come up with yummy flavors. I often freeze my fruit if I can't use it all, so I have frozen bananas, mango and strawberries in my freezer and I am about to add some raspberries as well. I especially love when I wake up in the morning and don't feel like a heavy breakfast, to make a smoothie for breakfast. I cools me down in the summer and in the winter, it just makes me cold! It tastes much more indulgent than it really is. In fact the one that I made this morning tasted like a sugared down version of a strawberry drink that Olive Garden was sampling out the last time we were there. I'm sure theirs had cream and other things carrying many more calories than this one did. My kids loved theirs and drank it all up. In fact they might get more excited for me to make smoothies than they do when I am making pancakes or waffles and smoothies are much easier. Sometimes when I have it and feel like being a little crazy I spray some whipped cream on top. That somehow tells my brain that what I am eating is very decadent, even though in reality it is quite healthy. Here's the recipe. I don't measure and what I do changes each time, so I'll just tell you what I did today. Here's one more picture-- of Alex enjoying his and its almost gone. I should have taken a picture of our finished product, the picture above is a stock photo that looked very similar. I wasn't thinking about it and I was too eager to drink it up (was hungry just off the treadmill) and my kids had many needs surrounding the smoothies, because its serious business in our house!

Tropical Strawberry Smoothie

2 cups frozen strawberries (unsweetened)

1 cup frozen mango

1 tub pina colada flavored yogurt(the personal size- not the honken ones. Mine was store brand western family-nothing fancy. I don't like that kind of yogurt to eat so much but it is great in smoothies.)

1-2 cups milk - I just pour the milk in until it not quite covers the fruit and yogurt.

Then I give it a good long whirl in my blender and it pours out oh so good.

Calories wise, you can see with nonfat milk like I used and the fruit the only reletively unhealthy thing is the yogurt. Most people don't think of yogurt as unhealthy, but I checked -the pina coloda yogurt I put in had 250 calories for the little container! That is a lot my friends. However it was really the only sweetner that I added and it also makes it creamy and adds flavor. So splitting a 250 calorie yogurt with a lot of healthy things between me and my 3 kids, works out pretty well. My kids love fruit, but it has never been easier to get them to eat it than in a smoothie. Also I am very proud to be saving what is it now $4 or $5 at Jama Juice for a better more nutritious alternative at home. And I highly recommend a little whip cream on top, it really is a happy thing.

I promised a post and this I am sure is not what you have been waiting for (all 3 of you!) I have been gone so long I really should update on what in the world I have been up to. I promise I will and I thought I would have time today, but it is going to have to wait until tonight or at least later this afternoon. Right now there are some kids being neglected and letting me know about it too. Actually they are doing okay right now and that is because I got them settled in so that I could finish this entry. I have a lot of fun stuff to share and I'll be back. Right now I am off to get a shower and then help my daughter mod podge a magnet board to give her friend tomorrow at her birthday party. Hopefully I can remember to get a picture of that and show you the results. She is suppose to wear pajamas as it is a pajama party and so I need to make sure she actually has something decent to wear to it! I might pull out the ol' sewing machine and see if I can whip her something together, you know like the mice in cinderella! Or maybe she can wear that crazy, huge, bright colored tie die shirt her dad got free at a Microsoft conference. He gave it to her and she sometimes wears it to bed. Ahh bad idea... and I AM just kidding. I think she would rather not go at all than go in that!