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!

Big Breakfast Diet

This is not going to be a long post. I merely want to point out how my last title is about how I am a pig and this next title is about an article that advocated eating a big breakfast while on a diet. Take from that what you will.

Anyway this is a great article so check it out. I love that it doesn't give carbs a bad wrap but encourages them. It goes on to show how low-carb diets are MUCH less sucessful in the long run. I have always hated and never even thought of trying a low-carb diet. Sorry for the strong opinions. One thing it doesn't say that I think is important is that the carbs we do eat should pack in a lot of fiber. Here's the link: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25286161/

So read it and twalk amongst yourselfs.

Proof that I'm a pig

Tonight we went to a neighborhood BBQ and we had a watermelon eating contest which I was somehow convinced to compete in and I actually won. Up against some men and my husband included. I ate like the sloppiest, loudest, rudest eater ever. To make it worse I was laughing so hard that food was coming out of my mouth and at one point watermelon juice sprayed out like when you have drink in your mouth and someone makes you laugh. One guy declared after that that he was done. It wasn't my most attractive moment. My hair was sticky and glued together at places from getting watermelon on it and my make-up was coming off and watermelon was in my eye. So I don't win races that I run in, or anything else for that matter, but a food race... I can kick butt! What can I say I AM a pig.

wedding presents

When Ed and I got married, we didn't register anywhere. Why? We were to busy in school, work and being in the sappiest of love ever. Life was overwhelming and we had no parents around to tell us what we should be doing- registering didn't really occur to us. I think that kind of thing was just not on my mind. So we got all kinds of things from all over and most all of it was really good. It was Christmas time- we were married on the 21st of December, so we got a lot of Christmasy stuff- a glass christmas platter, a christmas frame and christmas decorations. One thing we opened was a box for a Christmas tree stand. We figured oh good, we will need this next year, that was thoughtful. Ed's mom even made a comment about how pricey those can be so that was a thoughtful gift. So we never opened it since we weren't going to get a tree that year but stuck it in a closet and sent off a thank you note telling the Dyer family (yes Anna your family must have needed a new stand that year and used the box for a much better gift which they gave us) thank you for the Christmas tree stand. We never heard anything or discussed it since, I am not sure that they ever knew about all of this. By the way a few years later my Brother Brandon married their daughter Anna making us all family now. So finally the funny day came when I am not sure why, and it wasn't because we got a tree, but we opened the tree stand box and inside was a gorgeous 2 tiered plate stand. I LOVED it and about laughed myself to death thinking about how I actually thought they got me a Christmas tree stand and how this gift was so much more their style, and how I was a dummy for not looking inside, and about what the heck they thought when they got my thank you card. Their family has good classy taste and I should have known. I still have the plate stand 11 1/2 years later and it sits in my kitchen with fruit on it as I write. I have used it at babyshowers and bridal showers and other gatherings to make desserts and appetizers and other food look beautiful. I think next time I see Val I will tell her this funny story.

Weddings

Tonight we went to the wedding of our next door neighbors daughter. It was very nice. We especially like that although there were cars up and down the street for as far as you could see, we merely had to walk out the front door and into the next yard. The weather predicted rain and although it was slightly chilly out there was no rain. The wedding was beautiful and fun, there was a band and dancing. It got my 9 year old daughter super excited about weddings and talking about what hers would be like. I told her that I would make sure she liked it all and we would plan together, but that I would be living my wedding through her. Which leads to a story. You see I got engaged 4 months after my parents left to serve a mission for 3 years- my dad was a mission president in Bolivia. I was 19 and I wasn't expecting to fall in love and plan a wedding, but I did and I knew it was right. So with my Mom in Bolivia my Aunt in Florida was nice enough to plan and take care of the wedding. I was in school and super busy and totally in la la engagement land. The end result was a very gorgeous wedding that I chose very little of. A surprise wedding if you will. I chose the announcement, the dresses for the bridsemaids etc and my dress. Other than that-- working over such a distance with the amount of time we had and the amount of stress I had with work, school and engagement, (I got a D in anatomy that sememster) I wasn't able to help much with the wedding. I think my Aunt did try to involve me and now that I think about it I was never home to get a hold of. Thinking about this now I am still trying to figure out what happened. Oh and during the short wedding planning we did have, I left for week around Thanksgiving to go visit my parents in Bolivia- it really was an insanely crazy time. The wedding was so nice and my Aunt has great taste and chose pretty much things I would have chosen had I been there for every detail, still it leaves me wanting to plan a wedding! So needless to say I am very excited to help plan Ashlin's wedding and I have lots of years to think about it!

This is totally new information

Ok so when my husband leaves town I hate to cook and the kids and I eat most of our meals out. Well sometimes its too much trouble to go out and we just eat simple stuff at home, but this time we are out anyway and so we ate out. Ashlin loves Panda Express and had been wanting to go there. I love it too, but I always feel like I am at risk for eating too much when I go. I know that I have to plan on eating about half the meal and saving the rest. Which why the heck is that? I didn't have parents who made me clear my plate and I don't make my children. I think that theory about the need to clear your plate being a result of parents who encouranged it is crap because I still feel like I should eat everything on my plate and have to make quite an effort to stop myself from eating until I am uncomfortably full even though my parents never encouraged it. I am not sure if most of have this problem but I kind of think we do, at least I have had other friends express it. I wonder if naturally skinny people don't care....
So as for my discovery. I like to get the steamed veggies, but don't want to have to replace a meat choice with veggies but learned I don't have to you can get veggies instead of that really fattening chow mein or rice and it puts you back into a diet friendly meal. I got half veggies half steamed rice and two meat choices and it was perfect. I still had to save some of the meal for later, but I was so pleased. At least now I can get fresh veggies somewhere when I go out to eat- that is my biggest problem with fast food- very little fresh vegetables or fruit. Lame thing to blog about? I don't care... you can tell what kind of stuff I get excited about. Hey- I studied to be a dietician. I told my younger sister (who also studied to be a dietician) and she was totally stoked too. I don't have a weight loss blog to put this on-- my blog functions as everything for me. Which I guess since this is a diet-ish entry I may as well mention that I did finally reach my 10% and stay there and was actually below it during the heat of the kitchen renovation (still not finished I promise Iwill post when it is), but am back at right around the 10% again. Who won the throwdown? I still don't know if it was sis-in-law Kariann ( I think it was) or my sis Julie- they both say each other won. Still want to say see ya to another 5 or 10 lbs.

What Alex told me

I posted two yesterday and I was thinking today about how I needed to post what Alex said to me the other day. I always see those cute kid quote posts, so here goes my third post in 2 days. K, so first picture me laying on the ground trying not to fall asleep and Alex sitting nearby me and something catches his eye.

Alex: Mom what is that? (touching my underarm)
Me: What is what?
Alex: That-- your growing a beard in there.

In my defense this was on Sunday and I was dead beat tired from my week-- I am sorry if I forgot to shave the night before when I finally got in for my bath at 1:30 in the morning. Yes that is what happened. All the dust I talked about cleaning up in my earlier post, moving all my kitchen stuff back from my living room into my kitchen, cleaning every corner of the house and every bathroom, doing laundry, going to soccer and Costco and helping my kids set up the playpool outside, cleaning off the porch etc, basically catching up on WEEKS worth of work in one day and I still didn't get it all done. That is why I got a bath so late, went to bed so late and somehow overlooked my underarms. I think my hand were too overworked to be able to hold the razor anway.

Ironic birdhouse

This is an ironic picture. Let me tell you the story. This bird had been trying to build a nest on this light/gutter for weeks. We felt bad though because it would get windy and we kept finding the beginnings of the nest had blown on the ground. Unrelated to this, Alex had been wanting to build a birdhouse (he loves nature) and so Ed set up one family night (pictures below) where he cut out and helped the kids each assemble their own birdhouse. They decided to help the bird out with the nest problem by hanging one of the birdhouses there for it, but as you can see the bird ignored the house and finally succeeded in building its own nest. I just think it is so funny to see a bird sitting up there with a perfectly good and vacant home below. But this news just in-- we saw a bird sitting on the peg and looking into the house through the hole. We think we may have a contract, but he is still thinking about it as there is some very prime real estate available to birds in this neighborhood. It might be too cramped having a neighbor so close- I mean these places are built right on top of each other- where's the privacy?

A MONTH

Its been a month since I have posted - almost exactly. I am feeling bad and neglectful. However that is indicative of my life. In the past month we have worked backbreaking days on our kitchen - doing the long awaited remodel. It is almost there, but we are taking a short break from any continued work as we have company in town- Ed's brother and his wife. They drove all the way from South Carolina taking 2 1/2 days to get here. We have a fun but busy we ahead I am sure. Our kitchen is looking quite nice even though it is not yet done, but I'll wait until the end to post pictures. The hardest part of the project so far has been putting the new wood floors down. We had rip up the old ones, get the new ones down (took 2+ long days), sand them (another entire day) stain them (no walking on them after that) then 3 coats of polyurethane. This meant the heart of our home the kitchen and family room were off limits for an entire week. We hated it and ate out every meal- which got very old. It was so cramped with all the furniture being moved out and our refrigerator was in the entry way, just inside the front door- kind of funny when people stopped by- embarassing more like it. We had a very thick layer of dust on literally EVERYTHING in the entire house!!! It took a lot of cleaning to get rid of the dust and I am still finding it. We didn't get to bed before 12 or 1am a singe night because we had to work late. If I never did another wood floor again it would be too soon. We are done with the wood though and it looks great, and it really feels like we earned it. It also was good for weight loss. We both lost a few pounds as we barely ate (when we did eat it was BAD) and we were burning up so many calories. So I'll post pics later! Not of us and weight- which is bound to find its way back on, of the remodel.

Sammy boy

A few weeks old

Samuel Andrew Lee

-

I was tagged to write some facts about my little Sammy- now two and a half years old.

1. He was born 2 weeks early and still weighed a hefty 8 lbs. On Columbus day by a Dr. who sang his own made up songs during the birth and the time thereafter while he was stitching me. It was weird and annoying. He has been a robust boy ever since. He ate a lot and was such a good nurser that all my pregnancy weight came off pretty quick plus a tiny extra. That still left me heavier than I wanted to be, too bad I ate pretty much whatever I wanted, it was fun, but I could have used it to my advantage to lose more weight!

See how chubby he was! He is playing with his brother who he thought and still thinks is the coolest person EVER!

2. Sam's middle name is Andrew after his brother that was born stillborn 3 days early, and 5 years prior to him. Andrew is also his Dad's middle name. Sam was born with the tons of dark brown hair just like Andrew and also like his older sister Ashlin. Alex too had tons of hair but it was blond. Sam had his first haircut at about 4 weeks old.

3. He has his dad completely and utterly wrapped around his finger. He gets away with things he should not because he melts his dad's heart with his endearing smile and mannerisms. Apparently the feelings are reciprocated because when he isn't following Alex everywhere he is following his dad. He is his dad's best company out in the garage. Ed even lets him get in his old 65 corvette that he is fixing up to play. He puts on Ed's sunglasses- If he sees Ed wearing a hat he has to have his on too.

4. Here are some pictures of him rockin' it out with rockband. He likes to play anything Alex is playing- Lego Star Wars- anything- and he will sit there patiently for a long time and "play" but usually his controller is not plugged in. He is getting wise on that though, so now it is sometimes plugged in and his guy just walks into walls and falls off of buildings. I tried to get it on video but he stopped-a month or so ago he was sitting on the ground messing with the rockband guitar and singing oooh oooh- bah-yee, ha-yee (you know the song that goes oo-ee- oo- I look just like Buddy Holly, oh- oh- and you're Mary Tyler Moore?). It was much cuter to observe than explain. I figured most 2 year olds stick to songs like ABCD or Twinkle Little Star, but Buddy Holly was a little unexpected. He often busts out into song and rarely are they children's songs.

5. He loves candy and snacking. He always grabs the oddest container I have in the whole kitchen and fills it with cereal to snack on. He has gotten pretty good at getting his own food.

When I try to help him he gets mad and says "no I do yit!" Anytime he notices that I am about to run the mixer he runs full speed to see what I am making. He insists on pouring everything in himself and tasting it often. He also asks me what I am making a lot. I'll say bread (or whatever it is) and he will repeat like 7 times, "oh bed?" "mommy make bed?" I guess you can say that if something is happening he is always there- not about to miss out.

6. Dad was always his favorite and when we would go on walks if he caught me pushing the stroller he would freak out. The problem was that my height was much better for pushing the stroller comfortably than his dad so we would try to trick him. He would turn around occasionally to check and I made Ed stick close by so we could pull the switch if necessary.

7. His favorite show right now is "Curious George" or Dorge. He also likes too too- "Thomas and Friends." He asks for them all day long. He likes playing with trains and setting up track but he gets so mad when he can't get it to work that he screams like he is hurt- which we don't much like. He also likes an R2D2 robot thing that Ed was given for Christmas-- it responds to commands. Here is a video of him trying to command R2 who he calls doo too. You can see him yelling "no" at Alex when he tries to help. You can also see that he has no idea what to say besides doo too. Then you can see him whisper like his dad is doing in the background trying to keep the older kids away.

PS If wonder why so many of our pictures are of us wearing pajams and if we wear them all the time. The answer is yes. We love pajamas and we wear them a lot especially when it is cold outside.

Oh I forgot to tag people:

Eli Wood

Shelley Parker

Logan Ginos

Addy Allen

Annika Wood