still friends

Even though he is constantly right behind/next to her, petting her hair, trying to get her to play with a toy...Kella still loves to hang out with Ewan!

a new bed?

I guess sometimes, the bed just isn't the right spot to sleep.

Pain, meet chiropractor

I have a problem.
I love cheap flip flops.

Unfortunately, cheap flip flops do not love my feet, and in turn my hips and lower back. This creates a reoccurring problem for my body.
Way back in August, my fun with flip flops ended with pain and muscle spasms going down my right leg. This happens maybe several times a year and takes a couple days to resolve. Usually, a sign for me to start wearing my "good" shoes which seems to correct the problem that i think has to do with body alignment. Work was rough, and doing daily stuff was hard too. After about a week, the pain went away from the right side. Too bad for me, the pain and muscle problems shifted to my left side. And stayed. It got so bad that I was laying on the floor one night, crying because it hurt so much to move. Poor Andy, he had to listen to me through all of this. He was so patient.
Heat helped. And I took bunches of Tylenol, ibuprofen and naproxen. I wore my shoes with killer arch support.
Still, things did not get better.
Finally, with Andy's suggestion, I made an appointment with a chiropractor.
Amazing.
Apparently, my pelvis had shifted enough that my right leg was shorter than my left leg. My back got adjusted and I was put on a table with rollers to massage my back and hooked up to muscle stim.
I left that treatment feeling a little better, but discouraged that it wasn't an easy fix. I came back for a second treatment, and then a third.
I could tell with the last one, that my back was not as sore and that the doctor adjusted in a lower area than before=improvement and healing.
I'm no longer popping pills throughout the day.
I can walk without a limp :-) and do daily stuff with no problems.
Why did I wait so long to go?
I still hurt occasionally, but it is thousands of times better than it had been. I'm hoping that after my next visit I will get the okay to start running again.

I threw away all my flip flops.

preschool, again

This year, Liam is the only one of ours going to preschool.  The first day was rough, he did not want to go at all, and I think he was a good 15 minutes late.  But, once Liam got here, he did have a great time in the Jumpstart class.

A little humidity outside caused the camera to fog up.  Liam chose his own outfit :-)

Got his blue shirt on and ready to go!

Andy was so good to take a couple pictures for me!

Sunflower

Sorry folks, more flower picks.  These photos are of a sunflower that grew from a seed Cale planted at school in the spring.  I didn't expect it to grow as well as it did, especially since it was pretty dry this summer.  Tried some close-ups with the camera, and now you are subject to them :-).

See the bee?

Taller than the mailbox

Promotion

Another promotion for the boys this week.  Surprisingly, at least to me, Marcus, Cale and Ewan all got promoted to the next belt level.  Maybe I should pay more attention during class, but I guess they knew all their stuff.  I had to keep Kella and Liam occupied during the promotion, so the only pictures I got were at the end.  I have to say that the boys were pretty excited.

Ewan was super-excited.  He was acting a little goofy, but I knew it was because he was happy.  By the time he got his next belt, a gold one, his gi was undone and his yellow belt had fallen off.  Typical.

Cale got his orange belt.  He's so competitive, I'm glad he passed promotion.

Way to go Marcus!  He is a hard worker and got his orange belt, too.  Marcus was able to answer questions they asked, and knew all his katas.  I know he was excited to advance.

The promotion class.  My boys are the only boys in the photo :-) .

Clematis

My blog.  My photos. 

 Here are some I took with my phone last week.  I messed around with Instagram on a few of them.  That is one of my favorite apps to play with.  I love how you can change the look of the picture with the different exposures.  (And it's super easy to do)

The storm coming in.

Up close with my clematis plant that decided that it was safe to bloom again, with all the rain we've been getting recently.

One of Kella on the sidewalk, right before the rain came down.  Yes, she is holding a mac-n-cheese box. 

Happy Tuesday!

a golden birthday for Ewan

Hard to believe that Ewan is 6 years old!  When he was born, I was starting my junior year of nursing school.  I remember that being a busy, busy time for us.  Thankfully, we made it, and now our little guy is getting bigger.  I think he had an awesome birthday...

a new lightsaber

loved opening his presents.  he was so excited to get presents and to count down the days until his birthday.

cake by moi.  a lego-ninja theme.  in honor of Ewan's golden birthday, I made a yellow cake with yellow frosting and gold sprinkles and glitter over the top.  We also decorated with gold ballons, tablecloth and garland.  Gold festive!

time for some candles. 

My favorite part-the "baby pics".

Ewan did not want me to hold him like a baby-I gave in.



From 2006

another blast from the past

 

Happy birthday to Ewan! 

He is such a sweet boy with a crazy imagination!  He loves to pretend, be the leader of his group, watch his older brothers play the Wii.  He wants to be included more in what his two older brothers are doing, too.  I see him outside more, trying to shoot baskets with them, or trying to figure out how to play nintendo games.  He has a mischevious side, and likes to try to get away with being sneaky sometimes.  He also likes to be a little bit of a clown, especially when it's time to be serious.  But, it's all in good fun with Ewan.  What a blessing in our lives!

Happy golden birthday Ewan! 6 on the 6th!

Then...

From 2006

And, now...

Day 1, in the books

I started my new job yesterday.

About a month ago, I saw a position available for night shift in the family care unit (post partum) at Women's hospital (part of the same system I already worked for). I went ahead and applied even though I was happy where I was at in the PICU and wasn't really looking for a change.

The interview went great and I felt like the director really liked me.

A few days later, I had a job offer. I said yes! It felt so nice to be wanted. I don't know what the difference was between this and other interviews I've had, maybe this was meant to be.

Of course, I felt horrible telling my manager, like I was being some kind of traitor by wanting to leave. She understood that I just needed to go and experience some different nursing areas. I like to say that this little bird needs to see what else is out there before she decides where to roost.

I got my release date to the new unit, and broke the news to my coworkers. They took it well. I only got called a traitor a few times, shunned by a couple of people and told I would hate it by several more friends.

It's nice to be loved.

Tuesday, I oriented to day shift in the new unit. The day turned out to be busy with Tasksy things. Admission, discharges, healthy moms and babies. Definitely had a different work flow feeling than PICU. But, it was nice. Different, but nice. I hope I am happy here. My old manager told me I could come back if I hate it and I am well aware of the "boomerang" affect of the PICU. Of course, I cant cut ties completely, I said I would try to stay prn in PICU. Hopefully that works out so I can keep my critical care skills sharp.

Next shift is Friday, day, and then I go to nights. I'm on orientation into unt the middle of October and then I'm on my own.

moon photos

Finally!  I got some awesome photos of the moon!  It was so bright last Wednesday that I went outside and tried my camera on everysetting with flash and then no flash until I found one that worked.  Apparently "P" with the flash was the right one for that night.

Look at how close the zoom got!  You can see the craters.  Very cool.

And then, Friday night was the "blue moon".  It was the second full moon in the month of August and there won't be another month like that until July of 2015.  Again, thanks to Isaac, the sky was pretty cloudy and it made it hard to get a good picture.  And, for some reason, the same exact setting I used the other night, did not work that night.  But at least I got some photos, blurry as they may be.

Visit

Grammy Pammy came out to spend Labor Day weekend with us.  The boys were super excited to see her walk in the door.  We started out on Saturday with a trip to the apple orchard, on a hunt for some honeycrisp apples, my favorites.  But, thanks to the lack of rain this summer, the orchard wasn't very productive and didn't even let people come in to pick their own apples.  That's okay, I don't think the boys were too disappointed that their mother wasn't going to make them work for their apples.  And, thanks to Hurricane Isaac, it was super-overcast and beginning to rain anyway.

Kella travels well in her backpack.

Instead of hunting outside for apples, we shopped inside for apples, snacks and pie.

And then, they got to play on the cool pirate ship.  In the sprinkling rain.

And, that night, we celebrated Grammy's birthday with a peach pie! 

Horrible camera photo.  Grammy is such a good sport.  On her birthday, she agreed to play Monopoly (one of her favs) and then before she left, Cale roped her in with a 35 pair memory game.  Guess who won?

Potty

Oh, we all know what this means.  It's time to start trying to potty train Liam.  He can tell us when he is wet and needs changed and can help change his clothes a little.  I guess we've been working on this for about a week now.  Unfortunately, we can only work on this in the morning because we have stuff going on pretty much every afternoon/evening.  Anyway, we're trying to get Liam to want to use the potty, but it's hit or miss, even with the promise of skittles.  Today, for instance, we had success times 1 and then, and hour later an unsuccess.  Needless to say, it is frustrating.  I'm hoping for the stick-to-it-tiveness to see this adventure through to completion.  I think everyone, even Liam (Mr. "I can't cause I'm busy"), will be happier with his increased independence.