because I just hafta share....

Our church is just awesome. Plain and simple. :-) We love it there. We've been on a 3 year building campaign that will end next April. (was suppose to end this fall, but they extended it). Anyways, we got a whole new awesome addition, because of our rapid growth in numbers the last few years. So we added lots new classrooms, a new bigger kitchen, a bistro/coffee shop. It's way cool. Anyways, that part is complete now, so then they started working on the old section of the building, to remodel and update it to match the new building.

So they totally redid the whole nursery area (0-5 yrs/pre K). It looks awesome. I'm so excited about it. And now, I get to go thru all the cute little classrooms again, with my Baby Girl!!! :-)

They went with the whole water/sea theme. And the coolest part (which of course, I totally forgot to take a pic of) is the new saltwater aquarium they put in with lots of fish in it. I will have to take a picture and show you. I love it. Anyways........the big "grand opening" for the new nursery was Friday night, so today was the first official Sunday in our new rooms. And I happen to have nursery duty tonight, so I had to snap a few pics..... :-)

Above: this is the entrance - telling you which way to go to which rooms...

There are 6 classrooms and 1 play room

Above: This was Bubby's room tonight. On Sunday nights, they put the 3s, 4s and 5s together. Can you find my Bubbs?

On Sunday mornings, Bubb's goes in the "Dolphins" room :-)

Baby Girl is an "angel fish" :-)

Here is Miss Gwen holding Baby Girl....she was the only infant tonight, so she got her full attention :-)

HUGE infant room........

i love it!

another class....

Hope ya'll had a great weekend!

Here's to another great week!!!

Mohawk Baby

My little mohawk baby.........

Poor little Baby Girl was born with a head full of dark hair.....now all that's left is a mohawk on top! How many times have I passed by someone, and they smiled at her and said "love the mohawk". :-)

Yes. I am one proud mama.

....and here is little mohawk baby....trying out her little johnny jumper for the first time :-)

one little, two little, three little cavities...

Ok, so I'm not "the best" mom in the world {no surprise there}.....my daughter has cavities. Not just one or two, mind you. A whole mouth full of 'em. She had her 6 month check up yesterday. I got a slight slap on the wrist (figuratively speaking) from the dentist. I shall no longer let Sis brush her teeth by herself. I shall from here on out, supervise all tooth brushing activities. I shall promise to tie her down while she screams bloody murder while I attempt to floss her teeth to floss her teeth every night before bed. I shall bring her back in a few weeks to get work done on the cavitites, well, some of them at least. I shall empty my pocket book and spend $1000 worth of work on my daughters teeth and gums do my best to help my daughter take better care of her teeth.

Sheesh.

Ok, so for kiddo #1, I have officially lost my "mom of the year" award. Maybe I can redeem myself with kiddos #2 or #3. Ha!

On the upside, a year from now, Sissy will have the most beautiful, shiny, white, clean, expensive teeth in her whole school. :-)

KiNdErGaRtEn!

Ahhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!! It's official! I now live with a kindergartner!!! I can't believe it! In some ways, I thought this day would never come!!! And I am also trying to "cherish and remember" these days, because I know they grow up waaaaay too fast. I was telling Jer last night, that I think she will grow up really fast now - because every day before now, she has been my shadow at home, everywhere I go, there she goes. She is *right there* all. the. time.

But now..........well, now she will be at school for 7 hours a day - every day! I have a feeling time is really going to fly by now!

She was very excited (and I think a little nervous - but she would never admit it) about her first day.

Here's to a fun-filled, happy year of Kindergarten Sis!

transition day

It's Kindergarten Transition Day!! Sis will go to school for 2 1/2 hours this morning, with all the other kindergartners in the school district, and have rule of the school! Today is just to introduce the little ones to "big school" and show them their way around. They will have to type in their lunch # to get their snack today, and have 15 minutes each in PE, Music and Art class, and will learn their way around their new kindergarten classroom!

She was excited and ready to go (and a little nervous too I think....though she would never admit it!) :-) We made it a family affair, and all walked down to her bus stop with her to see her off.

Now.....the true test will be on Wednesday..........how will she do, being at school from 9am until 4 pm?! Better yet........how will mama do....? ;-) I see no tissues needed in my near future, but we shall see. :-)

Meet the Teacher for Sis

Last night was "Meet the Teacher" night in our school district. So we loaded the kids up and took Sissy's school supplies up to her new school and got to meet her new kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Mautino. :-)

Sis was none too happy to pose for a picture for me. I think I embarrassed her. Haha....one of many times, I'm sure. ;-)

She was awfully excited to see her new big kindergarten classroom, meet her teacher, sit at her new desk, and put her new supplies in her pencil box. Another "first milestone" we are about to cross with my little girl. Tears? Nah! Not yet at least. ;-) I don't see any tears in my near future, but I'll let ya know! lol.

Monday, the 16th, Sis goes to Kindergarten Transition Day, for 1/2 a day. Then she officially starts, all day on Wednesday the 18th. We are SO EXCITED! :D

update on Gerald

Gerald is doing somewhat better, but still not out of the woods yet. He remains to be dizzy and just "out of it" sometimes. I babysat their oldest, my nephew last night and he stayed the night with us, and hung out with us today, and then I took him home this afternoon. He was on the couch, with a blanket over him and my sisters walker next to him. If you know my brother in law at all, this is definately not like him. He still needs lots of prayers.

He did see his regular family physician yesterday, and they took him off some of his medicine, and told him to continue to take this other medicine, that will hopefully prevent any more seizures. (This medicine is what is causing the dizziness, but hopefully it should pass within a week, the doctor said). His doctor yesterday did stress, to not drive anywhere for 6 months.

Would you continue to pray with us for Gerald and his family?

Prayer Request

If you think about it, can you say a little prayer for my brother-in-law Gerald? My sister could not wake him up this morning, after he was shaking violently in bed. After trying and trying to wake him up (he WAS breathing though), she ended up calling 911 and he was taken to the hospital via ambulance. After running multiple tests, they concluded that he had a seizure.

We are unsure at this point the cause of the seizure though. They are releasing him from the hospital this afternoon, but under strict instructions to not drive for 6 months (per the law). This will be tough on their family, as he is the only driver in their household. Please pray. That no more seizures would occur, that they would find the problem that caused the seizure, and that they would find transportation to do what they need to do for the next 6 months. Thanks so much!!

another one bites the dust

Back in January, we had a little, um, incident. Bubby and one of the pillars in our living room got in a fight. Let's just say, the pillar won. He was spinning around, got dizzy and fell head first into the corner of the pillar in our living room. yikes. blood. everywhere. not pretty. We freaked out, took him to ER, the doc put a little super glue on it and sent us on our merry way.

Notice his 'war wound'

Now........fast forward 8 months. August 4th to be exact. Yesterday. Came home from church, brought my nephews home with us, they were going to spend the night and we had some fun stuff planned for today. We were home all of 5 minutes, when we heard a crash, a wail - followed by screams from Sissy, and a "I'm sorry sissy.....I'm sorry!" come from the Bubbs. Jer and I were still downstairs. Jer had just gotten Baby Girl out of her car seat - that's how little we'd been home! So we started heading upstairs. Jer was in front of me, holding Baby Girl. We really weren't in much of a hurry - Sis cries many times throughout the day - so this was nothing uncommon. When he got to the top of the stairs, I heard him cry out "Oh my Lord!" in a shocked and panicky voice.

I must tell you - my blood ran ice cold. I was picturing the worst. There's not a whole lot to make my husband freak out, so when I heard him cry out, I knew it was bad. I just froze. When he got to the top of the stairs, Sis had met him there and had her hands covering her face, and pulled her hands down, and I guess there was just blood all over her face, running all over, and her hands were filled with her blood. Jer quickly took her in the bathroom and got a wet rag and proceeded to try to stop the bleeding so he could see what we were dealing with.

I have to say, I was freaking out at this point. I don't handle blood at all and was basically running in circles upstairs trying to figure out what to do. Do we call 911? Do we call my parents? Did she cut her face open? Is she going to die?!? Seriously, these were the thoughts running thru my head. And now, looking back on it, it's still not exactly "funny", but it is almost humorous, how I was reacting. I was yelling at Jer "what do I do? what do I do?" I tried to figure out from the other 3 kids what had happened. I didn't get too far there. Supposedly it was an accident, and Bubby 'fell' onto Sis and she fell in to the door jamb in his room. They were just playing and he did not do it on purpose, sources say.

Jer told me we would need to take her in, it looked like she would need stitches, or at the very least some glue. And it was taking a good 10 min before it quit gushing blood. So I ran around the house, yelling at the kids "GET IN THE VAN - NOW! WE ARE GOING TO THE HOSPITAL! EVERYBODY! SHOES ON AND IN THE VAN.....NOW!!!!" I went back upstairs and Jer was asking if we really wanted to go walking in to the ER with 5 kids in tow. Ok, so I decided to call my parents. They could come over and watch the kids.

I was scared, out of my mind, but I wanted to be with my baby girl. But I didn't want to go by myself. But I couldn't just leave the other kids. You can see my dilemma.

So after a frantic, scared call to my mom, they were on their way. I ran back downstairs and opened the garage door (at which point Bubby and my 2 nephews were a little frightened and all buckled in the van) and yelled "EVERYBODY! OUT OF THE VAN! GET BACK INSIDE NOW!!!!" You can imagine their confusion. My 5 year old nephew Jonathan said "But why Aunt Sheila? I thought you told us to get in the van?" To which my reply was "I changed my mind! Go upstairs and everyone get their jammies on!"

I tell you what, I was just a basket case. I didn't know which direction I was going. I ran back upstairs, not knowing what to do next. It was somewhere around this point that Jonathan said "maybe we should pray for her?". I just love that kid. :-)

After praying, and somewhat stopping the gushing of blood, Jer carried her downstairs. And we waited for my parents. They arrived shortly after, and we took off. I drove. And my heart was still frantic and I was still somewhat of a mess. Glad there were no cops around. I'm just sayin'. :-)

After arriving, checking her in, realizing the situation is not nearly as serious as we first thought, I began to feel bad for having my parents come out at 10:00 at night, to stay with the kids. We were told it would probably be about a 2 hour wait. yikes. Gotta love emergency rooms. So Jer decided to drive me and Baby Girl home, so I could get all the kids to bed and relieve my parents. He quickly took us home, and came back to wait. During which time, he finally got it to stop oozing blood long enough to get a good look at it - and of course snap a pic on his phone.

This was around 10:30 I believe. Sissy was getting so tired by this point, and ended up falling asleep on Jer in the waiting room. Finally they called them back at about 12:30 (yup......about 2 hrs later!!!! *sheesh*). Here she is lying back in the room, waiting on the doctor.

The doctor came, saw it, said he could glue it together. They had to wake her up, he opened up the wound (which Jer said looked pretty deep, maybe 1/2 an inch or so) and he cleaned it out and disinfected it, then put some glue on it, a bandage, and sent them on their way. My poor baby girl was sure a trooper though. She did great. She was exhausted, but did great.

So.....needless to say, our plans for today had changed (we were originally going to take them to a place with huge slides and inflateables where the kids could bounce and play). We didn't want Sis's bandage to come off, or her to get hit in the head or it to start bleeding again. So we took the kids bowling instead. Something a little less active and crazy. The kids were bummed at first, but I think they all ended up having a fun time. (and the biggest kicker for Sis is, the doctor said 'no swimming for at least 7 days' and to avoid much sunlight - to wear a hat.) How can he even ask this of a very active 5 year old, right before her last week of summer vacation?! She was crushed. We'll just have to make up for it later I guess. When it comes to my kids - better safe than sorry.

So that was our excitement (hopefully for awhile). I am praying for a less exciting, maybe even boring weekend coming up. :-) Oh, and if you have time this weekend or next week, take a dip in the pool for Sissy, will ya?