Monkey Bizness.....here we come!

Happy Monday to all! Hope you all had a great weekend! We did, although I was sad to see Monday arrive again so quickly. But I guess I'm like that everytime Monday rolls around! We had a busy busy weekend. Here are some photos from Friday. (3/19/10). My sister-in-law dropped off her son, Braden at my house around 9:30am, for us to babysit him that day. Her and Ben (her other son) was going to Springfield for a JBQ tournament. So we got to hang out with Braden all day- which the kids just LOVE! They absolutely have a blast hanging out with their cousin! So we left right away (Jer had taken the day off work, to play with us! :) It was an extra special treat!!) and headed out to the Great Mall in Olathe, and visited a place called Monkey Bizness. A couple ladies from church was taking their kids there for a play date that morning, so we decided to join them in the fun. After all, it was the kids' last day of spring break :)


Monkey Bizness is a really cool kids place, with several HUGE inflateables and slides and jumpers for the kids to just monkey around on! :) If you go before 10:30am on Tuesdays or Fridays, it's only $5 for kids (normally its $7.50), so it was pretty cheap, and parents were free, so it was a fun, non expensive way to kill a couple hours in the day, and wear your kids out at the same time! It's a win-win situation! :)

Besides the slides, they also had a jumper with basketball hoop in it, which the kids spent quite a bit of time in.....

I think we were only there for about 30 minutes before Lillys face was all red and sweaty allready! She played hard!

Below- is a view of the whole slide.....can you find Lilly in her pretty striped pants? (BTW, she LOVES those pants that Grandma gave her. They had a tiny hole by the knee, but she didn't mind. However, by the end of the day, the hole had gotten quite larger. Unfortunately (or fortunately, however you want to look at it :) haha), now they are pants to just wear and play in at home, and no longer 'public' pants!

The boys were buddies, they hung out the whole time.......always going down the slide together :)

This is the "Before picture" lol...............

And below....is the "After picture" :)

Even daddy wanted to get in on the fun..... :) The fun part about this place, was parents were more than welcome to go down the slides too or play in the jumpers with the kids. Jer was playing with them in the jumper for a while, then got tired, and had to rest............. =)

Below, another fun attraction there......Again, can you find Lilly in her blue shirt and striped pants? :) (If you click on any of the pictures, it should show you a larger version....fyi)

After playing at Monday Bizness, from about 10:30 until 1:30 or 2, we went to another store in the mall that my friend had told me about. I think they were advertising a train expo or something. Not sure......but they had the whole store rented out, and at least 10 different trains set up and they were all going. Braden, being a train fanatic, just LOVED it! I love his "ooooo......wow!" face below :)

And they had Thomas the Train and Percy on one of the tracks. Here we tried to get the 3 kids looking at the camera, with Thomas going around in the background.....

Later that day, we had planned on picking up my other 2 nephews, Matthew and Jonathan so my sister and her husband could go on a date. So from the mall, we decided to go ahead and go by and pick them up for some more fun :)

We were going to go to the park, but heard a cold front was coming in, so we just took all the kids back to our house, to let them ride their bikes outside, while it was still nice out. Of course we got all the bikes out, and the kids wanted to ride their bikes to the neighborhood park that's close to our house. So off we went. After a collision between Matthew and Lilly, and Lilly "kissing" the concrete, and a few tears and a big band aid later, we were on our way!

Haha....not sure why we even bothered with the park, as soon as we got there, we all had a snack of cheez-its. So I think they spent more time there eating than actually playing! Oh well, the bike ride there was fun :)

They got to play a few minutes when they were done with their snacks, before the cold front came in. It was crazy, it was seriously like a light switch.....one minute it was beautiful and sunny and 60 degrees, 2 minutes later it had gotten cloudy and dropped at least 10 degrees! We headed back home quickly after that.

So we came in, and had some dinner, then after dinner, we decided to color some easter eggs!!! :)

They were all soooooo excited!

The only problem with this is, the kids were impatient, and didn't want to wait for their eggs to color, they kept wanting to take them out. So we took a short cookie break in between, and they each had about 4 or 5 home made cookies! Lol.....hey, my nephews were at Aunt Sheila's house! ;)

3 dozen eggs later, all the eggs were colored and the kids were done! Time to relax and watch a movie!

Needless to say, by the end of the day, Jer and I were just as exhausted as the kids, I think. We all slept like babies that night!! =)

Something to pray about

If you think about it, please pray for my mom tomorrow. She is having some outpatient surgery done on her eye, and will be under anesthetic (sp?) and is more worried about the anesthesia than the surgery itself. She does not do well under anesthitics, and her blood pressure drops really low. Please keep her in your prayers if you think about it. Many thanks!

In the meantime, it's been a fairly laid back, easy week. It helps that Monday was a holiday. Although, it kind of messed me up all week. I've been off a day all week. I felt a little under the weather today, and actually had to call my mom to come help me. I seriously thought I was going to pass out there for a little bit. We all survived though, and not sure what happened with me earlier, but I'm better now.

It's late, and I need to get to bed. Just wanted to leave you with a couple things. First of all, regarding the elections and the whole Obama/McCain and now Palin news/drama, I thought this was a great read to check out.

And.....a thought for the day......

If you want to enjoy the rainbow, you have to be willing to endure the storm.

Just something to think about.

Hugs~ Sheila

A Successful First Day

Lilly survived the dark, mean world out there of ......... Preschool! just kidding. She did great. She was very excited to be riding the school bus to school, and got on like a big girl, no tears, no fussin'.....sure made it easier on mommy. (and for those wondering, no, there were no tears from mommy either.) Jer went in to work late today, and got to help take pics and see Lilly off to her first day of school. The bus was about 30 min late, than what they told me, but it was no biggie. Lilly got a little antsy waiting for it. But was sure excited when it finally got there!

oh where oh where is my school bus???

After a long, hard first day of preschool, Lilly was excited to come home, and I think she missed bubby more than mommy. He got the first hug. And of course, she had to show him her picture that she colored at school.

Blessings~

Sheila

Busy Day

I am preparing for a busy Thursday here. I am watching my nephew today, so my sister-in-law can have some "me" time. He's really no problem though. Him and his cousins usually play really well together. Helps entertain my kids! I also have my MOPS meeting at church tonight. More later.....in the meantime, hope you all have a great day!

Fun in the Sun

The last 2 days have been chocked full of swimming, swimming and more swimming! The kids and I have enjoyed the (extremely) warm 90-something degree weather, and have spent most of it in the water. (which, in my opinion, the only way you can "enjoy" a 90 degree day!) (left: my nephew, Matthew swimming with us)

On Lilly's list of "accomplishments" this week: swimming by herself (with floaties, of course) without having to hang on to mommy! And knowing Lilly, this is quite the accomplishment! She has surprised me, and done really well this week, and swimming with arm floaties and her life jacket on, or her arm floaties and her strawberry shortcake ring floatie. She is just kicking her legs and having a good ol' time. Quite the little mermaid this week. Now.....we need to work on bubby.......

Him, (Isaiah) on the other hand, still prefers the "baby" pool, that my parents have set up next to their big pool. Him and Jonathan (my other nephew) are still not too sure about swimming in the big pool. And they do not like the life jackets or arm floaties or baby floaties. They both want to be held the whole time their in the pool. So they spent much of their time splashing around the smaller pool, and laughing and playing 'ring around the rosie'. (like they are doing in the picture on the right....)

Safe to say.....we all had a great time.....and we were all wore out at the end of the day! (probably more so the adults, than the kids!)

The worst part about swimming, and being out in the sun for 2 days straight.......?? ......The sunburn!

Marriage is a Covenant

We have a busy weekend ahead, with four parties to attend! Three on Saturday and one on Sunday. And the one of Sunday is Jer's parents 40th anniversary celebration at our house, so I am needing to clean this weekend. Which will be a challenge since we will be gone to 3 parties on Saturday! So.....guess what the kids and I will be doing tomorrow??? oh joy.

I have a lot on my mind tonight. A good friend is going through some very rough patches in her marriage. (actually a couple people I know....) The lies Satan tells us sometimes.....ugh....they just make me so mad! But this friend is believing some of those lies, and it hurts to see that.

Marriage should not put you in a "bind" or make you feel like you are "stuck". God intended marriage to be a good thing! Once again, what God has meant for good, Satan has fed us lies and made it look like a bad thing. The vows you (or anyone married) said at your wedding ceremony is a covenant, between you, God, and your spouse. It wasn't a merely a suggestion or an after-thought. I believe that marriages in the church (and everywhere!) need God and prayers now, more than ever. Join with me, won't you?

bible study blurb

The family and I had a great weekend. We got a lot done and was still able to rest a little bit. I ended up going to Brandi's on Friday night, and was scrapbooking with her until 2AM, so I missed my Friday night blog. It was fun though- we both got a lot done. I enjoy scrapbooking with Brandi - she gives me some great ideas. Plus, she has her cricut machine, for us to make die cuts and letters, so I can use that- so that's an extra bonus. :) I'm requesting the larger cricut machine for my birthday, so we can make larger things and share our cartridges. (ahem....hint hint Jer.....) :)

Church was great yesterday. I enjoyed the sermon. It was about teaching us how to study God's word, and do bible studies, instead of aimlessly reading through the Bible, he was teaching us how to dig deeper. It was really good, and gave us some good references of some Bibles to use for different studies.

I am really looking forward to the ladies bible studies starting up again in the fall. We are having our ladies summer party on Aug 22nd, and will get all the info on all the upcoming bible studies then. Bible studies and small groups are such a great way for women to come together in a smaller, more intimate setting and learn God's word together. Especially since our church is growing, it is hard to connect with people, unless you are involved in a small group of some sort. I highly recommend it!

Today is a lazy, rainy, cloudy day. Good day to sleep in, which is what we did. Isaiah finally woke us up at 9:00 this morning. What a nice change! We hung out with mom some today, and went to her house. Saw some good sales at Michael's in this weeks ads. Hm, I might have to go over there later..... :) In the meantime.......I'm off for some quiet time while the kids are resting. :)

Me- Day

Hello again my wonderful web friends! Things are going good over here at 'Faith Family & Friends'. I spent the day yesterday watching my nephews, Ben and Braden. They were good-- kept my kids entertained pretty good. Ben watched a lot of TV (he's almost 7, and I don't have any 7 year old boy toys....and it was wet outside....) Between watching TV and playing in the basement, I think we spent the rest of our time eating in the kitchen. Seemed like I just cleaned up the kitchen, and one of the kids was sayin' they were hungry again. LOL. Silly kids. Anyways, last night it was just me and the kids after my SIL picked up the boys. Jer went to a Royals game with my dad and bro-in-law and someone from dads church. Dinner was provided before the game- something special with dads work or something. They had BBQ- said it was yummy. They all seemed to have a good time. Except that right after the 7th inning stretch, the clouds let loose and they all got drenched. Needless to say, the game was done there, and everybody went running for shelter!

Tonight, I was a bad girl and played hookey from church. (shhhhh....don't tell anyone). Hey.....it doesn't happen that often!!! Brandi came over and used our scanner and scanned a bunch of pictures for a slideshow she's making for her parents. So we just hung out. Jer and the kids went to church. Jer talked to his mom briefly tonight about Grandma. I guess she went to the doctor today, to get her meds changed, since the one she was on, was just making her so sick and weak. So hopefully the change will help her, and she'll get some strength back. It's been 14 days since she started chemo, and drs don't think she should still be feeling this badly. If the new meds don't help, and she's not better by July 30th, their going to hold off on giving her her 2nd round of chemo. Otherwise, she's scheduled for more chemo on the 30th. Please continue to pray.

So I watched my nephews yesterday, like I said before, and my SIL got a "me day". So I've declared a "me day" tomorrow, and I'm dropping my kids off at my SIL's house in the morning. Yea! If only you could see me now.....doin' the happy dance!

I'll be spending part of my day tomorrow with Brandi, having lunch and going to a scrapbook store. Brandi said she's just taking cash, and leaving her cards at home, so she won't even be tempted to over-spend. Hm. Not a bad idea. ;)

Our Weekend

My weekend was spent with friends, eating and scrapbooking. I hosted a overnight scrpabook crop-fest at my house, Friday night until late Saturday night. We had a lot of fun. More food than we would ever need, and we got a lot of scrapbook pages done. I was pleased. Although now I'm tired. My friend Brandi and I were the only brave ones to stay overnight. She finally crashed with her 7 1/2 month son around 3AM, and I hit the sack shortly after around 3:30. A couple more friends came on Saturday, and joined us in our scrapping fun. :) My sister and her family watched our kids. (Thank You!). The kids seemed to have a really good time over there. They were awfully excited to be spending the night over there. The kids were dragging their suitcases all over the house on Friday. lol. And there were no tears when I left, so that made it easier. My husband was even able to get in a little R&R, since the kids were gone. So what did he do? He took a nap at 8:00 at night, and woke up around 10 or 11, and ate some of our food and watched a couple movies until almost 4 in the morning. Silly hubby!

On Saturday, he went over to my parents house, who.........is getting a pool!!! :) I'm so excited. If you've read my blogs for any amount of time, you know I love swimming, and would love to have my own pool at my house (instead of sharing it with a million other people at our neighborhood pool). However, our HOA restricts above ground pools...... in-ground only. Well, not a problem.........if only we had 20 grand to do it! So, after much discussion and persuasian, I have finally talked my dad into getting a pool. He has the perfect land for it..... 3 1/2 acres, tons of yard, and NO HOA rules! So Saturday they dug the hole, and today the installer guys came and set it up, and it is filling as we speak, er, type. I'm pumped! I'm ready! The kids will absolutely love it. Lilly has allready talked about wanting to go swimming at Me Ma and Pa Pa's house. In fact, we took the kids over there one night last week to visit, and Lilly packed her swimsuit and sunscreen and took over there- she was ready! (she's heard us talking about it apparently). The pool has come just in time--- looks like a HOT week here in KC. The water might be chilly at first, but it'll warm quickly. Swimming at my parents house this week..........anyone want to join us?? ;)

Our Crazy Weekend

Ok, so I know I've put you all in deep suspense, wondering what on earth happened this weekend. I just hate it when people do that to me! ;)

So here's the deal.....many of you know, from previous posts on my other website, that both of my kids are severely allergic to peanuts, and many other forms of nuts. Well, lo and behold, it's been 7 months since we've been in the ER with an allergic reaction, so I guess we were about due another visit. :(

Follow me, back to Sunday, will ya............

Sunday, July 13th:

4:30PM: We attended an ABF (Adult Bible Fellowship- sort of like sunday school) class BBQ at a friends house.

4:30-7ish: We had a great time, good food, lots of fellowship, the kids were playing with some water toys......all is well.....(du....du......dunnnnn.......can you hear the suspense music.....?)

7:30PM: I took Isaiah and Lilly inside to get them a dessert. They were hungry after playing. Like I said before, both of my kids are very allergic to peanuts (especially Isaiah- his is more severe). Well, out of the several desserts that were there, several of them had peanuts or peanut butter in them. I knew of 2 of them that had peanut butter, so it was either a strawberry cake, store bought choco chip cookies, or these rice krispies treats. My kids love rice krispies treats, so I chose that, I offered one to Lilly, she took a tiny bite, and said she didn't like it and gave it back to me. Isaiah on the other hand, went after his.

Isaiah and I went back outside and Jer saw us, and saw what Isaiah was eating, and said.......'uh.....honey.....I had one of those earlier, I think those have peanut butter in them.' And the lady who made it was sitting there and said yes, she did put peanut butter in them. oh no! I snatched it out of Isaiah's hand, and of course he started screaming......he liked it, go figure. I gave Jer a panicked look.....this was not good! So off we went with Isaiah inside, and took him to the bathroom. He was allready starting to cough and wheeze. (He is extremely allergic, he starts coughing and wheezing and his lungs get swollen and it gets hard for him to breathe and he usually starts breaking out in hives. this is nothing to mess with!) So, out came our handy dandy, never-been-used-before, Epi-Pen that we have, and we gave him a shot of that. (Note:EpiPen® is an auto-injector that administers epinephrine—and epinephrine is the definitive emergency treatment for severe allergic reactions. These reactions, called anaphylaxis, can become fatal within minutes if untreated.)

(you can see a picture of the epi-pen that we used on Isaiah on the left. You can see the big needle on the one of the left.....Isaiah did not like that at all-- he screamed. poor baby!)

We then grabbed Lilly and Isaiah and went to the car to head to the ER. Isaiah seemd to be doing better- the Epi-Pen helps tremendously, opening his lungs and air waves.

8:00 PM: We arrive at the hospital. We are bumped in front of everyone else waiting in line, because of the severity of the situation. Isaiah is checked out. His breathing seems to be normal and he is acting much better. The

doctor gives him an oral dose of Prednisone and Benadryl.

10:00PM: We leave the hospital and go home.

10:30 PM: Both kids are in bed, exhausted.

11:30 PM: Isaiah starts crying. Jer goes in his room and he has thrown up in bed, and again on Jeremy. He changed his clothes and diaper, and notices he is starting to break out in hives on his body. He brings him in to me, in our bed, and calls the doctor. The doctor asked some questions and calls us back. Then she asks if we have ever taken Isaiah in an ambulance. (!!!) We tell her no. She asks how far we live from the hospital. We tell her 15 minutes. She tells us to give Isaiah another shot of his Epi- Pen, and bring him right back in.

11:45 PM: So off we go, gathering Isaiah's stuff for the hospital, and taking him downstairs to give him another shot. (thankfully we had a 2-pack of his Epi- Pen)

12:00- midnight: Jer and Isaiah head to the hospital again. I stay home with Lilly, who is sleeping through this whole thing.

I go downstairs, too wound up to sleep, and worried about Isaiah. I grab my Bible and lay on the couch and have some time with the Lord. I read my Bible and prayed until the Lord was finally able to calm me down. Of course, I was fearing the worst, but the Lord kept telling me to trust Him, and put my faith and hope in Him. In the end I did, and was able to relax.

1:00 AM: Jer calls. They are checking out him, he seems to be doing better though (aren't they always better as soon as you get to the doctor/hospital?). Maybe it was the Epi-Pen we gave him. But I believe it was prayers that healed him. I prayed non stop since they left, and after we left our friends house earlier, they gathered around and said a group prayer for my son. God is still a God of miracles! He is still on the throne answering prayers!!!

Jer did show the doctor where Isaiah had broke out in hives, so they knew what he was talking about. They decided to keep him overnight for observation, since he had had another allergic reaction at home, they wanted to monitor him closely in case it came back.

1:00 AM- 3ish AM: I guess Jer and Isaiah had quite the night. (or "morning). Like last time Isaiah was in the hospital, inserting the IV was the worst part. It took 3 nurses, 5 tries, and 2 hours later, before his IV was in him. (poor baby!)

4:00 AM: Isaiah and Jeremy are finally in their room, getting ready to lay down and get some sleep. Isaiah had had enough!

10:30 AM: Lilly and I arrived at the hospital. I was waiting for Jer's call that morning, to see how he was doing, and never heard from him. For good reason, they were still asleep when we got there. They were both wiped out! We hung out with them for a while, and Isaiah was slowly waking up and seemed to feel pretty good. Just tired.

12:00- noon: Isaiah is released from the hospital- praise the Lord, with a clean bill of health- other than to just keep a close eye on him for the next 3 days, as it takes awhile for the peanuts to leave his system. We leave the hospital with a prescription for Prednisone (steroids) and another Epi- Pen. We had both of our vehicles at the hospital. Both kids wanted to ride with daddy when we left. I was planning on stopping by to drop off Isaiah's prescription and pick up lunch at Subway anyways.

12:15ish: I just get on the highway, after leaving the hospital, and get pulled over by a cop. great. what now? Apparently I drove right past an emergency stationary vehicle, and did not pull over in to the next lane, which is against the law. grrr. I had just gotten on the highway, and saw the cop sitting there, and was too busy watching my speed to pull in to the next lane. (perhaps he was bored?) Anyways.........of course, I got a ticket and $100 fine. Just what I needed after an enormous hospital bill. ugh. I was wiping my tears and I signed the stupid slip, trying not to let him see me cry (what a baby!), and cried all the way home.

Now do you see, why I wanted to "rewind" my weekend and just start over?????

Though this weekend was not all as I had planned, it just was a good reminder, that the Lord is still in the healing business, and He hears our prayers! Though sometimes it doesn't seem like it, He does hear our prayers and knows our every thought and hurt......

"To the faithful you show yourself faithful, to the blameless you show yourself blameless....." Psalm 18:25

"It is God who arms me with strength...." Psalm 18:32

"May the Lord answer you when you are in distress, may the name of the God of Jacob protect you." Psalm 20:1

Psalm 23....

".....he leads me beside quiet waters, he restores my soul. He guides me in paths of rightousness for his names sake. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me...........

.........Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forver."

The Ballet

Jer and I dropped the kids off at my parents house tonight (Thank the Lord for all the "Me Ma's" and "Pa Pa's" out there!) and went to a ballet performance of my friends' two daughters. They did a fabulous job. So I really went to this thing clueless, right..... a) I have never been to the ballet before (granted this was a kids performance- but it was still my first "ballet"!), and b) the ballet was a production off the book, "A Wrinkle in Time", which I have heard of, but never read. (yes, I can hear you all gasping now...) :) Those two combined, I was pretty clueless. I got the jiff of the ballet, all dancing out the story, no talking. But as far as the story line goes, I finally gave up after the 3rd or 4th scene. It's hard to follow a ballet, when you had never read the book, and did not know what was going on because there is no talking! So once I gave up trying to figure out what was going on, I just sat back and enjoyed the beautiful dancing. This was put on by a home schooling ballet group, and there were some very talented dancers out there! Including of course, my "adopted" neices, Brianna and Julia. Great job, girls! On the right......Julia with some girls from her group. She's the one of the far left with her arms crossed. ;)

And of course, I can't forget to wish a BIG Happy Birthday to my good friend, Brandi, who celebrates her birthday today!!! Happy Birthday!!

Side Note: This blog was actually typed last night, Friday, July 11th, but at the very end, my computer gave me a microsoft error and closed all my windows. grrr.. I was not happy. I thought I lost the whole post. When I came on here Sat morning, and was going to re-type it, come to find out, it had saved as a draft, and was still in the system. shew. So that's why I said "tonight" and my friends birthday is "today", even though I am posting this the next day, Sat. July 12th. in case you were wondering. :) have a great weekend everyone!

The Dairy Farm

We spent a fun, but tiring day today at the Dairy Farm. Me and a couple girlfriends made a playdate of it, and took all our kids on a trip, a little over an hour away, and visited the dairy farm. We got to bottle feed baby calf's, milk a cow, see how milk is processsed and bottled, and sample some milk. Most of the kids enjoyed it. Isaiah - not so much. I think it was a mixture of the 'stank', the noise, the cows, and the crowd of people in a small barn. I pretty much held him the whole hour and a half of our tour. Lilly seemed to enjoy it....at least more than Isaiah. She didn't want to have anything to do with bottle feeding a calf or even touching the cows, but at least she stood on her own two feet - most of the time. The photo on the right is what Isaiah looked like most of the time we were there. It was all pretty interesting though. They have nearly 300 cows at this farm. And the milk? Yum! Have you seen those glass containers of milk in the grocery stores, Shatto Milk? That's where we went. And I didn't realize it, but they have more flavors than what I see on the shelves at Hy-Vee! They had Root Beer (which tastes like a root beer float), and Orange Creme, Banana, Strawberry, and of course white milk and chocolate milk. At the end of the tour, we got to sample all the flavors. They were all good! (well, I tried all but the root beer, I don't care for the taste of root beer). This is when Isaiah finally got out of my arms, and tried some milk. He tried all of them. Lilly would only sample the chocolate though. She's not too adventurous in her food and beverage choices! Below, is a lot of the kids that went today (do you like our "red" theme?) watching a cartoon on the TV while we waited to sample some milk.

Below: Isaiah, (and Lilly) much happier, sampling some milk.