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Tummy aches, room arranging and more

Catching up on life . . .

Since before Christmas, I feel like I’ve been on an emotional roller coaster.  Horrible tummy aches from 2 children, job changes for Tom (all good, just different), moving bedrooms, elbow injury . . . AHHHH!  Sometimes it’s almost too much to handle.  I’m grateful that God’s mercies are new EVERY morning and that I have been able to wake up with a fresh perspective each morning, even if I’m derailed by 7:20.  🙁

Before Christmas we took Sage to the Dr. because she was having severe stomach aches and they were to the point of interfering with school and normal day to day activities.  We cut dairy out of her diet, and the stomach aches went away.  🙂  🙁  So glad they are gone (for the most part), but this brings a new way of eating for her and it hasn’t been easy for her to say no, or for us to say no to certain foods.  Headaches followed for a few weeks as she wasn’t eating and drinking as much.  I think we are slowly getting those under control now.

A few weeks later, it was Molly’s turn at the Dr.  Her stomach aches were from constipation and Miralax seems to have helped that.  She still wakes up some mornings complaining that she doesn’t feel well, but after she’s up for about 20 minutes, she is usually fine.

Tom’s no-so-new position at work has brought him home earlier and on the weekends.  It’s been so nice to have him around more and to spend more time with him.  It’s nice to be parenting together more of the time too.  He is so wise and has such great perspective on things as he watches me interact with the girls.  Parenting is a trillion times harder than I ever thought it would be and seems to be getting harder.  Ugh!

The Orthopedist tried to put a cast on Tom’s arm to see if that would help with the horrible pain he was having.  After about a week and a half of no improvement, they took it off, gave him another cortisone shot and referred him to physical therapy.  It seems to be doing better so hopefully, with physical therapy, the pain will not come back after the shot wears off.

The girls are becoming more and more concerned about what others know and think about them.  I rarely post anything on Facebook anymore as they seem to get so embarrassed or funny acting if someone says something to them, even if it’s about a field trip, birthday, or project at school.  I guess I just need to blog more and the 6 people who actually read it can just hear about it.  🙂

This weekend, we decided to move all the bedrooms around.  We’ve talked about it before, but this seemed like a good time to do it.  The 3 girls are all in the master bedroom, Tom and I are in where Molly and Ashley used to be and Sage’s room is now an office with a large table, computer and the piano.  It’s a great set-up.  The girls’ room is AMAZING!  They have so much space and I love how we were able to lay it out!  Our room is a bit crowded, but since we really just sleep in there or read stories on the bed with the girls, it will be fine.  The office is great!  Tom has a place to work on his computer in the morning and I like that the piano is in there so when the girls want to sing, I can tell them to go in there and close the door.  This also freed up more space in the play room. We moved 2 night stands and about 6 larges bags of “junk” out to the garage (some of which might come back in at a later day.)  I don’t feel like we got rid of that much, but yet our house feels so much bigger and less cluttered!!  Woohoo!!  It was a lot of work to take all the beds apart and more them, so it will be staying this way for a while!  I think I have recovered, but Tom was till sore last night from all the moving.

Somehow in the midst of all this (and by staying up way too late at night), I managed to write an e-book for my blog.  It’s been well received and I’m happy to see the traffic on the blog slowly going up.  I am really enjoying interacting with so many other chef wives and girlfriends.  🙂  I can’t believe it’s almost been a year since I started writing.  I really like it!

Well that’s enough for today.  Sorry if that sounded like complaining.  Just trying to document life (with and without pictures).

 

 

Molly’s 7th Birthday

Molly’s 7th Birthday

It’s hard to believe Molly turned 7 last Thursday!  She is such a sweet girl and is doing so well in school!!  She was so kind and gracious on her birthday, sharing her new presents with her sisters.  I was so proud of her!

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Ready to open presents!

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Hug from Ashley after she opened the gift from her!

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Time with Mom/Grandma

Mom flew up late last week to spend time with us!  Tom took 4 days off (CRAZY!) and we spent time together as a family.  It was wonderful!  Here are some (well, a lot) of the highlights of our time with her!

Singing Christmas carols and making Christmas crafts 

The girls wanted to take Grandma to Yumm-e yogurt.

The girls wanted to take Grandma to Yumm-e yogurt.

Reading stories before bed time

Reading stories before bed time

Making sugar cookies . . . everyone helped, even Tom!

Making sugar cookies . . . everyone helped, even Tom!

The girls decorated the cookies

The girls decorated the cookies

Since Mom had never been up here during Christmas time, she was able to enjoy many of the our favorite Christmas activities in downtown.

The Teddy Bear Suite at the Fairmont Olympic Hotel in Seattle

The Teddy Bear Suite at the Fairmont Olympic Hotel in Seattle

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Field Trip to the Bog

Sage’s 4th grade class went on a field trip to the Shadow Lake Bog.  I had never heard of a bog before, but learned so much on the field trip.  It was crazy how the terrain changed from one second to the next.  Who knew this was in our own backyard!  We’ll definitely have to take Tom and the other girls back when it warms up!

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Getting instructions

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Stopping along the way so Mrs. Bowden could explain some things to us 🙂

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Halloween 2014

It’s the morning after Halloween.  Every teacher on the planet is excited that it’s Saturday and the parents get to deal with all the Halloween Candy for 2 days instead of them having to confiscate it in the classroom.  🙂  Candy is laying all over our playroom floor and 3 out of the 5 of us are still sleeping.

Halloween started for us a few weeks ago with a special package from Grandma and Grandpa.  Along with a cut Halloween stuffed animal, they send money for a new costume so out we went to find one.  The girls all picked out the same costume in different colors.  (And then Sage decided she didn’t want to match and ended up wearing one we already had.  I’ll try to get an all matching picture sometime, but for now, you’ll just have to see the 2 faries (or butterlies depending on when you ask them) and a cute witch.)

We went to a Halloween party down at the clubhouse last weekend.  The girls got their faces painted, decorated a bag and a cookie and saw a few friends from the neighborhood.  (I love where we live!)

I was able to go into each of the girls’ classrooms for their Harvest Party.  I also volunteered in two of their classrooms and went on a field trip, so I was at the school all 5 days this week. (more…)