Poor me...

Another child stricken with the stomach bug just as he was getting over a nasty cold. David came home from school today to let me know he had been "sick" at school. It seems this family wants to see how long we can draw out this bug. It seems to get one child per week. Is Katelyn next? Or one of the adults? Hopefully, David will be the last.
Oh why, oh why, can't we be as lucky as Amy and her family? :) Why couldn't we all be sick at the same time and get this torture over with? It's still lurking in our house. I can feel it. It's waiting to strike. The cold bug is still here, too. It's mocking me....
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Disclaimer: I just want to be clear that I, in no way, would have wished to be in Amy's shoes over this past illness. I can't imagine 13 people with varying degrees of illness in the same house at the same time.I'm tired just thinking about it. Hope you and your family are doing better, Amy.

It Only Took One and a Half Hours......

........and one and a half years.

Yup, this is one of those projects that we have been meaning to get to since we moved in to our home. The border in the boys' room.

Before we moved in, the girls' room was finished including the border. The boys' room was painted, but we ran out of time. We've had the border since the project started, but we never set aside the time to put it up. It didn't take that much time, but....Okay, there are no excuses. It's up now. Leave me alone!

It Struck Again

This time the victim was Robert. The culprit was the same.....that nasty stomach bug! We were up most of last night, but he was fine all during the day today.

GOOD NEWS: My nephew was born at about 10:30 am yesterday morning. His name is Caleb Michael and he was 9 pounds!

I was mentioning, this past summer, how I had 2 expecting friends, due within a couple weeks of eachother, and each had chosen the name C(K)aleb for their sons. My brother and sister-in-law decided they liked the name, too. I wonder if Caleb is on the most popular boy's name list. I'll have to check.

BAD NEWS: I can't go to see him, yet. I don't want to spread any germs so I'll wait until I'm sure I'm healthy. (I need patience and I want it NOW!)

Household Tip

People may have noticed the huge difference my daughter achieved in scrubbing my bathroom floor tile.(See previous post) You may wonder, "How can I achieve such a drastic difference in the appearance of my floor?" Well, I'll tell you my little secret. If you let your floors get REALLY dirty, then you will achieve a more visible difference once your floor is clean. Hope this was helpful.

Slavery

I would say that I was, generally, against slavery and slave labor. But when it comes to my children...well....

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Can I give you some bathroom tile advice. NEVER EVER use those little teeny, tiny tiles on the floor. Just don't!

This next picture is a project I've been meaning to get to for nearly 2 years! It's our master bathroom floor. It's been cleaned and mopped before, but it really needed some serious elbow grease to get the job done properly. Finally, I just gave the job to Katelyn.

She did the job over a few days, one section at a time. We used a scrub with bleach and I didn't want her to spend too much time in the fumes.

I see a bit of a difference, don't you?

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Universal Studio Pictures are up. Click on the side (blog list) under Our Florida Vacation.

What was I thinking?

I should have known when I invited Julia over there would be nothing but trouble. She brought cookie dough to my house and completely messed up my recently clean kitchen. It's not clean very often so it's a momentous occasion that's worth noting. (Please ignore the...um...messy counter behind Grace.)

Gracie hard at work.

The girls enjoying the fruits of their labor.

Julia's true personality shining through! I wonder what Kaleb's thinking about. Maybe, "Yup, that's my mom....pray for me."

Kathryn really likes me. Can't you tell by the adoring look she's giving me?

Bri's never one to miss an opportunity to pose for a picture.

Julia - Thanks for an enjoyable, albeit, messy afternoon! I really mean that.

One Down, Five to go.....

I thought that we missed it.

I thought the threat was gone.

I thought WRONG!

When dinner time rolled around last night, Brianna told me her tummy hurt. I was hoping that a "trip" to the bathroom would remedy the problem. Not so.

We put the children to bed and within an hour she threw-up twice. Both times she was still awake and able to make it to the toilet so I did not have to change any sheets. YEAH!!!! She seemed to feel alright so I thought that she would be able to sleep the rest of the bug away. Again, I was wrong.

Shannon voluntarily slept on the couch while Brianna and I took the bed. She was up A LOT during the night. For a couple of hours, she was throwing-up every 15-20 minutes. Poor thing. She seemed to be feeling better this morning, but then had a repeat performance after she tried to eat a little lunch.

Sorry if I shared too much information, but I'm tired and want a little sympathy. I'm just waiting to see when the rest of us contract this horrible ailment. I now have renewed sympathy for those of you who have already been through this ordeal, especially those of you with very little children.

I'm taking bets on who the next one to "toss their cookies" will be. Any takers....? :)

Happy Birthday, Honey!

Today is officially my husband's birthday. Since there is a sportsman's dinner at our church, we decided to celebrate last night. The plan was to for me to prepare his favorite meal and to stay at home, but there's always a need to be flexible. Now, I had already prepared the lasagna and the bread dough that morning, but ,when my husband came home for lunch, he said there was a change of plans. He needed to pick up a motor in the city so "let's go out to eat." Those, I think, are some of my favorite words! The lasagna can wait for another day.
Since I had a gift certificate, we went to The Olive Garden. I was looking for a "not too obvious way" of letting the server know it was my husband's birthday, but it was hard to do. Then, both of the girls needed to use the restroom. Answer to a prayer I hadn't ,as of yet, prayed for. While in the bathroom, "Voila"....a worker.
"Do you still embarrass people on their birthday?" I ask.
She replies,"Yes!" Actually, she nodded her head, but, whatever.
Anyhoo....she follows us out to our table to let our server know to whom the song must be sung.
I soooooooo wish I had a camera ready to take his picture when he realized what was happening. He was too funny. He turned a brilliant shade of red! The best part is that since my birthday was last week, he can't retaliate any time soon.

I'm so glad to be married to this man!!!! (There, honey. Do you forgive me now?)

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Hey...if anyone's interest, I posted some SeaWorld pictures on my vacation blog.

http://www.ourfloridavacation2009.blogspot.com/

Prayer request

I talked with my sister-in-law, Leslie, today. In her Christmas letter, she announced that she was pregnant with another child, so the first words out of my mouth were "Congratulations!" Unfortunately, she then informed me that she had a miscarriage this week. A miscarriage is horrible, I don't care how many children you have, but her situation made the loss even more devastating.
Early last year, their barn burned down. They lost a lot of equipment and some livestock, but that wasn't the worst of it. They found out that the insurance they were sold did not cover anything related to the farm. Now, when they went to the company for insurance they made it clear that they had a farm. They even paid an extra premium for the contents of the barn. Virtually, nothing was covered. It's not the insurance company's error, but the company that talked them into this particular policy. Now you could argue that they should have read through the entire policy, including all the fine print, but when you buy a policy that's titled "County Farm Estate", it would lead you to believe that you were covered. They are presently in litigation and on the 20th of this month is their deposition. One of the first steps in an attempt to get the situation rectified.
Leslie was pregnant during this very stressful time and she delivered a stillborn baby girl last May. There was no concrete reason, but the doctor said it could have been nothing more than stress. There is no way to know for sure, but you can imagine how awful the situation was for the family. Of course, she was overjoyed to find out she was pregnant this past Christmas, but she miscarried. She's not one to get depressed or question God, but she is , understandably upset. I'm sure she would appreciate any prayers for her and her family.