Date night and science experiment

We had a date night on Friday night and my aunt came over to babysit. Warren and I had a great time and so did Carrington and Clayton. They introduced her to the Wii and their Webkins stuffed animals. They also watched The Brady Bunch which is a favorite for Carrington.

The Science experiment went along with our study of Mars. The volcano was supposed to be a model of Olympus Mons, the largest volcano in our solar system.

The volcano eruption was kind of a dud, so we tried it again in a glass and it turned out better.

I am reading A Case for Christ for Kids to my children right now. They really like it. My husband and I have been interested in apologetics for several years and we want our children to learn to defend their faith. I've still got a lot of learning to do in that area myself, but I'm working on it!

Blessed Be Your Name

I like the words to this song.

Blessed be Your name, in the land that is plentiful.
Where your streams of abundance flow, blessed be Your name.
And blessed be Your name, when I'm found in the desert place, though I walk through the wilderness, blessed be Your name.
Every blessing You pour out I'll turn back to praise,
and when the darkness closes in Lord still I will say:
Blessed be the name of the Lord. Blessed be Your name.
Blessed be the name of the Lord blessed be Your glorious name.

Blessed be your name when the sun's shining down on me
when the world's "all as it should be" blessed be your name.
And blessed be your name on the road marked with suffering, though there's pain in the offering, blessed be your name.
Every blesssing you pour out I'll turn back to praise.
When the darkness closes in Lord still I will say:
blessed be the name of the Lord. Blessed be your name.
Blessed be the name of the Lord. Blessed be your glorious name.
You give and take away. You give and take away.
My heart wil choose to say: blessed be your name.

Random tidbits

I really don't like winter, but there are 2 days in February that make the month a little bit brighter for me. The first, of course, is Valentine's Day. The second is my birthday. I decided ahead of time that we were going to have a fun day and make it a light schoolwork day. My kids were all for that of course. They fixed me breakfast in bed. I got to watch a morning news show and eat oatmeal in my bed. It was fabulous! I'm not a morning person, so it was "great crack" as the Irish say.

My children worked extra hard to make my day special, which was the most precious thing to me! They cleaned up the kitchen and then surprised me by decorating with balloons and crepe paper. They also set the kitchen table with a tablecloth and pretty paper plates.

We did some schoolwork and I read to them. We are almost done with God's Smuggler. Then we got ready and went out. We ate lunch at a favorite restaurant of ours while I taught them some new Spanish words. They aren't absorbing the words quite as quickly as I would like, but they are definitely learning. Their new words were comer = to eat, la comida= the lunch, limpia=clean, sucio=dirty, and a few others. Then we went to a school supply store. I LOVE to look at fun school supplies and books. One of the store clerks questioned Carrington about homeschooling. Carrington told her that she loves homeschooling and that she does things with other homeschoolers on a regular basis. I hope that the store clerk is no longer concerned about the welfare of my children.

My husband took us out to an Italian restaurant for dinner that night. He also brought home a chocolate ganache cake. Clayton stuck his finger in the top of it before I got a picture of it. But that's ok. I'm very thankful that I have a 6 year old boy who likes to stick his finger in icing. I walked on my treadmill that night for 30 minutes, but it probably wasn't enough to cancel out the piece of cake.

The parakeets are ours. I bought them last summer. I was hoping the kids would be able to have fun with them, but they are mean and they bite. Clayton talks to them occasionally, but they aren't enough to take away his desire for a dog. I'm not a dog person, so I'm trying to hold off on that a little longer.

My Mom has been transferred to the rehab center in the hospital. We are thrilled, relieved, and thankful! She is under much better care and it is much less depressing. She is doing a little bit of walking with her physical therapist and a walker. I know that she will work hard and will hopefully get strong enough to go home in a few weeks.
I posted a picture of a book we read this week, Beethoven Lives Upstairs. I found it at a children's consignment sale recently and snatched it up. We learned a lot about Beethoven. He was a very eccentric, troubled man, but definitely a musical genius. Carrington's piano teacher told us that the reason he went deaf was because his father boxed his ears a lot for punishment. He still wrote symphonies when he was deaf! He took the legs off of some of his pianos so they would sit on the floor. That way when he played them, he could feel the vibrations on the floor. It has given us a new appreciation for his music.

Saving Grandma

It snowed here last weekend. It was really beautiful. The most snow we've had in years. Everything looked like a winter wonderland. I wish I had taken some better pictures, but the afternoon that it snowed I was completely exhausted. The day before, I had gone to the town where my parents live to help my Mom get settled in her new room. I wanted her to be comfortable and to have a positive start. She had been in a hospital for 3 weeks and would now have rehab. It was a rehab wing in a nursing home. We were not happy about it being in a nursing home, but it was the only place that had worked out with the different medical issues she has. It wasn't a positive experience for my Mom at all.

Right before my children and I got ready to leave for the night, one of the nurses said something really mean to my Mom because she couldn't stand up without help. My Mom cried. I went back to my Mom's house and tossed and turned all night. I was so upset about the incident. So was my Dad and my 2 sisters. We started hatching a plan to get her out of the nursing home.

My Mom's health seemed to deteriorate after she was admitted into the nursing home. Her swelling in her legs was worse. She grew more weaker, and then she caught a bad stomach bug from someone in the nursing home. She had a high fever, vomiting and diarrhea. The doctor seemed to order all the wrong things for her. I'm an RN and know my Mom's medical history and medications as well as anyone. I'm not a doctor, but you don't give a patient with heart failure and Atrial Fibrillation an Albuterol treatment, which is for wheezing, COPD, and Asthma.

By Sunday morning my sisters had talked me into getting my Mom out of the nursing home. I wanted to go to church with my family. I wanted to spend Valentine's day with my family, but sometimes you have to do hard things because it's the right thing to do. My children need their Grandma to be alive and as healthy as possible. One of my children might not be here if it wasn't for my Mom taking care of me and my daughter when I was on bedrest while pregnant.

I got in the car and drove the 2 plus hours to the town my parents live in. My Mom was in her bed feeling lousy physically and somewhat hopeless. I called my sister for some moral support. Was Mom really sick enough to be admitted into a hospital? I knew if she was going to be admitted into a hospital in the near future, I needed to be there to be her advocate. Sick people need someone to look out for them. I told the nurse that I didn't feel good about my Mom's present condition and wanted her to call the ambulance to come and transport her to the hospital. The nurses all gave me dirty looks as I took my Mom's stuff to my car. (We've heard rumors that the patients' stuff gets stolen on a regular basis.) When the EMT's came to pick my Mom up, I heard the nurse griping about it. I felt like an idiot.

She finally got transferred to the local ER. I felt like one hurdle had been passed.

The nurses and doctors in the ER couldn't have been nicer. They did a bunch of tests on my Mom. My sister and I sat with her and prayed that she would be admitted. Many hours later, the doctor came in to examine my Mom and get her history. I told her about my Mom's Congestive Heart Failure, kidney disease, gout, breast cancer, recent Staph. infection in her thumb, and what she was currently going through. A precious friend of mine who is a nursing supervisor there, came down and talked to us. We told her our tale of whoa. She told the doctor how desperate we were to have my Mom under better medical and nursing care.

The doctor finally admitted her that night at around 8:00 pm. We were so relieved and thankful. We knew that her regular doctor could now treat her and she would be in much better hands.

Now she is still in the hospital, and recovering from the dehydration, fever, vomiting and diarrhea. They are working on getting her admitted into the rehab center in the hospital. I know she will be much better off there, and it's not nearly as depressing as the nursing home rehab wing. God heard our desperate pleas for our Mom.

It is our hope that she will get much stronger in the rehab center and will be able to go home to my Dad and take care of herself. She wants to enjoy life and her grandchildren whom she loves more than anything in the world!

I was up in the middle of the night, worrying about and praying for my Mom.....so I decided to get up and write a post. The pictures above are from last Saturday and Sunday. We went to my Mom and Dad's house to help out a little bit. Kellie and her family were there too so we had a fun visit. My poor Dad has been sick and I know it lifted his spirits to have some company. My Mom is still in the hospital and is supposed to be transferred today to a rehab center in the town where she lives.

My brother-in-law, Scott is a great cook and he fixed a bunch of food for my Dad. We did some cleaning and with everyone pitching in to help, it made it a lot more fun. Us girls love to play games when we get together. We also love to sing, so my husband brought his guitar and we sang some favorite hymns and a couple of country songs. We are definitely all amateurs but it's fun!

Kellie and I went to see my Mom in the hospital. Since Lily Kate is nursing, we took her with us and took turns watching her while the other one went up to see my Mom. The hospital requires children to stay downstairs because of the flu season. I attempted to take a picture of Lily Kate's toes. Lydia painted her toenails and it is so cute! Lily Kate kept trying to eat my camera, so the pictures didn't turn out great but I posted 2 of them anyway!

We are still praying for my Mom's health and would appreciate anyone else's prayers for her. She is still very weak and her kidneys and gout are constantly an issue. We desperately want her to get better and have an enjoyable life. She's been stuck in the hospital for 3 weeks now. She is normally an on-the-go person and loves to be with her family. We all love her very much!

February happenings

These are not the best pictures, but I wasn't sitting in a good spot to take pictures and my husband is good at a lot of things but photography is not one of them! :o) These are from Carrington's recent piano recital. She did a good job. Her teacher is such a neat and spunky lady. She is 93 years old (I think) and Carrington really enjoys her. She wants Carrington to play songs that she enjoys, which I think helps a lot when it comes to practicing. Carrington likes playing songs she has heard of before.

We had a fun and busy day today. We went to a Valentine party this morning with our homeschool group. Some of the kids recited poems, Bible verses, etc. Carrington and Clayton recited part of 1 Corinthians 13. They didn't say the whole thing because Carrington got nervous and was afraid she would mess up at the end. We've been working on this chapter for a while now. It has been the hardest set of verses we've ever worked on. I thought it would be appropriate for a Valentine party since it's about love. It really reminds me to try to do everything I do with a loving attitude. Of course some situations are harder than others when it comes to our attitudes but it helps to be reminded about 1 Corinthians 13. I certainly don't want to be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal!

My sister and her kids were in town today and came over for a visit. All of us girls video taped ourselves singing some hymns. I was going to try to post the video on this blog until we watched the video. We definitely won't be taking our show on the road! :o) We did have fun though and my kids were very blue when their cousins left.

Please pray for my Mom

My Mom is in the hospital right now and has been for over a week. She had a procedure on her thumb and was infected with a a bad Staph. infection called MRSA. She is in the hospital receiving IV antibiotics which are very strong. She has really bad Gout which has made her very weak. Because of the Gout, her kidneys are in really bad shape, so she has been getting hemodialysis since last week. We are really hoping that she won't have to have dialysis from now on. There is a possibility that she won't have to have it. That is our prayer.

My Mom is a wonderful Grandma and is dearly loved by all of us. We are praying that she will get stronger and will be able to go home soon. It has been very hard for all of us to see her. She lives in a different town from all of us and we are not allowed to bring our children to the hospital because of the flu. Please keep her in your prayers. Thanks!