McKaylie is home....

Yes, the virus has struck again and McKaylie was it's target! Her rash isn't nearly as bad as Vance's was (not yet, anyway) but she's still at home. It's the strangest thing, really. There's no other symptoms, just a red rash....all over her body. I called the doctor's office to see if they thought I should send her to school. They said it would probably be a good idea to keep her home today, especially since the nurse would probably just send her home anyway. I guess that's true, but if this virus affects her the way it did Vance, it won't clear up until the weekend. Does that mean I keep her home until it clears up? Because that's silly when she feels fine. Am I going to have to get a note from the doctor's office telling the school nurse that it's ok that she's there even though she has the rash, because that's silly, too! Maybe I'll just cover her up really good, long pants, long sleeves and hope that no one notices. :) Kid's and their little "bugs"......they make me crazy!

Say NO to Snow Days!

My kids have been out of school all of last week and the Friday before that. Today was the day they were going to go back and life would get back to a regular schedule............apparently not! We got 12 inches of wet, heavy snow last night, which ment.....no school today! I think I'm the only one disappointed, though. Myshel slept in, and the other 3 have been playing outside all day. Even the dogs seem to be enjoying it. The snow is piled so high in our backyard that Nutmeg manage to jump over the fence and have a little run before we brought her home. We had a big branch break off the tree in our backyard and land on the fence. (Our fence sure is taking a beating this winter) It took Vance, Myshel and me to get it off the fence. It was heavier than it looked. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the kids are back in school tomorrow!

Happy Birthday Mom.......

This is the card that Myshel made for me at school. I thought it was cute.....

Hello, Doctor?

Last night Vance came to me, all casual like, and showed me his arms. They were covered in a red rash. It looked like hives. I checked his back and stomach and they were covered in the rash, too. Legs? yep, them, too! I couldn't image what it could be from. I gave him Benadryl and we tried to think of everything that he might have eaten, or been exposed to that might have caused it. We couldn't come up with anything. I figured we'd let the Benadryl do it's thing and see how it looked in the morning. But, it looked even worse the next morning. We gave him some more Benadryl and called the doctor. We couldn't get in until 2:15PM. It didn't surprise me that they couldn't tell me for sure what caused it, but it did surprise me that the doctor told us that it probably wasn't something he'd eaten. She said that she really thought it was from a virus and that it would just have to run it's course like a virus does. So Vance gets to be home for the next few days, feeling groggy because of the Benadryl. I swear, I think that our family must keep the Martin's Point Medical Clinic in business.

Ice Avalache.....

A few nights ago Chad and I were sitting in the living room watching TV, the kids were in bed. We started hearing this rumbling on the roof, which kept getting louder and louder. Vanilla was outside barking at whatever it was. It took us several seconds (which seemed more like minutes) to figure out what the rumbling was. It was the ice blocks on the roof breaking and sliding of the roof. It scared us so bad. Rumbling, rumbling CRAASSHHH! And then the dog started barking. That really had me nervous! She was fine, but if one of these blocks had fallen on her, it definitely would have killed her. The blocks fell on our fence and squish it, so, Chad had to go out and break up the blocks so that he could get it off the fence. Driving through housing the next day, you could see where blocks of ice has fallen off other roofs, too. Some broke wooden fences. Pretty scary, really!
The blocks were probably about 10 inches thick (at the bottom) and about 3 feet wide, The biggest one was about 6 feet long.

Wuzzz Uuuup!

On my birthday....the day didn't get a whole lot better. Chad did come home for about 1/2 an hour and brought me some flowers. They were sunflowers and I really liked them a lot. The kid's (except Myshel) didn't remember it was my birthday at all until Chad came home with the flowers and told them they were for my birthday. No one sang "Happy Birthday" and there was no cake. Boo hoo for me, huh!

Chad did make it up to me the next day, took me out to dinner and gave me my present, an Ipod Touch. I've been wanting one for awhile, so that was really nice. Myshel gave made me a "card" at school.

We've all been fighting colds all week and basically feeling run down all the time. I've been fighting a migraine, too. On Valentine's Day we usually get the kids one small gift and some candy, after all, they're all our Valentine's, right! Chad and I were going to go out, but instead we spent the whole day and night with Mckaylie while she was throwing up. Poor thing wasn't even keeping Sprite down. It was a tough day. I did get a present from Chad, another Willow Tree figurine. I love them and I was really excited to get another one.

This week the kids are on winter break. It actually started last Friday. I was actually looking forward to this break, but now that it's here the kids are kind of driving me nuts. They're very wound up for some reason. Yesterday I sent them outside to run off some energy......it was raining a little......and cold........but they still went out. Chad also had a 4 day weekend, which was really nice. We're feeling a little spoiled having him around for 4 whole days.

My goal this week is to keep up on my blog. We'll see how that goes. So, wuz uuuup with you?

Happy Birthday, Cindy!

Yep, today is my birthday. I am 39 years old. I realized the other day that 39 is the age that no one really believes. You know, you tell someone you're 39 and they wonder if you're really 39 or if you're older and just saying you're 39. But it doesn't really matter to me, because honestly, I don't care that I'm 39. My age doesn't bother me.....and really, birthdays are just another day. But it is always nice when you get to have a nice day and feel special, here's how my birthday is going so far......................

At 5:30AM Noah crawled into my bed and stuck his freezing cold feet on my nice warm legs. I did not appreciate it! The dog was laying on one side of me, Noah was on the other and I couldn't move. Chad came in around 5:45AM told me good-bye, wished me happy birthday and left. He has duty today, so I doubt I will see him again until tomorrow afternoon...............

I managed to free myself from the bed and get up around 6AM only to find Vance pouting around the house because of his neck brace (It's one of those soft ones and it's for a pinched nerve in his neck-nothing serious--I'll post about it later) McKaylie got up and started watching TV, something she's not suppose to do before school..........

I'm grumpy now. I go and pick up Myshel it's 7 degrees below zero, the car takes it's sweet time warming up and her chipper mood annoys me. She does tell me Happy Birthday, and that dad told her to be nice to me today, which means he probably told her it was my birthday, too.............

I come home, Vance is still grumbling about the neck brace so I tell him just to take the thing off, that if he doesn't care then I'm done worrying about it, too. I don't want to listen to him complain anymore. He takes it off, but is still a bear. He leaves for school.................

Noah and McKaylie still aren't getting ready for school. Noah informs me that there is no school and protests about it for about 10 minutes. I go back and forth with the 2 of them trying to get them ready for school, convincing Noah that there is school today and that the bus is coming soon. They finally finishing getting ready and after I finish brushing Noah's teeth, he tells me that I'm mean and he wants dad to get him ready for school from now on. The bus comes, we rush to get coats/hats/gloves on, they hurry to the bus and as I wave to them as they get on, I'm thinking to myself..........
I think I have a bad attitude, today!

Wordless Wednesday

Misc......Whatever......Stuff

Right now I feel like I have a list a mile long of things to do and I don't want to even start on anything. That's not good. So, I'm going to ramble for a little bit and see if that helps........

This is McKaylie behind our house, right outside our fence. As you can see, it's up to her knees, there's also 1/2 of ice on top of the snow, so they have to break through it to walk around. They were actually picking up sheets of icey snow. You can see Vance holding a piece in the picture below. Maine weather is crazy!

We're also suppose to get more snow today. It's only suppose to be about an inch, but it's still overcast and gloomy out. That doesn't help to get me motivated to do anything.

My sister asked me the other day if I was caught up on all my internet stuff......I don't think I'll ever feel caught up really. Of course feeling like this doesn't help get anything done, doesn't it.

Noah is home today. He says he's sick, but I have serious doubts. I wanted to get to the commissary this morning, but now I'll have to wait. I'm not taking the boy with me, sick or not!


These are the icicles on the back of our house. We knock down the ones over the yard so that they won't fall on the dogs. That could be bad............

Noah has decided that he wants a guitar and is completely obsessed by it. It's all he talks about. He even told me not to give McKaylie her lunch money today so that he could use it for his guitar. Selfless is not a good word to describe Noah.

Myshel's "boyfriend" broke up with her last week. I can't say that I was sad about it, but it did make me sad to see her hurting so much. Dumb boys! This week, however, she's seeing a truer side to the "ex" and it's just not very pretty. I'm actually glad about that, because now she's realizing that guys are not always as they seem. It's also helping her stop hurting. Oh, and maybe I should mention that she already has other guys calling her.......when I told her she'd have guys waiting in line, I didn't think that would literally be the case!----James, stop calling her, she doesn't want to talk to you!!!!!----

McKaylie has become a reading maniac. She's started reading 3 books in the last couple of days, one about a dog, one about a wolf pack, and one about fairies. I don't care what she reads as long as they're good books and she wants to read. A year ago it was like pulling teeth trying to get her to read, so this is a wonderful change! I'm loving it. I just wish she didn't want to retell every story she reads to me, though.

Vance has decided that he doesn't want to go camping this summer in Wyoming becasue there are grizzly bears in that area. He tends to get himself worked up about stuff like this, too. I'm not sure how we're going to get around this issue with him. On the other hand, I'm not too keen on the idea of camping with grizzly bears either!

I watched the last 5 minutes of the super bowl. It took about 35-40 minutes, but it was the last 5 minutes on the clock. It was pretty exciting. I was rooting for the Steelers (that's been Chad's team every since I can remember). Most people around here were rooting for the Cardinals. Chad went and watched the game with some friends and out of 6 guys, he was the only one cheering on the Steelers. I guess he had the last laugh in the end when they won, huh.

I noticed these icicles stuck in the snow outside of Myshel's window. Vance and McKaylie put them there. I'm not sure I should ask................I might just let this one go!

I'm enjoying getting to know FaceBook, although I just don't have time for all the stuff that you can do on it. It's amazing to me some of the people that have shown up on there. I've been able to catch up with people that I haven't heard or seen in 20 years. It's been fun!

Well, I've wasted time, now I have to get busy, although I still don't feel like it..................

Christmas Eve Pajamas....

I had a few people asking me what the kid's Christmas Eve pajamas looked like this last year, so here's a picture of them. I only made their shorts and just matched a t-shirt to them. I did decorate McKaylie and Noah's t-shirts, though. I just didn't have time for much this year. Noah's has lizards on them and McKaylie's has dogs. They turned out cute and the kids liked them and that's all I worry about!

Youth Temple Trip

Saturday the youth in our ward were up bright and early (5AM) and on their way to the Boston Temple. They had a great trip.

Mary Engelbreit Monthly