Fun or school....it's both!!

I went to a homeschool conference in Duluth, MN this past weekend.  I knew I had a lot to learn and so I went there on a mission!

I didn't expect to make all my decisions on what curriculum I was going to use for this next school year or have everything figured out by the time it was over.  That took the pressure off of myself.  However, I did find some materials/curriculum that I am excited about and am looking forward to getting organized with it in the coming months.

So I pulled out a new game that I bought today and the girls had a lot of fun with it. 

My Precious Abbykins...

Abigail is now 21 months old!!  When she was about 2 weeks old she started to develop a hemangioma right between her left eye and nose bridge.  It continued to grow very quickly.  It is unknown why it appears on children.  We were assured from doctors and other parents and such that it would most likely just disappear.  I had a very hard time believing that!!  Well,  we took her to a children's eye doctor and still do.  We also saw a plastic surgeon to know what our options were if it did not regress or became a sight problem.

Last fall when she was just over 1 year old our suspicions were confirmed by her eye doctor that the hemangioma was indeed regressing like expected!! Praise the Lord!!  We take her in now every 6 months.

Today I took Abigail in once again to her eye doctor and it was again a quick, positive visit!!  No invasive action is necessary.  We will take her again in the fall and have her eyes dilated.  Then most likely she will not have to come in for another year!!

So here is a picture of her as of today.  I wanted to include a picture of her when she was 6months but I dropped our external hard drive will ALL of our pics on it :-(   (Luckily they are all on shutterfly).

We LOVE our dear Abigail Hope and are blessed by her daily :-)

New Washing Machine!!!

So, during the sickness we had recently our washing machine QUIT.

What terrible timing!  Actually while I was taking Madeline to the ER, Lynn went shopping around to look for a new washing machine.

Elliana went to play at a neighbors house and he and Abigail went on the hunt.  He made it his mission and really looked at several places and came back with options to show and tell me about.  He became an expert in washing machines in one day!!!

Abigail IN a washing machine!

I completely trusted what he would get us would be a good choice.  With that and him showing me a few models online that he found he decided on an absolutely amazing machine...it is a Maytag commercial high efficiency machine!!  I feel so spoiled.  He likes to get me the best and I love to do my laundry even more now!!  What can I wash next????  I'm sure that will wear off very soon!!!

A Weekend to Remember

Between sicknesses I brought the girls to my parents house in Wisconsin for 4 nights.  I had a project in the basement I wanted to do and we planned to go to a marriage conference in Minneapolis called a Weekend to Remember by Family Life (Dennis Rainey).

Project:  So my project was to clean under, around, and behind my washing machine and dryer which is in the basement.  I had never done that!  It needed it soooo bad.  I worked really hard and finally got the floor scrubbed and dried.  Then i needed to scrape the cement block walls in some places.  After cleaning that up I painted the walls...then I painted the floor area which the previous owner had done except under the two machines.  Thankfully I had the same paint.  It looks AMAZING now and I even like to go down to do my laundry now!!

Marriage conference:  'First of all....Lynn and I have a really good marriage and I am such a blessed girl to be married to him for so many reasons.  But we wanted to have a weekend focused on US, our relationship.  We don't know everything and we want to have the best marriage we can have. 

The conference was really good!  There was a husband/wife speaker and another guy who spoke.  They were refreshing and used video clips to help make certain points throughout the weekend.  The part that I didn't expect but was really good was the time they set aside for Lynn and I to do "projects" together...different things to think through first and then talk about.  That was valuable for us.  We were encouraged by hearing things we were doing well, then there were things we knew but needed to do better on and then there was one area that we both agreed to do much better on.  We both bought a couple books too and came away with a plan/ideas.

If you are married remember that just like your relationship with the Lord, you are either growing closer to oneness with your spouse or growing closer to isolation.  You don't just stay in one place.  I know it can be easy to settle for "this is how we are and this is the way it's going to be" but DON'T!!

Here I am!!!

Well, I am finally back after not blogging for a while.

So, some of us have been sick twice since I've blogged.  The Lord has brought to my attention that I have been a little prideful about our family's health over the years.  This year has been full of sickness of every kind, just about.

Elliana and Madeline got so sick with Strep.  It started at midnight for both and was incredibly painful for them the whole night (sleepless night for Mom #1).  However, they didn't really complain of a sore throat...it was tummy for one and headache for the other.  Thankfully, I knew it was going around and that was my initial thought.  So we went right in the next morning, got tested, and got medicationl.  Wow, that worked within hours.  Less than 24 hours later they were pretty much back to normal.  Abigail got it too but recovered quickly.

Last week Madeline got a terrible case of the flu.  She vomitted and had diahrea for 30 hours straight and we still saw not much progress of getting better.  So we were very concerned about her being dehydrated.  So we called our clinic and they said to bring her to the Children's Hospital downtown St. Paul...the ER.  I just ached for Madeline.  She was sooo sick.  She threw up 25-30 times and no pedialyte or powerade would stay down at all.  (Sleepless nights 2 and 3 now).  I brought Madeline to the ER and she didn't end of having IVs thankfully.  However they gave her some medicine (Zofrin) to calm her stomach to help her to keep liquids down.  We tested it at the hospital with a popsicle and she was good!  Since then she has made slow progress to getting better.  This virus was NOT a quick one, it wouldn't let go.  She finally was up to eating a cracker after 4 days of eating nothing.  

Then a couple nights later she awoke at 10:30pm crying hard.  She was having terrible gas pains.  Poor precious girl.  I thought it would last a couple hours....no...it lasted the whole night (sleepless night # 4).  She was in so much pain that she would role around on the floor.  I would try to hold her but she would kick me in the stomach or be out of control because it hurt so bad.  I was helpless.  At least she wasn't vomitting!!  And we knew what it was.  I really regretted giving her a few things....some milk, orange juice and a couple other things.  Her digestive tract wasn't ready for it yet.  Live and Learn.

She is gradually eating more foods but wants to know, "When will I get to eat the food everyone else eats?"  Soon soon....

So I haven't really wanted to go ANYWHERE with the girls lately. 

I am finally sleeping in my bed all night!  Last night I got to sleep through the night and wake up rested!!!