Pixiemom

If you follow me on Facebook or Twitter, you already know this. It’s really annoying though. I was planning on making some pumpkin pies using soy milk that James could eat, but now I can’t because I have no way to keep it cool after I bake it. We had already planned on making cookies, so we are going to make those and some brownies, I guess. Those need no refrigeration. The freezer part of our refrigerator is working. It is only the fridge part that is not cooling. This did give us an opportunity to really clean it out. The fan isn’t blowing the cool air into that part. Jeremy worked on it most of one day, but couldn’t get it to work. He had it unplugged, so I HAD to eat the leftover ice cream from his birthday. *smile*

As for other news around here, we are heading down to Jeremy’s parents’ house for Thanksgiving. My friend, Sarah, will be joining us. Yay! We’ll be driving down there Thursday morning and coming back up on Friday evening. My aunt and cousins from Alabama are up here at my other aunt’s house and since we don’t get to see them often and my youngest cousin is Amie’s age, we are going to go spend Saturday visiting them.

The kids have been having some creative moments lately. They had two days they were obsessed with watercolors and did a lot of painting. The last few days have been legos. I like it when they do these imagination stimulating play. They were grounded from the computer for 2 weeks and had a bunch of fun doing other things. They had a blanket tent down in the family room one day. They were out roller blading yesterday. Computer time is limited for them on regular days, but having none at all seemed to make them think of what else they could do instead of bugging me if it was their turn on the computer yet.

Yesterday and most of today, I’ve taken a hiatus from chatting with my friends. I am thinking I’ll be back for a little bit tonight. I spent a lot of time cleaning yesterday, getting laundry and dishes done, straightening up the laundry room, cleaning the downstairs bathroom, and making sure the kids got the family room cleaned up. I have also found a lot of summer clothes while going through the clothes that we didn’t get out of the kids drawers, so we got them pulled out and put away.

Anyway, my life isn’t all that glorious, so those of you who read… thanks. I appreciate your interest.

Speaking of thanks… I’ll do a thankful post here soon. Until then… I bid you adieu.

Rocky and Bullwinkle came to tea. It was quite delightful. We talked of the stress of being a super hero squirrel and Bullwinkle chuckled at all that was said. Then a bear walked by, picking flowers and singing. She asked if she could join us. I amiably agreed. We talked and we joked and ate brownies and ice cream. That’s when I realized I had gone crazy in my head.

My Dad had a bike accident while out on a trail on his mountain bike. His new helmet protected his head, but he has a broken collar bone. He was out there alone and had to get his bike back to the car, on the back of it, and drive home so Mom could take him to the emergency room. My Dad’s a tough guy. I’m glad he’s okay.

Remember praying for Emily. She’s still doing well, but her mom, Crystal, has found a lump on her thyroid. She’s having a lot of tests to see what is going on. Please, keep Crystal and her family in your prayers as they go through all this. It is really frightening after going through the thyroid cancer with Emily. Also, Crystal’s goddaughter, Ava, is in the hospital. She’s really sick. At the moment, I can’t remember what is going on. She is only 4 months old. Pray for her mom and dad and brother as well as they deal with this.

Lastly, I ask for prayers as Jeremy and I have made a decision about church. This is going to be very difficult and I hope people understand why we need to do what we are doing. It took a lot of prayer, but our decision has been made.

Schmap e-mailed me about one of the photos in my Flickr Chicago set. They wanted to put it with others being considered for their new guide for Chicago. I agreed. I was just informed that my photo was picked for inclusion in the guide. It is one of the American Girl Place photos. Go See, if you wish.

We’ve been caught up in so much lately.

No more long distance trips, but birthdays, dance classes, emergency oral surgery, a field trip, school, and cleaning.

Christine had her 9th birthday at the end of September and Amie had her 12th birthday in the middle of October. They chose the option to have $20 allowance to buy what they wanted for their birthday instead of having a surprise present. Christine picked out two small stuffed animals… a cat and a dog. Amie picked out a Blue Tree CD and a fantasy book about dragons.

Amie quit her ballet class. She wasn’t enjoying it as much as she used to. She wants to focus on learning to use her voice, so I’m calling around to see if I can find out how much voice teachers cost. I don’t know if we can afford it though. This really hurts to not be able to do this for her. In the meantime, I’m doing what I can to help her.

We are working on learning piano here at the house. I got a beginner book with Christian songs for Amie and James to work with. James is doing well with it. Amie is not as diligent in her practice, so she’s not picking it up as quickly as James is, but that’s ok. I’m not pushing her. I also got myself a piano book for my birthday. It is some Praise and Worship songs. I am working on one of them at a time.

In October, Martin came up to visit the weekend after Amie’s birthday. He came up on Saturday and stayed until Sunday afternoon. The girls hug tackled him. I have a picture on my Flickr. It was a bit of a break in our normal routine and the kids enjoyed having him around to draw pictures for and to talk to and to climb on (well, Noelle did that.)

A few days after he left, we went to the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago while it had free days. We didn’t even have time to see all the exhibits, there were so many of them. The kids really enjoyed it. We are already planning on going again during next year’s free days. I have a lot of pictures of that trip on my Facebook and Flickr. It was really fun.

Noelle still prefers the tumbling part over the dancing part in her class, but she is starting to pay more attention and do better with the dancing. She picked up on the tumbling part fairly quickly and is getting a lot of “very good, Noelle!” during that part of her class. She’s made a friend and enjoys talking about her friend, but I have noticed that they don’t goof off during class for which I am grateful.

James’ jazz and musical theater dance classes are going well. He is learning and doing better and better. A few weeks ago, the teacher let us come in and watch them. They were doing a routine to part of “Marian the Librarian” from “The Music Man”. It was so fun watching them and seeing how much he was enjoying his class.

I am taking tap classes. I’ve only had one class so far, but I had a lot of fun. I had to borrow shoes from the studio for that class and they were split sole and a little big, so the heals kept slipping down and hitting the floor when they shouldn’t have. I got my tap shoes this last Saturday. It was hard to find them in my size (I have children’s size feet.) and be the type that my teacher wanted, but we found some. It is much easier doing the tapping with them.

About two weeks ago, I suddenly had one of my wisdom teeth give me extreme pain, so I had an emergency dental appointment. He gave me some vicoden for the pain and referred me to an oral surgeon. I had to wait about 5 days before I could get my appointment and the vicoden wasn’t always able to mask the pain though it did a good job of making me dizzy and sick to my stomach. It got pretty bad. I was very happy to get that tooth out. They also removed the wisdom tooth on the opposite side of my mouth as it probably would have been just as bad soon. I lived on vicoden for another 2 days and then only used it at night for about 3 days after that. I am just now gotten to where I’m able to eat normal food.

This last weekend was nice and it is still nice today. I got the front yard raked and I’m working on the back yard. It’s a lot of leaves and I have to take breaks to let my shoulders rest, but I am enjoying being outside.

Speaking of which… I need to get back to doing that raking. Talk to you all later. Hopefully much sooner than I did this time.

and other news.

We got all packed up on Thursday, the 17th, and had the suitcases out at the car that night. I also took Royal, our betta fish, to a friend’s house. On Friday morning, we got up and got breakfast. I took the cats to the vet where they got shots and flea meds and then were put into the boarding there at the animal hospital for the weekend. Christine’s gerbil, Essie, was put into her travel cage and we took off. We headed down to Missouri Baptist University where Jeremy got to talk to a few people he used to work with and then we went to Jill’s house. Because they had to move and Jill took a vacation down to NC and TN in the time between moving out of one house and being able to move into another, they’d been in so many different places and seen so many different people. It had affected Benji and he was not as open to me as he has been before, but I was okay with it and completely understood.

On Friday night, we went out to Forest Park for the Balloon glow, but because of traffic, we missed the glow, but got to see the fireworks. Jeremy’s brother, Jason, was out there too and we finally found him… or he found us after the fireworks were over and we stood out there and talked to him for a while before heading back to the vehicles and driving back to Jill’s house.

On Saturday morning, we headed down to Fergeson, MO for the Farmer’s Market. It was a nice little one and we got peaches, pretzels, free drinks and snacks, and some homemade soap. Most of the rest of the day was resting and relaxing. The guys put up the swingset for the kids and I took some pictures.

Saturday evening was our Girls’ Night Out. God was helping us out here. Carrie had to bring her baby daughter, Trinity, who is fed mostly through a tube in her stomach. One of Jill and Rob’s friends just happened to be there whose son had required a stomach tube for 4 years. He stayed to feed Trinity so Carrie could go out without her daughter. We all need those no-kid times and hers was long needed. Jill, Carrie, Michelle, and I went out to Applebees and ate and talked and laughed. After a couple hours, we went back to Jill’s house and continued talking there with the guys while the kids played around us. After a bit, everybody except for Michelle and I were either gone home or in bed. We talked and talked until it was time for her to leave.

On Sunday, we went to Florissant Valley Baptist Church which had been our church when we had lived down there. It was good to see so many of the friends we have there and to hear great Praise and Worship and an awesome Sermon. After church, we grabbed some food from Sonic and headed down to Aaron and Melody’s house. We haven’t seen them in almost 12 years. I think the last time we saw them, Amie was a only a month or two old. Aaron entertained us with stories of what his older daughter, Jenna (7 yrs old), has done and we revisited some college memories. We had a great time and the kids loved playing with Jenna, especially AnnaBeth and Noelle. James had fun with some of Aaron’s video games. They are asking to go back sometime. Melody made some yummy fruit dip which totally made Amie have a sugar high since she ate way too much of it. On the way home, Amie complained of a headache. I just laughed. When we got back to Jill’s house, Tabitha was home. She’d been visiting Massachusetts with her grandma, so the kids got all excited again when we got there. It was hard getting them to bed.

On Monday, we had to travel home, pick up the cats, get James to his make-up jazz class, pick up the fish, take AnnaBeth to her ballet class, buy pet food, do laundry, and finally… bed.

————————

And now on to the other things.

Jeremy’s cousin and his wife are trying to adopt a baby. This baby is the biological brother of their already adopted son. At this moment, they are working on getting a foster care license so they can have him in their home until other things are settled. They are very good parents to their first son and it would be great if they could have another one. I am asking for prayer for them in this journey as well as some other things they are dealing with.

Pray for me as I’m undertaking some things. I’ll let you all in on it when things really come about… if they do.

One more thing… we are praying about some church issues that have come up. They aren’t recent, but they are wearing me down with trying to deal with them and I’m getting very tired. I love my jobs there, but I’m not sure how much more I can handle. I’m sorry that I can’t go into any more detail, but you know how that goes.

and… I’m off for now. I really need to get back into the blogging mood. I’ve been off way too much lately.

First, just to let you all know… for AnnaBeth’s birthday, we got her an Etch-a-sketch and a game called “Guess Who?”. She has played the game lots of times because it is one she understands and has a good chance of winning.

Also, Dance classes started up this week, so it makes our weeks hectic. AnnaBeth takes Ballet 1 on Monday afternoon. Amie takes Ballet 2 on Tuesday evening and Thursday afternoon. Noelle takes a beginner ballet/tap/tumbling class on Thursday mornings and James takes a Jazz stage techniques class and a Musical theater dance class on Friday evenings. His two classes are back to back and kind of relate. They all enjoy their classes. Because of when Noelle’s class is, most kids her age are in Kindergarten, so all the other kids in the class are younger than she is. They said she could have been in an older class because of her age, but I have found that she does better with the younger kids and I chose to put her in the younger kids’ class… ages 4/5. Her muscle control is about the same as a 4 yr old, so it works out better for her to be with them. I think all the other kids in her class are still 4 yrs.

Anyway, to the subject of which I titled this post. *laugh*

Next weekend, we are going down to St Louis. We have many friends down there we wish we could see, but I think we won’t have time for most of them. We’ll be staying at Jill’s new house. I am looking forward to seeing it. Her oldest is going to be out of town with her grandma, but we’ll be watching the younger two on Friday evening to let Jill and Rob get a date. Saturday night will be a Girls Night Out. I know Carrie and Michelle are coming. I am looking forward to being crazy with them. On Sunday, we are planning on going to our previous church, Florrissant Valley Baptist. (if I spelled Florrissant wrong, please forgive me… I’ve been gone for 5 yrs.) On Sunday afternoon, we are meeting up with other friends, Aaron and Melody. We haven’t seen them in sooooooooo long. I think almost 11 yrs, maybe closer to 12 since Amie was still an itty bitty baby. We have pictures of Aaron looking nervous when holding her. Anyway, we are leaving on Monday morning. Need to be back in time for dance classes. Since James will be missing his Friday classes, he will be joining a Monday jazz class just before AnnaBeth’s class as a make-up.

Anyway, I am so excited about going. It will be good to visit with my family and friends.

AnnaBeth is 7 today! Wow! I can’t believe she is already this old. I was going to link you to her photo set on Flickr, but my blog somehow has changed and there are no buttons to insert links and stuff in. I guess I’ll just post the URL…

http://www.flickr.com/photos/15161625@N00/sets/72157600036841353/

I ordered an ice cream cake for her from Baskin Robbins and need to ask her what she wants for dinner so I can pick up the ingredients.

It’s that time of year. We are slowly getting back into the routine of school. I now have all 5 of them to work with now. Amie and James are able to do much of their work with a little bit of help from me. Christine spends about as much time working by herself as she does working with me. Both of the little girls spend most of their time working with me. Anyway, we started a little this last week and we are gradually adding more each day.

Pray for the children and I as we go through this next year of school.

I can’t believe this much time has gone by without an update! I’m very sorry to those of you who are faithful readers. I don’t even remember everything that’s been happening since my last update, but I’ll do my best to let you all know what’s going on with me now. Hmmm, let me check through my twitters and see what I wrote down. That should help me remember some stuff.

Ok… My brother called me a few days after the family reunion. It was a nice surprise. He was thanking me for the KJ-52 CD I got him as an early birthday present. We’d given it to him at the family reunion, but he hadn’t been able to listen to it until he got home. He said he really enjoyed it. I was pretty happy to have finally found something that he likes. We are so different so I’m never sure what to get for him. Of course, I can’t say this without giving credit to my sweet hubby who helped me pick it out. All I knew was that I wanted Jon to have some music and I wanted to find a Christian artist he would enjoy, but the genre of music that he listens to is so different from what I listen to that I was clueless as to who would be good. Thankfully, Jeremy listens to the rap/hard rock stuff and suggested that artist.

I don’t remember if I mentioned this before. It actually happened before the family reunion. I found a dance studio nearby and they had a summer program going for 6 weeks. Amie and AnnaBeth were put into ballet classes and James went into a Musical Theater class that had Jazz techniques as part of it. He really seemed to enjoy it. He sees it as opening up more avenues in his dream to be on stage. He loves acting, so I hope this helps. I think the teacher will tell us when there are auditions and stuff nearby. We’ll see how that goes. Anyway, AnnaBeth and James both had class on Mondays and Amie had class on Tuesdays and Thursdays, so it made my weeks a bit more hectic. Of course, it will be even more hectic starting in September. AnnaBeth will have class on Monday, Amie will have classes on Tuesday and Thursday, Noelle has a class on Thursday morning, and James will have his class on Friday night. It’s going to be CRAZY! (Oh, and if anyone wishes to help with tuition… it would be nice. LoL Just kidding… somewhat.)

In late July, we had a mission team come from Oklahoma and help out at the church. They went out to some houses, but mostly they helped us fix up a lot of stuff at our church. They also hosted a Block Party at the church. It was a lot of fun. Amie made a new friend. One of the girls is only a year older than Amie and is homeschooled as well. They clicked and enjoyed talking and doing stuff together. They did the produce mobile one day and we showed up to help out with that as well. I wish we’d had more time to interact with them. They are such an awesome group. I have some of them as friends on Facebook and hope we can somehow get together again someday.

The weekend of July 23rd… there was a women’s blogging conference thingy up here in Chicago. Now, I couldn’t go, but the author of one of the blogs I read was. Matthew from Childsplayx2 was one of the few male bloggers invited to BlogHer 2009. Now if you’ve ever read his blog, you would understand why he was invited. He is a daddy blogger and he pulls at your heart strings or makes you laugh or both. I picked him up from Midway airport and drove him to his hotel. It was nice meeting him. He’s just as nice and witty as on his blog. As for looks, well, he’s not as good looking as Jeremy, but he’s still nice on the eyes. Amie talked his ear off the whole way to the hotel and Noelle sang softly. AnnaBeth was quiet except for when she was protesting him calling her AnnaBanana. I wish I could have gone to the conference and maybe gotten to know him and others a bit better.

Our next event was having Angie come visit. She’s a friend from Arizona who was up in New York for the summer doing an internship. She is another lover of photography, so together we took a ton of pictures. We took her to the nature center and forest preserve and went on a small 1/4 mile hike, which is about how far Noelle can go before having to get to the bathroom again. Jeremy watched the kids on the Saturday that she was here, August 1st, and I went with her into Chicago for a photo time. We walked up Michigan Ave from Millennium Park up to the John Hancock Center. Because the JHC’s observation area is enclosed, I was okay with going up there even with my fear of heights. I was a bit nervous, but did well. It was a lot of fun and a bit of an education for both of us as we have different photo techniques that we use and she would see a picture where I didn’t and vice versa. She came to church with us and seemed to enjoy it, even with the lack of sleep we both had.

A few days after she left, my friend Martin came up again. He had found out he had two days off back to back and asked if he could come up. We didn’t really do anything special this time. The kids enjoyed talking to him. He stayed overnight and then had to leave in the afternoon the next day. The kids always enjoy when Uncle Martin comes up.

The day he left, Jeremy’s brother came. Andrew arrived that night and stayed until Thursday morning… or maybe early afternoon. I’m not exactly sure when he left. While he was here, he attended church with us and the boys had a day out. Jeremy and James went with him to see the GI Joe movie. Jeremy left with him. They went down to work on the yard of our house down where we lived before moving up to Chicago-land. We are planning on going down today… (as it IS already Friday) and staying overnight down there. The older kids have their 4-H International group project to show at the State fair on Saturday in Springfield. Remember when they won 1st place in the county fair? They are so excited about this. I need to remember the red shirts. If Jeremy has to stay and work on the yard on Saturday, I’m not going to be able to take the younger two kids with me, so I hope we have someone able to watch them if that happens.

Anyway, now you are caught up on that last busy month.

Next week is VBS at our church. I’ve been working on the songs, but I feel totally unprepared still. Pray for me as I do this. Pray for the kids and the other workers as well.