Home again, home again

We all just got home from a trip to Wyoming so I'll have plenty of new pics to share, including first snowball fights for the redheads :D
First though, I must get back to real life. Fall Festival at the church and then a Wolf Den meeting.

SpellQuizzer Give Away at Grammar of Life

Hey all, my friend LeighAnne is giving away SpellQuizzer teaching software.
Check it out here

"Not Me" Monday

Ok, so this is my first time to participate in this and it's been awhile since I posted, so it's gonna be a "not me" for about the past month, lol


I did NOT break my ankle while in Atlanta a few weeks ago. Nope, I certainly didn't step down on my foot wrong and it really didn't happen in the middle of the Georgia Dome. I also didn't hop myself up on Tylenol 3 for the drive home from Atlanta and I really didn't let my friends drive my van back to Houston while I slept off the effects of the drugs.

I didn't look at my blog 3 times since then and I certainly didn't start 3 separate posts that didn't end up so incredibly whiny that I felt I couldn't post them. Nope, I wouldn't be such a bad blogger that I couldn't find anything to post about, not me.

I didn't walk around my house yesterday without my boot on and irritate the ankle I didn't break in Atlanta, that would have been stupid. j
I didn't steal my oldest child's boot from his heel problems because it really ISN'T so much more comfortable than the one that the podiatrist gave me.

I didn't eat half a loaf of beer bread last night from a competitor's company, and I didn't smear it with a spread also from the competitor's company. I'm also not considering making another loaf of said bread to repeat the process today.

I didn't throw a tealight at my oldest child's head this morning because he certainly didn't get mouthy with me. I also didn't throw one at him last night to get his attention because he certainly wasn't quoting Jeff Dunham during a family meeting.

I also didn't cheer on the Titans last night simply because they were in Oilers jerseys. I also didn't cheer when T.O. was taken down by the Titans players seconds after catching the ball.

And right now, I'm not laying in bed working on this blog post when I should be getting ready to take the boys to piano lessons. That would be irresponsible and lazy and I'm never irresponsible and lazy.

Busy Busy

I don't have excuses, I don't really have any stories.
Oh wait, there's this cute little monster in my house who wakes up every morning excited to see how much his bean plants have grown. He started them from seed, you see and by the third day, they were amazingly tall.

Please excuse the ugly bushes in the pictures behind the pots. I have since removed the offensive things and am still working on cleaning out all the vines.

We planted our garden in pots so that they can be rescued from the Texas heat, if need be.
I know it's not perfect, but how do you achieve perfection with an overly excited 8 year old as your "helper"?

Beans and tomatoes and cucumbers and peppers and zucchini.
We also have herbs and green onions.

Wow

I just realized it's been a month since I posted last.
Bad Blogger *smacks self on hand*
Not a lot going on in our house right now. May was a month of birthdays as always. Hubby and I both have May birthdays as does Middle Child and one nephew.
Also, I've been planning for a trip to Atlanta in July. Just me :D Well, my BFF is coming with me. It's time for PartyLite National Conference and we'll be getting to see all the stuff coming out for the Fall/Holiday season.

Hubby is on vacation next week so maybe we'll get some fun pics taken. I'm hoping to go berry picking and he wants to go to the drive in on Wednesday.
Enough babbling for now.

Cake Pops for Cancer

The Relay for Life that we participated it was a great success. The kids stayed for a little while Friday night and came back early Saturday morning to "support" me as I walked. They played video games sponsored by Best Buy and inflatables that I'm not sure who sponsored.
Tall, Dark and Goofy walked with me for 2 miles from 4-4:30. After that, we packed our stuff and headed off for breakfast.
Some booths had things to buy for more fundraising. Our booth had bracelets, CDs and cake pops that my friend and I made. If you aren't familiar with cake pops, check out Bakerella's blog. She has so many great ideas and these were so easy and fun to make.

Relay For Life

The Houston Area Relay for life is this coming Friday. I have signed up with a friend of mine to walk with the team from her boys' school.
"The American Cancer Society Relay For Life^® is a life-changing event that brings together more than 3.5 million people across the country each year to celebrate the lives of those who have battled cancer, remember loved ones lost, and fight back against a disease that takes too much."

None of my family has died from cancer, that I know of. I do know that my grandfather was a cancer survivor. Currently, my mother's good friend is dealing with the illness of her daughter-in-law that has been a long hard road.

It is sad that in these times we still lose so many people to such a horrible sickness that can be quick or horribly long.
Please consider donating to the cause at http://main.acsevents.org/goto/redheadedmama
Every little bit helps to secure the future for our children.

Mercer Arboretum and Botanic Gardens

On Monday, our home school group took a field trip to Mercer Arboretum.
It was a guided tour and the kids (and moms) learned quite a bit.

I thought I would share a few pictures of the kiddos exploring the gardens.

Tie Dye Eggs

We put the egg into the baggie and added a couple drops of each color we wanted to use.
Then we squished the baggie around the egg to mix up the colors.

The finished product looked really cool and we were very happy that we bought that kit.

Coloring eggs

Today we spent the afternoon coloring eggs with friends. Oldest Child decided not to participate. Of course, I got so caught up in coloring eggs and having fun, I forgot to pull out the camera until the end. I did get a couple of pictures of one of the tie dye eggs getting colored.
Above are the eggs colored by non redheaded children.

Here are the eggs colored by redheaded people (me included).

I love the Didj

The youngest child got a Didj for Christmas. It is a hand held gaming unit from Leapfrog.
He can hook it up to the desktop and upload his progress and download a few gadget type things for his games. When he uploads his progress, Leapfrog takes that information and tells me what level he's on. All the games have some learning aspect to them.
The only thing I don't like about it is that there aren't more games available. I wish Leapfrog had taken some of the Leapster games and adapted them for the Didj.

Book Signing aka Dakota and Michele come to H-town

Michele Bardsley, Dakota Cassidy and Victoria Laurie came to Houston a few weeks ago.
Because I'm a bad blogger, I'm just now getting around to posting these pictures.





Signing the books, I wonder if Victoria Laurie is doing a reading right there at the signing table?? That's quite a look of concentration.

I don't remember what was said to get this look from Dakota.
I was admonished for taking a picture with her mouth open.
I will not hang my head in shame, it's HARD to get Dakota to shut up long enough to take a pic!

I cannot wait until Dakota comes back in June.
I hope to have a better camera by then since most of my pictures came out very blurry :(

Promo!!!

Ok, it's been a week and I'm sorry that I didn't get to this sooner.
If you haven't already done it, go check out
https://www.paper-bag-press.com/ebook/its-a-textual-thing

Even if you're not interested in this book (how could you not be? it's written by my good friend Mika!!!) check out the site.
Never mind that, you MUST buy that book!!!

Opinions

Just let me start with this, I know everyone has an opinion and a right to voice it, but PLEASE!!!!

So, I was catching up on my blog reading after a busy end of week.
I stop over to PW's website because she rocks and it'd been too long since I'd been there (a couple days). Anyway, I'm on her photography page and see THIS post. I'm sitting here crying at how sweet this is. THEN, I read through the comments to see if she'd commented and how things progressed (yes, I had checked the update link, but was looking for more info).
Some people had the audacity to comment on the girl's name, Randall.
Others had the audacity to comment on their views of same sex relationships (because of the girl's name).
ONE person mentioned how she didn't think it was romantic.
For the most part, everyone congratulated the couple and family and commented on how sweet PW was to do this for them. It was really nice to read the comments of the family.
I just wonder if the woman who got religious in her comment was thinking about the couple reading her post.....
Anyway, yeah, it's just my opinion, but one should be careful how they voice theirs on a public forum on a day that someone has obviously planned carefully.

Which Stephanie Plum boook are you?

Found this over at the Crazy Lady's blog and thought, why not?
I'll have to reread the first one, lol, as it's been a long time.

Busy, busy, busy

I've put off posting about Hubby's surgery because I wanted to get the details right. Well, then I just got caught up with everything else that was going on.
Hubby had surgery Feb 19th on his shoulder. We've been trying to find a doc to do this surgery for 2 years. He's known his labrum was torn and one doc mentioned rotator cuff issues. No one listened when he said his bicep hurt. We also knew about some arthritis or bone spurs in the shoulder. We've seen 6 doctors in the past 2 years, most of which ignored us, told him he could live with the pain or just told us there wasn't anything we could do about it.
In January, Hubby called me and said, find a doc, I CAN'T live with it anymore. I searched Google for an orthopeadic surgeon in our area. I found a couple and one looked very promising. Even better when we found out they had an open MRI on site. Hubby's shoulders are 4 inches wider than a traditional MRI machine, meaning the MRI films and results we had from 2 years ago were taken with him wrapped up and contorted to fit into the machine. I called and they wanted to get him in right away. We took an appt for a week out because of his work schedule.
We met with the PA, who listened to the story, told us "We have to get you fixed" and went to consult with the doc. The doc came in and said, ok, we'll get a new MRI, see you next week to go over those results and Oh, we'll probably get you in for surgery the next week.
I was floored. We've been jerked around with PT and associates and having 'scripts for narcotics thrown at us. He didn't even suggest pain meds!!!
So, MRI was done the following day and we went back the next Thursday for follow up on that. We scheduled surgery for the next Thursday.
Surgery went well, but when they got in, they discovered bicep repair that needed to be done. Oh and the labral tear that Hubby could "live with"?? Yeah, took 2x as many stitches as usual to repair. The rotator cuff had a huge tear and the humoral head was completely exposed. They also shaved off the bone spurs in his AC joint.
During my discussion with the doc after surgery, he said he was still amazed no one would do the surgery before. I hugged him. After listening to all that needed to be done, I was about in tears and wanting to call ALL of the other doctors that had refused to help.
The next day, we went in for post op follow up. The doc was amazed to see him looking as good as he did. While he was in pain, and still is somewhat, it's not the same kind of pain he'd been in before.
He's in the sling for 4 weeks total, so another 3 weeks of it. He's wearing glasses because getting his contacts in was not easy. He's feeling so much better and I'm so happy.
I hope this means that this year will be a wonderful year.

Happy Valentine's Day

I hope everyone had a wonderful day. I woke up to Hubby trying to sneak out of the bedroom. He ended up taking the youngest child and running to the store for V Day presents, lol. I got roses, chocolates, a mug with a mini balloon and chocolate roses, a small stuffed frog that makes kissing noises and a stuffed dog. Several of these things were picked out by the 7 year old, lol.
Anyway, I gave Hubby a pocket watch and a card that my mother had found for me. He was very surprised and really likes his new watch.
We went to breakfast and then to Target where the boys each got to pick out a couple packs of collector's cards.
I also managed to go grocery shopping for the next couple of weeks. Not great on my checking account, but I did stay within the budget I'd set for myself. I'll have to go back for produce and milk, but I think we're set on meat and cheese and that kind of stuff.

Shoe Depression

I have extra wide feet.
I don't know if they are naturally that wide or if it is the result of several broken toes.
I do know that shopping for shoes with extra wide feet is a pain in the butt.
I don't shop for new shoes often because I have to shop online or at a store across town to find my size. The biggest issue with my feet is that while they are extra wide, they are only a size 6.
So, it seems that the stores think that if you have extra wide feet,
you want to wear grandma shoes.
Rounded toes and no heel.
BORING!!!!
And now, I'm going back to the search. Occasionally, I find the perfect pair at the perfect price.

Ramblings from a Redheaded Mama

Ok, so it's been awhile, I'm sorry. I've been waiting for Tall Dark and Goofy to do a write up for me on the East West Shrine Game that I could post with pictures of the clowns that I took that day. However, between his crazy work schedule and the amount of pain he's been in because of his stupid shoulder that the stupid doctors have refused to fix, it just hasn't happened yet.
I felt guilty and now am posting nonsense.
There are several things going on in our household, new things being purchased, which might include a new camera for TD&G since he hasn't had a new one in 5 or 6 years. I found a new doc for him this morning, and read an article from Johns Hopkins on labral tears that might be very helpful if this doctor ALSO tries to tell us that he can live with this pain (either that or I might just hurt him since this will be the 5th orthopaedic specialist we'll have been to). Since said article said that most labral tears should be treated with some sort of surgery, I think we're good to go.
It's bonus time and we're working on the things we need that we can't afford during the year. Of course, this also includes paying off the surgeon from my gall bladder removal. TD&G and the middle child both need to go to the eye doc. TD&G needs contact ('cause he's almost out) and middle child needs new glasses since he lost his at the lake.
We'll be setting some money aside so I can go to the PartyLite annual conference this summer in Atlanta.
We have a long list of things we want and things we need and we'll be very careful about where the money goes. I'm hoping that our tax refund can go into savings, but it might have to pay for surgery (one can hope anyway).

Armed Forces Bowl

So, my camera batteries died pretty much as soon as we got in the stadium. Here are a few I took before the game.

I took this one simply because I loved the wording.
The game took place at TCU, where the mascot is the Horned Frog.

This is my mother at the tailgating breakfast.
My father is the bearded man with the blue hat on.

This is the oldest child.
I'm not sure which of his brothers he's giving the annoyed look to, probably both.

The younger two children.
They were watching the marching band play on the staircase.

Mr. Goofy Gooberhead himself, my hubby.
We got the scarves as we went into the tailgating breakfast (woohoo FREEBIES!)
The sweatshirt was a present from my mother, Dad has one also.

No pictures of me because, as always, I was behind the camera.