Alright, alright, a new post

Well, Ellen informs me that certain member of my extended family wish that I would update my blog. :) Okay. I agree, it has been a while and I do have things that I could post about.
1st, I have been very busy painting everything in my house. Now I am a lover of beautiful wood trim, but we do not have beautiful wood trim. We have doggie chewed on, rubbed on wood trim. :) Not so pretty, so I have been priming and painting everything including the doors. I have painted both girls rooms a new color and new trim, the hallway has new trim and wall paint and the downstairs bath has new tile floors, new wall paint and trim paint. I also have a new faucet fixture and light fixture for Bill to put up when he gets time. (Thank you tax refund). :) So now I have turned to the stairway and the front door. All the trim and the front door has been painted and I just need to do the wall paint. Oh, I should say that the previous owners left a 5 gallon bucket of the wall paint, so I am just using the same paint color and giving everything another coat of the same color because they missed a lot of places. Yesterday and today I have been painting trim in the living room and kitchen and I finished painting the trim and doors in our upstairs hallway. The upstairs bathroom also has new tile (the same as downstairs) and new paint (the same as downstairs) and will get a new faucet fixture and light fixture as well. The only room I haven't done upstairs is Alex's room, that will be a challenge. I also have the tv room downstairs as well to do, but that should only be a two day project. Our project for this weekend is to buy some laminate wood flooring and install that in the kitchen and entryway.
So you see, it isn't that I have been sitting around every afternoon and reading novels and eating chocolates. :) I really have been busy.

Crazy Night

Well, I know that it has been a while since I posted, so I will make up for it with this post. :) We had a REALLY crazy night/morning (whatever you want to call it). About 4 am today, we (Bill and I) heard Alex make a really funny sound. It was kinda like a cry and a squeal together. It didn't sound normal and then he was crying. It stopped suddenly so Bill went to check it out. When he went in he patted Alex on the back and realized that he was convulsing. He ran him into our bedroom and laid him on the bed. We ruled out choking by slapping him on the back a couple of times.
So at this point we realized that he was having a seizure. (Thank you Amber for the practice run) While I watched him on the bed, Bill called 911 and an ambulance was soon on the way. Mom was called to come and stay with the kids and then we had to just sit and wait it out. After a few minutes of seizing, which wasn't fun because he was kind of gasping/swallowing, he stopped and then started whimpering. The crazy thing is all of this is that we weren't TOTALLY panicked. I am not saying that we weren't concerned/worried/frightened, but there was something familiar about the whole thing since Amber had already done something similar. After a while I picked him back up, he threw up some phlegm(sp?) and a few minutes later the ambulance arrived. Bill went with Alex to the hospital and I waited for mom.
Mom came a little while later and I was off. By the time I arrived at the hospital they had taken blood, chest x-rays, temperature and had a major blow out diaper(pretty common after a seizure). His temp was 104 degrees and his x-rays showed pnemonia which was a shock to us because other than an ear infection last week his attitude this week and last night were just fine.
They did do a nasal swab to check for influenza virus because that also will give a high fever and aches and it is going around at the daycare center. But that came back negative. So ....
basically we/they think that because of the pnemonia he spiked a fever which caused a febral seizure (not too uncommon in young children) and he will be/is fine.
Bill took him in this morning for a check with his regular doctor and everything looks okay. He is on a new antibiotic to treat the pnemonia and Tylenol to control his temperature. He slept several hours this morning and by the time I came home from school at noon he was well enough to say "No!" and be watching Barney (his favorite).

Now hopefully this lengthy and detailed post will make up for my lackluster performance as of late. And this way you know what happened and you won't have to ask. :)

Camp

Tonight Amber and Ashley are going to the Pine Lake Winter Retreat. This will be Ashley's first time during the winter (she went to summer camp last year) and Amber's second or third time. They both love Pine Lake. I have to say, that as an adult looking back on my camp experience that I would have loved Pine Lake too. I actually went to Pine Lake once when I was little, then we went to the Iowa Regular Baptist Camp one year, and later I went to Village Creek Bible Camp. VCBC was more when I was in Jr/Sr High. I didn't really go a lot when I was Amber and Ashley's age that I can remember well. But if I had, I would have loved Pine Lake. It is such a nice cozy camp-not as big as IRBC or VCBC.
Many of the kids from our church in Radcliffe go there all the way through high school and love it.
It has started to snow over here, I hope that it doesn't snow too much since we have to drive over tonight and drop them off.

I think that I have given Ellen enough to read.

:) I'm sure that there are things that happen in my day that I could post about. Honestly, I either forget, or it just doesn't cross my mind to blog about them. Too much time passes between the event, and when I might have a chance to sit at the computer for a few moments.
Life in Indee is pretty basic. School is school. The kids are enjoying Kidstuf at Prairie Lakes on Wednesday nights. I still have class most every Tuesday afternoon in Waterloo for Reading Recovery. But yesterday we didn't have class and that was nice. We had a nice leisurely supper and then we watched Biggest Loser, my favorite show.
Amber and Ashley are looking forward to this weekend when they will go to Pine Lake's Winter Retreat. Amber went last year and now this year both girls can go on the same weekend. They love Pine Lake and always have fun there. Addie can't wait until she can go to summer camp too.
Just for blogging, I will tell you that last night I was quite impressed with my supper. We had leftover pork roast from a couple days ago, and I made hash with it. Now I have had roast beef hash, but never pork loin hash. It was fabulous! Garlic, green pepper, onion, salt, pepper, cubed potatoes and leftover pork. Delicious!!
Hope this has thoroughly captivated you! Hopefully my week will be even more exciting and then I can tell you all about it!

More Deer

These are the latest two deer that Bill got. He went back with the Rittger clan for another deer hunt. This time it had to be "antlerless". These will be made into ground venison and hopefully some vension steaks and roasts. I am interested in cooking with venison.

Addie is a good mommy

to her Baby Alive. She absolutely loves this doll. If you didn't know, Baby Alive eats (something supposed to look like baby food) and drinks out of her bottle and then she wets and poops. Fabulous, I know!! Addie got her for Christmas and was thrilled that she actually will "go". I don't think that Baby Alive is going to potty train too well. She pretty much goes as she is eating or drinking, so maybe she will have to eat and drink on the potty??? :)

Oh how I miss my sweet Gallbladder!

Yes, they ripped you from me while I was sleeping, and now I won't be the same ever again! (sob)

Oh yes, boys and girls, I had the pleasure this past week (1/3/08) of having my gallbladder removed. I had some horrible, I repeat, HORRIBLE stomach pain on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day that led to me going to the ER on Christmas evening. We were in Cedar Falls, so my dad took me to Sartori. They were quite busy so we were there until about midnight. They did a CT Scan and couldn't find anything wrong with my appendix or any blockage and since they were so busy that night they sent me home and said that it wasn't anything that would kill me????? but that I should see my doctor the next day. Oh yes, that is really what they did. So I went to my doctor the next day and was set up for an ultrasound on Friday 12/28. I had stomach pain every night until then. They said they thought I had polyps in my gallbladder. Eventually I was scheduled for a surgery consult the following Wednesday 1/2/08 and they said they could do surgery the next day.
So now I am less of a woman that I used to be. :)
I am back to work now. Bill is thrilled that I am better too.
So now I have posted. Thanks!

Fine

Alright Sara, I am posting! I figured that I should post about the most interesting member of our family (at least for the last couple weeks). Doesn't Addie look sweet, posed for a photo at Blizzard Beach in Florida (Walt Disney World)? It is such a deceptive look. Lately Addie has been a terror. She has chopped off her bangs with her scissors, because her hair was in her eyes. She took Alex for a ride down the stairs on her lap. They went bump, bump, bump! Yes, I think this is all due to one person's influence. Oh, yes, you know who you are!! It could only be because of Aunt Sara, yep, I positive that is it. :) Actually, I think based on what Grandma Kris has told us about Sara growing up, that Addie is just learning from her aunt. :)

Shooting

We went to shoot at the Rittger's again over Thanksgiving, and this time Jim came along too. Ethan (from our trip to Canada, and a relative of the Rittger's) came to shoot also. Ethan uses a replica muzzle loader??? I think this is correct. Maybe it is not a replica. Just think, old-time looking gun. :) He was loading his gun and Suzy asked him to pose for a picture. When he turned to look at us he was holding his bullet in his teeth and it looks like he has a bunch of teeth missing! Very funny. Notice that Jim doesn't look at all like he was having fun. :)

Guatemalan Food Night

We routinely have Guatemalan Food Night, where Amber and Bill get together and decide on the menu, go shopping, and then cook us all supper. This GFN we had chicken that had been cooked in peppers, onions and cream (VERY good), dobladas (think Latino crab rangoon) and Amber made dessert, a raisin custard with cinnamon sprinkled on it. It was all very delicious. The next day I used some of the chicken leftovers and made some rice to go with it. It was kinda like a spicy Chinese dish.

Basketball

Amber is in a Jr. WNBA league right now until the middle of December. She has games every Saturday and she is loving the activity. She is actually pretty good and so far has managed to score most of the points each game. Now, I'm not sure if that is because she is a ball hog, she has talent, or the other team is just that bad.
Anyhow, here is a post of her inbounding the basketball to her teammates.

Magical Times

Sara's post made me think back to this summer to what I would agree was a wonderful vacation.
This is a picture of probably my favorite night of the whole trip. Bill and I decided that we would be crazy, even with four kids and we would spend our last night at Disney as late as we could. So Friday night, we stayed at the Magic Kingdom until 1:30 AM and rode any ride that our kids wanted to, as many times as we could. That way they couldn't say that we didn't get to do something they wanted. It was a lot of fun, and not something we would have planned to do, but it is a great memory for us and our kids. Before we left the park at 1:30 AM... we had to eat ice cream. That was an adventure for Bill and Addie. Addie wanted daddy to lick around her cone to stop the dripping, but when he took the cone he suddenly had to sneeze (quite violently I may add) and this caused the ice cream to fall off the cone!! Of course dad had to go find another cone. I think he actually just walked back to the store with his cone and got it in a dish and then gave it to her like it was new. And she never knew otherwise. :) Good memories!

Smashing Pumpkins

Suzy had a golden pumpkin in her house. It was a decoration. But when we came to shoot, she decided that it was going bad and that we should shoot at it. Amber hit the pumpkin 4 out of 6 tries. Then Bill decided to finish it off. It was lots of fun, but very loud.

Finally some pictures

I finally have pictures of us shooting out at the Rittger's farm. We were all there, minus Ashley, because she was with Sara, I think...
So here are some photos of Bill and Katie and Amber shooting. Bill shot the 12 and 20 gauge, Katie shot the 20 gauge, and Amber shot the 22.

Oh my swear!

Well Jennifer reminded me to post about this. It is really quite funny.
Addie was riding home from preschool the other day and talking to herself. I heard her say, Oh my God, and so I interrupted her to mentioned that mommy and daddy don't like to say that because it isn't a nice way to talk about God. It is called swearing. I didn't make a big deal about it, and she was fine with what I said. I told her that we can say Oh my goodness, or something like that. So she rides for a little longer, thinking about this. And then she says to me, Mommy, how about I say, Oh my swear??
I had a hard time not laughing outright, and then told her no, I think we will just say Oh my goodness. :)
Funny, funny!

A hunting we will go...

We went out to Larry and Suzy Rittger's tonight to shoot some guns. I think that some people that know us would be surprised to hear that we did that, maybe because we don't look the "hunting" part. But actually, it was loads of fun. Bill went out to get some practice in before December when he and some of the Rittger guys (and in-laws) go deer hunting. So Bill started out shooting with a 12-gauge and worked his way down to the 20-gauge. Eventually I got to take a turn and I decided to just use the 20-gauge. It didn't look like it had as much kick-back as the 12-gauge. I hit all three of my targets! :) Bill and Larry and Matt did a lot more shooting then, and before supper Amber decided that she wanted to try and shoot a pumpkin that Suzy had provided. So Amber used the 22 (think, like a bb gun, only a little bigger). She did really well and managed to hit the pumpkin 4 out of 6 times. Bill went back to the 12-gauge at the end of the evening and did really well after practicing for the afternoon. Maybe in December he will get a buck and we can mount the head and have deer sausage!!
And, I do have pictures, but they are on Suzy's camera, so hopefully she can email them to me and I will post them later. It was a lot of fun!

Garage Update

Okay, really quick. Here is what the garage looks like at this point. They are going to re-shingle the whole garage, old and new so that everything matches. Hopefully things will get moving again soon. They had to stop for a few days and finish another project.

Addie's Birthday

Okay,
So turning four was a really good day. Addie informed me that she was four and she wouldn't be crying anymore. :) That didn't last too long. She had a great time helping pick out what kind of cake she wanted and how to decorate it. She picked out Diego cake toppers and the Happy Birthday candles. She also put everything on, so if you wonder why the Diego's aren't spread out very well, that is why.

We had a special supper that she picked out: grilled chicken, french fries, corn and rolls. Very YELLOW!

Ahh, the modern world...

It is good to be back again. Our computer was running kinda slow lately and doing a couple of odd things. Nothing that would indicate imminent meltdown, mind you. So we decided to upgrade our system to Leopard OS X and in the process froze the computer. At one point a screen came up saying that there was a "fatal hardware error". That doesn't sound good. What's worse, when I called Apple to talk with tech assistance, the guy on the other end of the line said, "that is so funny. I have never had it say THAT before." Oh yeah, it was hilarious... After we had tried a couple of things he told me that our hard drive was dead and would need to be replaced. But he thought that we could get some things off the computer if we hooked it up to a firewire cable. Now, this is after we had tried a couple of "regular" ways of getting on the computer. The apple guy left me with the computer stuck on a funky screen that had an icon that floated around. On the way to Cedar Falls to drop off the computer to get repaired, the computer screen went black (I obviously had to unplug it from the wall) and turned off. This was the kiss of death.
The guys at the repair shop wrote on the ticket "attempt to recover data from hard drive". He asked me if there was anything I really needed off the computer. All I could do was smile. I mean, really, what do you think?? Nope, absolutely nothing on there that I need. I mean its just a computer, who really keeps things on it, right??? :)
When I called today to see how things were they told me that nothing could be saved, but they had replaced the hard drive for me and it turned out to not be as bad as I was thinking $$. So now I am starting from scratch with email, documents, everything. The worst part was that Bill lost all of his football stuff off the computer. We did find a lot of things on his flash drive, so hopefully that will turn out to be not so bad.
Well, anyhow. It is all over now, and hopefully things will settle down. :) (Wishful thinking)

Computer

Okay, a really quick post from school. Our computer at home has died, so I won't be posting for a little while. Hopefully we will be up and running later this week.
Until then...