A recap of the last few weeks

Friday after school there was a swarm of kids at our house playing.  There were a few of them playing on an old phone (one with a cord connecting the base to the handset) that I plugged in, they wanted to see how it worked.  Next I hear the words "911" and "dialed" which caught my attention quickly.  I informed them that it was against the law to call 911 if it isn't an emergency and that they could get in big trouble.  They hung up the phone.  I unplugged the old phone.  As I was putting the phone away and continued my lecture on why we can't call 911, the phone rang.  I wasn't for sure if they really had called 911.  I aswered the phone, and it was the 911 center.  They received a call from my house and wanted to know if everything was alright or if we needed help.  I apologized and tried to explain what had happened and that we were fine.  About 15 minutes later, a police officer knocked on my door due to the 911 call.  I explained it to him and assured all is fine.  He took my personal info anyway.  I guess I have a record now.

When the officer came, I was getting ready to walk out the door to meet Robert for a date.  We had a sitter.  When we came home we heard all about their eventful night.  The saw something out the kitty door in the garage.   Some glowing eyes (like cats eyes do) but it wasn't the cat.  Amber went to open the door and the sitter told her NO!  Then the sitter went to look out there, she found the return of the Racoon!  He hissed at her as he was going down the steps.  I guess the kids where pretty spooked and stayed in my room the rest of the night. 

We had an incident the night before of something that was in the kitchen and I thought it was the cat.  When Robert went to go check it out, the cat was in the loft.  The kitty door swished open and shut when Robert went in the kitchen.  As he came back upstairs the cat was still in the loft.  Same night, just earlier, the kitty door swished but the cat was laying in front of the door.  I thought it was maybe the wind.  I felt the cat to see if he was cold as if he were in the garage, but he wasn't.  I didn't think any more of it until later when we had other things.  I did notice the racoon tracks in the snow in January sometime.  We are blocking the cat door in the outside garage door so he can't come into our garage. 

I went shopping on Saturday... alone... but ended up coming back much later than I anticipated which made a frustrated husband.  I did get alot done.  I got some curtains for our bedroom since the stupid vertical blinds that are in there are falling down, getting broken and don't work.  I found some curtains to replace the vertical blinds in our dining room too that I want, but those will have to wait a bit longer.  I did a small grocery store trip and got some hardware for some misc. tasks around the house at Home Depot.  I got a book shelf for the little girls room and some little baskets to go with it.

Sunday we had Robert's parents over for dinner.  Technically, they brought dinner.  I made a new salad, with cauliflower, onions, brocoli, rasins, bacon, sunflower seeds.  It was SO yummy!  Robert made the comment, "how can you make something with so many vegtables in it taste so good?"  Due to the super bowl, we had some junk food too.  Emily ended up throwing up early the next morning and stayed home from school on Monday.

The curtains I got weren't the right color so I went back another day to exchange them.  The new ones were $10 more but I think they will be better in the long run.  I also splurged and got a little table and two stools for the little girls' room to go with the little book shelf and their new dresser. 

I put together a dresser, a book shelf, a little table, and two stools.  I organized the little girls' clothes and got rid of stained or too small ones.  I moved two older dressers to the basement to make room for the new dresser.  (I am excited to have those in the basement to one day organize some things down there.)  I also debunked the bunk beds in the twins' room.  That was tough.  It would have been quite the sight.  I had four 8/9 year olds helping me stablizing one end of the bed as I moved the other side.  I even had Emily on the bottom bunk to kick the top bed up at one point.  I rearranged the twins room so that they could have their beds both on the ground.  I think Lauren was tired of being on the bottom bunk.  Their room is a little tight, but it will work. 

I also got a book shelf that about did me in when I carried it upstairs, I was thinking I was pretty wimpy until I looked on the box after I got it upstairs.  90 lbs, no wonder it was feeling so heavy.  Ugh.  My muscles were resisting when I put the back seat back into the van after carring the book shelf in it's box all the way upstairs.  The book shelf will hopefully be better for the books and toys so we can get rid of the toy box bins.

On our drive back home from getting the book shelf,  I was telling Amber that she couldn't have chocolate milk because of her cough.  I was trying to tell her that we didn't want to give her something that would make her cough more than she already was.  I started out with "you can'tt have things that will make you..." and I was trying to think of ways to complete it.  I didn't want to tell her she couldn't cough, so I was trying to choose my words.  Amber then finished, "make me die, right mom?"  I told her that was right (since that is all you can follow with when she uses that right mom phrase).  Then she was quiet for a moment.  Then she said, "Jesus probably really loves having a dog and a cat now."  It kind of caught me off guard, I had to have her repeat it.  The thought of her dying made her think of Jesus and that made me feel great that she put those two together.  She use to say things like, "if I push my finger in my eye I will go live with Jesus."  It kind of freaked me out alittle.  She would say things like that when she was going to bed about going to live with Jesus and dying.  I was always wondering, is she preparing me for something?   The reference to the dog and the cat that Jesus has is from our cat that never came home fearing his fate was death and a dog we had before she was even born that had to be put to sleep.

Oh, did I mention I also got a flat tire?  I found a crack in the sidewall of the tire on my van.  I heard this loud gushing when I was taking the seat out of the van to get that whopping 90 lb book shelf.  I could feel the air wooshing out.  I filled up my tire with air from our compressor and prayed it would make it to the tire place.  Would you believe when I got there, the tire was still fully inflated, I couldn't see the crack at all.  The two little girls and I sat in the waiting room while they replaced the tire. 

Emily had a science fair that we went to.  She did it on the diet of guinea pigs.  She got two different kind of food and fed one to one and the other to the other.  Then she put them through mazes to see if the time was better one way or the other.  She was checking to see if it one food effected their intelligence or activity level.  She didn't think she collected enough data to really tell one way or the other. 

Rob's mom went to the ER for a kidney stone and a UTI.  They admitted her for a procedure to flush the stone out, she had complications with blood pressure and has stayed this whole week.  We took the kids to see her the first night, but she was in ICU so the kids weren't able to see her.  Poor little Amber wouldn't leave, she said "I'm not leaving until I see Grandma!"  Even in the parking lot she was pulling back and telling me she came to see Grandma and she still wanted to see her.  It was pretty funny. 

Since then, Amber has came down with a cold accompanied by a fever so we aren't able to go see her until Amber gets better.  Amber looks so sad, her little eyes are all red and watery even.  One night I heard her crying in her bed, I went in her room.  She had turned the light on and was looking around in her bed.  I asked what she was looking for.  "I was looking for you!" she cried.  She must have been looking for her blanket and shirt or water or something.  Poor thing, she is just out of it. 

Lindsey and Lauren both have DEAR today, Drop Everything And Read.  Lindsey also has her RAD kids graduation.  I feel bad I will be missing it all.  Amber still isn't feeling great.  Robert doesn't feel like he can miss any work since twice a week he goes to physical therapy and leaves work early.  I wish there were someone to go to it.  I feel aweful I am not able to be there.  Lauren wants me to come help with her Valentine's party on Monday, but it will have to depend on how Amber is feeling.

Robert's physical therapy has been going good.  It is funny, our insurance approved him for 6 visits.  The dr. recommended twice a week for 12 weeks.  Our hope is that the insurance will still cover the other visits.  Oh, and did I also mention when Robert was thinking about this surgery he asked them how much it would cost.  The amount they gave him he thought was total before insurance, so he was thinking we would pay like 20% of that.  The price they gave him was AFTER insurance.  That made for a nice surprise.  He has started lifting weights with his arm at PT.  At first they were just using the weight of his arm as weight.  Now he is up to a 2 lb. weight.  He said it about killed him.  It will be nice once he has full use of it, so I don't have to do it all.  Book shelfs and dressers, Christmas trees, gargbage cans, snow shoveling, moving furniture, putting up curtains.  There are hundreds of things (or it feels like) I have been doing that I think it would be nice to have help with or for him to do it.

I got a call from a research place a week or so ago.  They wanted to know if I would be interested in coming in for a control panel, I think is what they called it.  It would take about 2 hours but they would give me $75.  I thought, sure!  I took the girls to Grandma's and went for the panel.  Turns out they always overbook, so I sat there for about 20 minutes then they told me I wasn't needed, so I got $75 anyway, and they will call me again since I didn't get to really do it.  I was excited!

The same day Emily had her science fair, Lindsey had an appointment with her orthodontist.  She scored another A on her brushing and flossing.  That put her name into the monthly drawing and she got to put a sticker on her picture.  Her picture had 5 stickers on it already so this made 6.  Every 3 stickers you get a gift card to a local business.  She last time got a walmart $10 gift card.  This time she chose Cinemark.  She was really excited!

Samantha's new thing is "in-a-men" which means in a minute. I am sure that is a phrase she hears me say often.  I will ask her to come here to put her pajamas on or get her shoes on.  She will tell me, "in-a-men" and she will continue doing what she is doing.  Funny girl!  She also does this cute thing with her eyes.  When she is telling you something that maybe might be a bad thing she will squint her eyes up real tight.  For example, "I just spilled a little bit" or like when Grandpa asked if she wanted some of his cake.  She said, "no I have my own."  But then she came back and said, "Maybe just a little one" with her eyes all squinted and her fingers showing how little of a bite.  She is so cute!

It is amazing how much you can accomplish at times and yet other times nothing gets done.  The master bathroom has been on my to do list for weeks.  Yet I can never find time to do it.  Although I did find time to rearrange 2 bedrooms, put together furniture, and organize the loft which was a 2 day project, and I cleaned the car out.  The car was a nightmare in itself.  We also lost one of the remotes and I had a hunch the couch ate it.  I turned the couch over and sure enough, the remote was there along with tons of other little pieces of playsets and some other unknown things and lots of crumbs from snacks and popcorn.  That couch is the worst at eating things!  Although we still have a remote we lost around Christmas time that has never surfaced.  Strange. 

There is always lots of things going on.  I saw a paper announcing sign-ups for spring soccer.  Amber is old enough this season.  She will be so much fun.  But I am not sure about 3 practices and 3 games each week.  I am sure I have forgotten some other things from the last few weeks.  Since it is Friday, it is my laundry day, so I must get on it or laundry will never be done this week.  I am hoping to get my curtains up too, but I have been hoping that for half the week.  I also want to put together the new shelves too.  I am not sure my day is long enough.