The First Good Snow of 2014

Stephen teases the kids and I about our hometown being a snow-forsaken place.  He says that it always snows everywhere around us, but never here.

We were quite delighted we he was proven wrong a couple weeks ago.  we didn't get a lot, but it stuck and made everything white.  Fortunately, it fell right between the two viruses that hit us.  It was dry and powdery, so not so good for snowmen or snowballs.  But we try to enjoy ANY little bit of snow we get!!

Iris was the first one out the door!  She's my snowbaby.  She always stays in it the longest.  Here she is eating it.

Clyde was next...

He made the word "hi" with his footprints.

Here he is trying to sneak up on Daddy with some snow...

It didn't work...

They tried to sled on cardboard, that didn't work either ;)

Clyde and Iris in a snowball fight...

We all got out and went on a "hike" through our backyard, and then out into the neighborhood from there...

Then the kids chased Mommy home!

Girls' Pottery Painting Party

Lucy and Iris had a joint party this year at a local pottery painting store for their 12th and 8th birthdays.  They were each allowed to invite four girls.  I think they all had a really great time!!

For many years, I made EVERY single birthday cake my kids ever had.  I painstakingly tried to do exactly what they described to me and always had happy kids.  But lately it's been sort of a relief and sort of sad, that they've wanted things other than a traditional cake like apple pie, or cheesecake, etc.  Also, decorating cakes has become exceedingly difficult now that I can't use any icings or colors that contain milk or dye.

So I was a little excited and a little daunted when Lucy told me she would like me to make her a cake like I used to.  And she knew exactly what she wanted... She wanted her cake to look like a half-painted canvas.  It didn't turn out nearly as detailed nor polished as my old cakes, but with what I had to work with, I was pretty happy with it, and more importantly Lucy seemed very happy with it!  I was tickled with how vibrant the India colors turned out too!

Iris is a cake-pop fanatic lately.  Cake-pops are the ONLY way to go!  These cake pops needed to be dye, milk, treenut and peanut free which meant that none of the methods I've found on pinterest or blogs would do.  But my heroic husband came to the rescue with his own ideas and Voila!....

Sorry for all the boring, rambling thoughts above...here are the actual fun parts of the party!!

Clyde decided to join in his sisters' girly party and painted a snake.  He decided it was the Hydra from Greek mythology, but it's a baby Hydra, before he got his head cut off several times and grew more.

Here are the little girls painting their pottery...

Sylvia and her dragonfly...

Teva and her butterfly...

Ada and her cup...

Iris and her toaster....

The party includes a special plate for each birthday girl with their friends finger prints on it...here are the little bits waiting to get finger-printed :)

Iris with her friends waiting to blow out her candles!  Ada wasn't sure what to make of having to stand there for a picture ;)

Opening presents!  I didn't get very good pics of this...little girls have their own way of doing things :)  We were a little more organized with the older girls ;)

The little girls were done WAY before the older girls...we had to find things for them to do, as they began to run wild!!!

Daddy was a HUGE help before and during party !

Here are the big girls painting...

Courtney...

Lilly...

Ellie....

Meg...

Lucy...

Lucy and her friends waiting for her to blow out her candles!

Lucy and Ellie...

Lucy and Courtney...

Lucy, Meg, and Lilly...

Thanks to all the girls and mommies who made the celebration possible!!!

Here are the finished products once they were fired!  Wish I had pics of everyone else's!!

Lucy's cup...

Iris's toaster...

Clyde's single-headed baby Hydra...

Iris's birthday plate....

Lucy's birthday plate...

I sure am grateful to God for these sweet, loving daughters!!  And I'm thankful they have such precious friends!!

Breathing is Nice

I haven't blogged much lately, and we haven't done much lately as the kids have gone through 2 rounds of viruses.  Well, I caught this last one and to make what seemed like a long story short, it blew up into an asthma attack.  Only I didn't know that's what I was doing.

Lucy's had many asthma problems through the years, and I've read many articles on what they feel like.  Mine did not resemble hers or the articles.  So, I kept thinking I was being a baby and I didn't treat it.  It just felt like I had a swollen, sore throat and like I was having a harder and harder time breathing through some thick mucus.  (Sorry, I know that's gross.)

So, I just started taking decongestant and drinking hot tea.  Things like that.  But I kept getting worse.  But when it got bad, it some how felt very sudden.  I was having so much trouble breathing so quickly, that I felt like I was going to pass out.

Stephen called 9-1-1 when I couldn't seem to remember how to use my phone.  But I did lie on the floor and flip through my contacts and start calling people to ask them to pray for me, but it was a struggle to talk.  I was very scared.  I called my parents first and probably scared them very badly.

The kids were so scared.  Iris was a wreck.  She just covered her ears and eyes and curled up in a ball.  And I didn't have much presence of mind to help her.  I remember a red, swollen-eyed Lucy trying to comfort her.  Clyde was shaky, but was trying to put shoes on my feet, and bring me a jacket.  I suppose his father must have asked him to do that, but I'm not sure.

But the ambulance got here very quickly.  They treated me for asthma, and by the time I got to the VERY full ER, I was feeling a lot less panicked and like I could breathe a little.  I was still scared and still having trouble, but I didn't feel like I was in imminent danger anymore.

The EMT's were very kind and stood with me in the ER hallway for quite sometime until I was given a room.  The place was so overcrowded that when I did get a room the EMT's had to clean it for me...they were so awesome to do that.  They ran lots of tests, x-rays all that and it turned out it was just a bad asthma attack.  All total I had 3 emergency inhaler doses at home, one albuterol treatment in the ambulanc, two at the hospital, one steroid injection...and I felt much better.  Shaky and a little weird, but much better.

So now I'm home and on an inhaler and steroids and I'm just supposed to rest.  And I'm so grateful for medicine, and EMT's, and nurses, and respiratory therapists, and my awesome husband and parents.  I'm so grateful to my friends that picked up my kids late at night and took them even though they weren't staying at their own house due to power outage.  I'm mostly just so grateful to God that I'm breathing so easily!  It's one of those wonderful gifts that I never fully appreciate.

Iris's 8th Birthday!!

Iris chose, for her birthday dinner, the same local Chinese restaurant that her big sister chose. And her birthday dinner was actually ON her birthday!

Here she is opening her card from Rita and Allen!  Very exciting!

Lucy gave her some iris-scented soap, which is already sitting on the bathroom sink....

Clyde gave her a lego minifigure she's been looking for..

Sherry and David (He got to come!!) gave them all sling-shot stuffed animals!

Nena & Papa with Iris.  They gave her some Barbies she's been wanting, which she went straight home and played with...

And Daddy and I got her kind of a hodgepodge of stuff.  My little cook has already popped us two batches of popcorn! 

She asked for cake-pops!  Here she is blowing out the candles on her dye/milk free cake pops! ;)

My little 8 year old!

We all had a great time, thank you Nena and Papa!

After we got home, she opened her card and gift from Grandad and Grandmom.  Here she is opening the card with the other half of her Dollywood pass and her money.  After I took this picture, she read her card and was so touched by it, she cried a little....as you'll see in the next picture...

Here she is with her books and her now slightly watery eyes!

Thanks Grandad and Grandmom!

Cake Pops For Papa

Ironically enough, there are no pictures of the kids' Papa in this post.

But recently he had a crazy surgery on his hand and wrist.  Iris became rather obsessed with making him some cake pops with her new cake pop pan.  First they were going to be 'get well' pops.  Then as her mother kept postponing her good deed, due to the kitchen being in a state of disaster, they became 'I'm so glad you're feeling better' cake pops.

Here is Iris with her Papa's cake pops, that she made entirely by herself.  ( I put the sticks in the pops, she did everything else. )

They were made for him, but she let each of us have one.

We did get them to their intended recipient, but I didn't get a picture.  :)

The First Shiner Award goes to.....

So if you ever wondered which one of our kids would be the first to get a shiner, wonder no longer!

It's not who I would have guessed....I would have guessed my crazy boy.  But I'm not too shocked that it's my almost equally crazy girl.

She fell off her bed and managed a face plant right into this Littlest Pet Shop basket.

And....Here's the shiner!  It went through quite an array of colors!

Poor baby.  I told her I would save these images for her as her trophy prize. 
PS- watching her baby sister face dive into a basket, almost made Lucy passout.  Clyde had to help her lay down and bring her water while I helped Iris.