Building with dishes
I love finding evidence of my kids being in the kitchen. (This is what happened when the girls dried dishes tonight 😂)
Tag: motherhood
Another trip around the sun
I got to celebrate my birthday with this great group of family and friends. Michelle and Angelo hosted us for dinner and an amazingly delicious pumpkin layered cake.
Gift opening (on the 24th) was full of fun surprises from Jake, the kids, my in-laws, and my aunt Deb, who made a cathedral pane lap quilt using pieces that my Grandma Fran had intended to use for quilting, but was unable to due to her failing eyesight.
Crafty afternoon
We perused Pinterest this morning and the Shecklets found a few crafts that they wanted to try. The girls decided to decorate styrofoam trees with buttons and sequins (something I also did as a kid.) Shecklet #2 gave making a wire-frame mummy a try.
Sorting the school year
Day 2 of summer break. Time to go through papers and projects from the school year. It is so much easier now that the kids can do the initial sort on their own. Then mom has an easier time with round two.
Blue hair for #3
This girl likes color! We dyed the ends of her hair dark blue today. It’s so dark it looks purple (like the last time we dyed it.) but trust me, it’s blue. And so are my hands – just a bit.
Intersession 2018
The big Shecklets are off of school this week (because we opted to not sign them up for intersession classes this year.) Today we had a hand appointment for Shecklet #3, went to the park (until three bus loads of kids showed up,) and then went to MOA to ride some rides and go to the American Girl store.
Weekend away
My friend, Michelle, and I don’t get much of an opportunity to catch up (uninterrupted) when we see each other. A few weeks ago, she threw out the idea of a pre-baby girls weekend. (She’s expecting another sweet baby and we both know that life gets more complex when adding a new member to the family.) Anyway, we accomplished the feat of finding a weekend that worked for both of us and decided to keep our plans to a minimum. In fact, the only thing we decided on by the time we pulled our of her driveway late Friday morning was that we would head south in I-35. We figured we could stop once we didn’t see snow anymore. That put us smack dab in Des Moines, IA. Not exactly a common place to road trip to, but for us, it wasn’t about the destination. Rather, we were hoping to get a chance to talk, laugh, and sleep. All of which we accomplished. Well, maybe not so much on the sleep end, but it was still nice to sleep through the night and not be woken up by a child.
On Saturday, we did get out to see the botanical gardens in downtown Des Moines, had dinner at a taco restaurant (food was tasty, but the service was terrible,) and saw the 9:30pm showing of  I Can Only Imagine, before continuing to talk until almost 2am. We got up Sunday morning, had breakfast at the hotel, and found a church nearby that had mass at 11am. After mass and a stop for a cup of coffee, we headed for home.
Both of us are grateful for our husbands who managed things on the home front so we could get away and recharge. (Here are the Shecklets with the homemade pizzas they had for dinner on Friday night.)
Note from #3
I found this next to my nightstand today (it had fallen off accidentally.) Shecklet #3’s words were just what my heart needed today.
Progress
This afternoon Veronica was brought out of the ICU to a regular hospital room. When she arrived at the new room, she got out of the wheelchair and walked with help from the nurse to a chair about 12 feet away. She was given the choice of laying down or trying to sit. She chose to sit. A short while later she walked with me to the bathroom which was about 15 feet away. After that, we walked back to the bed. She was exhausted but stayed sitting up on the side of the bed. The more time she spends sitting up, and moving the faster she will recover. The OT came a little while later. Veronica at first walked with the OT and me helping. She then took a walker all the way out of the room. She turned around in the hallway and made it all the way back to the bed. When the OT asked Veronica if she could speed up, she did. She is exhausted now. The doctors and nurses are working diligently to manage the pain. Vestibular therapy is really hard, but whenever the shecklets are mentioned or asked about she fights through. During what I hope is the hardest day of her life she is still a mommy first.