Thursday, January 29, 2009

What?


More from LOST, cause I just can't resist.

Friday, January 23, 2009

LOST in Heaven


I imagine that heaven must be something like sitting in my living room on a Wednesday night with my husband enjoying new episodes of LOST. I just can't get enough!

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

3,248 & Living in a shell

Seth had another laser treatment yesterday. The Dr. did 3,248 laser pulses on his face and arms. It is pretty intense. His face and arms are swollen and a dark grayish purple. Hard for even a parent to look at. I remember the first time I really looked at him after his first treatment. It was heart wrenching.

Duane & I made the difficult decision to go ahead & send him to school today. Usually his treatments are on Friday so he has the weekend for the swelling to go down & for the redness to fade slightly. But since he had missed so much school last month we didn't want him to miss anymore. Thankfully my Dad is the assistant superintendent at the school so he can check up on him during the day. Duane dropped the boys off in the morning and my Dad met them inside. He walked Seth to his class and watched from the door as he put his stuff away. He called to tell me that things went well and that one of the boys from his class came up & put his arm around him. He said the rest of the class was excited that he was back.

Duane called me a short time later. He asked me to call my dad to see if he could eat lunch with Seth. I noticed that he was upset. In seven years Duane has always been the strong one when it comes to Seth's birthmark. I don't ever remember him crying even when I knew he was upset. But this time was different. He was crying. He said when he dropped Seth off he noticed a kid look at him with pure disgust on his face. He then turned to tell a friend & looked again at Seth with disgust. It broke Duane's heart. It was all he could do not to get out of the car to beat the crap out of that kid. He told me he was mad at himself for not walking Seth in just to show everyone that there is nothing wrong with him.

My kids go to a Christian school. While I know there are many great kids there, there are also kids like the one above. Who live in a Christian shell where the world is perfect and there is no need to show or learn compassion because nothing imperfect ever touches their lives. If they only knew of the imperfection that Jesus touched. The compassion that he showed absolutely everyone! It reminds me of this song by Todd Agnew.

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Squirrels in the Hood


As you may or may not know I live in the hood. I also have 3 large pine trees in my yard & one VERY large pine tree. Along with the large trees comes an abundance of squirrels. Not just any squirrels but squirrels from the hood, squirrels on crack.

The squirrel above spent a good twenty minutes if not longer sitting there on that post. I think he was feeling a little paranoid & was scared to move. Earlier that morning I kept hearing this sound like banging against the front of my house. When I looked out the window I saw at least 6 squirrels chasing each other around our front yard and attacking the front of our house. No doubt a drug deal gone bad. I am sure at least one of those little critters did not make it back to his pad.

A little later I was startled by a squirrel hanging from by back door. I startled him too but it didn't stop him and a crack buddy from climbing all over the overhang at our back door & taking turns jumping onto the back door. Unfortunately they were never there long enough for me to get a picture. That would have been awesome. I mean there has always been speculation that squirrels in the hood are products of their environment but here i would have had proof!

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Celebrating Wall-e Style

We celebrated Seth's birthday on Saturday. Surrounded by brother & sister, cousins, friends & two generations of Grandparents he had a blast. Of course it had to be a Wall-e birthday. So to keep with the theme we played Get the Plant to Eve. Just like Pin the Tail on the Donkey only with Eve & a plant. We also played another Wall-e themed game where the kids threw bean bags into scored holes. Each hole was a different "bad" robot from the movie & whoever got the highest score won. Seth's cake was a scene from earth. It was Wall-e stacking cubes of trash. The trash pile was a scoop of chocolate frosting with m&m's, jelly beans & gummy pop bottles in it. The cubes of trash were made from my fudge recipe with the aforementioned candies inside it. I dusted everything with hot chocolate mix to make it all look dirty. It turned out really cute & was really easy.

Monday, January 12, 2009

I need a fix!

I don't think I mentioned this but a few weeks ago I discovered this AMAZING thrift store here in town. It was about a week before Christmas when I first discovered it. While there I saw a sign that on Christmas Eve everything was 50% off. Okay, when the prices are anywhere from 9 cents to four or five dollars originally, how could I resist! So on Christmas Eve I dragged the kids there & forced them to shop with me. It was crazy busy but it was soo worth it! Here is what I got;
1 pair of roller blades for Elijah
4 books for the kids cause they were being so good for me
23 pieces of various vintage melamine
2 vintage glass baking dishes
1 glass jar for my vintage Christmas bulb collection

Grand total (drum roll please) $6.02!

I haven't been able to get back since & I am seriously in need of a thrift store fix! I am so addicted!

Friday, January 9, 2009

Just Because

Because I haven't posted anything about my firstborn in a long time. I didn't want you all to think I had forgotten about him. So here he is in all his stylin handsomeness! I can't believe he is going to be nine this year!

Our Little Randy

It started snowing on Wednesday & it snowed all day. Kate was so excited she spent quite a bit of the afternoon playing outside and anxiously waiting for her brothers to come home so that they could join her. Thursday morning I woke up to this smiling face wearing her snow pants and not much else.With exclamations of "Wake up Mom! I'm ready to go outside!" how could I resist. I quickly fed her breakfast and after properly dressing for the snowy outdoors I sent her outside. Shortly after walking away from the back door I hear cries of "Help! I'm stuck! I can't get up!" Upon racing back to the door I realize that she has seen A Christmas Story a few too many times and was simply pretending to be Randy.

Saturday, January 3, 2009

The Perfect Cup of Hot Chocolate



1. A cold nose and fingers
2. A fun vintage mug
3. Steaming hot milk
4. Hot chocolate mix
5. Marshmallows
6. A spoon
7. A dash of salt

Aah! Perfection!