Are you kids NUTS?!

Aidan woke up last week wrapped up in his afghan, the others all followed suit. I'm not sure where my children think they are, they all told me that it was cold out . From the picture you wouldn't think that it was the end of May in Arizona, with an expected high of 100 or more, or that the open windows over the night had only cooled the house down to 74 degrees. Yet, there they are, too cold to come out from under their blankets.

Woes of the amature radio opperator

Last year Eric and I got our Technical class amature radio licenses for his Dad for Father's Day. Little did I know the woes that this license would produce. Let me illustrate. Once Eric had a radio license, he was able to opperate his Dad's radio-so every time we went to his parent's house, he squirreled himself away in his dad's radio room-leaving ME alone with our children in a non-baby proofed house.

After a while using his dad's radio wasn't fun, he needed to get his own radio; dad gave Eric one of his old hand-held radios, and one of his older mobile radios. (Dad had promised anyone who got their license a radio). But you can't opperate a radio without an antenea, so an old antenea (the ringo ranger) was found. However, an antenea must be mounted very high-this is a problem when you rent and there is an HOA. Eric did come up with an ingenious solution. Fine, right?

Sadly, no... for once you have your technical class license, why not get your general class and be able to use the HF bands. For Christmas, Eric got a very nice radio that will opperate on the HF/UHF/VHF bands. There was nothing in the way of a general class now. Eric passed his test with his dad (good bonding time). Now they are both able to opperate on the HF bands. But a new problem arises...the antenea. You have to have a different antenea to opperate HF. A VERY big one, a very expensive one.

Now all I hear is moaning about the radio and the antenea. Eric and his dad keep planning on building a dipole antenea, among other kinds. I just wish that they'd get it over with. I don't care what kind he has, I have just one requirement-that the kids can still play unsupervised in our safe, small backyard. This requirement keeps thwarting many of his ideas. Oh, well.

But my woes won't end with a new antenea...it's sad I know. For once you have an HF antenea, you need an antenea tunner, and a dummy load, and a... Will this EVER end? Probably not.

Cooling off

We had a heat wave last week. Our temps went above 105 for 1 or 2 days, and low 100's for more than a week. (We are okay this week, only the high 90's) After Aidan's final t-ball game (it was 90 degrees by 10 am) we decided to cool off in our new summer relief: a fun sprinkler head. Summer isn't looking too bad after all.

T-Ball

Here are some pictures of Aidan's last t-ball game. The season was six weeks long, and he has made wonderful improvements. I think that coach-pitch will be in our future for next year.

I don't think this is "normal" activity

At my check up last Friday with my surgeon, Dr Eden told me that I could return to my normal activities, including swimming. So, over the weekend we all went swimming, and had a great time. I also finished the two paintings I made to go with Davin's quilt. The boys have lately been asking when they could share a room again, thus we were planning on doing the room shuffle this coming weekend. I washed sheets yesterday, and as I sat there looking at two unmade beds, I just couldn't bring myself to make them, only to strip them down three days later. And Davin has been asking to see his paintings ever since I finished them. So when my husband came home from work last night, and saw my handywork, he put his arm around my shoulders and said "I don't think that this is what Dr Eden would concider to be 'normal'." And he's probably right, he often is, dragging a twin bed down the hall, moving another bed about the room, switching the solid wood desk and dresser, and moving a small bookshelf about the room probably isn't what one would concider to be "normal" activity. But I like the results, and so does everyone else.

All Clear!

I am very happy that all of the stress and worry of the past 2+ months is finally over. I've recovered well from surgery (Thursday and Friday I'd like to forget), and am feeling really good. We got a call from my surgeon Tuesday afternoon, my pathology report came back. All was clear. It was just the fibroadenoma, just like Dr. Eden had thought. And once removed, it will never come back. I have one post surgery appointment with Dr Eden tomorrow, but then I am free and done with it all. Thank you for all your thoughts and prayers, it's been a little overwhelming. I love you all.

My Little Swamp Thing

Here is the final pic of Davin's quilt. I finished it 2 weeks ago. Thanks to all of the stress and anxiety I had waiting for doctor's news, I was able to machine quilt it in 2 days, and then get the binding hand stitched on in another 2. Davin loves his quilt, and I am so happy with how it turned out. Machine quilting was so easy (labor-intensive, but easy), I will never go back to tieing a nice quilt again. If you look closely at the bottom picture, you can see the quilting pattern, concentric circles that overlap on the sashing. I named it after Davin, sort of, and I have recorded it in my quilt book. It is officially done.

First Haircut

I have really been dragging my feet about cutting Eme's hair. She has these beautiful little curls in the back, and I've been afraid that if cut, they would never come back. Her hair is so fine that it is hard to keep it clipped back or pulled up (she can pull just about anything out of her hair); but her hair is so long that it is past her nose, and she squints through her hair to see. So, with her final three I-teeth coming in, and a very bad cold, equating to a runny nose that hair gets stuck in, I finally bit the bullet and cut her hair. I gave her some soft bangs, just a trim. The trim only gave me one little curl to save though. I will wait until her hair is thicker to really cut, and then I will let my sister-in-law Rachel do it, she is amazing. (you can see her before look at Easter, part 1-her hair was down)

C is for cookie, that's good enough for me!

Last Friday I felt a little stir crazy with the warmer weather and a bad head cold, so I decided to cheer myself up with some cookies. Davin loves to be my helper, he gets more involved each time we make cookies. He had some very strong oppinions as to what kind of cookies I made this time (he wanted the chocolate chip kind with the milk, just like the picture in the cookie book), which was fine as I hadn't decided what I felt like yet. His favorite job is to dump the chocolate chips into the batter for me.

Eme woke up from her nap just in time to enjoy the fruits of our efforts.