Farewell March, projects update, Ugh...

Well, since today is the last day of March I thought I'd share a bit of what I've done this month with you.  Be prepared for some serious awesomeness on my part, you'll be amazed, I know I was shocked at how little I did this month.

First of all new recipes.  For my first one I made some super doctored up brownies, adding crushed oreos, bittersweet chocolate, and white chocolate chunks to the batter.  And all I can say is: OH WOW!!! They were THAT good.  And my second one, I cheated a bit here: I coated some chicken in the jalapeno greek yogurt dip from Costco that we love.  It was good, but not nearly as flavorful as I'd imagined it would be.  Yes, this month I totally cheated on my "new" recipes goal.  It's just one more casualty of the chronic headache.  I'm hoping next month will be better, I've already got one recipe lined up.

I need to mention books, it hasn't been pretty these past two months.  I've started and stopped a lot of books.  I've read 2/3 of the way through, 1/2 way, 1/3 of the way, a couple of chapters, 1 or 2 chapters.  Books I've for sure not finished (yet): Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy; People of the Book; Alice in Wonderland; Hoax; Velva Jean Learns to Drive.  Again, it's this blasted headache, I just can't focus my attention the way I used to, even if a book captures it right away, it wains quickly.  I used to love to read in the evening, but by the time the kids go to bed I'm both physically and emotionally drained, and I just don't want to do much of anything that requires thinking.

I also failed to finish a super cute baby afghan.  In fact, it royally messed it up, not just in one spot, but ALL over (Tom, Heather, it'll be a bit late).  It was so bad that after a full skein of yarn I took the whole thing apart and started over.  Happily in just 5 days, with a new pattern and General Conference, I've gotten caught up to where I was last week.  I should be finished with this one by next weekend.

I've got great hope for April's projects: the binding on the girls' quilts, a "no extras" spending (no bi-monthly pizza night, candy, SONIC, clothes, etc), and at least ONE book finished!  Plus the usual 2 recipes. 

The no extras won't be too bad, Maddie's birthday, our Easter baskets, and the stuff for the big family egg hunt are already purchased.  We really only eat out once or twice a month, usually to Papa Murphy's (only when I've been too lazy to make pizza dough), and sometimes to Costa Vida (but much less since I've been making our own sweet pork.)  Sonic will be fairly easy to give up as well, as one of the side effects of my headache Rx is that carbonation will taste bad (I'm not a huge soda drinker anyway, but I do like the occasional cranberry-lime-aid).

"Mommy's Head is Going to Explode, Let's Watch"

When things have gotten too noisy or crazy around here I have often told the kids that my head was going to explode.  Once Eme even said: "Mommy's head is going to explode, let's watch."  The funny part was that I wasn't even in the room, it was Eric who was dealing with the chaos of our children at the time.

In February, when I got hit with that awful stomach bug, something far worse came with it: severe "thunderclap" headaches.  Within a week I had two "10's" and an "8", they came out of no where and left a severe headache in their wake for days.  I saw my doctor, who ordered an MRI/MRA to check and see if these were secondary (bad) or primary (not so great) headaches.  My kids all thought it was cool that I was going to get a picture of my brain.

Contrary to my belief that over time my children have turned my brain to goo and then it leaked out of my head, the MRI did indeed show everything was still intact.  It also showed that everything was perfectly normal.  Since I was still having terrible headaches (going on several weeks without one break), I made an appointment to see a neurologist.

My neurologist is a wonder.  He ordered some blood work, and put me on a steroid for a week to see if it would, like water on a fire, put out the headaches.  For one glorious week (which coincidentally was Spring Break), after 7 straight weeks with a moderate headache, I had perfect relief (and w/o any side effects too).  And then the steroid wore off, and the headaches came back (and I had the unfortunate side effect of 3 lbs weight gain in 2 days, BOO!).

I had another appointment on Monday.  I just love these super technical medical terms: Chronic Persistent Headache.  I've started some new meds (Topimax) to deal with these headaches.  They come with their own fun set of side effects, some silly, some odd, some just weird, we're just hoping they do the trick.

Pinewood Derby, Davin's Turn

After 3 years of watching Aidan plan, design, build, and then race a Pinewood Derby car, it was Davin's turn.  We told he could either have a cool car that we could try to make fast, or a fast car that we could try to make cool.  Davin opted for the cool car.

Davin had his heart set on making a jeep.  But not just any jeep mind you, but "Davin's All-Surface Vinagaroon Jeep".  In case you were wondering, a vinagaroon is a type of scorpion, it doesn't have a stinger, but it does give off a vinegar stink.

And since Davin was prepared with the fact that since he had a "cool" car it might not go as fast as some of the others, the actual race day went very well for us all.  His high profile car went perfomed better than we expected it to, and Davin was just thrilled with the whole experience (his favorite part was working with Eric to build and paint his car).

Spring Break: what's left of it.

Since Eme decided to be sick on Monday, and I had an injured dog to deal with until Wednesday, we got off to a really slow start to our Spring Break.  I had all sorts of wonderful plans: the zoo twice, crafts, movies, park lunches.  And somehow I was supposed to fit it all in in just 2 days, um, no.

After we dropped Dixie off on Wednesday afternoon, we headed over to Nana and Papa's house.  The added bonus for us was Grandma and Grandpa Roberts were there visiting, and were able to bestow much needed loves on the heart-broken-ones.  It was a lovely day, and we spent hours just hanging out.  Ah, it was finally starting to feel like a break.  We headed home to make a quick dinner so we could head over to Yogurt Ranch for dessert before Eric had to head to scouts.

Thursday the kids and I headed to the zoo.  Of course it was warm, it's March in Arizona, what else would it be?  So we rode the zoo train at the end to see the "rest" of the zoo without getting too hot.

We kept the zoo trip short so we could head over to the Capital and tour the Museum with Eric.  It was nice to be able to see Eric during the day.  And the kids thought it was fun to have dad show them around.



This flag was flown by the Rough Riders.



Friday we went back to the zoo.  This time we began by petting the sting rays which allowed the kids time to dry off.  We even picked up pizza for dinner.

After a rough start to our week, we ended strong, and they all enjoyed themselves.

Dixie, our first dog

This is a sad little story, without a very happy ending.  You've been warned.


The girl's trying out the borrowed kennel


Two weeks ago, Eric found a dog, and fell in love.  I saw her too, and fell in love.  We sent in our adoption paperwork (2 pages), had two phone interviews, and then broke the news to the kids: we were going to look at a dog.  They were so exstatic!  Even better, it was one of Davin's two favorite breeds: a Jack Russell Terrier!!


Dixie


Saturday, March 10th we drove out the the big adoption event 30 minutes away.  We met, and fell HARD for this little 3 yo dog named Dixie (we were even going to keep her name since it let itself very nicely to radio talk-DX-ing).

She was perfect, lots of energy, running all over the yard, jumping and playing with the kids, well mannered, no barking.  Until...a few hours later we noticed she was limping on her back foot.  We thought that maybe she'd cought a thorn or something, that in a day or two she'd be fine.

But no such luck.  By Monday morning she didn't even want to go for a morning walk/jog with Eric.  I took her to the vet, and we were given devistating news: her knee ligament was gone, common in small dogs, she was looking at surgery with only an 85% rate.  She spent the remainder of her time with us hiding from the kids, and napping.

Since she came from a breed rescue, they took her back on Wednesday to get treatment and to recover.  The likelyhood of Dixie being the "right" dog for our family post surgery and recovery are pretty slim.  Not exactly the fun-filled Spring Break week I was expecting.

March 12 in 12

March 12th this time fell on the Monday of Spring break.  We had a day full of ups and downs, it's never a dull moment around here. (click for full sized)

1. Eme woke up sick, poor girl.  She even got herself a bowl and then went back to bed.  Thankfully, she was only sick once.
2. We had adopted a super cute little 3 yo jack russell terrier, Dixie, on Saturday. (I'll post a full story on her later).
3. Maddie coloring and just enjoying the day.
4. What is Spring Break without legos?
5. Mondays around here is also laundry day.
6. Taking Dixie for her second walk of the day.
7. Our lemon tree is loaded with blossoms.  I wish I could bottle up the scent and keep it all year long, even if it does make me sneeze.
8.  Dinner, it should have been happy, but we broke the news to the kids about Dixie, lots of tears were shed.
9. We all took Dixie out for her evening walk, the last one of us all together.
10 &11.  Aidan and Davin showing off what they'd worked on today (plus Aidan in a toga).

12. Laundry never sleeps, nor do we when I fold it on our bed.

Happy Dr Seuss's Birthday

Sometimes we just use days like these to do something a little extra fun for the kids.  It always amazes me how such a small thing, like funny pancakes, can brighten up my little folk's lives.  Here are my silly Cat in the Hat-Hat pancakes.  They thought they were pretty funny, but they all got it right away.

We ended the day by having a Dr Seuss read-a-thon before bed.  They all took turns reading a book to the rest of us.  I love these small and simple things.  It's what makes our days so enjoyable with kids.