Finally Finished

The project took FOREVER!!!!!! i thought i would be able to crank it out in a long weekend but i didn't take into account how long paint needs to cure before you put anything on it. anyway. my sister terra originally got my nana's dining room set. this included a table that seats 6 with chairs and a hutch. neither were really my style but we didn't have a table so when terra offered it to me i took it. as you can see it has a yellowish 70s type finish to it. very, very unappealing. i kind of regretted taking it because it not only isn't my style but it does not fit in our dining room. i, however, am SUPER cheap so we kept it. after a while though it really started getting to me. josh got excited at getting rid of it and not having to move it again. i guess he forgot how cheap i am. before we ditched it i wanted to try refinishing it. here we go.

here is what i started with.




yucky yellow/orange finish.


after sanding for a bit i decided to head to home depot for a consult (in hopes that there was a way around all the sanding). this is where i met Dave. my paint guy. he gave me the bad news gently. i either had to use a primer, which would mess up my desired end result, or sand the whole thing. my arm is tired.

and this is only the bottom half.





on to painting. oh, wait. i forgot to take any pictures of that. maybe it was my haste in trying to paint while em either didn't notice or wasn't around. sorry. i ended up using a black oil based paint used on boats.

so.. here is what i ended up with

in the end i sanded the whole thing twice. i didn't like it at first. i was hoping to only sand a bit but once i sanded an area you could really tell unless i sanded the whole thing once over after painting. this made it look a bit more distressed then i intended but within a few days a liked it. anything way better then before though.




the lighting sucks in my house




a lot of work but at least we like it now. plus it kept me busy which is always good. now to get a table we like.

Isa's Birthdays

As usual Isa had multiple birthday "things" this year. i think i made 3 separate birthday desserts and that was only by the time she got to the family party she opted for ice cream. i wont go into how old i feel on this birthday. but i do.
before we do the party pictures i want to show you why i feel old.






I'm just saying. anyway here we go.

school birthday! as i said in my previous post. Isa requested these.



they were a huge hit and the kids loved them!! it made a HUGE mess in my kitchen though.


the next day was her friend party. she decided to take just a few friends roller skating instead of a huge party. (which was nice for me). i think she thought that since she had just discovered skating her friends had too. they however, were great skaters and i think it upset Isa a bit. she is still in the hold onto the edge and shuffle stage. after a few break downs i got her a little walker to push and she was much happier.

group shot


posing in the arcade


much happier with the walker


after skating we headed home for dinner and cake.


one very happy girl


josh and i intentionally did not blow up balloons because they get everywhere and it takes about a week to locate and pop them all. guess what the first thing the girls asked for was when they got into the house?




emmeline of course wanted to play too.


i think this picture accurately shows how difficult it is for someone one of her stature to carry 2 balloons.


isabella requested a blueberry cake with lemon icing for her cake this year. very yummy.


it is amazing how much noise 4 girls can make. very, giggly. isa loved her gifts. she got a motion sensor for her bedroom door, a new beach towel, and a bead pet kit. she has been playing with all of them non-stop. a good 8th birthday. did i mention that i feel old? i do.

oh, and i didn't even mention that snickerdoodles she asked for for girls scouts!

Better Off a Hermit

I don't like how emotions make me feel. pretty much every emotion leaves me feeling shaky and slightly nauseous. it's an overall unpleasant experience. so it seems to me that hermits have my dream life. some people want a big house, a nice car, and to be surrounded by friends.

me, not so much. i would love to be in a little shack in the woods where when i felt like i could handle an interaction with another human i could choose to come out. i mean, i haven't totally lost it (i think) so i know i would occasionally enjoy being around other humans. It's just that emotions are 100% overstimulating. my senses can only take so much before they start to shut down. i can fight the shut down for a while and even have about a 40% success rate in delaying it. then i feel shaky and nauseous.

it's like my body processes emotion and a stomach bug the same way. "what is this strange feeling? maybe it's just my imagination. nope, still there. well, maybe if i ignore it it will go away. nope still there. crap! i think i need to puke!"

so, i think it is safe to say that i would rather avoid them. my life doesn't seem to understand that though. or maybe it just doesn't care. either way i seem to end up feeling shaky and nauseous. i bet most people who have to interact with me do as well.

not very articulate i know. maybe i'll do better next time. anyway, i hope i'm not catching.

The Things I Do For This Face (a little more appetizing)

last year Isa wasn't in school on her birthday. she really missed being able to have a treat at school with her friends. this year her birthday falls on the last day of school so i was determined to do something. i set up a date and time with her teacher. then i made the mistake of asking her what she wanted me to bring. first she wanted three different kinds of cupcakes with three different icings. um, nope. i told her she had to pick one flavor. she was pretty disappointed and asked for some time to think about it. a few days later she told me what she wanted after having seen one of the cooking blogs i follow. Rainbow Donuts. i agreed. yes i am that cool. i think they turned out pretty good but since i am calorie restricting i haven't actually tasted one. i mean, come on, fried dough covered in sugar. they have to be good.



the leftovers. covered in sugar of course.


the close up artsy one

The Nastiness of You

GRAPHIC PROCEED WITH CAUTION!!!!!



Em has been playing pretend with here baby a lot. usually it is playing doctor. she listens to her with a stethoscope and pats her and or me on the leg and says "K". very cute. so when i saw this.



i thought "oh how cute she is changing her diaper." once i got the other side i saw she wasn't.

"oh, she's is feeding her."


"WAIT!!! what is she feeding her?!?!"


that's right. poo. out of and old diaper.


she was pretty upset that i stopped her. i however, was too grossed out to care!

The Monkey on My Back

This morning i felt like this guy was perched on my back.


josh and i got some bad news. i now it's going to kill my many readers but i'm not going to tell you what. lets just say it would be something really hard for us to deal with and leave it at that. we were/are pretty worried and miserable about it. as i was doing my best to stay busy so i wouldn't think about it a friend/therapist called. yes i call them my friends. they like me. so there.

anyway, i got some bad news about another friend/therapist. suddenly my gorilla felt more like this.


ok before anyone corrects me i realize that neither of these pictures are actually of monkeys. they just worked better to serve my point which is all anyone really cares about right?

sometimes i feel like i am being punished. that God has forsaken me. can't he see how hard my life is?! why would he do this to me if i hadn't done something horrible? ok, so maybe i am just a little self centered at times. i'm aloud to say that. you aren't ;)

the right answer is no. and yes. no, he has not forsaken me. yes he know how hard (I think) my life is. Then he shows me. what i think of as horrible is not so bad. It might not be much fun at the time or have a very good (visible) reason for it. sometimes it will just plain suck. sometimes in those moments of suck i get stuck. wallowing in what i think my life should be. in all the ways i think i have been short changed. then i look around and see examples of what my life COULD be. does that change what is happening to me and (my family). see i remember them sometimes! not really. it does help me be grateful that i feel like this is something that we can do. something that wont cripple us. i haven't felt like that in a while.

hello little lemur. nice to meet you.

HAIL!!!

a week or two ago Isa experienced her first hail storm. I loved these as a kid. One time in particular my mom let us hold pots and pans on our head so we could run around and catch our own hail. well, Isa wasn't so keep on being out there for that long but she did want to collect some to examine.

here is is making a run for hail. i was on the porch directing her to the larger pieces.


her bowl of collected hail. you can't really see in this picture but in real life you could see all the layers of ice that froze on the way down. i finally got to teach her something fun from my geography classes.


her biggest piece. that she could reach without "really" getting in the hail.

Spring Day!

yes this is super late but i FINALLY got a new monitor (mother's day gift) so i can post pictures that weren't taken with my cell phone again.

brief explanation. we didn't have Easter when i was a kid. don't get me wrong we celebrated the religious holiday we just didn't have an "Easter bunny". instead we had the spring day bunny. he would usually come on the Saturday closest to the first day of spring (i think) and bring treats and spring time stuff like seeds and gardening tools. not my favorite part but now i can respect it. anyway, josh and i carry on this tradition with our kids. minus the seeds part. hey, we don't have a yard or anything. maybe one day. we also had an egg hunt. so here are our pictures from spring day 2011.

Isa's basket/pile


Em's basket/pile and my very messy dining room/kitchen. don't judge.



the hunt (once again kind of lame without a yard but we manage)



em put herself in charge of the basket.



Isa was really good about helping em find eggs too


other then Isa this monkey is em's best friend. i got it for her when she was about 9 months old. she "talks" to him all day and even hugs and kisses him.


just so cute...and old :(



Isa had been asking for this since a month before it came out. i had it 2 days after it came out and then had to keep it hidden in my closet for 3 weeks! it was excruciating. i had hidden it behind the place mat thinking she would then find it last. nope she found it second. right after the place mat. p.s. so after i read the post through with the picture i realized you can't see the front. it's tangled.

Happy Like a Hipster

you have to admit, hipsters seem happy. well, happier then i am. generally. they seem so young and vibrant. it makes me feel old and stale. did i ever look like them? all posed and glowing at some hip party? probably not. should i just face that i have allowed my anxiety to completely cripple my entire life? i would like to think i used to be quirky enough that i could have been one of these girls if i hadn't let my fear consume me.
maybe not. it seems like everyone at my age seems to be exceptional at something. they have some special skill they love and have spent years nurturing. something that puts a smile like this on their face. i am pretty much mediocre at everything. passable but not exceptional. it makes me blend with everyone and everything. there was a time where that is what i thought would be best. if i blended i would never feel embarrassed/anxious. now i am alone. alone and anxious. completely blended and unexceptional. i can't say i am surprised. i even overlook myself. i used to think this was a good motherly skill. you know, putting your kids needs before your own. i didn't balance myself well. so now i am even mediocre at mothering. blended and unexceptional.
see! a hipster wouldn't be thinking these things!! they would be thrilled with their outfit, friends and surroundings in general. they would have just finished with some crafty project or participated in some nonprofit help the less fortunate kind of thing in their cute outfit with said friends. sounds happy to me. what did i just do? made dinner, put one kid in front of the tv while i yelled directions at the other and finally zoned out on the computer. mediocre at best. i passed the mark.

i wish i was happy like a hipster.

my own rapunzel

Isabella is the worst hair person ever! if she even sees a hair brush come near her she bursts into tears and makes the most annoying noises. she told me a few months ago that she was going to grow her hair down to her butt (thanks quentin). i cringed and hoped it was just a phase. well, after having lice 5 times this year in her class she had had enough of getting her hair brushed. plus i got her Tangled for Spring Day. she came to me last weekend and said she wanted me to give her the haircut Rapunzel has after her hair gets cut near the end of the movie. i can do some hair cuts, but not that. my skills are limited to straight cuts and a little blending. i gave my fiend holly a call and got isabella an appointment. i was a little sad since this would be isa's first hair cut by someone other then me. :( i figured it was better to do that then have me butcher the poor girls hair. she couldn't wait until her appointment to have the length off though so i went ahead and did that. i had to get new hair scissors because isabella's hair is SUPER think and i didn't trust my old scissors.

so here she is pre hair cut. pretty cute if i say so myself.



here is what she wanted



here is what she got. she really loves it and i must say i do too. we left off the shorter layers by rapunzel's face because i knew they would not stay out of isa's face at all. she didn't notice they weren't there. once again it's a cell phone pic. sorry. it really is very close to the real thing. i even got her a cute girly hair straightener to style it.

A Champion :)

so emmeline takes therapeutic riding lessons at Spirit Horse. It is a non-profit riding center that provides FREE riding lessons for disabled kids. Emmeline loves it!!! she has done really well there and is best friends with her horse Eeyore. our biggest challenge so far is her sensory issue. she really doesn't want to touch Eeyore with both of her hands at one time. this is a problem because we want her to do something called two point. she needs to be able to do this to trot which is really good for muscle strengthening. anyway, we have been working on this for quite a while and normally when we do, she shuts down and wants off the horse. well, today SHE DID IT!!!!! several times!! we are very excited! as we were leaving we saw the owner and he made sure she got this cute ribbon!! she has been wearing it every where and chatting with everyone about it!!


admiring her ribbon.




So happy!

205 and 33

so this is the 205 lifetime post for this blog and the 33 this year. 33 is an all time high for me! i am really trying harder to be good about updating my blog. usually what happens about now is that i start to think that no one really wants to hear about my life. usually because it is to boring but now days i think it has more to do with the downer level. i will do my best to do the occasional fun/light post. Even better i will try to mean it.

i have been wondering what i was going to do for this post for several weeks. it seems like it should be something important. i got nothing. well, nothing new important.

i felt like i was going crazy waiting for emmeline's testing to be done earlier this week. really, really crazy. i think i can say it was probably a new low for me. really, really low. another mother of a child with special needs was trying to console me through the whole thing and said something i was totally feeling. mom's who have medically complicated children usually suffer from post traumatic stress disorder. that is totally what i feel like. so even though things are going well and she passed her test i am still "damaged" from it. i will carry that damage forever. even when it heals there will still be that scar. hopefully it will be enough of reminder next time that i made it through this time to give me a boost. i joke with my friends that say "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger". my response is "yeah or it cripples you forever!"

anyway, i was trying to distract myself. so...i started a sewing project. better yet, i actually finished it!
i got the pattern here. i happened to stumble onto is blog with the random blog button in yet another effort to stay busy.

I just want to say i am totally disgusted with the picture quality here. i hate dealing with the camera and mac non-compatibility so i had to take pictures with my cell and email them to myself. lame.




here is some detail of the face. you can't see very well but each of the pieces were sewn together then to the next biggest piece and so on. and then all the way around the edges. it took a long time.


my finger is super sore and my back was killing me from sitting in a hard chair for so long but i love the results! they are a little big on them still but i would rather to big then to small. the reason my finger still hurts is that i i sewed EVERYTHING by hand. the pattern did not call for that but i was having trouble with the stitch tension on my sewing machine and i didn't want to have to keep puling out stitches. i think i damaged the nerves in the tip of my finger.

i quickly discovered that my mind could still do other things while i sewed stitch after stitch. so...i listened to conference talks. FINALLY. i find even if i turn on conference i don't really get much out of it with the girls around. this was way easier. plus i didn't have to listen to (let's be honest) the boring stuff. anyway, i thought there were quite a few great talks. plus i can enjoy anything by President Eyring :)

i also cleaned. ALOT. i don't think my house has ever been so clean. i was even folding the laundry before it was knee deep in my room. pretty much anything to keep my busy. busy is good. i pretty much enjoy any type of cleaning. except the dishes. that was always the worst job growing up and i still feel that way. no one wants to do the dishes.

i guess this isn't the most exciting 205 and 33 post. my life isn't very glamorous right now. well, not in the way anyone would want to see. i think i built it up to much in my head. i probably do that too much anyway. oh well, a new week with new tests is on it's way.

i think i need to start another sewing project.

14 Good Years

i was rushed when i went couponing yesterday morning. Em had therapy at 9am and i knew if i waited until after therapy i would only be able to fit in walgreens or target instead of both. well, walgreens was out of several of the items i wanted to i was going to get some rainchecks. due to some unforeseen overage i ended up taking longer then expected and in my haste i forgot my rainchecks. no big deal i thought. i will just run by after i get isa from school and pick them up and that is exactly what i did.
as i was standing at the counter chatting with one of my favorite cashiers a patron came over and said
"i'm sorry to interrupt but a white car outside slipped out of gear and rolled into another car. the Nissan is white. the cashier's car is white. we both ran outside to see who it was. i was the winner. or rather the loser. my car was across the parking lot half on a bush and half on...the manager's car.
this may sound bad but i automatically felt better. at least it was someone i knew and that knew me. yes i know pretty much every employee at walgreens. some i like better then others. this one is nice. i am just glad i have always behaved when having to deal with managers and that i brought them those cookies at christmas. my immediate fear in an accident is that the person will try and screw me over.
i just have to say that i really like the employees at the walgreen on Loop 288 in Denton. as i was going back and forth outside and inside they swooped in and took care of the girls for me. at one point i came in and found emmeline cuddled up on the cashiers shoulder while she rang a customer up. SUPER nice. another perk is we have the same insurance companies. that "should" make things go a little smoother.
i just hate dealing with accidents. so much red tape and phone calls, repeating what happened to around 10 different people. i think they are just trying to trip you up. that is where i am hoping the same insurance will come in handy. either way they have to pay.
the big perk is that there were no people in car. i am go grateful and no one was hurt in our cars or while having to avoid my rolling car.
my last accident was 14 years ago. i fell asleep on the way to work after school and rear ended someone. luckily no one was really hurt then either. which was amazing because my car didn't have an airbag and the other car's seat belts failed. hopefully this isn't increasing my chances statistically that i will be in an accident where someone actually does get hurt.

I Will Make It Through This Life, I Will Make It Through This Life...

Let me start by saying that if anyone says "this too shall pass" I will turn you into a bug, and put you in a box, then i'll put that box in another box, then i'll mail that box to myself and SMASH IT WITH A HAMMER!!!! OK let's get on with it.

em wont swallow anything. When i say anything i mean not even her spit. Over that last two weeks i have watched my little villain deteriorate before my very eyes. At first i thought she was just being stubborn. she is after all very good at that. but as she got worse day by day the fear set in. something is wrong. better yet, something is wrong and no body knows what. as a parent this is unacceptable to me. i have only been in this situation once before. I personally believe someone shouldn't have to go through this more then once in a life time. i felt like it aged me like ten years. so, after this one i guess i will look closer to 50.

So, since they have no idea what it is, we have a whole set of tests to do. Swallow study next tuesday (this one scares me the most), then an MRI, then our #10 specialist Nephrology. After that i figure they will ask for a scope of her throat. Not sure why they aren't doing that now. I seriously should get a medical degree for all this. we also did a blood draw yesterday for food allergies. The reason we have a #10 is because she still has Acidosis. Once again, no one knows why.

i am really not good at waiting. i mean really, really not good. let's hope for Em's sake that my lack wont keep her sick. i am a girl that needs a plan. i am good at following plans. we're friends.

on an upside, which also has the doctors scratching their heads, Em is talking a TON. real words and everything!

my patriotic cutie

so way back before spring break isa was asked to say the pledge of allegiance at the denton isd school board meeting. she was very excited about it. 10 students out of her whole school were chosen so she felt pretty special. she was very particular about her out fit. aunt terra sent her a little yellow jacket that she wears every chance she gets. in fact she is wearing it today. i have to hide it or she tries to put it on everyday.

luckily emmeline was pretty well behaved for us. we only had to stay until right after the pledge and then we all ducked out. good thing. i heard that meeting was around 5 hours.

em got a little excited and was all over josh.




so cute. i love the red shoes!


she was really sweet and wanted em in the picture with her.

The Newest Adventure

Ketoadicosis. That is what my 2 year old had. add VERY dehydrated and we had a BIG problem. one urine cath and 2 blood draws later she seems to be stable. we are waiting to hear back from her cardiologist to move further. The GREAT news is she isn't diabetic! there wasn't a huge chance of her having it but i have learned she likes to play the odds. thankfully she has started eating a bit again. she had gone 4 days with no food!!! needless to say i was a wreck.

the part about this whole ordeal that stresses me the most is the fact that she has lost a pound. which means we are 1.5 pounds behind our goal for her to gain enough wait to repair her ASD by catheter this fall. so... the surgery is pretty much out of the question. unless her surgeon decides that if we are close then they can do it. i'm not holding me breath. well, not for that.

even though this week has been rough at least it was rough at home and not the hospital. thank goodness for the g-tube. it worked great as an at home IV.

i have been reading random people's blogs lately and i found one written by a mom who has a child with alot of medical issues. something she said made me chuckle in agreement.

"My child will probably live to be 150 and i'll probably die young from an [emmeline] induced heart attack." so true.