Best quote(s) of the week:

Scenario:  Max and I were talking about something, I don't even remember what,  that occurred when he was little.

Sarah:  "How old was I?"

Max:  "Sarah, you weren't born yet.  You were a puzzle in heaven that God was putting together."


What a perfect explanation.  That kid amazes me with the way he thinks.



Scenario:  It's 4am and I have 2 girls in my bed.   Leah wet the bed around midnight.  I stripped her sheets but was too lazy to make the bed so I brought her in bed with me.  Sarah came in some time after that and was like a raging inferno.  She had a high fever, was restless, hungry and not ready to go back to sleep.  I gave her some medicine and stripped off her jammies. She rolls over and says:

"You are the best mommy ever."  And then she kisses my hand.

It doesn't get any better than that.  Period.



Scenario:  The kids are playing in the family room.  Max has just learned to make fart like noises using his hands and armpits and hand and knees.

Max:  "Mom!  Leah can do knee farts.  Those are the hardest body farts to  make!"

Max and Mom Date

Thursday night was a mom and son event sponsored by Max's school.  The last time Max and I went on a "date" he made a big deal about me not calling it a "date" which made me say "date" louder and more frequently and the I made a deliberate  attempts at holding his hand and kissing him.  You know, all the stuff that mom's can do that will embarrass their kids?  That's what I did.  So on the way to Craig's Cruiser, our date night destination, I told Max that I was so excited and had been looking forward to our "date" all day.   I expected to hear "Moooommmmm!"  But what I got was, "Me too, mom.  I've couldn't stop thinking about it all day at school."  Wooohooo!  He still wants his mom!

We had the best time.  I lost track how many times he told me he was having fun.  We raced the go-carts.  He won.  We drove the bumper boats.  I got soaked.  We hit balls in the batting cage.  I still got it.  And we wasted money played in the arcade.  I'm so thankful that his school encourages events like this.  I've had good intentions of scheduling date nights with the kids, Rob with each of the girls and me with Max but we just never go in the routine of it.  But after this I told Rob we are definitely going to do it.  It's definitely a memory maker!

Me and my date

Getting squirted

How can I forget to mention we fed the fish?  It's what nightmares are made of.

Five 6 months left.

What?  That doesn't make any sense.  Five 6 months?  Well if you see it the way I intended you would think of it as 5 blocks of 6 months time.  Huh?  Let me explain.  It has been 6 months today since I was fired from the hospital.  The time has passed so quickly.  No slowly.  Well, a little of both.  It was the quickest passing of slow time ever.  The fact that it had been 6 months got me thinking.  How many more 6 month blocks of time  do I have with my kids before all of them are in school full time.  Well, thanks to Siri, the answer is just over 4.  It probably makes more sense to say that I have 28.71 months, or 2 years 4 months and 22 days, or 28 months 22 days, or 124 weeks 6 days.  Or let's just break it down to days-  874 days left with my kids before a school teacher spends more time with them than I do.  Looking at it that way seems like I have all this time in the world left to mold and shape them.  But when I think back to how fast the past 6 months have gone and that I now have just 4 more 6 months left with them it kind of makes me sad.  I won't get that time back with them.  Ever.  Max is already too grown up and cool for me to walk him to his class room.  The girls are pretty much as self sufficient as any 3 and 4 year old can be.  So, for the next 844 days (I subtracted a few because I KNOW there are days when I look at them as think "whose kids are you?" and wish they were in school all day with some wonderful, underpaid teacher dealing with them) I will treasure every hug, kiss, whispered secret, and minute of time I have left with them.   I wish that I had had the courage to quit my job instead of getting fired but getting fired has been the best blessing ever.

There are days that I miss my "ED Nurse" identity.  I loved the thrill and the stigma attached with being an ED nurse.  Well, I'm still doing my nursing duty.  I look at it this way:   I apply a lot of bandaids and kiss many a boo-boo to three kids that think every injury is an emergency.   One day... maybe... I'll step back into an Emergency Room (as a nurse, not patient, God willing) and grab that thrill but for now, I'll enjoy the more mundane scrapes and bruises because I love these patients best.

It doesn't get better than this

It doesn't get better than this. What an absolutely beautiful day!

Gettin' dirty

Epic Fail

It is 83 degrees and sunny outside.  Absolutely a perfect day. A day that we have been waiting for all winter and this very long spring.  And in my books it's been an epic failure.  How can I manage to ruin this day?  First off, I'm am not going to win any mother of the year awards for the way I've handled any part of today.  I started they day off lounging around.  Max was questionably sick this morning so I kept him home from school.  When it became obvious that he wasn't sick I decided to run errands.  The kids were crabby.  I've learned not to ask their opinions on anything.  They can never agree and most of the time purposefully disagree with each other.  Then I become the bad person because I have to choose and make the ultimate decision which usually makes  some one sad or mad.  We went out to lunch and to the store to grab stuff for dinner.  All I heard was, "Can I have this?"  "Why not?"  "Just this?"  No, No, and NO!  Never once did I hear a thank you.  The kids were bickering with each other and someone was always crying.  I bought a bike at a garage sale for Leah and she furrowed her brows and very gruffly said, "I'm NOT going to ride it."  Seriously?  So we get home and I'm on the verge.  On the verge of what I'm not sure but I was certainly on the verge.  I told the kids they need to stay outside and play.  More tears.  "But there are bee's out there and you know I don't like bees."  WHERE HAVE I GONE WRONG?  How have I managed to raise kids that feel so entitled?  Am I really going to have to lock them outside?   I feel like I'm losing every battle with them lately.  Right now they are in their rooms "playing."  I think they are too scared to come out!  :-)  After I got home I sat down and thought, "I need advise."  "Who should I call?"  "Who can I vent to?"  And then I thought to myself, "You can rant and rave to anyone you want but until you bring this before God nothing is going to change."  It's the first thing I think I did right today.  I am very quick to give God thanks but not so quick to bring my everyday issues before him.  Most likely because I have a patience problem and want answers NOW.  So, now that I'm done ranting and raving... I'm gonna ask for a little bit of help.

Our Girls!

Yes!  We have chickens.   Fifteen to be exact!  The picture above was taken a couple nights ago when we brought them out for their first taste of the great outdoors .  Until then they were in the basement in a kiddie pool with a heat lamp.  They didn't know what to think at first but it didn't take long for them to adjust and start pecking around.  While I tended to the girls Rob moved their kiddie pool to their new temporary home in the old egg cooler.  After a few weeks there they get to move to their permanent home in the big red barn!

Rob sectioned off part of the barn for the chickens.

The girls will have access to the yard from the window.

This is how tiny they were when we got them just 2 weeks ago.

The Brink Chicks in their new home.

The girls are starting to get their feathers and honestly, aren't quite as cute as they were when we brought them home.  But we are starting to see personality in them though.  When they hear us open the door they strain their little necks to look at us.  They are getting more comfortable with being handled.  The Bard Rocks and the RI Reds are the most social.  The Isa Browns would rather we just leave them be.  Max picked out a chick for himself that was a different breed.  Because there is only one of this breed she stands out.  Her name is Hunter.  :-)

Hunter

Max and Hunter

"It sure is a beautiful day!"

Rain, rain go away.  Come again another day!  Another day a long time for now.  We have had enough!

Today, after church, Rob suggested we take a drive on this beautiful sunny day to Grand Rapids to check out the flooding.  Our plan was to go to Yesterdog for lunch and then check out the flooding of the Grand River.  Nothing extravagent, just a low key family day.  When we told the kids our plan you would have thought we were going to an amusement park.  They were so excited!  The skies were blue.  The sun was shining.  It was a beautiful day!  Sarah talked and talked about "the beautiful sunny day."  "It sure is sunny out, isn't it momma?"  Over and over again.  I think the kids were sick of the rain and had a little cabin fever.

The kids playing in our "pond" after all the rain.

On the Blue Bridge in GR.

From the Blue Bridge.

Spring Break- Shipse Style

For the past 3 years, I think, we have taken the kids to a water park.  Not like a Great Wolf Lodge watermark, just a small one near by that has a little kiddie pool and kiddie slides.  Nothing too fancy.  This year we bumped it up a notch-  still not Great Wolfe Lodge- but definitely bigger and more entertaining for our growing children.  We shared a suite with the A's and the E family was one floor down.  We had a lot of kids.  Thankfully for them, but more for us, they are all close in age and play really well together.  Here are a few of my favorite pictures from this weekend!

Fortunately we had more of these moments....

And less of these!

Till I see you again, Dad.

Duane Scott H.  Oct. 1, 1944- Feb. 17, 2013

While I can't say that it was totally unexpected, it certainly happened faster than I thought it would.   Dad loved to travel and on February 17 he made his final trip... to heaven.   The three weeks prior to his death he had not been well.  He had a seizure one night and never really returned back to his baseline.  Prior to that though, he had been maintaining... no ups, no down.   It was hard to say goodbye but it was reassuring to know that he was whole again, physically, mentally, and spiritually.  Being with him as he took his last breath will forever be etched in my mind.  Holding his hand as he left this earth, forever etched in my heart.  I did my best dad.  I hope you know that I did my best.  I'm sorry that this is how your life ended.  I'm so very sorry.

A cheesy, toothless grin.

Christmas 2012

(hee,hee, he was buried in these!)

Summer 2012

This night we were supposed to go to the Harley Store so dad could look at Harley's.  I borrowed Aunt Karen's van, alerted the nursing staff to have dad ready, commandeered extra help (named Rob) in effort to get Dad to the Harley store so he would stop bugging me!  I called the store on the way to pick up dad to see how late they were open... 6pm.  It was 5:45.  We weren't going to make it.  Dad was so disappointed.  In an effort to lift his spirits, we took him to his next favorite store... any one that sold ice cream.

 His service and burial was in West Virginia at Matics Funeral Home and then our family cemetery.

We gave the kids American flags to carry as a tribute to their grandpa.

Buried next to mom.  

This trip was emotional... I was saying goodbye to my last parent.  My grandparents have been long gone.  My mom died 31 years ago.  And now my dad.  I am parentless.  Kind of like an adult orphan.   I'm sad that I never had that parent-child relationship.  I want to have coffee with my dad; shop with my  mom;  call either one up when I just needed to talk.  I'm envious of those who have that and take it for granted.  It makes me even more determined to be all of that and more for my children.  Oh, enough of the sob story.

The trip to West Virginia wasn't all tears and sadness.  The kids and I really enjoyed visiting my old stomping grounds:  my old house, Aunt Nettie's old house, my old school, the restaurant where I had my first waitressing job, etc.  Not to mention catching up with friends and family!

Here the kids are in the gymnasium of my high school.  "We are the cardinals, the mighty, mighty cardinals.  Everywhere you go, people want to know, who we are so we tell them.  We are the cardinals..."

Sitting on the same bleachers I did so many years ago.

Oh, the memories.

Can you see the river in outside of the windows?

The former high school, then junior high school, now senior adult apartments and medical clinics.  The super mysterious 4th floor is still locked.  I've been in there once.  Only once.

Goodbye dad.  I promise when I see you in heaven I will still roll my eyes laugh at your jokes.