Blood Shot

The stomach flu has spread through our family over the last two weeks.  Everyone has had some sort of this flu except me and Jursey...and I plan to keep it that way.
Jay had it the worst.  He threw up so hard that he broke blood vessels in both of his eyes.  Poor guy!  The worst part was, he was home sick with all 5 kids by himself while I was running errands...he truely must know how a stay at home sick mother must feel.

The funnest part of this story is that Jay wanted me to post this picture and story about him on our blog and I accidentally posted it on my Thoughts in Vinyl blog...OOPS!  Oh, well...I am sure all my customers know I have a family and that we can get sick.  It just wasn't the picture I would like to have them see of my husband or the image I would like a stranger to associate with my crafts! 

Happy 10th Baby!

Today is our 10 year anniversary.  It is amazing how fast the  years have gone and all the things we have done and places we have lived.  Probably shouldn't say places...but houses  (we have built and sold several homes, but all but 1 have been in the same area).

For Jay's present I had a great idea several weeks ago to make him a book (from http://www.blurb.com/) and fill it with 10 reasons why I love him.  I spent several hours working on it and loved every minute of it.  I was so excited to get it and new that when I gave it to him I wanted the kids to be in bed, so they wouldn't attack him trying to see the book too.  Well, I got it last Friday and that night we stayed up late talking in bed and I decided it was the perfect time to give him his present...and it worked out great because we got to show it to our families on Sunday when they came over for lunch after Jursey's baby blessing.

He loved it and was surprised that I did something that thoughtful.  I always have good intentions, but I never seem to get them all pulled together.  So I was excited that I thought of this well enough in advance and was able to find the time to get it all done.

That is a picture of the book, it looks perfect sitting in our entertainment center.  We all love looking through the pages at all the fun pictures and stories and reading about the 10 reasons why I love my hubby.

Last night Jay and I were both in the office working at our computers and he got up and left the room.  I heard him say to Bridger "go give this to mom".  Bridger came in the office and handed me and envelope with this inside

It was a check from Jay with a hand written note on it.  He is so sweet.  Then I noticed what he had typed on the check before he printed it...

It says

"Happy Anniversary!!!!  Buy yourself a new bra"

I have been saying for a good year or more that I need a new bra, so I think he was saying it in a kind way...

Now I just need to let him in on the fact that I don't want to take 5 kids bra shopping.

I could just picture the look on Bridger's face if I took him in Victoria's Secret! 

Last night I used some of my bra $$ and we went out for dinner.  It was a quick date, but very nice to be able to visit with each other without competing for a chance to talk (Bridger loves to ask questions while Jay and I are in the middle of a conversation....I remember doing that to my parents too...sorry Mom and Dad)

Bed Time

We love summer at our house.

Generally at bed time we can be found in the back yard doing things like this

and this

and posing for a cute picture like this

or this

{I love how Emy is looking up at her daddy...so cute!!}

or we can be found helping Daddy screw in some screws on the back steps 

{did you notice his awesome tan lines...nope those aren't socks!}

I love summer nights and I am already getting bummed out that school is going to start this month. 

What are we going to do when we have to start enforcing bed time again?

Honey Do List

Jay is such a great helper.  He really will do just about anything {including occassionaly cleaning the toilets}.  He is so wonderful and I love all his help and I love working with him doing different projects.  He really is my best friend and I want to be with him all the time.

The other day we were planting some flowers and I got a crazy idea that I needed a rock moved in our flower bed.  It is a big rock too.  Jay picked up the rock and moved it back closer to the house and stood it upright like I wanted.   In the picture you can get an idea of how big the rock is and where it was at before he moved it.

Well in the process of moving the rock, he managed to mash his finger between the brick on the house and the big massive rock that his wife {me} thought needed moved back about 2 feet.

His finger now looks like this:

He mashed it so bad that it blew the blood out the backside of his finger.  Now (several days later) his finger tip -- not just his finger nail -- is black and blue down to his fist nuckel.

He agrees with me that the rock does look better where he moved it though...but I don't know if he thinks it is worth it quite yet.  I will have to ask that after his finger nail has grown back and he has forgotten about the constant pain in his hand.

Love you honey!  Thanks again for your help!!

Right vs. White

This morning Bridger and Macie were arguing over if Paisley could eat a cookie.  Bridger was saying it was too big and Macie was saying it would be just fine to give it to her.  Bridger was standing by me and said that it was too big, and don't give it too her, and then I tapped Bridger and said, "you are right".  So he yelled out to Macie, "Mom said don't give it too her, and I'm white". 

I just giggled, and said, "no, you are right" and he said (as he is touching the skin on his arm) "I am too white"

Funny kids!  They make me smile every day.

The other day while Emy and Macie were taking a bath, I asked them what color their hands were.  They held them out and said brown.  I asked them what color my hands were and they both said peach.  Then I told them to turn their hands over (palm side up) and tell me what color they are.  As they were turning them over they both yelled out brown, and I said nope, look again.  Emy got the cutest look on her face and said, "they are peach just like yours!"  Then I showed them the bottoms of their feet, and that they are like mine too.  Emy has been facinated by this ever since.  I catch her looking at her hands and turning them over and over, with a cute little smile on her face...like she is magic! 

Priceless!

On another good note, as you can tell by the picture, my sweet little Emy is potty trained!!!  Yeah!    She has been for about 5 weeks, it is so nice!   But before too long I will have two in diapers again, I will enjoy it until then though.

And these are my other two loves...

Jay Enlarged

So tonight as we were cleaning up dinner we decided to play the quiet game. Jay was unloading the dishwasher and inserted some glasses under his shirt, and then turned around to

the kids and said "Quiet game staaaaarrrrtttting (as he was turning around) NOW!!" Needless to say he won. Bridger got a side ache from laughing so hard and I couldn't breathe. It was pretty funny! Then all the kids had to give it a try.

                                  

Macie is trying to steal Bridgers cups and he is pushing her away.

Emy couldn't quite figure out how to have them stay in place.

And Macie, well she didn't have any thing on but her underware {are you surprised!}. I promise I do get my kids dressed every day and most days I get them redressed several times throughout the day.  So she just had to make do with out a shirt.

If you haven't  read "200 Mississippi", then you should read it.  Jay is such a kid...and sometimes he is maybe a little more of a teenager.  He keeps us laughing!  He is so funny, to bad some times he has to act all grown up and be serious.  {but I am thankful for the serious times too!}

200 mississippi

 

I am glad that I married a man who will always be a kid at heart. Tonight as I was getting ready for bed, Jay was in the bath tub holding a straw. I asked him if he had been drinking his bath water, and he said, "no, but I can breath under water for four minutes". He said it so matter of factly it made me laugh. I told him I didn't believe him, so he did it again and I ran for the camera. He got to about 200 mississippi!!

 

...and we named it Jay Jr.

Poor Jay woke me up in the middle of the night saying he thought he had another kidney stone. He got up to go soak in the tub, after a while he felt good enough to lie down and eventually fell asleep, so we thought he had passed it. He woke up around 6 am in more pain and went for another soak in the bath tub. I felt so bad because there wasn't anything I could do to help him, so I just got the kids all ready and headed off to church. I came home to check on him between classes and he was still in pain but thought he might need to take a bath room break soon. Then I was back to church in case I was needed by one of the kids (potty break, diaper changes...the usual).
When we got home from church Jay brought me a little baggie with a surprise inside. He had passed his kidney stone!! All his other kidney stones had been so small he never even saw it.
You know how women always compare their newborns weight with the next newest mother, or how fishermen say the fish I caught was "this big"--holding up their arms as wide as they will go. Well I think Jay earned the bragging rights with his kidney stone. Everything we have read say that the stones are about the size of a grain of sand, and if they get much bigger, then they have to be surgically remove because they can't pass on their own.

Jay's kidney stone is on the left, the grain of sand is on the right.


We named it Jay Jr....if only we were so lucky to get another baby from all the pain he has gone through, then he might think it was worth it, as most new mothers do! They say passing a kidney stone is comparable pain to having a baby.

Sympathy Pains

I have had two pregnancy's and Jay has had two kidney stones.
Jay came home from work today and went straight to the bath tub for a long soak. I kept calling out his name and couldn't figure out why he wasn't answering and I found him in the tub. He looked miserable. He was in so much pain and thought he had another kidney stone. I got him some of my leftover Ibuprofen from when Paisley was born and gave him a big glass of water, then all I could do was just sit back and watch him. It was awful. He couldn't sit, or stand, or lay down. Nothing would relieve the pain. I kept reading on the Internet about kidney stones and I called the doctor and they pretty much everything we found advised us to go to the ER if the pain was unbearable.
Jay had passed a kidney stone several years ago. He was in a bunch of pain and had no clue what it was and his brother took him to the ER during work and they asked for a urine sample and he passed it then. Almost instant relief and a $1500 bill (they wanted to do a MRI to make sure he didn't have any other stones...and he didn't). Well we didn't want a repeat of that very expensive bath room break, so we debated for a long time about going to the hospital, and finally he couldn't stand it any more and said we needed to go. I got all the kids in the car and drove him to the ER. It was packed in the waiting room, so he decided to go for a free bathroom break. He went and no relief, then the kids needed to go to the bath room. I offered to take them, but he said he would, so off they went. When he came back he seemed a little bit better, and as the minutes passed he kept feeling better and better. We decided that he must have passed the kidney stone. I made the comment that we had both went through the pain of bearing two kids a piece and he decided that he was done having kids. I announced that I wasn't and he said that if he had to have more "kids" he wanted and epidural next time....I don't blame him!
He always seems to pass a kidney stone within a couple months of me having a baby, I think it is sympathy pains. We are glad to have him back to normal.