new things I like

Here is some recaps of our last couple of weeks. My kids started school on August 21st. Isabella started a new school and so far as adjusted well. Isabella started 4th grade this year! Here she is with her little friend Whitney who started 5th grade.

Jack is in the 2nd grade now. I love his new teacher Ms. Hughes. She seems like a really great match for Jack and his personality.

And William...ahhhh...the new kindergartner this year! He loves this school stuff. He has been waiting for years to follow his siblings off to school. On the first day of school he prayed at breakfast...."Thank you Lord I can go to school today!"

Taken that first morning of school. I'm so thankful for all 3 of my children's teachers this year. Each has such a great heart for kids and seems like such great matches for them. What a crazy thing to come home to Donovan and Suzy...waiting for me...and then Donovan off to work and just me and Suzy. Suzy and I almost didn't know what to do with ourselves just me and her that first day of school. Just kidding! Something new I love...just us 2. After we put the wash on the line that morning we went on a walk around the lake. Just us 2! Amazingly enough I don't think I've ever taken her on a walk just by herself! Suzy sang the whole way on our walk, it was so sweet. I think with this move to our cabin...she has been needing a little extra and now I can give her the one on one she's been needing.
And finally home from school. Poor Jack was in tears by the time he got off the bus! He was afraid that the bus driver didn't know where we lived, because it took so long on that first day. Jack and William were on the bus for almost an hour. And since we moved he didn't know our new address to tell her. Now the bus ride takes about 25 minutes.

Also over the last couple of weeks we've met some pretty sweet new little babies...

My friend Brooke had a little baby boy, Jaxon. Love this little pumpkin.

So does Suzy....Jaxon was 5 1/2 weeks early. Such a sweet little boy.


We also got to meet another new baby, a little girl.....

Luca Bella...sweet sweet blue eyes. I love how she has her hand on her chin...trying to figure me out.

Luca is my friend Sherri's little girl. It was so fun to see Luca and her big sister Kaiya last week.

Also here is a quick pic of the new project brewing.....

Things are moving along...more pictures to upload but it will have to come another night. It's been fun to check up on the building site evenings and see what works been done for the day.

Quote of the day...
today from Suzy
"Mom, I love being here with you."
melt. melt. melt.

home sweet home

Amazing! The change that has happened in our family over the last 2 weeks. For starters we moved 2 1/2 weeks ago. One day after we moved we closed on our house, and the next day bought the land we will build our new house on. The day after that we started the process of clearing our land. With help from friends and family we estimated we cut over 250-300 trees. Ranging from 2-16 in diameter. Some friends taking the wood for fire and burning the rest. Ten days later 3 of my 4 kids went to school. Leaving me at home with one little Suzy. The first time in all of my mom career that I have had one 3 year old all alone.

And just yesterday we got our Internet finally!!! It's been a little busy to blog, but I've missed you friends. So here's a look of our rental while we build....

A look into our bedroom....Suzy fast asleep. The shelving we used to use in our laundry room...now serve as a closet very well. There is one small closet in the room that I use for some of my hang up clothes.

There's not exactly room for our night stands...so I'm happy the exposed wood beams can help me out with shelving.

In our living room a book shelf from our basement serves as a linen closet just perfect.

Here is one view of the kitchen.

Here is a look into our living room, the office desk is on the right.

In the kitchen I have a set of shelves I got from my friend Kim's garage sale that serves as a pantry.

This is the west wall of our living room. Three closets, Donovan uses one for his clothes, the 2nd closet is cookbooks, my bill paying binders, church backpack, and other misc . The 3rd closet looks like this in the inside......

Each child has a shelf. And the bottom of the closet is our shoe crisis we've always had. I need to work on that....but not today. The striped containers used to be in my laundry room, and now work well as a sock/underwear container for each child.

The end of that wall used to be just open. Donovan built 2 rods into that space and strung a wire that I clipped a curtain onto. To be closed when we don't need to see it. It works for the kids hang up clothes very well.

Here's a look of the ladder that Donovan built going up to a loft, the wood he got from his brothers barn...so free! He also built railing that will later be taken off and turned into canning shelves in our new home. The first door is our bathroom, the second door is our bedroom. The door on the very right is the front door to the the porch.

Here is a look into the loft. Never used as a loft...but working well for us. The carpet was a remnant that we got free from a local flooring shop. :)

A view looking down from the loft.

We love our new little cabin. There is a downstairs....that if you go outside you can get to. So it does not work for us to use that as bedrooms because of the age of our kids. This rental is usually used as a duplex. But it works well as a 2nd living room to store our furniture, an office for Donovan and storage. It is so nice to have a place to store things. But there's LOTS of things that are still needed to be stored and that is snug in Donovan's parents house and our previous neighbor's basement. Still other garage junk being stored in brother Jon's barn. We are hoping to complete our building project by the end of December but may take until February. So thankful for this place we call home right now. Thank you to Al and Donna for renting it to us, with no paperwork, commitment of how long we have to be here, etc. And by the way this rental is for sale, if your in need of a little cabin. But the agreement the owners have is that you have to rent to us until we've completed our building project. :)

Yesterday the basement was dug, and the footer is going in this morning. Things are moving right along, and we are totally excited!! It is such a blessing to be able to do this. More pictures to come tomorrow.

2 quotes of the day:

(see what you get when I skip blogging....2 for the price of one)
From Jack the other night....
"mom, this cabin is SO cool you can sit at the table eating and see the T.V. if it was on."

From Suzy....

Suzy: "Mom, do I put my dishes in the dishwasher?" (while putting them in the sink.)

Me: "Suzy that is called a sink not a dishwasher...Mommy is the dishwasher now."

jack

Monday I took the kids swimming and met 2 friends at the pool. We had an awesome day at the pool and after we spent almost 5 hours swimming we came home and I put Suzy and William down for naps and Jack and I crashed on the couc h. (Isabella is at camp this week) Jack was not happy about laying down...so I thought I'd lay with him to calm him down a little. After about 15 minute s I feel asleep but awoke to Jack twitching and fidgeting. Not unusual for him. He wasn't happy about taking a nap in the first place. We were going to a birthday party that night, and I wanted him to rest up. I told him to knock it off or he could go down and lay in his bed. He still kept messing around, so I told him to go downstairs and lay in his bed to rest. I was half asleep. He got up and made his way to the kitchen to go down. I lay there and listened to what sounded like him throwing a fit on the stairway. Like a temper tantrum because he didn't want to go down. I laid there for about a minute listening to him and got up to find him on the floor in a seizure. He was unresponsive to me talking to him. He was laying on the floor unable to move his legs. He was trying to talk but made no sense. His arms were flopping on the floor. His eyes were roll ed back. I ran out to get Donovan who was mowing the lawn. Who came in and helped me move Jack to the couch. The seizure lasted about 3-4 minutes. We called 911, and the ambulance came. By the time the paramedics came Jack's seizure had ended. His eyes were fully dilated and he was confused and but could answer various questions correctly. Like do you know where you are, your name, how old are you? The paramedics recommended he be checked out by the hospital, so we had a neighbor come to stay with Suzy and William who were sleeping and we drove to hospital. They ra n tests on Jack along with a blood work up and urinalysis. Everything checked out normal. They said sometime kids who are over tired can have seizures and we would chalk this one up to exhaustion. We were to follow up with our pediatrician the next day. They also gave us instructions if he has another seizure to come back to the ER. So we were discharged and got home about 9:30. By the time we got the kids in the p.j.'s and to bed it was almost 11 p.m. Jack was exhausted (like the rest of us) and he fell asleep immediately in our bed. I went to take a bath and when I got out of the bath I h eard this moaning, I ran into our bedroom to find Jack in another seizure. This one was very different. Jack's arms were stiff and straight up in the air. His lower body still unable to move, he made a choking noise as if he couldn't breath. He was turning grey and his lips were turning blue. He kept looking up at the ceiling and could not talk to us. From when I got into my room and noticed the clock said 11:11. I timed his s eizure and it lasted 5 minutes. I felt so helpless, while I was holding Jack during this seizure it felt like he was dying. It was hard to tell if he was breathing, and he kept making such an awful noise as if he couldn't breath. William was still awake and scared. He saw everything. I didn't have time to explain what I didn't even understand myself. We called 911, called Donovan's parents, and the neighbor to stay with the kids until Donovan's parents could get here. The hospital admitted us, started an IV with medication ready and waiting if he would seize again. They took us up to the 3rd floor about 2 a.m. We slept as well as we could, I snuggled right next to my little sweet 7 year old in his hospital bed. He was hooked up to heart monitors, a pulse monitor and IV. I was thankful that the nurses could monitor him from their station, and we could sleep. Jack woke about 5 a.m. yesterday morning with no clue where he was or how he got another IV in his arm. I explained what he couldn't remember and he went back to sleep. We all slept until 8:30. Our pediatrician came to talk to us and recommended an MRI and EEG also was requesting Jack be seen by a Neurologist. Last night about 6:00 we talked to the Neurologist who evaluated Jack and gave us a game plan. He explained to us that some seizures are unexplainable in why they happen. Jack's seizures were not typical. And because he had 2 close together he recommended a medication that would prevent them from happening again. During both of Jack's seizures no harm was done to Jack or his brain. However seizures lasting for 20-30 minutes can cause permanent brain damage. So the nurse started the medication by IV last night and his 2nd dose orally this morning. He will be on this medication for 1-2 years. It will hopefully work to keep all seizures away. It's not a guarantee but this medication usually does take care of them. There are also several o ther medications we can try for his age, if these have adverse effects to him. Jack's EEG did come back with some abnormalities. Showing a tendency to seizures. We are thankful there were no masses or something life threatening causing these seizures. The neurologist is hopeful that Jack could out grow seizures or that he may never have another one on this medication. I am praising God for letting us keep Jack. So many things could have been different in the last 3 days. I'm thankful I was able to be there with him (as horrid as it was) d uring his seizure. I'm thankful he wasn't riding a bike when his seizure hit. I'm thankful for this to remind me how precious life is and how much I take it and our family for granted. I'm thankful for Donovan's parents who took care of Suzy and William, thankful for caring neighbors who came to help us. Thankful for my family and friends who support and call. Thankful for my sister who met us at the hospital and stayed with us while we waited, and brought us meals. I'm thankful for the meatballs and potatoes baking in my oven right now left in my frig by my little pregnant friend. Jack is great. He is his old self, full of spice and energy. At the hospital he had full access to his re mote that controlled his bed, feet up, head up, feet down, head down....he was loving playing with all the controls. He also loved having a remote that controlled full access cable. THEN....he ordered from a kids menu that was brought to his very cool bed. At breakfast yesterday he told Donovan, "I am living the dream dad!" Eating breakfast in bed WHILE watching cartoons. So please pray for Jack if you think of him this week. We are also scheduled to close with our house on August 11, moving on August 10th. So we have a lot of things changing around here.

Leaving the hospital today....sorry bad quality from the camera phone.

My quote of the day comes from Rose's little girl, Sophie. They came to visit at the hospital last night...and during the visit she went to whisper something to her mom. I found out later this is what she said.... Sophie: "Mom, if I get sick like Jack...I want this exact room." Jack had been showing her the controls to his bed, the remote to the TV and his birdhouse he got to paint.