The Girls are Growing Up

We attended a wedding this weekend. The girls are now old enough to attend provided kids are invited. It is so strange to look at Landry and see this "big" kid. It really makes me sad and happy at the same time. I cannot believe how fast she has grown up. It seem like yesterday that she was running around in a diaper and wanting to be Cinderella. Now she has on pearls and picked out her own purse...and it matched! She is such a neat kid with a very interesting sense of humor and unique interests. She loves animals and science. She is considerate and mature. She is responsible(as much as expected from an 8 year old!) and loves to feel trusted. She never ceases to amaze me with her intelligence and ability to take in environmental cues. She is a list maker(love it!) and I must admit I have made her a bit neurotic about schedules and time. She does not like when she feels she has not done her best. This will be a struggle for her but also an asset. I love this kid! She makes me laugh everyday and still lets me carry her out of bed every morning. She is getting to the age where she will soon think her mom is the dorkiest person alive and it kills me. I have been her favorite person for almost 9 years. When I hear songs that talk about kids growing up I begin to feel a lump. I have had her in my home for 9 years, she will leave in 9 years. Oh my! Thank you Jesus for such a precious, amazing work. I can see Your fingerprints on her.

Reese will turn 4 in less than 2 months. I sometimes forget that she is not a baby. Until recently she wore "biapers" at night. I felt really sad the night she decided not to wear a "biaper" to bed. I asked her to stop getting big and she said, "Mom, I don't know how to not get big!" She is one of the funniest kids I have ever been around. She thinks she is 8 1/2. She is strong willed and stubborn(yes I think these will serve her well one day) She is sweet and kind. She loves to dance and sing. She has an amazing sense of style for a 3 year old. When I allow her to dress herself, it usually includes a belt, purse and matching shoes. She is wants a baby sister SO BAD! (Not gonna happen) She loves to feel big. She loves to help me in the kitchen. One of these days school and the likes will interest her, just not now. She looks just like her dad. The Lord know what he was doing when he gave me Reese. She is the Ying to my Yang. She causes me to loosen up, laugh, and not be so uptight. "It's O.K. Mom", is a phrase I hear often from her. Lord, thank you for this precious girl. She reminds me daily that You know what we need even when we don't.

Down Home on the Farm

We took the girls out to Stanton and took pictures of them in cotton on Sunday. Not the best picture taking weather, sunny and windy but it was still fun.

Landry gave up trying to keep her eyes open and finally borrowed my sunglasses.

Is anyone surprised at the pose Reese decided to bust out with? So her

Soccer

Landry has been playing soccer since the March she turned 5. She has always enjoyed it but this year the bug has bitten her! She loves it! I wish I was good enough at this to upload video and I'd show you her goal last weekend, AWESOME! Her team had improved by leaps and bounds this year. Way to go Arsenal Ladies!


Landry is the on facing the camers. Reagan is #12. They have been on the same team all but one season.

Crock Pot Elk Chili Recipe

1 1/2 pounds ground Elk

2 cloves garlic mined

1 onion chopped

2 tablespoons chili powder

2 teaspoon paprika

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon pepper

1/8 teaspoon cumin

1 – 15 ounce can ready cut tomatoes

1 – 15 ounce can tomamto sauce

2 – 15 ounce kidney beans

1/2 cup red wine

Temp: low

Recipe Cooking Time: 6 to 8 hours

Pan Type: crock pot

Crock Pot Elk Chili Directions
Cook ground elk until no longer pink in the middle, drain and place into crock pot.Add the minced garlic, chopped onion, chili powder, paprika, salt, pepper, cumin, tomatoes, tomato sauce, kidney beans and wine.

Cook elk chili in the crock pot for the allotted time or until done.Serve crock pot elk chili along with your favorite crackers.Top elk chili with fresh chopped onions and shredded cheese if desired.
Recipe Serves: 6 – 8

O.K., I have over 100 lbs of Elk meat in my freezer and am trying to get creative with it while remaining health conscious. I found this recipe online and made it last night. I have to say it was really good. We took it to Shane's parents for dinner. His dad referred to it as the best chili he has ever eaten, other than Wolf Brand, that is pretty good I think! (He has an obsession with Wolf Brand, I'll never measure up!) You can make it with beef and I am sure it will be just as tasty. It is super easy!

Great news for Landry

As most of you know Landry has worn glasses since she was 4 years and 2 months old. It was sudden, her eyes simply crossed one morning. Susan, the babysitter, called about 10 o'clock one morning ans said she thought her eyes was turning in. I picked her up and took her to the eye doctor. After a couple of days and 2 doctors we discovered that her right eye pretty much did not work 6 feet and closer. She had really bad vision up close. So my four year old not only needed glasses, but bifocals. The worst part was that her vision was so bad and possibly leaving if we didn't take action immediately.

She got the cutest glasses and has been so awesome at wearing them. Her eyes had gotten better in the last few years. Last year, her eyes took a turn for the worse and had begun to stop working again. If fact, her "good eye" had become the bad eye. The doctor said possibly her brain was compensating and we started patching her eye 90 minutes a day 6 days a week. She hated it but was pretty good about it. After 3 months we went back and discovered it was working but now the other one was doing the same thing. It was April and Dr Sheets had her start alternating her patch.

Yesterday we went for a 6 month check. To say we were less than consistent about patching would be an understatement. Much to our surprise and the Doctor's her eyes were great! He started at 20/50 with her correction on. He kept going down and looking at me. We made it to 20/20 with correction and she only missed one letter. That has never happened! Dr Sheets was amazed. He said he has never seen such improvements in such a short time. Yay! She still has the same prescription therefore we don't need new glasses right now. He really thinks she might out grow her glasses with time. Great news!

Whew, what a week!

The last week or so has been quite eventful around our house. We started the week with Robin here for the weekend. We went to trade days in Stanton and she wanted to eat at Rosa's. She was fortunate to get on one of the 2 planes that actually got out of Midland on Sunday due to the fog.
Monday, Mom went from bad to worse really quick! She is still in the hospital. When I showed up Monday about noon, her fever was up to 104.2. After many tests and a couple of scary moments, it was determined that not only did she have pneumonia in both lungs now but also has H1N1. Pretty scary considering she is one of those people with "under lying conditions" that it is really dangerous for them to get it.
Making matters worse, I was scheduled to fly out at 7:30 a.m. on Tuesday morning for Houston. It was for work and I could not get out of it. I headed off that morning with a heavy heart.
While sitting in my first meeting of the day with my new regional director, new manager and the National VP of sales, my phone starts buzzing. A text message from Robin is not unusual at all. She and I will text snide comments and silly things all day long. Unfortunately, this one wasn't funny or silly, it was scary. At her regular OB appt, it was discovered that her cervix was shortening, 40 to 28 in 2 weeks. She had been having contractions and she wasn't aware. To the hospital she went, straight from the OB to the bed. GREATNESS!!! I immediately sent out an S.O.S. to my friends for immediate prayers. At 25 weeks along, there is no way these babies can come yet!
I am constantly amazed at the amazing friends I have. It had not been 20 minutes since the message went out that I'd heard from them with questions of what can we do? Offers to get to Dallas and sit with her. I have the most amazing friends who will do anything! I love them so much!
After my meeting I called Shane to check in and was informed the girls were both throwing up, of course they are....That's my theme so far! Also found out one girls I rode in a car from the airport to the hotel was in her hotel room with H1N1 as well. If you are counting that is twice in 24 hrs I was directly exposed....YIKES! I called in a favor and had Tamiflu called in to a Walgreens in Houston, so far so good!
There were a couple of minutes I felt I could not breathe. Lord, thank you for your arms of peace and comfort. I so often take them for granted and I am sorry for that. How do people without Christ in their lives deal with stressful situations?
Here I sit on Saturday...on the couch watching football by myself! My Tamiflu and I made it home Thursday night about 9:45. All is well at my house at least.
Robing got to go home Friday. Her cervix had grown to 35, yay little cervix! She is on strict bed rest but at least it is at home and free!
Mom is still in the hospital but SLOWLY getting better. Not sure how long she will be there but at least there is improvements. It could have gotten really bad really fast.
There are times I feel like there is a black cloud hanging over us. But ever so gently, Jesus nudges me and reminds me he has my umbrella. When I question why me His answer is always the same, "Why not you"?

Life-trying to be thankful

I am sitting in room 534 of Medical Center Hospital in Odessa looking out the window watching the world go on around me. In the bed next to me is my mom. I hate that she is sick, again. She should not be suffering, again. I should not be sitting here, again. Dad should not be having to be to gather things in McCamey, again.

In August 2007 Mom had a stem cell transplant to finally get rid of the lymphoma she had battled since 2001. It was a horrible ordeal but in the end, months later it was worth it. She was on the road to recovery. 2 weeks ago she had an appointment with her transplant doctor in Dallas and had a PET scan. the areas they had been watching for a couple of moths were going down, her body was fighting! Way to go new immune system!

Now, here we sit in the hospital, reminded that even though she has a new immune system, she still isn't healthy like you and I are. She has contracted pneumonia. Currently they are culturing her blood to see if it is vial or bacterial. She has s mass in her chest, on that was being watched by her oncologist as one of the "spots". The Dr here seems to think it is not a mass but fluid. She was tested and does not have the flu, either one. This is good as she is one of those people who is referred to as having underlying health conditions.

So badly I want her to just be well. This is want she desperately wants. She wants to see normally again. She would love to work again. Most she would just love to be a normal grandma who gets to play, run, sew, cook and keep up with her grand kids. My Reese has never really known a Grammy who isn't sick. There have been times when she has felt better and could do most things.

We'll just sit here and see what happens. Hopefully it is bacterial and the antibiotics will do wonders. Hopefully the mass is just fluid. Hopefully she gets better.

Out the window the world goes on.

How do you know that you attend too many meetings?

You attend too many meetings if your kids "play" like they are having meetings. Is that really fun? Landry had a complete set up with charts, graphs, handouts for her attendees, a phone and lastly a conversation about sales being down and how to fix that. They are going to include tickets in each cereal box that supply snack foods for sports teams when redeemed.

Together, Shane and I attend lots of meeting each week. Most for work but some for community involvement such as Jr League. I have often heard if you want to know what is important in your life ask your kids.......

Control-letting go....

I am not sure about you but I struggle with control issues. I drive my children and quite possibly my friends crazy with my incessant need to control things. Ironically, It does not spill over into all areas of my life. It is kind of isolated to my kids and our schedule.

I am reminded of it whenever I have to leave town for work (it is usually during the weekdays).

As I prepare to leave I go through the week ahead to hopefully forsee events. I leave a detailed calendar, and I do mean detailed! I write each days activities on each day along with anything due at school. I also leave already addressed checks for whomever needs to be paid for the week, such as housekeeper, babysitter, etc... I used to pack Landry's lunches for the week and have them ready in the fridge. Outfits were laid out for the week for both girls. All this took me a great amount of time but it put my mind at rest.

I feel certain that Shane paid it no attention. There are a few clues as to why I think this.
1) On our daily call there are multiple questions such as, does Landry have soccer practice today? What time? My response is never, "It's on the schedule!" but I wanted it to be!
2) I also receive text messages with questions like, "What day is the housekeeper coming? UUUGH! "How much money do I leave her?" Really? There is a check on the bar attached to THE SCHEDULE!!!

This trip I tried very hard to let go. I decided that in all my travels he has never forgotten to feed them, MOST activities have been attended and if they are missed there is never a news story about it...."8 year old misses soccer practice" full story at 10!

I left a notepad sized schedule that said, Monday game 6 pm, Tuesday nothing, Wednesday soccer prac 6 pm, Thursday nothing, Friday Fundraiser due. That's it!

I still received calls and texts but at least I had new info for them and did not feel the need to yell THE SCHEDULE one time. The kids were still alive when I got home. They don't seem underfed. Not sure how they looked each day but, I can deal! I asked Landry if she took her lunch or ate in the cafeteria, something she NEVER does when I'm home. She said she ate cafeteria all week and she is still alive and said it really wasn't too bad.

Less work for me and they survived!!!