Thursday, February 16, 2012

The Great 8!

These three boys all have birthdays within 4 weeks of each other.  The goofy one in the middle is my wonderful son.

We celebrated with an adventure in the great outdoors party--inside!


(Okay, we went outside for a few things....)


Making tin lanterns--what little boy doesn't love pounding nails?

Tin lanterns.

Flameless tin lanterns--gave them each a battery-operated tea light :).

S'more fun.


Ooey, gooey, sticky, yummy mess!

Clues as to where Big Foot took their goodie bags.  They ran through several national parks
(i.e. Niagara Falls was the stairs...



 Goodie bags...


Baptism Day!



 We all support you--we just can't all hold still at the same time for a picture.



 He turned 8 right in time for the annual Pinewood Derby.  Yes, the
youngest scout is the tallest.  Crazy!


 The Great 8 [year old]!  We love this little man!

Thursday, February 9, 2012

Pains....

Warning: whiny post ahead


I am reflecting back on the past year and realize that it has been the most painful of my life, thus far.  (And if I'm lucky--the last!!)

A year ago I was pregnant and it was actually pretty good.  I did have to deal with a hip going out several times, as well as my back.  That had never happened before, with my other pregnancies, but my husband reminded me that I was no longer a spring chicken, yes, too true.  I worked through the pain and took it easy (ha, ha).

Labor, was labor, which meant pain, but that was expected.

I had surgery last May and recovery meant pain.  But, I got slowly better.

Cue the past few months--real pain has ensued!  Mastitis and thrush.  Or maybe it was thrush, then mastitis, then thrush.   I just don't know. 

All I know is thrush is worse than labor.   It is the worst pain I have ever, ever felt in my life.  Enough to leave me crying and practically incapacitated.  Enough to cause me to lock myself in my bathroom and wish to die.  Enough to get me to crawl to the doctor and pharmacy to get help!  (You know me and "toughing" things out...)

My heart goes out to any of you who've ever had thrush before.  I can now empathize with you.  What did our poor ancestors do before there were modern medicines?  Voluntary masectomies?   That thought definitely crossed my mind.

I feel grateful that the sun has finally risen on the dark night of pain.