This Would Qualify As A Really Big Fix

An organization fix that is.

Some of you might remember I was desperate for one while we were in the apartment waiting to close on our house. Well, this one was a doozy:




You might also remember that this is what the more pristine room looked like prior to my attack on it:

I'm one of those people that has to "see" everything when they are organizing it, so when I unpacked all the school boxes and books, they got piled in the room. Obviously there was some overflow.

The pile of games in front of the brown armoire became this:

I tell you I was almost giddy with the high! That and I needed to actually be able to walk to the threshold of the room. Peka is trying to decide if Scooby-Doo is a threat to him or not.

And the rest of that mess chaos organizational planning became this:







That's what four kids and 9+ years of homeschooling gets you. And kudos if you noticed we added an additional four-cube square cabinet to the original plan.

On the off chance that you think I can be completely done in that room, although it is so close I can taste it, here are the two tiny things I still need to do. Number one, the piano, but I don't have a lamp anymore for it since several bit the dust in the move, so I'm sort of using that as an excuse.

And two would be these six cubes that have the current year's books for our Tapestry of Grace. I need to organize them by level and then week, unit, or multi-year.

I saw a couple of you had put up fun little polls during the holidays, although they were closed by the time I saw them. I thought it would be interesting to do one and see how long everyone thought it took me to get this room from the original state of pretty much not being able to step foot into it to what it looks like now. Days in the poll means it took a good part of my day, about five or more hours. So what do you think?

It's My Birthday!

Well, technically it was yesterday, the 30th, but I never got around to posting. I've been on an unintentional blogging break. I'm still unpacking and my in-laws are still visiting until next Monday.

So I guess all is fair and I should announce my age and post pictures since I did that to Hubby. I'm that icky prime number like him now for the next year, 43. I'll actually be happy to have another birthday and get a year older just to get a nice number next year. Sad, that OCD thing.

My natural father was in the Army, and he and my mother were stationed in Germany when she became pregnant with me. He was sent to Viet Nam and she came home to the states to live at my grandparents' house. That's where I was born, in the hospital though, and lived for the first three years of my life. My father saw me one weekend of my life when I was six months old prior to me meeting him when I was 18 years old. Jump forward many years, and now Santa is my stepdad. Here's a semi-recent picture of him, my mom, and my grandma.

And to make Hubby feel like I wasn't picking on him on his birthday, here's the ode to Kayren...I'm only going up to 6th grade. Next year I think I'll do the ode to big hair. Now that should be fun.

I just realized in this picture that I'm holding a little toy giraffe. Giraffes are my favorite zoo animal. I'd never noticed that in this picture.

Early attempts at colorization. The photographer's directions are still penciled on the back.


I'm almost three years old here.


I'm probably about five years old here. I hadn't lost a tooth yet, so it was somewhere in the four to five year old changeover. Look at that hair! How many cowlicks must be in there.


This was actually my make-up first grade picture of some kind. I forgot to tell my mom about picture day and wore a nasty old white shirt with a little road-runner logo on it. And that crazy hair was a little messy after recess. I mean, why bother at that point.


Second grade...they must have taken it early in the school year because my hair was still bleached out from the summer sun.


Third grade...I have bad posture, and someone forgot to remind me to sit up straight. This is the last time you'll see the teeth that way though. I got my braces young.

Fourth grade...the closest thing I ever had to Marcia Brady hair.


Fifth grade


Sixth grade...if you'll notice, those are probably the same hairclips I had in my second grade picture. I also got my braces off not long after this, but I ended up with glasses as the trade-off.

Next year, definitely the big hair edition!

The In-Laws Have Come For Christmas

And look what happened the day they flew in to town!

Hubby's parents flew in to town last Friday, the 19th. Who would have ever imagined when tickets were purchased this would be when the first really big snowstorm would hit. They drove up to St. Louis the night before to icy conditions and were delayed leaving early Friday morning. They had to change planes at Chicago Midway and their flight to Detroit was delayed there as well.

Fortunately they were able to make it in without any flight cancellations. We do live about an hour from the airport, mostly north, and we got more than six inches of snow. It was treacherous out there, but it wasn't like Hubby couldn't go pick them up and then come back home. We are certainly thankful that we have a four-wheel-drive vehicle.

This is what the kids did the next day:

Cute, isn't it?

The blustery wind a few days later that made wind chills -12. Hat's gone. Not to be found.

And the snow yesterday, and the day before for that matter, the snowman is getting buried and his face is getting covered up. We have more than 12 total inches out there, and depending on what weather report you listen to we are supposed to get more.

My kids' first white Christmas since 2000 in Illinois. Tickled pink is an understatement!

Our Christmas Tree...Finally!

This has been a process of a couple of weeks. First we had to get a new tree from Wal-Mart. It's the "W" tree — a Donner Fir in case anyone wants to know — no jokes necessary. Apparently it was popular, because when my mom went to get one, she had to call three Wal-Marts and got the last one.

Then we had to find all our ornaments. I thought I had them with us. I was wrong. Don't tell Hubby I admitted that or I'll ruin my reputation. We had one box of three that I thought were with us, and the movers from Virginia had the rest. So once we had the tree up, we could only put the lights on. By the way, we didn't have lights either, so when we bought some we went ahead and got the LED style they have now. They are totally awesome and I would recommend them if you are thinking about them. They are much brighter than typical lights and they don't get hot, even if you leave them on for days. They don't even get warm.

So once we had all the boxes of ornaments it took us a few days to actually get around to putting them on the tree. Like two days ago on Sunday. Then I realized that we were missing a lot of them, so we had to go on a garage hunt. That took another day. Hubby finally found them in a cardboard moving box that the movers from Virginia had brought. They were already in plastic storage boxes, and that's what I was looking for and the reason I was unable to find them.

And finally last night we finished our beautiful tree. Please ignore the fact that there is no tree skirt. I think you know the whole missing-in-action theme we have going on at our house. We have a variety of ornaments, so our theme is whimsical, if that is actually a theme.

I wanted some of those sticks Mari talked about to fill in spots and make it a little sparkly since we don't use icicles or garland, but I never found any. I looked everywhere but Michael's, which is probably the one place that had them. Oh, well, there's always next year for sparkly sticks.

We have another pre-lit tree with white lights and a large box of white, silver, and gold ornaments that we never got put up this year. But there is always next year for more than one tree!

Merry Christmas, everyone, and I'll be by to visit and catch up soon!

Part 3 — Happy Birthday, Girls!

If you need to read the prior story, Part 1 is here, and Part 2 is here.

I never had any pictures taken of me while I was pregnant with the girls. Well, there was one. I had my second set of braces (first set from nine- to twelve-years-old) taken off the day I ended up getting put on bed rest, and while I was there they took a picture of me with the doctor. It was a Polaroid, and I do have it somewhere, but you can't really tell anything much so I don't count it. That's how I'm able to basically remember when I got put on bed rest, because I had those braces three days shy of one year. I remember things by association, and Hubby is stunned at the things I can recall. Usually they are inconsequential and have to do with what I was wearing, but I can tie it all back in to a date to figure something out.

The pregnancy had complications from the beginning, and then it was so high risk and there was no guarantee I could carry the girls long enough that they would live, so I didn't want any pictures to remind me visually. Crazy, maybe. And now that they are here I wouldn't mind having one, but I don't really have any great regrets. When I was expecting Buddy I didn't take any though because I didn't want any of him if I didn't have any of his sisters. I thought that wouldn't be fair. Well, I was so magnificently huge at the end, we took a picture the night before I went to the hospital with the girls standing by me and then a side view. We would have definitely had huge regrets if we had not taken those. Once I was pregnant with Caboose, we didn't care anymore and there are plenty of pictures, including one right before I left to go to the hospital. I look more like I needed a two-week vacation.

Chatty was 2 lbs 4 oz and 14 1/2 inches long. Here is one of her very first pictures, maybe even her very first other than the Polaroid the ICN staff took.

Sparky was 2 lbs 2 oz and 13 1/2 inches long, and ditto on her picture.

If you aren't familiar with preemies, they put iv's through their belly button area, so that's why you see little wires there. They are often in a warming bed as opposed to an incubator when they need to be accessed often or possibly quickly. If they are ventilated their heads need to be kept still so the tubes don't get dislodged from their throats and so the nurses will strap their heads down to the bed with cloth diapers.

The first night brought a bubble outside of Chatty's lung, but I never completely understood it. The doctors "helped her resolve it on her own" without putting in a chest tube, so that worked for us. Sparky had to have packed red blood cells since she'd lost so much blood during the delivery. It was a little bit of a traumatic first night for them.

Another thing is that preemies often don't produce a hormone that term babies will produce that closes off a valve in the heart. It has to do with breathing in the womb in a liquid environment versus breathing in an air environment, and it has to close off for the baby to breath properly. The baby can be given a synthetic version of the hormone to close off the valve if the doctor detects a heart murmur. After the three doses, Sparky's closed and Chatty's didn't. They gave her another three doses, and when it still didn't close, they had to send her to another hospital for surgery. We had two options, and since St. Louis was a straight shot on the interstate and we knew the city pretty well, we chose it. They flew her by plane, and since she had a twin they flew her back once she was stable (which was actually only a day after the surgery). She was two and a half weeks old when she had the surgery. We had one of my childhood friends who lived in Springfield go by and see Sparky as the surrogate parent while we were in St. Louis.

Normally the ICN staff would not let you hold your baby while they were ventilated. Because of this procedure they were flying Chatty off for (it was called a PDA Ligation), they decided to let us hold her. Here is one of the pictures:

She was mostly a bundle of blankets and tubes. This was the only picture where you could really see her face.

Now one of the things Sparky was known for was her 'Jane Fonda's', seen below. I would occasionally get a call across the street at the Ronald McDonald House asking me to come over and talk to her. It seemed that my voice would calm her down, almost immediately. They didn't call during the middle of the night, and when she did it then they usually gave her Demerol or morphine.

One of the girls' nurses made them Christmas dresses. They were from some kind of doll pattern. Chatty is in the first picture here, and I think that is my finger on the blue tubing (for perspective).

Sparky is in these next two pictures with her dress on. I also forgot to mention that these were taken on Christmas Eve. Let me just say that I was very nervous holding her head in that second picture, but I'm glad I did because you can see that we will never forget how small she was. All I have to do is hold up my hand like that. I mean, look at that nose, and look at a fingernail. Amazing...


I had Chatty hold one of the dresses for me so you could get an idea of how small they are. It's hard for me to remember how small the girls were, and I was there, so I know it's hard to try to see it in a picture with nothing to use as perspective. I also had her hold up the dress and one of her American Girl dolls in the second picture so you could get an idea on the size. I don't know if you can tell in the pictures, but the dresses actually went past their feet, and their legs were straight.


Well, you know why Sparky was doing those Jane Fonda's? She was trying to tell the doctors and nurses she wanted her ventilator out. They took it out on Christmas Day! We were warned several times not to get our hopes up and that it wasn't unusual for the babies to get tired easily and have to be reventilated. Not our little exerciser. She was finally able to get all cuddled up since she'd been so rudely yanked from the womb.

And a few days later her sister followed in her footsteps, although different personalities were already being exhibited. Chatty had been given a diuretic, so she's even a little tinier than before. She was at her low weight of 1 lb 14 oz here. That's my hand up above her head blocking the light (for perspective again).

And Chatty at 2 lb 8 oz below. I'm showing you this one because of the way the picture happened to come out. Look at my thumb compared to her legs. They are pretty much the same size.

I have failed to mention that Hubby got to stay until after the first of the year with me at the Ronald McDonald house before he had to go back to Virginia. They let him start the class over again with the next group. He was at least able to be there through the PDA Ligation and both girls successful getting off the ventilators.

Well, believe it or not, there was much more excitement after this, including surgeries. I think I'll have to quit calling it their birthday story though and figure out something else to call it. I'll also have to finish it another day. We have company coming for the weekend, but I'll get back to it as soon as possible, and house pictures too. Promise!