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Fundraising Time!

Hello Family and Friends!

Sam has started 3rd grade and he loves it! His teacher is great, he has cool friends, and he is on the "big kids" side of the school now. But, as you know starting school means starting fund raisers, and the time is now here! Sam is doing a Walk-a-thon to help raise money for his school. They have asked us not to go door to door and to only receive donations from family and friends or people they know. Anyway, we wanted to see if you would be able to help him out.

The students will walk or run as many laps as they can in 30 minutes. The pledges can be done per lap or as a flat donation and the money is tax deductible. If you are able to help will you please let us know. If you would like to make a flat donation we will accept the money now, and we have to turn all money in by October 27. If you would like to do a per lap donation that will be collected after his run on October 16th. Please help if you can, Sam and the school will really appreciate it!! The great thing about this fundraiser is that all the money goes directly to the school, there is no middle man or merchandise to sell. Thanks for your support!

Thanks!

Again

Sam has pneumonia now. I took him back for his follow up appt today to check on his asthma, etc, and it has turned into pneumonia. He now has 2 inhalers and antibiotics to go along with all the other stuff they gave us on Monday. He has to go back in 10 days to check on him again. Poor little boy. He just feels bad. He is so tired of feeling yucky all the time. He is now getting car sick all the time, even the 3 minute drive to school. He feels like throwing up all the time. He gets infections constantly. He is on a million medicines all the time. Just about every day he asks me if they can ever make him better. :( So sad. As soon as he gets over this bout of sickness I am going to make a long appointment with our new ped and beg her to please find whatever is making him sick all the time. We keep going to the doctor, they can't help or feel nothing is wrong, then we get referred to another doctor, same thing happens, get referred to someone else, and on and on. He's had surgeries, medicines, x-rays, CT's, preventives, lots of tests, so much stuff, but no relief. :(

Good news- it's fall break! The boys are excited!

Oh, and I have been soooo tired this week! I went to bed at 8:30 last night! 8:30!!!! That is beyond weird, 11:00 is usually early for me. I am going to bed right now, and have been ready for an hour. Weird.

Smart Boy

So I subbed for Avery's class today. I have been trying to stay out of there so it could be his own thing and he could get used to being away from me. Today went fine though, and he didn't hang all over me or do things he wasn't supposed to. I am subbing in there again tomorrow, so we will see what happens on Monday when I am not in there. He is very attached to me, so this is a test. :) Anyway, it was nice to see what goes on in there each day and to learn all the kids in his class, etc.

He gets out of school earlier than Sam since it is a pre-k class. So at the end of the day, after all the kids had left, we were cleaning up the room and getting it ready for tomorrow.

Avery said, "I never get in trouble, I ALWAYS do the right thing. " I thought that was funny, and of course, didn't believe him (he is a crazy kid after all), but then his other teacher (he has two) said , "Yep, we never have to worry about him. He is good." Probably because he has been at school since he was born and knows what to do. :) I am glad to know he does well though. I thought he would be my one to get in trouble. Hopefully that will continue.

Anyway, after that he was helping Ms. Shelley put the "center" cards (little cards with their names written on them, that they move during the day to show which center the kids go to)back in their right places. He picked up one of the cards and said, "Is this Carter's?" It was. He picked up another one and said, "Is this Mya?" It was! I couldn't believe it. I asked him how he knew (there was no way to distinguish them) he said he read it!!! I mean, I know he knows the letters and the sounds they make, but to read names like that, I couldn't believe it. How smart is he?! He explained how he read them, and he knew. Crazy! He picks things up so quickly. I guess I will start practicing reading with him now, instead of sticking with the letters and sounds.

Today was dress up as your favorite character day. Avery was Spider-man. Sam was Harry Potter, of course. Sam won the best costume in his class! He did look just like him, if I do say so myself. :) All of it was homemade, except his Harry Potter glasses. I just took different costume pieces and made them into Harry Potter. Anyway, he got to go to the office and get his picture taken and stuff. Pretty cool. He was excited. He did audition for the school play and made it. BUT they did not have enough people audition and will be having another audition after Fall Break, so he has to do it again. He loved it and did well. I can't wait to see him in it!

I guess that is it for now. Bye!

Sick Boys

So today we spent the day at the doctor's office and pharmacy. AGAIN.

Avery woke up this morning with a fever of 101, and saying his throat hurt bad. So I kept him home today, but went ahead and took Sam to school. After thinking about it, I decided to call and make both of them an appointment.

Sam has been getting progressively worse the last couple weeks, until this past week, when he went downhill even further. His lungs are full of junk, he is coughing disgusting stuff up all the time, and can't do anything without not being able to breath. I knew pneumonia was on it's way, but it hasn't gotten there yet, and usually they do nothing for us, until it does.

Anyway, I called and made an appointment, we ran and got Sam, and then went to our new pediatrician.

Avery has Strep. Greeeaaaatttt. I wonder what's next on my list??? I am sure it is too much to hope that I won't get it, since I get it constantly even when no one in my house has it. I am going to try my best though to make sure I don't get it. I have already sanitized everything and will be following Avery around with Clorox wipes all day today. :)

She listened to Sam, and said he sounded very musical in those lungs. They went ahead and gave him a breathing treatment cuz he sounded so bad. We have been doing them at home, since Thursday, but they haven't been helping him. She also decided to give him a strep test, just to be sure he didn't have it. That was not fun. He had already seen them gag Avery, and he has so much stuff running down his throat, that he already felt like gagging. He did NOT want to do it, but we ended up getting it done. No strep. So yes, we did that for nothing, which is exactly what he said. Anyway, his oxygen level was 96, they don't ever want it under 95, so he barely made it. The doctor was very unhappy with his asthma treatment plan. She plans on treating it very aggressively as soon as he gets over this bout of lung problems. No one has ever seemed really concerned with his asthma, and only worries about his allergies (which do go hand in hand), but it is ridiculous for him to get pneumonia all the time like this. So she put him on a HEAVY dose of steroids for 7 days, with no tapering. He has never been on this much before, so we will see how that goes. It already makes him jittery and grumpy. I bet we are going to have a FUN week. NOT. She also put him back on Singulair and his nasal spray. They took him off all medicine in hope that his last surgery would help and he wouldn't have to take so much anymore. That didn't happen. I have seen no improvement at all since the surgery. He had his surgery 2 months ago, and already has pneumonia again. What happened to the 75% chance of improvement. :( Anyway, he has to go back on Friday to see how he is doing. At that time, she will put into action a better asthma plan that will be more hard-hitting. He will also get an inhaler, which he has never had before, which has surprised me, with all the lung problems he has. Maybe this will be the doctor that can get everything taken care of with him.

Our last pediatrician would tell me he was perfectly fine, he was not abnormally sick (even though he had to be on antibiotics and steroids every 6 weeks to stop another infection)etc. I would take him in because I could see he was doing badly and on his way to infection, and she would send us home with nothing. Then I would be back in 3 days later with a full blown serious infection. I ended up NEVER taking Sam to the Ped. and we would go to the allergist every time he was sick. We love the allergist and he actually LISTENS to me and does a good job at treating him, but I want to find someone who will PREVENT these occurances. Hopefully we have found her. We are almost to the point that we are going to take him to John Hopkins or the Mayo Clinic or somewhere to figure out what is wrong with him.

Of course this all comes when we don't have any money. Sigh. I spent a huge chunk just today on prescriptions, and we have to go back Friday for another chunk. Fall clothes need to be bought, Christmas is coming, and on and on.

Change of subject. Lindsay and I sand in our Chorus' Annual Show on Saturday. It was fun and tiring. I think it was a really good show, it felt good, and we had lots of good comments. Maybe next year I will be up there singing with my quartet. Quartets can only sing on our show if they medaled in a competition. Who knows, maybe it will happen. We did a 50's set, which was fun. We got to wear poodle skirts, and do cheesy dances. :) We also did a patriotic set. The audience even stood up during one of our songs, and we got a standing ovation. We had a really good turn out this year and the seats were pretty full. :)

Sam is trying out for the school play tomorrow! This is his first chance to do it because it is only for 3rd-5th grades. He is so excited. He is a little nervouse, but I know he will love it.

I guess that is it for now. No more sickness, please, especially Strep!

Thursday

Today both of the boys went to the dentist. Still no cavities from either of them. Yippee! I am glad they seem to have gotten my teeth. :) Sam had a harder time this time. He has a very bad gag reflex (he got that from me too)and with all of his nose issues it makes it really hard for him. He gagged a lot and always feels sick afterwards. He also hates getting the x-rays (me too) and they messed up one, so he had to do it 3 times. :( Avery did good, only a few gagging episodes. He had to have x-rays for the first time today too. He did fine and seemed ok, even though it made him gag as well. Going to the dentist is terrible for all 3 of us. I need to go soon too. Sigh...

So I was running low on gas yesterday, but I still had a little over a quater of the tank. AJ took my car last night to Murfreesboro and some other places and I thought he would have gotten me gas. No such luck. :) As I was driving to the dentist this morning I looked down and saw that I was on empty. I turned on the gas meter thing (it tells me how many miles I have left until I run out of gas)and it said I had 18 miles. So I got into Murfreesboro, passed a gas station, they were all out of gas. Went by another, they were out too, and another, same thing. Hurricane Ike hitting has made gas prices go WAY up and several stations are out completely. So we went to the appointment. When we were done I went another way home so I could get gas. At this point I only had 10 miles left (not enough to get back to Smyrna)so we were all looking carefully for a gas station. We passed one, no gas, another, no gas. I was really freaking out by this point. FINALLY I see one! Of course it was on the other side of the street, but I managed to get over quick enough. I spent $72 on that gas!! Yikes! At least it wasn't over $4.50 like it was earlier this week.

This week I subbed for the Music Teacher at school. The 2nd grade was on a field trip (I was supposed to have 2nd grade twice) so I got a lot of free time that day. So basically I got paid to help Sam's teacher get stuff done. That was nice. :)

I have been working on PTO stuff all week. I am the volunteer coordinator and it is hard work getting all that coordinated! I sent over 90 emails last night and have a ton more to send today. My fingers hurt bad after all that typing! Hopefully, once we get it all set up and started then it will be a lot easier and not so much work. I hope!

Kinley has strep. That is not good news for me. I have been around her a lot recently of course, I hope that doesn't mean strep is once again on my agenda. Stay Away Stupid Strep!

Sam is on the 7th Harry Potter book. He is loving them so much! THey have a program in school where they read and take tests on books to get points. He just finished the 6th book and took the test yesterday. We were worried that it would be too hard for him (he has to make a certain percentage on the test or he doesn't meet his goal) but he did great, and only missed 2 questions. He got 24 points for that book. His goal each week is to get 1.5 points. :) His teacher and I are very proud of him. I love that he loves to read.

Avery is still liking school, although not quite as much any more. :) He told me that sometimes he gets sad during the day and misses me, but he doesn't let anyone know. :( It was sad. I wish he would have done the 2 day a week school last year to get him ready to being gone 5 days for so long. Oh well. He still likes it, he just loves his mommy more. :)

Next week is our annual show for singing. www.tunetownshowchorus.org. It should be lots of fun, although a very tiring day. The show will be great though!

I guess that is it for the moment. Talk to you later!

Wedneday Words

Ok, so I didn't have time to update you like I thought I would. Sorry.

So Monday, a quickly put together quartet, (we sang Saturday together Saturday to make sure we sounded good) went to a local high school, and taught them about the Young Women in Harmony Program our singing organization sponsors. I was going to be a little bit late because I had to get the kids ready for school and take them to Lindsay so she could take them to school. I got there 10 minutes late, and only Jen (our fabulous Lead and the person in charge of YWIH in our region) was there. The other 2 girls hadn't shown up yet. So I just had to jump right in and start singing! I think that was good for me though because I didn't get nervous at all! Now THAT'S surprising! Even Jen, who has been doing this for years and sings great, was a bit nervous. Anyway, she explained a little about what we do, our style of music, etc. Our Bass ended up showing up a while after I did (she had trouble with getting the directions)so we thankfully were able to teach them tags. Tags are typically the last few measures of a song. They are easy to pick up and teach parts to other singers.

Now here is the very strange part, and I am not being conceited at all, I don't understand. LOL! When I sang my part (by myself I might add, which is scary, but I still wasn't nervous)the kids all stopped and paid attention. They were all just staring at me, it was weird. When I was done, they all erupted saying "She's Cold!" "That girl can blow!", and several other things. Apparently these are all compliments and the new slang kids nowadays are saying. LOL! Anyway, every single time I sang I got this response. Even Jen, who I think is a fantastic strong singer that can sing anything did not get responses like this. I just don't understand it??? I don't sing that great. I think I sound like a normal person that can sing. I am not exceptional or above average. For some reason whenever I sing for kids though, I get this response, one where I seem to mesmerize them. Why???? I just don't understand it, really I don't.

Anyway, we did 3 classes and it went REALLY well. WE were all very pleased, and we got a lot of response, in kids wanting to get information and try their own quartet. I really liked it and am glad I did it, even though I was sure it would be terrible and I would be too shy. I even talked a couple of times! LOL! Now that's weird, from the girl that doesn't talk in front of people. :) Maybe I will get over this shyness soon. Yeah right.

After it was over, the other girls also commented on how the kids reacted to me. They all said how they were hypnotized, loved my voice, and really liked me. They kept complimenting me as well, saying how they loved my voice, I had a voice like velvet, etc. It was quite embarrassing. :) I just really don't get it. I told them I don't understand, there are lots better singers than I am, and I really don't like my voice at all. They couldn't believe it. I really don't though. It's weird to hear them say stuff like that, and I don't get it. I probably said that to them like 50 times. LOL!

Anyway, it was great and I am excited to do the next one. We are going to sing in front of a choral directors association sometime soon, I probably will be scared for that one.

Anyway, that's my exciting adventure for this week.

I had rehearsal Monday night, and all that singing must have exhausted me. I ended up going to bed pretty late, and getting up on Tuesday was hard for me. I was SOOO tired. I got up took the kids to school, and when I dropped Avery off, one of his teachers asked me how I was doing. I said I was tired, and she laughed and said she could tell. Yikes, I didn't want it to be that obvious! Anyway, I came back home and went back to bed! I argued with myself about doing it the whole way home, and almost talked myself out of it (it seems weird to waste all that time in the day time and I had stuff to do), but I ended up going back to sleep. I slept until 11:00! I got up, mowed the yard, took a shower ,went and got the kids,took Sam to his shot, rushed home and made dinner, then went to my PTO meeting.

Today I subbed , made dinner, and now I am posting this. Sam will be going to cub scouts in a little bit, and I have got to clean this house.

The teacher I subbed for today just had her wisdom teeth out and is having a terrible time, and might be out again tomorrow. I also have been requested by 2 other teachers! Who in the world do I take??!!!

One more thing. I closed my photography website. I am still doing pictures, just not the website part. It takes too much time and it was up for renewal again, and I just didn't want to spend the money and deal with it anymore. Plus, people prefer to get the cds of their pictures so they can print them themselves, etc, so I am just going to do that. :) So my session fee will now be $50, and that includes a cd of all the pictures and you can print them yourselves. We will try this for now, the price my change, but this is the plan for now. I have gotten several good responses on this new way of doing things so I think it will make everyone happy.

AJ is going on this camping workshop all weekend, starting tomorrow, so we will have a pretty boring weekend.

Another Week Gone By

I can't really think of anything special to write about this week, but I didn't want to make anyone wait for a new post anymore, even if it doesn't say anything. LOL!

I have no idea what we really did last week, but I know we weren't home very much. :)

Oh yeah, Sam did start Cub Scouts. He is so excited.

Avery has a girlfriend, Katie. He also got to be the special helper in his class. That's a BIG deal! :)

This week is pretty full. Tomorrow is a scary day for me. I am doing something I have never done before and I have to sing and talk IN FRONT OF PEOPLE, but I will blog about that tomorrow after it is all over.

I went to a luau last night. It was fun. Here is what I looked like.



The kids stopped doing their chores. I am sad. This week we will change that! MUAHAHA!

Laborless Labor Day Weekend

This week was once again busy.

Avery started school full time on Monday. I worked on Monday. Tuesday I did a ton of cleaning and then had quartet practice. Wednesday I subbed. Thursday I went shopping for some new subbing clothes, since I will be doing more subbing now. Friday I spent the morning helping out in Sam's class and then came home to get ready for our trip to Indiana. AJ and the boys went camping, and I had some girls from singing over for a game night. I was so busy this week that I didn't really have time to feel what it was like to be by myself with both kids in school. I am sure it will be like that most weeks. :)

This weekend we took an impromptu mini vacation! Me and not much planning, can you believe it!

We took the weekend to stay in a hotel and go to Holiday World. The kids have been begging to stay in a hotel for quite a while now (it is almost their very favorite part of vacations)so we decided to go ahead and do it even though, we could have easily driven back the same day. Holiday World was fun, but really hot and pretty busy. It wasn't so bad in the afternoon though, because everyone went to the water park, and that's when we went to the rides. There was a little bit of action. As we were trying to get through to another part of the park, they closed our pathway off and made everyone turn around. We don't know exactly what happened, but from what I could see, something had happened to someone in one of the lines (we could see them working on someone) and I could see them doing CPR. Then as we were walking away this guy was running and we could hear on his walkie talkie that people were yelling at him, asking where he was, because they needed the defibrillator NOW! There were workers running from every direction to get there, and we also saw the ambulance come. We never did find out exactly what happened. AJ figures heat stroke, I figure heart attack. Poor person. I feel bad for them and whoever they were with. I hope they were able to revive them.

I brought the camera with me, but realized when we were almost to the gates of the park (after our LONG walk from our parking spot) that I left it in the car. :( So no pictures this time.

Anyway, we had fun and it was a good mini trip. We love Holiday World because it is less expensive than the other amusement parks, you get both parks with one ticket, instead of paying an admission to each, drinks are free, the food is normally priced, etc. So it was really cheap for lots of fun.

Today, Paige (AJ's Sister) came over (she was here from Indiana, while we were there!) and brought the boys presents for their birthdays. The boys really liked having her here and really liked their presents. Thanks, Paige! :) After that we went swimming in the pool. We saw our friends from down the street out in their backyard so the boys ran over there to see if they wanted to come swimming. Sam's friend Riley came and swam with us. :) We had pizza for dinner, it is almost bedtime, AJ's going to watch the UT game at some people's house from church, and I don't know what I am doing the rest of the night.

All in all, a good weekend. :)

What a Weekend So Far!

Yesterday was pretty much non-stop. Whew! We started out the day by taking Sam to school, and then Avery and I had to take AJ to work. His boss went out of town and left his car at the office, so AJ needed to bring it to his house so it wouldn't stay at the office all weekend. The only way to do that and not have to figure out how to get his car home was for me to take him. We don't like doing that because it puts us in the car for over and hour and Avery hates it. I did have a strep test while I was there, and it was negative, so at least it's not strep that I have this time.

Anyway, after doing that we finally got home about 10:30. I ran around making a list of things I needed to get from the store, and getting everything ready for Sam's meet and greet class party. Oh, and I also through the dishes in the dishwasher. Than we went with Lindsay, Kinley, and Autumn to Snappy Tomato for lunch. Yum! I go there for the yummy dessert pizzas. They are so nice and will put in whatever you ask them to, so as soon as I saw that they didn't have the cherry pizza out, I asked them to throw it in for me. I love it! Lindsay hadn't been there before so I had to make sure she tried my favorite thing. They also had a new S'mores Pizza, which was yummy too.

After that Avery and I ran to Publix. I looked all over the car for my list, and couldn't find it anywhere. Then I realized I must have accidentally stuck it in the mailbox when I put the Netflix movie in to send back! DUH! So I had to try and remember everything on my list. I did pretty good, except that I forgot the most important thing, ICE!!! I needed ice for the party that was right after school. I came home, opened the mailbox, and yep, there was my list, and the mailman had already come, so he got to see what I needed from the store. Good thing it wasn't anything weird. :)

We brought the stuff in and then ran to pick Sam up. The pick-up line was stupid and people were rude and wouldn't let anyone go, so it took us longer than usual. We ran home, loaded up the drinks (thankfully AJ got home early and went to get the ice), and all the party stuff, and went to the party.

Every year I host a meet and greet party for Sam's class. It's a nice way to get to know who your child is spending the day with and to meet the other parents. It was a really good turnout, Sam's teacher came, and everyone seemed to have one. It was HOT though, so that was the only complaint I had.

After that we ran to Watson's for a new filter for our pool pump. Ours hadn't been changed for quite a while it looks like, and it was not pumping well at all. Pools are expensive! At least they are fun!

We then went to dinner with Lindsay's family at Chili's, our favorite place. It was pretty slow, so we were there until 8:30. We finally got home, unloaded everything, got the kids to bed, etc. Then I went right to work on my lesson for Sunday.

I teach the women in our church one Sunday a month. This Sunday is my time. The lesson I am teaching is not coming easily to me, and although I have been trying to plan it out ad get it together for weeks, I am having THE HARDEST time. I have not ever had this much trouble before and waiting until the last minute like this is killing me. I finally had some ideas come to me last night and was able to start. The only problem is I am more than halfway through my material and only have about 10 minutes covered. I teach for at least 30 minutes, so that is no good. I know it will all come together and work out though, so I need to stop stressing!

This morning I had to get up early and go to my front row rehearsal for singing. I am on the front row, which means I am a dancer. We have to go every month to learn new choreography and practice, etc. We are having our annual show next month and haven't gotten the new choreo yet, so today was our day to learn it. Thankfully it isn't that hard and I don't think it will be a problem to get it down perfectly in the time we have. We would love to have you come to our show on Sept. 27. It is a fun night, filled with music, plus you get to see me and Lindsay dance, what could be more fun than that! Go to www.tunetownshowchorus.org for more details and for tickets.

I am finally home, did the bills for the week, and now need to go and finish my lesson for tomorrow. Maybe tonight will slow down a little and we can all take a break before Monday when all the craziness starts again.