Sweet Corn

Mason doesn't always get too many appearances on the blog. This is mostly because when I decide to do a blog post we are sitting at home and the little ones have done something that is too cute not to take a picture of and share with everyone. While this is happening, Mason is usually out and about doing numerous other activities. So, today he is outside of my office with his best buddy selling some sweet corn. I couldn't resist taking a picture of them while they didn't have any customers out there.

I have to give this kid quite a bit of credit. He is such a trooper being the big brother. I'm fairly sure that no parent intentionally leaves their child out, but it seems that is what happens sometimes. With such a gap in age between him and the younger kids, it just happens that they are doing completely different things. Many days he goes to the farm with his dad and helps out or plays with his other buddy. Many of these days have ended with him spending the night at his friends' house sparatically. He has also had a couple of weekends that he has been invited to go camping. I feel like I don't get to talk to him for sometimes up to 2 to 3 days at a time...isn't this supposed to be when they are about 17?? But, everytime he comes home with a smile on his face and happy to be back home with us. Now, we (or maybe just I am) looking forward to the school year when we will dive straight into sports. First tackle football, then wrestling, and last soccer. Should be a constant busy straight through until May...would we know what to do if we weren't constantly busy?!

Normal?

Well I guess we are back to what we can call normal...although I don't know that it's the same normal anymore. With so much loss recently, it is hard to not feel a sort of emptiness every day. It's almost as if we go through the motions, but don't really live the day like we would "normally" do.

Even so, when you have 3 kids running around you have to try to live for the moment. I have been saying that I might be partially ready for school to start so that we get back to some routine. I would like to think that our whole family runs better when we have a routine (maybe it is just me that is happier when there is a routine so then the whole family runs better :). However, the start of school is a week and a half signals the end of summer. This is something I am not ready for. It seems as though we have tried to cram as much lake time as we could into this summer, but I still feel like we haven't had enough! As if we weren't trying to pack enough into the summer with baseball, swimming lessons, Lake City softball, and just enjoying the nice weather, I have been doing quite a few pictures. As I type, I am cropping images....this only seems to add to the craziness. I told someone the other day that I think I do all of this just to prove that I can (although I really don't know why that is needed!)

I will leave you with a couple of pictures of my mini-me and the little man sitting in the bumbo seat. He should not be big enough to do this yet at 3 months should he?!

Back to the real world

Well, our lives the past couple of weeks have been in a sort of turmoil. To say the least, I feel like a train has hit me and then backed up and ran over me again!
Almost 2 weeks ago, we had a pretty big scare with little our little man. He had been congested since after we went camping on the 4th of July. I had taken him in to a local clinic since his regular doctor was gone for about a week and a half. They gave him an antibiotic and nebulizer and said that the tightness in his lungs should get better. Well, he had his 2 month appointment (that was late anyway) scheduled and the night before we went to the appointment he had one of his coughing fits. I got a little scared and said to Craig that he looked like he was turning purple from coughing so much. When we got to our appointment I could see the look in the doctors' eyes when she took a look at him; he was not well. I felt as though I were in a dream. I don't tend to take my kids to the doctor that often for a couple of reasons. First of all because they are rarely sick and secondly because everytime I do, the doctor seems to tell me that they can't give them anything for that and it just needs to run its course. This appointment went a little differently. First of all, little miss Peanut was in the worst mood. So, as the doctor and nurses were trying to get Jarrik's O2 levels, x-ray his chest, and many more things, I was mostly trying to console Koryn so she would stop making such a ruckess. In the end, we found out he had Croupe, his oxygen level was at 80% (normally should be over 90%) and he had thrush. After much anxiety from myself, he has almost made a complete recovery. I keep telling myself that we are so lucky that our kids do not have serious health issues, because I don't know if I could handle it!

To end a very long and stressful weekend with Jarrik being sick, we got the news that my godfather had passed away. It is kind of hard to describe my relationship with him, but one of my best friends put it the best (he was an uncle to me too.) I didn't expect it to hit me that hard, but it really was a difficult time. My prayers are with the best godmother I could ask for, and 2 of the greatest friends/cousins/men I know!!

To top off this awful news, Koryn got the flu on our way to visit with the family. Nothing worse than seeing a little girl throwing up and not knowing what to do. On top of that, a 104 temp!! Very scarry again! Mom had to stay home from work for a day with her. By the end of this last week, everything was back to some sort of normal again. It won't be the same world as before, but back to the real world for this family!