A Good Laugh

Ok, so I have, below, a fun little look-alike post.  However, the more I played with that website and put in pictures, the more I found it to be entirely hilarious at their attempt to find someone who looked like anyone in the picture.  For example, I tried a second picture of myself and everyone that was matched to me was Asian.  In the picture posted, Brandon is also in the picture with me.  They matched him with celebrities ranging from Lance Armstrong, Kenneth Branaugh, and George Clooney to (hold on to your seats) Dave Chappelle and LL Cool J!!!  Oh, I forgot, they also matched him with Katie Holmes.  In another picture that Brandon had me try, the girls were in the picture with me, and it matched Esther and Sarah’s face with their program.  Sarah was matched with the most random people, Brittney Spears, Magic Johnson, Ulysses S. Grant, and some scary person that I was offended by  (don’t remember the name).  Esther’s closest match was with Tommy Lee!!!  HELLO!!!  I think their program is flawed. 

Just for fun

I think they just chose anyone with round cheeks. I like the young Candace Cameron!

Valentime’s

Esther walked around all day yesterday saying, “Happy Valentime’s Day!” I love that!

It was a good day, busy, but good. I woke up planning to make heart shaped chocolate chip pancakes for my children, but then realized that my husband was home. He woke up early, as usual on a Wednesday, to leave for his elder meeting. However, he only pretended to leave for his elder meeting. I had the table all set up for the girls, but he added a long stem rose for each daughter, as well as a dozen for me, and cards. How lovely. I got the girls each a Hello Kitty placemat, and had a fun activity for them to do while I was making the pancakes. I got the idea for the activity from LHJ.com. They loved it!!! Then we all had breakfast and headed out for our days. The girls were off to school and Valentine fun galore! Sarah and I off to STAR Bible Study at church, and Brandon off to work (also at church). I had a dentist appointment at 2pm, just a cleaning, but still – poor planning. Then had some baking to do for my family as well as preparing dinner. After dinner, we ran off to Pioneer Club at church where I teach the 3rd and 4th graders. Whew! Overall, still a nice Valentine’s Day.

I am blessed with love in my life on many levels. The love of my friends, my children, my sisters, my parents, my in-laws, my husband, and my God. True, the “hallmark” day of Valentine’s is a little ridiculous considering that this love should be shown all year round. But I also find the day as an opportunity to be able to show those you love, just how much you do. Every day doesn’t always allow for this to happen.

So, I told Christina that I’d post about my idiot proof brownies. She made some very cute ones for her Valentine. Take note – these don’t have to be only done at Valentine’s Day either. Any cookie cutter will do, so use these ideas all year long!

Now I got this recipe from Abigail’s cookbook. The book suggests to line your pan with foil and coat it before pouring in the brownie mixture.  After the brownies have been cooked and cooled, place another sheet of foil on top, and put in the freezer for 30 minutes.  This apparently helps with cutting them out into shapes.  After the 30 minutes, flip them over onto the top foil so that they are now upside down and remove the foil.  Then cut them out.  (OK, maybe these aren’t so idiot proof, but they were still easy!)    To frost them, empty vanilla frosting from container into a microwave safe bowl and heat for about 30-40 seconds.  Color it as you wish.  Place brownies on a wire rack with wax paper underneath the rack for drippings, and drizzle the frosting over.  Makes a nice, pretty glazed look.  They’re very yummy too!

Happy Belated Valentine’s Day to my blog world friends!

Best Day Ever!

If you know Spongebob, you know of the song that he sings about the best day ever.  Well, Abigail is workin’ on her best day ever.  She woke up with still swollen lymph nodes, but somewhat improved from yesterday.  Still feelin’ good, but I called the doctor anyway.  They wanted to look at her, so we went in.

NO MONO!  The doctor thinks that she had a concentration of the infection attack the lymph nodes on that side, which incidentally was the side where her ear infection was/is still lingering.  So, she is to continue her antibiotic, stop the steroid (causing more puffiness/swelling), and… are you ready for this… eat a sour candy every 1-2 hours for the next three days!  Have you ever heard of such a thing?  The better news for both of us was that she can return to school tomorrow.  She actually raised her arms and did a little leap.  I think I raised my arms too.  This means I can go to the Y, and Bible study, and wherever else I want to.    And Abigail won’t miss out on any Valentine activities at school.

So, Abigail is having her best day ever!  You should have seen her eyes as we went down the candy aisle.  Mmmmm, good thing I’m not crazy about sour candy, we have our share.

  

Sleepless in Torrance

GREAT!!!  Each one of my daughters are sleeping peacefully and I can’t sleep.  My husband kept kicking his leg and checking the sheets, because he thought he felt a moth.  What?!?  That’s just what I want to hear as my bare legs are under there next to his.  So now I lay there thinking, “Ew, was that a moth?”  “Did something just bite me?”  Then randomly, out of nowhere, a song pops into my head.  Not a meditative praise chorus or soothing hymn, but rather I hear, “Taylor, the latte boy…”  as brilliantly performed by Kristin Chenoweth.  (Thanks, Heather!)  As I lay there fidgeting, I definitely feel something LAND on my closed eyelid.  I swat and sit up to turn on the light and what do I see?  A huge, nasty, very unappealing at 1:30 in the morning CRICKET!  Brandon grabs a kleenex and gently grabs it, as to not crush its guts into my pillow, and smashes it within the kleenex in his hand and throws it away.  Meanwhile, I’m out of my bed, near the door of my bedroom, stripping off my pajamas to get the heebeegeebees away.  No such luck.  As I get back into bed, which is not very easy to do after a cricket just landed on your eye, I keep “feeling” twinges in my hair, legs, basically anywhere and everywhere.  Then, to top that off, I have “woman” cramps.  Then, another fun songs comes into my head… “Cheetah’s, amigas, friends for life, da da da da da da da, that’s what keeps us tight…”  SUPER!  Now a song from Radio Disney is playing in my head and I don’t even know all of the words.  Trying to pray, think I feel something again, ok, time to get up.  So, here I sit, at 2:23am, which by the way, the first time I looked at the clock when my husband first felt the “moth” was 1:23am.

Quick Abigail update.  She woke up in the middle of the night (Sat – Sun) complaining of her tongue hurting.  This isn’t the first time she had told me that, but I assumed she was getting a kanker sore from being sick.  She was in tears with pain.  I gave her some motrin and was preparing some warm salt water for her when Brandon walked in to see what was going on.  He took a good look at her and noticed that one entire side of her throat was swollen.  She looked like she had the mumps.  (Great mom to miss that one!)  To make a long story short, I get to take her to the doctor again today to possibly diagnose mono.  As usual, I’ll keep you updated on that.  Other than looking miserable with her swollen face, she feels great!  Hind sight is always 20/20, and we’re now realizing that she complained of her throat hurting all last week as she was sick.   I guess, considering she feels fine and isn’t miserable, I should try to go back to sleep and count my blessings.    Now a Christmas song just popped into my mind.    SIGH  This too shall pass.  GOODNIGHT!

Some Funnies

A couple of funny things happened in the last few days that I didn’t get to share with all of the illness drama, so I thought I’d share them now.

Sarah was assessed on Thursday to see if she needs speech therapy.  She cannot say the sounds for g and k/c and replaces those sounds with other letters.  The woman doing the assessment basically showed her pictures of things and had Sarah identify them.  She was doing great (other than the pronunciation of things), but her language was not lacking.  Sarah continued along with testing up to 6 year old level.  The woman told me that she had to continue with the process until Sarah either maxed out attention wise or could not answer correctly.  We got to some pictures where the woman described the pictures using wrong words.  For example; there was a picture of a girl walking and the woman said, “The girl is walked at home.  That doesn’t sound right, Sarah.  Can you fix it for me?”  Sarah answered, “The girl needs a mommy or a daddy to walk at home with her.”  Then another picture showed a girl running.  “The girl runned at home fastly.  That’s not right, Sarah.  Can you fix it?”  Sarah answered, “That girl needs to slow down!”  I tried my hardest to not blurt out in laughter.  My little sassafras fixed it her way!

Abigail’s class sent home letters to her wishing her to get well and telling her how they’ve missed her.  Most of the letters were about how they missed her smart brain and her shining face.  (Most likely the examples on the board.)  Then we run across this one…

“Dear Abigail,  Even though you have pneumonia you’re still like diamond in a ring.  I got a black eye.  Call me at ___-____ Love, ______.”  Kids say the darndest things, eh???

Without Further Ado…

My flower!  This was a Christmas gift from a GREAT couple at our church.  Typically, I kill anything that comes in a pot.  I try, I really do, but my thumbs are definitely not green.  When I called the lovely woman in this awesome duo to announce that I didn’t kill it and that it finally bloomed, she assured me that they were pretty hard to kill.  God must’ve been smiling on me, because my self-esteem in terms of gardening is pretty much null and void.  So, as my entire family watched our bud carefully begin to open, I had to capture it in photos for eternity, because we all know, this may never happen again! 

And yesterday, a second bud began to open!

Illness Update

Well, hopefully this will be the last for quite some time. Abigail had to go back to the doctor’s one more time yesterday for another check-up. She had a bad night Wednesday night and just didn’t seem to be feeling better. So, in the last week, six of those days being “business days”, I had been in that office four times. Again, so thankful for insurance. Her ear infection was still there, lungs sounded clear, but her cough was still tight. The doctor changed her antibiotic, and she is a new person today. She’s been playing dress up with Sarah, talking, eating, just feeling a whole lot better. Abigail climbed up on my lap while we were waiting for the doctor yesterday and fell asleep on me. I just sat there savoring every minute. She hasn’t done that since who knows when. There was a mirror across the room from me, and I just looked at this huge seven year old taking over my body, but if I looked away, or down at her face, I just had the feel and smell of a great memory that I tried to remember so vividly. It sounds cliche’ but time flies!

We are now on disinfecting duty. Brandon changed out our heater filter, I bought new toothbrushes, I’m cleaning sheets and doing laundry, whew! Even brave enough to get a babysitter tonight for our original plans of going to some friends for a game night and desserts. Speaking of desserts, this WEEK OF CHOCOLATE on the food network is killing me. Not to mention that we’re coming close to the ever so popular visit from my “aunt”, so this is not helpful. But there are some great things I plan on trying. Gotta love chocolate, unless you are my best friend or mother-in-law – WEIRDOS! How do you not like chocolate? It’s an illness I’m sure of it, but maybe one I should try to catch.

IT’S OUT!

The first tooth is out.  She actually let me pull it out before going to bed.  What’s funny is the sound of excitement and surprise that followed.  She jumped off of my lap and starting yelling and screaming.  Her eyes were even better.  If you know Esther, you know she can tell the best stories with her eyes.

With all of her excitement she went to the bathroom to see what she looked like with her new hole.  All of sudden her screams of excitement turned into screams of tragedy.  Her tooth fell in the sink.  Daddy came to the rescue with the tools needed to search for the tiny pearly white, a task that seemed alot like searching for a needle in a hay stack.

After taking everything apart and clearing out gunk from the pipes he asks, “Esther, are you sure it dropped down the drain?”  And Esther replied, “I think so.”  Those famous words.  So, after a quick perusal of the counter-top, Daddy found the tooth hiding behind the faucet.  No tools needed after all.  What a good Daddy!  So, she was able to get it to the tooth fairy after all, and even more excited when she found out the tooth fairy came last night.  And the tooth fairy is so thoughtful.  She always leaves the baby teeth under my pillow so Mommy can save them.  So I found Esther’s baby tooth under my pillow this morning.  Esther was very anxious to get to school in the morning to show off her new hole.  My baby’s growing up.

Here are the before and after pictures of our new technology as well.  Excitement around every corner at the Cash house lately.  My flower is almost open too.  Can’t wait to post about that!

Update

Well, Abigail is doing fairly well considering her condition yesterday.  She slept through the night until about 4am.  She had a breathing treatment and went back to sleep.  Sarah slept well also except for falling out of her bed sometime in the middle of the night.

We went to the dr. today.  Abigail was doing great!  Clear breathing, no fever, much better!!!  Sarah has a double ear infection as well as a sinus infection and the onset of bronchitis.  Glad I took her!  She is now on an antibiotic as well.  Whew!  I’ll be glad when this is done, and I’m doubly glad for insurance.    Abigail’s still not feeling 100% so she’ll probably spend one more day resting before returning to germ central (aka school).

Esther’s doing splendid and is about to finally lose her first tooth.  It can completely lay straight forward, but she doesn’t push it back so that’s where the snag is.  I’m sure I’ll post a picture of it gone soon.  I’m also typing my first post on my new computer.  It’s awesome even if it isn’t a mac.  We still have a mess with the cords and furniture not back to normal, but when it gets all tidy, I’ll take a picture and post it.  As with anything new, I’m gonna have lots of fun playing with it.  Can’t wait for the days to come.  Hopefully, things will get to normal around here and I’ll have a little more of my “alone” time again.