Dearest January, You Stink. Sincerely, Jennifer

WHAT is WITH the weather. I am reporting to you as I watch the news call for more snow coming overnight tonight into tomorrow. Will there will be school? NOT likely. Will we ever have summer vacation? It looks bleak. I know, I know – snow comes with the territory of the north. But hello?? A break in super cold, super snowy, super slippery weather would be a little nice. Time to let up now. Not funny any more. Cold needs to go bye-bye.

ANYWAY.......

"Xin Nian Kiau Le" Happy Chinese New Year everyone! “Gung Hay Fat Choy” is Cantonese for Happy New Year, but we are pretty sure Cainan heard Mandarin. We will be celebrating as a family next weekend. This weekend we were busy painting, so I wanted to wait until next weekend! We will be putting out our decorations and ordering some Chinese food and having a little celebration all of our own. I didn't order decorations in time this year – I wanted to add a few more, but shipping is too slow. Here's hoping for some new decorations for next year! We will all be in our red and enjoying some yummy food. Pictures to follow next weekend.

Scrappy Honesty

I was given this award from my sis-in-law Carrie at Hicks Family Four and my other sis-in-law Teen, at The Tings. Thanks!

The rules of the award:
1) Choose a minimum of 7 blogs that you find brilliant in content or design.
2) Show the 7 winners names and links on your blog, and leave a comment informing them that they were prized with "Honest Scrap." Well, there's no prize, but it is fun!
3) List at least 10 honest things about yourself.

1. I suffer from panic attacks. They are brought on because I have a thyroid disorder. This makes it very hard for me to stay by myself when Mat is out of town. I can usually ride them out in about 10 minutes, and they always happen at night, but they are always scary. So – I don't like to be alone.

2. I quilt. I have made about 15. I LOVE doing it. I have made our bedding and am almost finished with the girls new bedding. I mostly make quilts for others for special occasions, and those are my favorites. My best quilt was the one I made for my WONDERFUL Godparents. I put a piece of every quilt I have ever made into that quilt. They have been there for me for everything in my whole life, so it only seemed fitting.

3. I have attended funerals for 9 child patients I had. Those were the hardest thing I have ever done. For the last one I attended, I was with the baby when she passed and that is when I decided I needed a break from intensive pediatric care.

4. I am not very patient. I try to be, but it is next to impossible for me. I get easily frustrated with the kids. I am working on it and some days are better than others!

5. I love going out and doing things as a family. I like being at home, but being outside or being out doing something is better. It isn't easy to get all 5 of us out, but even if it is just a quick outing, we are happy. We are “out and about” kind of people. I think that comes from living in a warm climate for 8 years.

6. I am terrified to fly. I some how end up on a plane just about every year and swear it will be the last time ever fly. I have taken medication to fly before, but now that I have kids I just suffer.

7. I would have liked to adopt one more child. If it was financially possible, we would have one I more.

8. I started playing the piano when I was 4. I stopped when I was in college, but can still play. I have perfect pitch. I also played the French Horn. But music was not my future – I always wanted to be a nurse. As long as I can remember.

9. I have a thyroid disorder that I was diagnosed with 10 months after Arlington was born. My feeling is that it was underlying all through college, and just escalated after I had a baby. I have Grave's disease. I had my thyroid radiated in 2003 and have taken medication ever since. Most of the time I feel good, but still struggle to keep weight on and keep my emotions in check.

10. I cannot cook. I would like to cook better, but I actually don't like it very much. I love to eat, though!
    
    

I give this award to:

Michelle at Sundry and Electric

Donna at Lena and Macey

Tara at Kidz

Tammy at The Long Family

Courtney at Adventures of our Family

Holly at Holly B's Random Thoughts

Anymommy and Is There Any Mommy Out There?

The rest of the weekend went pretty well at our house. Sunday I painted the family room/kitchen with the first coat of paint. Looks really good. I am anxious to paint the hall and back wall of the family room and get it all tied together. BUT – this week I will finish up with what I have and then on to those projects. The painting didn't get started as early as I hoped because Mat and I accidentally left the paint in his car overnight. We forget sometimes that we live in the north and doing dumb things like that will come back to bite us. His car is NOT in the garage and it was 5 degrees overnight and, well, the paint FROZE. Yep. That is NOT good for it apparently, so what we had was a big can of gloppy mess. AND, right on the can in BIG, pretty letters it says “Do not let freeze”. Oops. Unfortunately it cannot be saved, and that was a lot of wasted money. My dear husband ran back out to the store on Sunday and got more. What a good guy. Lesson learned!

Mat and Arlington also made popcorn on Sunday. They made carmel popcorn:

And Popcorn with white chocolate and oreo cookies:

We are our very own Dale and Thomas popcorn store! (click on name to see their site) If you have never had their popcorn, you have NO idea what you are missing. It was yummy and Arlington had fun.

Finley was on a “no nap” weekend brigade. That girl is a menace challenge. She stayed in her room for her usual nap time, but didn't sleep either afternoon. The first afternoon she was good for about 2 hours and then she started shouting for her sister. She wanted “sissy” to come lay down too. She she yelled for her. This woke Cainan. Cainan always wakes up happy, but that was the end of naps. Sunday, she was quiet the whole time – just talking on and off to herself. I threatened asked her nicely a few times to go to sleep, but she never did. Ah well. She has weekends like this. If we can't run her around outside for awhile, she is less likely to sleep. At least she sleeps well at night.

Monday was a zoo at work for me. I saw another 70 kids. I sent 7 kids home with stomach bugs. It was not pretty. 32 of my 70 visits were upset stomachs. No joke. It was not fun and I was tired by the time I left work. But I came home and did a little painting. I put the second coat on two of the walls in our living room. I will do a little each day I can this week so that I can move on to another color this weekend.

Tuesday was better at work. On kid came in and said “I need you to take my fever”. What a hoot. I tried to correct him - “I need to take your temperature buddy?” He said, “no – you need to take my FEVER”. Alrighty then.

Tonight Arlington had Daisy scouts. She was excited to go. But she was having a mini meltdown after school. I think she may be coming down with a cold (although she will never admit it) so she was really fussing around. We almost didn't take her to scouts, but she was determined to go. She was fine by the time we left, and it is only 1 hour. She loves it. I have to report that she is really doing well with reading. Mrs. Oscarson has started sending home more challenging books for her to read, and Arlington is even surprising me with some of the words she knows.

Finley came home from school today with a fever of 100.3. She didn't want to eat dinner. So she won't be going to school tomorrow. We are having a POSSIBLE snow day tomorrow, so we may not have to worry about it, but if we don't, Mat and I will split the day. I have a big meeting in the morning and he has one in the afternoon, so we have to split. So we will see. I was just thinking “the kids haven't been sick in a really long time”. So I jinxed myself. She has a terrible cough. Poor baby. I hope she doesn't share with the rest of us. Finley has progressed quickly with the Alphabet and now she and Mat play a "find a letter" game each night and she loves it. She can count all the way to 20. I think she could be smart like Arlington, but she just doesn't care. She isn't as advanced as Arlington was at this age, but she still holds her own.

Cainan is doing great. He has been having some night terrors that are new. He had some in the beginning when he first came home to us, and he still has some from time to time. But he settles right back down, which is nice. He can count to 5 which is AMAZING for him because he has no interest in learning letters and numbers and such. And he is doing well with colors. We find out in a few weeks if he will qualify for the preschool program and I am anxious to hear their report on his progress. With Cainan it slow, and not always steady, but we are always proud of his progress. He has had to overcome a lot.

So that was our weekend. No pictures to speak of – sorry! Just a few because we didn't really get out and about too much. These winter months are causing a laul in my picture taking and it is lame.

Have a nice week and I will see you on Saturday!!