There's a Fungus Among Us...

well actually a bacteria! We knew it was coming by the way her eye oozed yesterday. She woke up looking like someone punched her in the face and with "yuck" all over her eye and face. Pillows and blankets being washed right now!

The note came home this week that Pink Eye had made a come back at the girls' school. Guess who got it, again. Doctor's office, again. Last week Kaydree (sore throat) this week Karsyn.
I put some of my, "Milk," in a syringe and put some drops into her eye last night, just to hold her off until we could get her to the doctor. Benjy laughed and thought I was crazy, however I pulled up article after article, even some based off of scientific proof of how Mother's Milk can cure pink eye (conjunctivitis) Here is just one of the articles.
http://blisstree.com/live/using-mothers-milk-to-treat-eye-conditions/?utm_source=blisstree&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=b5hubs_migration
Well we did go get antibiotic drops, just to be sure.

Going Private

I went private once before and some of my friends and family couldn't figure out how to open a google account, without being confused that they weren't opening another email account. I have figured out a way to bypass that by creating a general user id and password for them to use. It will be user name "viewblog"

Going private happens for numerous reasons. In the beginning people said it was to protect their children and I do believe this is the number one reason why people should. In recent conversations with multiple people... there are many more reasons (social), which are sited:

1. People do not want others living close to them or maybe attending the same church, school or living in the same neighborhood to see what they are doing because then they hear that they are being mean in any activities that they do. Especially, if they don't invite every single person from that organization or neighborhood to participate. (which isn't physically or sanely possible)

Blogs have become a great gossiping (not necessarily bad) tool so I want to know that the people who love and care about us are the ones talking about us. This blog has been a blessing because I now want to journal about our daily lives and it has been a time and money saver compared to scrapbooking.

I also love getting to know people better through their blogs. I love seeing their little ones growing up, fun ideas that they have, family traditions to carry on and other special feelings or things that they share. I love feeling apart of others lives in a way that I might not have the chance to do, if it weren't for blogs.

Thanks to blogging I now have 2 hard cover blog books and a third one soon to come, that have recorded our family history. I only hope that someday my children, grandchildren and great grandchildren will have a part of their history to pick up and read as our memories of these events start to fade. This is the number one reason I blog however it is also fun and it feels nice to know that people care enough about us to want to see what is happening in our lives!

Thank you for being one of those people!

A Secret Fertilizer...

Karsyn grew this little bean plant (we think) and gave it to me for Mother's Day.

Inside is her special fertilizer..

Sisterly consoling.

We gave her three choices: Blueberry could swim down the toilet in water heaven forever.. he could be burned in a backyard fire where his ashes could rise up to heaven or he could be fertilizer for my plant. She made a hard but wise choice. Now if we can only keep Charlee from digging him up! R.I.P. Blueberry...you were a good fish.

An Unbelievable Story!

Do these things happen to other people, or is it just me?!?
Last night I had a Relief Society Stake Training and I didn't think I was going to attend because the girls both had soccer games at the same time in towns 30 minutes apart. Benjy and I were going to have to split up with the girls. He offered to take Kyce and stay in town with Karsyn, so I was really excited to have some alone time with Kaydree. Our plans changed at the last minute when Karsyn's game got cancelled. I decided to attend the training probably not with the best attitude. I also thought, I am leaving after an hour of this meeting because I knew Kyce would be fussy and ready for bed. Ha Ha, little did I know! It was rainy and cold and I dug out my jean skirt (which I can now fit back into) and a brown tweed blazer. I thought about which brown shoes to wear. Let's just say I made the WRONG choice! I wanted to wear my flip flops but after Elder M. Russell Ballard spoke about flip flops at the last General Conference, I decided that they weren't the best choice...I thought about my other brown sandals (too cold for exposed toes) and my other brown ones seemed to dressy for a jean skirt so... I went with an older pair of clogs that I haven't worn in over a year due to the pregnancy...

the ESPRIT clogs (suppose to be a decent brand) didn't look so beat up when I put them on. That is the part of this incredibly EMBARRASSING story!

As I am sitting in the meeting I look at the floor and see all this black stuff on the ground and think, "What the heck is all that black stuff?" I then realize that it is only all around ME!
I look down and realize that my shoe is literally DISINTEGRATING! Are you kidding me? So I lean over to my sweet friend and tell her. She is so kind and offers to go to my car and see if I have an extra pair of shoes in it, which I normally have a pair of flip flops or tennis shoes for the gym... but no... my kind husband likes to randomly clean out my car and I knew he had taken them out for our trip to my parent's house last weekend! This sweet sister then offered me her shoes to wear! That alone made me feel like crying. The fact that someone could be so sweet and thoughtful! I wanted to leave right then and there and go home! How could I walk out of there bare foot or without my entire shoe falling apart or worse yet leaving a trail of black junk? The meeting was 2 hours long and this was about half way into it, so I decided to make a run for Fleet Farm down the street to buy some cheap flip flops. (I think Elder Ballard would understand!)

All I kept thinking was, "please let this shoe hold until I get to the shoe department." Well, no such luck, as I was walking in, the entire chunky heel goes flying off and I had to walk through the store lopsided with one heel on and one heel off! At this point I started laughing, all I could do was laugh to the point of almost crying, I was laughing so hard. (My mom always tells me that it's a great quality, to be able to laugh at yourself!) I was building character as she would say!

I grabbed a pair of cheap flip flops payed for them and put them as soon as the cashier handed them back to me. Oh, it felt so good to be wearing a pair of shoes that weren't falling apart.
Here is what the bottom looked like before it was all said and done.

I went back to the meeting despite my desire to just go home, mainly because I knew I needed to vaccum up my mess! I think there is a reason why this all happened, even if I can't explain it scientifically how this happened. I didn't have the right attitude about going and I needed to be there until the end of the meeting. Not only did I need to hear that part of the training but I had a little reminder that our HEAVENLY FATHER IS AWARE OF US AND SOMETIMES HAS A SENSE OF HUMOR, TOO!
There were about 30-40 of us there and only a couple of door prizes given out at the end of the meeting. I think I had a feeling that my name was going to be called after a night like that. I won this beautiful gerbera daisy, vacuumed up my mess and headed home to share my story with my husband ,who can't believe I am not too embarrassed to blog about this!

His First Sleepover..

Kyce brought one of his little buddies for a sleepover at Grandpa and Grandma's house.
They played really well with each other. They both stayed in their pajamas all day and so did their Moms.
The boys let their sisters share in the sleepover fun. The girls got to play in the new hot tub.

They even got to see the new kittens. We got there Friday night and when we woke up Saturday morning there were 6 baby kittens.
I am so glad that we got to go home and celebrate Mother's Day with my Mom. We attended the Marshall Church and the girls all got to sing with their primary and that was pretty special. Then we had lunch with my Grandma, Aunt Karen and Uncle Doug before heading home. We ate way too much over the weekend, of course my mom made some of our favorite foods, and they were hard to pass up. I really needed a trip home to get away from some of the craziness of living up here and there is nothing like being with family to help ground you in the things that are of Eternal importance.
We talked to Grandma Villarreal last night and we are really looking forward to spending time with the Villarreal side of the Family this summer. It really is a bummer that our families live so far away from each other. We wish we had more time with both of our families. We really cherish the moments we do get to spend with them.

Unsuspecting....

6 month shots.

Caterpillar Catastrophe

Last fall Karsyn found a caterpillar at the park during playgroup. Karsyn tends to wander off looking for nature during playgroups. I often find acorns, rocks, twigs, dirt, shells and leaves in my washing machine. Her grandfather and a certain friend...think it is so funny that we have a little hoarder of "stuff" so they encourage this type of on going collection.

Last fall didn't turn out to be such a positive experience for her. She found this cute little furry caterpillar, put it in a, bug habitat, as she called it and supplied it with all the proper leaves and twigs.

The little guy made a nice little cocoon and then stayed that way for months. (dead)

Sometime this winter after watching hoarders when the girls were at school I vowed to clean out under Karsyn's bed. I found this little guy in his bug habitat and decided that he wasn't going to turn into a beautiful butterfly so I sent him to the trash. Thinking that Karsyn had long forgotten about her little guy, I thought I was in the clear. I was until the first playdate at the park this spring. She remembered finding him at the park and asked, "Mom, I haven't seen my caterpillar, I left him under my bed, do you know where he went?"

Oh crud.... I couldn't lie to her so on our walk home from the park I came up with an ellaborate description on how he didn't make it and how he had to take a ride in the big black container to caterpillar heaven. She then began to ask who came and got it and where did it go. I told her, "Well... I sent it in this big black container, on a big silver truck, to a big green hill." She had to ask me what the big black container looked like. As we were walking and it was "trash," day I said, "Well it had big a A.C.E on it." About 2 minutes down the road, it dawned on her as she read the trash cans...and she looked at me and said, "Mom....how could you! You threw it away?" I broke her little heart. I tried to justify it, but in the end I promised her that if we found another caterpillar we would bring it home.

So the other night we took a family walk and as she came across another furry little caterpillar she jumped off her bike reminding me that I promised her she could bring it home.

Kaydree, Benjy and I tried to convince her that if she brought it home it would more then likely die just like the last one. We tried to tell her that by taking it off the path we might be taking it away from little babies that need to eat. She didn't care... she wanted that caterpillar.

She wouldn't touch the caterpillar and she wanted one of us to get it. So we then tried to sidetrack her again and said that if she wanted him, she had to pick him up herself. Well after leaving a couple of times and coming back to it, she finally worked up the courage to hold him. Benjy is afraid she might need therapy after this whole drawn out dramatic scene took place.

She is so happy to be the proud Mama of another caterpillar, that stays outside in our hosta plant. She didn't want me to blog about it, because she is convinced that if some of you find out about it, you might want to come and take him.

Yesterday she jumped out of bed and immediately went outside to check on him. This continued about every 15 minutes throughout the day. I found her out in the yard at one point yelling, "caw caw..." and flapping her arms, trying to chase some birds away so that they wouldn't try to eat him. Then she began singing, "Birds, Birds...go away come back some other day!" I just chuckled at her throughout the day until we went to the gym and she had to leave because her caterpillar might be getting rained on. Right now she just made Benjy go out in the dark to scare some bugs away so she could check on him before bed.

Here are some pictures of her furry little guy. We shall see if he is there, again, in the morning. If not, it could be a tough day for all of us....

Weekend in Review...

Friday:
4:50 Movie (How to Train a Dragon.) AWESOME!!!!
6:30 Quick grab McDonalds for Supper...in a hurry!
7:00 Norwex Party...this stuff is pretty dang cool!
Sleepover for the girls...

Saturday:
6:00 Double Coupons at Rainbow (free yogurt, cheap produce)
8:00 Clean up at Church
9:00 Primary Activity
11:00 Bridal Shower
6:00 Book Club (Benjy made shish kabobs) They were GREAT!
9:00 Watched the Brothers' Bloom. (Waste of time)

Sunday:
Benjy taught Elders
Kristen taught Relief Society
Karsyn had a talk in Primary.
We took a very long Nap....
Went on a Family Walk...a caterpillar story to follow!
Watched Julie and Julia (Well worth the time)

There is something strange about Monday being a day that I can finally kick back and relax.