Ty's hospital visit

What was planned to be a busy, birthday party weekend turned in to a overnight hospital stay.

Ty woke up Friday morning with his right eye swollen shut. It looked pitiful and we called right away to get him to the doctor. The doctor gave him an antibiotic shot and asked that we watch it closely and come back first thing Saturday morning.

Saturday morning the swelling had gone down a little bit, but now he was sporting a red ring around his eye. The doctor said this wasn't a good sign and sent us straight to the hospital. When we got there they were waiting for us and admitted Ty right away to start IV antibiotics.

He had periorbital cellulitus or preseptic cellulitus. They mentioned both names. It is the inflammation of the tissue surrounding the eye. It is dangerous because if it isn't caught early in can drain to the back of his head. We caught it time to get the proper treatment.

They administered antibiotics and steroids throughout the day. Since we had to cancel his Superhero Training Party we went ahead and had a little gathering at the hospital to celebrate. We plan to still have the party in another 2 weeks. (otherwise we will have 12 red shiny superheor capes!)

He was released Sunday after he took another dose of antibiotics. We see the pediatrician tomorrow to recheck the eye. The swelling is pretty much gone and all that remains is a little pink around the eye.

Praise God for a speedy recovery!

Here he is during one of the rounds of anitbiotics. The swelling has gone down quite a bit in the picture. As you can see the eye didn't diminish his enthusiasm.

Happy Birthday to Ty!

Cupcakes and a pitiful look! Poor guy!

Labor Day Project

With the help of Mark and my dear Mother-in-law, I recovered our dining room chairs. We have had the chairs for almost 5 years, but only started to use them for our everyday eating chairs about 6 months ago. 6 months of white seats was all we could take. Emily helped me to pick out this fabric and we also covered them in plastic.

I am very pleased with how they look and can't wait to pick out paint next. Our kitchen and dining area will feel brand new very soon!

Here is the before picture. If you want to click on it you can really see how horrible the seats were.

Katie's Party

We had a great time celebrating Katie's 2nd Birthday. We planned an outdoor Luau, but due to rain it turned into an indoor Luau. We invited family and our friends the Driskells and had a fabulous time!
In the past few weeks Katie has become enthralled with Dora. We bought her a small Dora cake just for her!

Katie got lots of cool gifts! Her favorite was probably the cell phone. After she opened all of her gifts she had to take several calls. She is a busy girl.

Ty was very proud of buying her a gift. He picked out a little Dora house.

Being goofy with the big sunglasses....

She did a great job blowing out her candles!

We had a Hawaiian themed menu with Steak, Ham and Chicken Shish-ka-bobs. They were delicious. The ambrosia was delicious and sadly there was none was leftovers. :(

I love this picture. My girls and their 2 grandmas.

Start of Soccer Season

This was our first day of soccer games for this year. Wow! It was hot!

Ty is playing in the under 4 league. It was very humorous to watch and as you can see below he has an adoring fan in Katie.
Emily played in the under 12 league. The field seemed huge! This is her first time playing since Kindergarten. She is doing a great job getting the hang of everything. She is #8 in Lime Green.

Ty is getting direction from his coach for the kick off.

Sarah is a faithful supporter and is eager to get as many of the 50 cent snocones as she can! They really hit the spot.

Rollerskating

Emily and Sarah had the best time last night. We went Rollerskating with the Roberts. The girls got skates for Christmas and have been skating outside with our neighbors alot lately. They were so excited to go to a real rink.

Jenna and I had the best time chatting and remembering when we both skated at the same place when we were younger. It is so interesting that we both grew up and did so many of the same things in Fort Myers and never really knew each other. We probably have crossed paths more times than we realize over the years.

We plan to hit Homeschool Skate next Friday and Sarah even wants to have her Birthday Party at the Roller Rink. I guess next time I will have to skate too.

School is in session!

Today the students at Dillehay Christian School happily reported back to work! Yay

We had a great day for our first day back. It makes me happy that our kids enjoy school and are eager to learn. I think we are going to have a wonderful year! We started off with a family prayer time and then headed into the school room. Mark and I had stayed up last night and 'spruced' up the room with new posters, name tags on their desks and set out their new supplies. The kids were excited with the new touches.


Emily is in 5th grade this year. She is taking two courses online with FLVS. She is very excited about being an online student. Emily is a great writer and I always look forward to reading her essays and journals.
Sarah is in 3rd grade this year. We are using a program from Heart of Dakota and I think it will be a great fit for her. Sarah and I enjoyed doing her science work today. She is a good student and loves to keep her work organized.

Ty is very thrilled to be in school. He was so ready to be a real part of our school. I am using a preschool program from Heart of Dakota and we also are working through "Teach your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons." He loves letters and is good at identifying their sounds.

Katie is our newest student and is making her presence known quite quickly! She loves to be right in the mix of the things. We plan to have her follow along with some of the things that Ty is doing. Today we used window chalk and that kept her busy for a long time.

Emiy and Sarah hard at work with the globe. Very studious faces!

Ty and Katie working on a matching games. I was so excited about my file folder game, but it took them less than a minute to match them up. They loved it just the same.

I am so glad that I have the opportunity to homeschool. At times it can be difficult to have both of us working full time out of the home and manage homeschooling and other activites we have in life, but I cherish the time we have with our children.

And lastly, You know you are a homeschooler if........

you can wear rollerskates while you do your math!

King's Kids trip to Wannado City

This Wednesday I had the special treat of taking 6 wonderful King's Kids from our church to Wannado City in Fort Lauderdale. The kids had a chance to earn the trip by passing 12 sections in March, April and May. The books are very challenging and sometimes (depending on the book) one section can be 7-8 verses. Each of these kids worked very hard to get to go on the trip. The kids who went were: Emily, Sarah, Brooke, William, Kevin and Ethan. Originally, I planned on going by myself, but Brooke's mom, my friend Jenna, decided to join me. We had such a good time. We talked and talked the whole way there and the trip went by sooo fast!


This was Emily and Sarah's 4th visit, but we still found many new things to do. This is the acting studio. They video the kids and tell them what to do and then we had to come back later to see the video. The video was of them being chased by candy through a candy factory.

We tried to get all of them to do things together, but eventually it was eaiser to split in groups and let everyone pick what they wanted to do. This was our first activity, the fire station.

For lunch the kids made their own pizza.

The Crime Lab was great! Kevin solved many, many crimes during the day. I would definetly say it was his favorite.

Sarah wants to be a cashier someday, so she was thrilled with her position at Publix.

When the kids do jobs they earn Wongas. They can spend the Wongas to do different things. For 60 Wongas they can go rock climbing. William spent alot of money here!

We saved money by coming as a Birthday Party. It was a nice break to sit down and have cake.

The girls at the nursery

Ethan as a police officer.

Emily, Sarah and Brooke loved the acting studio. Brooke also was chose to be one of the models for the modeling studio. She did great!

Emily as the rather mean Queen of Hearts. "Off with her head!"

I'm so glad I got to take the kids on this treat. It was nice to reward them for their hard work. I always suggest for people to take their kids here because it is so much fun. As Kevin put it, "This place is like a piece of Kid Heaven."