Love her or leave her?

Not Amanda - the dog is who I am talking about. Why on earth did I ever pad train my dog? I thought it would be so much simpler to do it this way rather than have to take her out in the weather, or leave her kenneled all day when we are gone, but I am really, really second guessing this decision. Case in point, last night we forgot to lock Daisy up in her bed so when Ben came downstairs this morning he looked around to see if she had got into anything while we slept. He saw nothing immediately. He leaves for work and thinks nothing more of it. Well when I came down an hour later after my shower she has left some really disgusting, questionable remains on her pad. It is obvious that she has eaten a diaper from somewhere- - it is sad that I can tell this just by looking at her little poopies. So I go on my quest through the house to find what I know I will find. Sure enough, upstairs in the kids bathroom is the remnants of a diaper all shredded and eaten on the floor. So I get to clean up this disgusting mess. I then proceed downstairs to clean up her pad and mop the floor where she is. I fold the pad all up and ask William to carry it carefully to the garbage can. As my luck would have it one of the corners slips from his fingers and he spills the contents all over the kitchen floor. My patience is all but gone now. Don't worry, I did not blow up at him - - it was not his fault- - I just counted to ten, finished laying out a new pad, went to the kitchen to clean up yet ANOTHER mess from this lovely dog of ours. What stinks (no pun intended) is that this is a daily occurrence here at my house. Cleaning up her pad that it is. I love our dog. The kids love her. She is fun and energetic and it really is not her fault that she has to defecate and void and we just so happened to train her how to do it on those stupid puppy pads for our convenience. I just don't know what to do to save my sanity.

She is really quite amusing at times. In fact, at this precise moment while I type she is attacking the window with her little paws because there are bees flying around just outside of it and she is desperately trying to get at them. Kind of cute.

Perhaps when we move we will just have to install a doggie door and re-train her on where she needs to do her business and my nerves will then get a break. My kids make enough messes for me to deal with without having to add a dog to the mix.

SNOW!!!

This is unbelievable. I don't think I have ever seen this much snow in Texas! I started heading home from Fort Worth at 12pm today and did not pull into my driveway until 6pm! Crazy! The DOT shut down almost every highway in Wise County it seems.

We could not pull into the driveway for all of the snow that was here. My van is stuck down at the base of the drive for however long it takes for this stuff to melt.

William was so proud of his first snow angel.

Here is the road that goes between Mom and Dad's house and ours. Or better known to the kids as "The road to Terabithia."

This was at 4pm this afternoon. Unbelievable.

Erikah's battle...

I got a call this morning from Susan (my oldest sister). She wanted to let me know that our niece Erikah is back at Dallas Children's Hospital again. She was sent via ambulance last night because she was not breathing and turning an ugly shade of blue. When she got to the ER she had about five doctors surrounding her and working her up. It turns out she has pneumonia in both lungs and the bacteria has spread through her blood stream. Her blood pressure was 60/20 with a heart rate of 185. She has since received a blood transfusion and they are going to sedate her and put her on a ventilator to assist her with her breathing. They have attempted to put a PICC line in, but have had no success due to her severe dehydration. Chalea said they may have to put her under anesthesia to do it. The docs told Chalea that had they not brought her in she likely would not have made it through the night. She is a very sick little baby right now.

What makes this so difficult is that Erikah is a transplant patient. She received a new liver about 5 months ago. She is just over one year old and has had quite a struggle in her short life. She was born with no bile duct in her liver so she was not able to rid the toxins from her body. She was put on the transplant list and was lucky enough to receive one before she got too sick to be able to be considered. Now she will be on suppressants for the rest of her life, thus making it incredibly easy to pick up the simplest of viruses.

I pray for my brother and his wife that the Lord will give them the strength to see them through yet another trial and keep them strong.

And I thought my Monday was a bad one. Count your blessings.

I thought I was going to die!

Well, ok, that may be just a bit dramatic, but oh well.

So tonight I am on the phone with my sister Sarah. We are making plans to get together tomorrow and gossip about all of the people we don't like. (Just kidding. Sort of) I am sitting in my dining room since the kitchen floor is drying after I was a good little housekeeper and mopped it all clean. But I digress. On to why I almost died. All of the kids have been tucked into bed by this time so I am all alone downstairs. From where I am sitting I can see into the kitchen and the living room. I tell you this so you understand that what I am about to explain is not as easy as you may think. So while Sarah is chattering away about what time she will arrive tomorrow I suddenly feel a warm hand on my back. I FREAKED out!!! Somehow Christian snuck downstairs and got behind me without me even being aware of his presence. He was supposed to be in bed and sleeping. I can see the stairs from where I am sitting! He thought it was the absolute funniest thing in the world. And of course, based on my reaction he will be ready and hiding in any remote location he can find to get the same response as soon as he can. Be still my beating heart. My kid may not survive to adulthood. Just warning you.

All dressed up with no place to go...

It always seems to happen this way. I get up with plenty of time to get all of the kids bathed, hair done, dressed, fed, etc. to make it to church by 9:40 so we can actually sit on a pew. Well as luck would have it William cannot find one of his church shoes so we begin the frantic tearing apart of his room to locate it. After searching for 15 minutes through all of the toy bins, closet, under the bed, Amanda says, "Oh, I know where it is." She walks into her room and brings it out of her desk. Of course! Why did I not think of that? That would be the most logical of all places to put it.

So now it is 9:50 and time to go. Amanda's hair is still wet from her bath and Alex is needing to be fed. So I tell Ben to go ahead and save us a seat and we will follow right behind him. So while I am blow drying her hair she starts to say she does not feel so well. I figure it is because she did not eat all of her breakfast. We finally get Alex buckled in to his seat, get the car loaded with our things, and pull into church at 10:30. As we are walking through the parking lot to the building Amanda starts crying, I ask her what is wrong and she says, "I think I am going to throw up!" So much for church now. I check her forehead and sure enough, she is now warm. She was not earlier by the way. So I go in and peek into the chapel and let Ben know we are just going to turn around and go back home. All my rush and work for nothing.

So here we sit on the couch at home. She is running a 101.3 temp and I am on the computer. Like I said, all dressed up with no place to go. :-) What a day.

Copy Cat

I am following in the footsteps of Elisabeth and starting a blog. I have all of these good intentions of keeping family and friends up to date on what is going on, or something the kids will say will make me want to tell others and I never seem to get around to it. Perhaps this will work???

Life is great. Ben is FINALLY finishing up his degree in marketing and logistics. He has to take 9 hours over the summer and will be done. What a relief it will be. Next up for higher learning will be ME! I am going to start my prerequisites for nursing school this fall.

Little Alex is absolutely adorable! I cannot believe three months has already gone by!! I am 100% addicted to my little baby. The kids adore him as well. Amanda is always talking to him or teaching him new songs. She has taken it upon herself to make sure he knows all of his nursery rhymes. Too cute.

Christian was just baptized this last Sunday. I still cannot believe that I have a child that age. Where has the time gone? He was so incredibly mature about the whole thing. He said to Ben after it was over that he felt "really good." He is proud to be called Brother Nibarger now. He beams with pride.

Like I said, life is great.