Thanksgiving

I think I have to say that this year was the BEST thanksgiving I have ever had. It was just the six of us in our new place. We had all food made from scratch and just spent time together as a family. We played the Wii, built more of our puzzle and of course ate until we were so stuffed. The kids seriously ate so much food. I had no potatoes or zucchini left! We have just under half the fruit salad and about only half of the 12 pound turkey left. Good little eaters. Then came time for the pies and they once again did not disappoint I 4 pieces left of both pies. I am just so happy and thankful for my little family. We aren't prefect but we are certainly perfect for each other. I thank God every day for the people He has placed in my life and for the children in my care. We have such a great and loving Heavenly Father. I am also so happy to be feeling better everyday. Thank you Lord for loving us and blessing us with exactly what we need.

Thanksgiving Break

The kids have been off all week so we have been keeping the kids busy with activities so that they aren't misbehaving. We started a 1000 piece puzzle. The only one helping me put it together at this point is GG. She is really good at puzzles though this one is a bit hard. We get about 50 pieces put in a day during the two little ones naps. On Monday the kids went to Trader Joe's with me and they were so absolutely well behaved. It was so much better than the last time I took all four grocery shopping. They each came away from the store with a balloon, stickers and a fruit chew. They found Gorilla Joe which is why they got the fruit chew! Tuesday they each had a friend over. Yay there were a lot of kids in our house but they had a great time. Today they have been helping with making food. GG helped make the pie crust for the apple pie. Red and Peanut helped with making two different kinds of bread. The banana bread is for tomorrow and the other is for me. GG is going to peel potatoes for me tonight and Monkey is going to help with the apple pie filling. Red is going to help make the fruit salad after his nap. I love making everything from scratch it taste so much better is SO much healthier for us! Our menu for tomorrow is Turkey with garlic and rosemary, fruit salad, stir fried zucchini, red mashed potatoes, apple pie, and cheese cake. We are going to be eating good. This is the first time I have made EVERYTHING for the feast. Well the puzzle is calling my name...oh yeah I have taken a picture of it each day when we are finished so hopefully I can post them when I am done.

Some News

The kids doctor's office called with some of their labs back. The good news is that their CBCs are good and there was no lead found. I was not shocked to hear any of that as that is what I was hoping for. However, the heavy metals did not turn up so well. GG, Monkey and Peanut all had levels of arsenic in them. The normal range for it is 0-50. GG was 19, Monkey was 17 and Peanut was 46. Peanuts labs concern me BIG time. To the point where I had trouble sleeping because I really didn't know why there is arsenic in her body and why hers was so high. I did some research to find out how arsenic gets in your body. It is naturally occurring in our drinking water, salt, some foods, and wood. Now you might notice that I didn't have a level for Red that is because there was none found in him. This put in into a whole different thought process. Out of all my kids Red has had the least amount of vaccines. Do they put arsenic in vaccines? Well they put mercury in them so what makes us think they wouldn't put that in them. I did some more research to see if I could find arsenic in vaccines. My search came up empty. Though I did find some other very alarming chemicals and things that are put in vaccines. When I had my labs done I had small amounts of other heavy metals plus arsenic being the highest level of 7.7 and J got his back and his arsenic level was higher than mine. Something is not right that is all I have to say. I am very thankful that Red doesn't have this harmful metal in him but I want to know why the rest of us do! When we get the rest of our results back it should be very telling. I am waiting for 2 tests for Red and 3 for the other 3 kids. I did get Red's leptin back and it was fine so that is good. If anyone reads this and has any knowledge or understanding of arsenic if you could pass along your information to me that would be great! I just my kids completely healthy.

Waiting Game

I think this is one of the hardest things for me to do is just wait now for the doctors to call. I am waiting for my doctor to call with a referral for an acupuncturist. I am waiting to hear from the kids doctor about their blood work though I know this will not come in until the beginning of December I am waiting all the same.

I started reading My Sister's Keeper. Man, it is a good book but not a good thing for me to be reading while I wait. The little girl got diagnosed when she was Peanuts age and I keep thinking what if they call and find that there is something really wrong with her. Then I have to give those thoughts over to God because I know HE knows the future and He will take care of every little detail.

Then we are waiting with our house. Waiting to get the paperwork from the hygientist that clears our house of any mold issues. Waiting for an offer of someone to buy it. Waiting and researching to see if we should lower the price and still be able to afford another house. I really think God is teaching me patience as there is nothing I can do to make any one of these things move any faster.

Rough Week

This week has proven to be pretty rough and it is only Tuesday. J is working some overtime this week with some grant money that needs to be used up which is nice but he has to be at work by 6am which means he isn't home to help in the morning. Plus, I wake up when he gets up at 5am. Today was the worst. J had to be at work at 7am so not as bad for him. However, Peanut woke up at 6:15 today, way too early. After I dropped off the kids Peanut and I headed to her doctor appointment. I purposely planned it where it would just be her and I. She got her blood tested and that was the hardest thing I have ever had to do. She also needed to pee in a cup as we got there she said she had to pee and I told the lady and she took her sweet ole time getting the thing for her to pee in that she peed in her pants. I was so annoyed. I had to go out to the van with a half naked baby to get her new clothes. One thing I miss about not having a diaper bag. The blood oh the blood, they needed to take 5 tubes. They first stuck her in the left arm and got two before the vein popped. Then they had to stick her in the other arm to get the rest. I held her in my lap and one lady held her arm and the other lady took the blood. It was torture hearing her crying and I couldn't do much to help her. I told her while the needle was in that when we were done I would get her some ice cream. When it was all said and done the lady says to me, "Hopefully she will forget about the i c e c r e a m." I was like what. I told her I was giving her ice cream I'm not going to renege on what I said. What would that teach her: mom isn't going to do what she says. So I took her for some ice cream. Then it was off shopping for much needed things for the house. Then we had lunch and she took a nap. While she was sleeping the lab called and said they needed me to bring her back because they didn't put her blood in the right tube. I was so MAD. My poor girl was going to have to get stuck 3 times in ONE day. Ugh. It wasn't a huge deal to bring her in because I had to bring Monkey and GG in for getting blood taken. It was just a LONG day. J has to be at work at 6am Wednesday and Thursday and then hopefully the madness will end. Oh yeah and J is at a church board meeting tonight so we haven't seen each other more than 30 minutes today. J said to me tonight, "I hate this season in our lives right now." Me too. I feel so overwhelmed, exhausted and burnt out on driving so far. Ok, next WILL be better :)

where did I leave off?

We have started a new thing and driving in to the suburbs together to try and save on gas money. It has worked out pretty well so far but as the weather gets colder it is going to be harder to find places for Peanut to take her naps. I have tons of errands I can get accomplished and many doctors appointments to attend so we aren't hurting for activities it is just after lunch I need a place for 2 hours so she can sleep. What we have been doing is parking the car in a location that has wifi internet and she naps while I get online. I actually have the windows in the van rolled down about 4 inches as it was getting too hot in here!

We not only have big changes in our address but the kids and I all got new doctors. I switched to the same one J goes to and the kids go to a doctor who sees under 14 in his office. Red had his appointment on Tuesday and this doctor was AWESOME. I explained everything that we have gone through he listened to me and then asked what I would like to see happen. I told him that I would like to get the kids blood tested so we know how much the mold has effected them. He was completely on board with it. YAY. Though I had to bring Red back again today to get more blood taken the first guy didn't end up taking enough. He was a trooper. He says, "It doesn't even hurt!" He is so funny. The other kids go to the doctor next week to get their blood taken. We are moving in the right direction. Once we get them back we can go from there. As for me, I had a follow up with my primary today after he sent me to the infectious disease doctor. I am so excited that he is going to be sending me to an acupuncturist. That will help dry out my insides and promote death to the fungus! J stopped in my doctor's appointment and he got on him about getting his blood tested so he is going in on Monday. Score. Do you know how long I have been asking him to go get tested? Way to long. I want the chance to grow old with him and if he isn't healthy we won't have that opportunity.

Just an interesting tidbit though you might think it is gross. About 2 months before we moved J and I each got planters warts on our big toes. He had two and I had one. He had been going in to see his doctor to get it freeze dried off (maybe 4 times) and I had gone in once. Well today he looked at both of ours and did nothing to mine because it is almost gone and had to freeze J's again, though his are much better they still needed a little help. I learned that mold/fungus when it is in your body is sticky and therefore viruses stick to you. Warts are viruses. Since I changed my diet to mostly anti-fungal foods it has gone away on it's own. Mold is bad, very bad. I am thinking that is probably why I get sick so easy too.

Other things on my mind are Christmas shopping. This year we are going light on gifts which is kind of a nice relief. I think that all we need to get for our kids are one gift for each of the boys and all the kids pj's that they open on Christmas eve. J and I are talking about getting internet for Christmas but we'll see where we are at that time. Who knows our house might have sold and we might be moving into a new house, in that case we would just wait. I'm going to trust God's timing on all of this.

I have new pictures of the kids in leave piles but I don't have the camera with me to put them up on the blog. I will have to remember to bring it so that I can update the pictures on the sidebar. I am going to try and get better at updated more frequently but then again I have no internet so...we'll see.