Summer haircuts a la Papa

This is Gabe's I know where your family lives look. I wanted sweetness and light, but again, he does his Papa proud and completely disregards what I ask.


Here I was able to get a cuter picture of all of them. I still don't love this look, but after 3 years of asking, I've conceded and let the arguement die.

My family will need some prayers

Hey there everyone. I have been busy busy busy with painting and planting still this spring. And baseball is in full swing. We have our last days of school tomorrow for preschool and on Tuesday with 1 hr on Thursday for Arlington. Life has been pretty great for us.

But then last night I got a call from my mom. Her sister Karen, who just lost her husband a little over 3 yrs ago to cancer, has cancer herself. She had some of it removed and we are just waiting to see what the drs say. I'm not sure if someone knows more and it's just too hard to write it right now. But this seems crazy that cancer could strike them twice. Neither of them smoke and lived pretty stand up lives. Larry's seemed pretty much a result from his parents having smoked. But Karen's is a huge shock! Please, please, please pray for her and her 3 kids. It will be a trying time for everyone.

I love you all.

Do you post your family pictures online? Read this.

I forgot to credit this post to Claudine Hellmuth. It only took seconds to get the letters to the senators because they have prewritten letters. All I had to do was type in my personal info and they plugged and chugged. So please take a second to check it out for yourself. I know that there are still plenty of people out there who could get the pics and use them illegally, but it's nice to know that there would be legislation against it.


Friday, May 09, 2008
do you post your family photos online? read this!
There are two bills that are coming up in the House and Senate that will change copyright as we know it.They were shot down once before because of action against it --- but now they are back as bill numbers H.R. 5889 The Orphan Works Act of 2008 and S 2913 The Shawn Bentley Orphan Works Act of 2008If you post your family photos on Flickr, anywhere on the internet or on your blog read on!Could you imagine if someone used your child's photo in an unsavory advertisement and you had no say and no rights to make them stop using it! This could easily happen if these bills are passed. There has already been an instance of Virgin Mobile using unauthorized Flickr photos of children in advertisements & billboards and that is before this law was proposed. We do not need to make it easier for them to steal your family photos!If you are posting your photos online, you should read below and then send a letter (there is an EASY fill out form on the Illustrator Partnership web site all you do is enter your info and press send!)Takes 1 minute!!!This is NOT a hoax. This is FOR REAL. And it is scary. Some people say us illustrators and designers are being alarmist, but I would rather err on the side of caution, defeat this bill and keep my copyrights as they are now. These bills were shot down once because of strong resistance from Illustrators, designers and photographers we can defeat these bills again!This is text from the Illustrator Partnership web site:
Due to the lack of publicity about this bill, the most innocent victims of this plunder – those who put images online - are still completely unaware of it. Who am I talking about? Average American families who have enjoyed the internet as a way to share the happiest, and even saddest, moments of their lives with their friends and family across the country, and even around the world, through the wonders of technology. Google has already said they plan to use these orphan works in the millions. Why should companies like this be allowed to to harvest our property from private web pages, blog sites, share sites and the like?On all my illustration and licensing boards we have been talking about it for weeks but now the day of reckoning is almost here and not enough people know about it to help us strike it down in the Senate. We need to make our feelings heard.If you want to protect your rights go here and send a letter. It only takes 1 minute. Here is the link. Then tell all your friends!Thanks to everyone posting on their blogs and message boards about this important issue! Super thanks to my friend Tim Holtz for also posting and linking here. Getting the word out and getting people to send in letters is so important right now. it really only takes a minute via this widget! Time is of the essence!thank you!!!EDITED: Saturday at 12:50Because this is such an involved and confusing topic, I am directing you to Tammy Browning Smith. She is a lawyer for the licensing and craft industry and she has posted to her Arts and Crafts Law Blog where you can get really informed answers from her, here's the link: http://artsandcraftslaw.blogspot.com/

So much in a short time

My life has been completely crazy and it seems as though the crazy train just ain't stoppin'. Last week was the birthday week. This past week has been the doctor week. Like almost everyone else I know, I hate changing doctors. I hate finding a new office that accepts the kids insurance. I hate explaining all the issues they've had up to this point. I hate the small talk. I hate the nervousness they have (mostly Maggie) leading up to the appointment. I myself haven't been to a doctor since Gabe was 1yr and that was 2 1/2 yrs ago. I haven't been to a regular dr for 8 yrs and the dentist for 11 yrs. I have some serious catching up to do. But I'm getting the kids squared away and I'll do mine eventually (maybe).

So Gabe went first. His was Monday and he was feeling pretty good. We went and I talked about his constant snotty nose (or as he'd say knotty). I talked about how he doesn't say S's ever at the beginning of words and how he seems to be getting worse about all consonants at the beginning and end of words and now just makes one gigantic mess of a word with his sentences. Its horrible. We also discussed his frequent ear infections as of late and his glands that are always swollen. (Let me tell you folks, there are days I feel like I have Munchhausen and they'll just drag my kids away as I scream in my straight jacket.) But the results are always there and the dr took me seriously. We are trying Benadryl for the runny nose. I will be starting one breathing treatment of albuterol to see if his cough at night is truly an asthmatic cough as the dr suspects. We will be going back in 3 mths so the dr can check the size of his glands again. He is not really happy about those. They are not quite big enough to immediately suspect cancer, but he is a bit concerned. He is looking into some information on Gabe's allergies/sensitivities to grapes and apples. The dr seems to think there is something else to that and just doesn't know yet.

But the biggest thing...the doc said that he'd better really check out his ears. But there was so much wax in them that he had to go get the scoop. Ugh, it brought back horrible memories from my childhood when the ent would grab long things and shove them down my ears. And I never really understood why he was doing it. Ick. So he scooped and scooped. And after about 5 times, he could see Gabe's eardrum. Which again, had fluid behind it. So doc decided to pull out this contraption that sent puffs of ears with a really irratating beep and then read how much his eardrums vibrated (I'm guessing very similarly to how bats use sonar). Well, Gabe's eardrums didn't vibrate AT ALL! So we're of to an audiologist. No wonder we're constantly screaming at the boy. And mom said that is exactly what I went through. The same thing. So we'll see what happens next.

Then it was Maggie's turn the next day. There wasn't much with her except for the issues with pooping. But the night before she hadn't slept well and complained of an earache. In the office she was a bit warm and really weepy. Actually she cried a couple of times and I'm pretty sure if she could have, she would have run to the van and never gotten out w/o the promise of never returning. But I don't break easily and made her stay. She had pretty good (or bad) infection in her ear, but the doc hoped she could tough it out a day or two and let it run its course. If not he prescribed some amoxicillin, but we didn't need it and never had it filled. Although I'm sure nerves got the best of her because by the time we got home, she was throwing up. She stayed home from school and just layed on the couch outside under the umbrella as I scraped and painted. And we have a course of action for her bathroom routine. There were some extremes mentioned like enemas and probing, but I thought that might be a bit traumatic for her AND myself. So we opted to try some prescription laxatives for a few weeks and some scheduled bathroom time. We hope to resolve this issue soon. Other then that, she's growing and gaining weight appropriately and he wasn't all that worried about her at all. Whew!

That same day, Arlington had baseball practice from 5:15-6:30 so dinner has to be early and I had to go to a meeting by 7 pm so bedtime was fast. I hate days like this, but luckily a lady from our church was willing to come to our house while the kids were in bed to sit FOR FREE. Thank goodness for good people.

I also got the side of the garage painted. Thanks to Darrell for doing some scraping. Although I would have done a more thorough job, it would have taken me another week just to scrape. So I suppose having it done enough for now is fine.

I have trim work to do now with the darker green and painting the window frames white so they look like our new windows on the house. But won't that be great? It almost looks like a nice garage. I also will be mulching along the side which should really improve the look.

Here are some pics of the kids playing outside.

our shade is no more.

Our trees in front of our house have been dying since we moved here and they are starting to fall apart (quite literally). So the city has decided to cut out the worst one and have put the other on their list of to-dos. It was all quite exciting to the kids Saturday morning when they started. Here are the pics of it all happening.

Before

The tree is starting to fall

Starting to chop it up

Not much left

It's gone

Things I've been busy doing.

First on Friday I chaperoned Arlington's field trip to the Bloomington Children's Discovery Museum.

Then on Saturday I went to the White Sox game with Darrell and a couple from his work. They won. It was AWESOME. Nick Swisher totally rocked that night. Yippee.

Then Saturday we celebrated Arlington's 7th birthday with my brother's family, Mom, and my grandparents and Auntie Karen. It was a really great time.

Then on Tuesday I went again with the preschool this time to the Bloomington Childrens Museum. Darrell got to come also so that was really nice.

Tuesday night Arlington started baseball. Summer is really gearing up to begin already.

Last night we made star cupcakes for Arlington's birthday treat today. It is officially his birthday. And Happy May Day to all!