Basement Rearrange/Redo

I would love and I mean LOVE to finish our basement.  Get drywall up and real carpeting, but let's be serious here.  Unless we win the lottery, that's just not going to happen.  But, it's such a big space, so we've been using in a myriad of ways over the years.  It seems we've done a few of these rearranges over the course of the past 10 yrs, but this one is my absolute favorite so far!  

This space has held this ping-pong table since, probably, 2004 aka FOREVER!  It's a fun thing to have, and I definitely don't regret getting it, but in recent years, it's taken up this big space and become something the kids rollerskate around and pile things on.  So, we folded it up, pushed it against the wall and filled it up with something else....

It now holds a bedroom and my desk. :-)  There is even a recliner, so if dad comes to spend the night, he can sleep down here - either on the bed or the recliner - and have this big space all to himself.  We even moved the craft table from over by the furnace and put it here, closer to my desk area/teaching supplies.  We had this basement broken down into sections.  There was a "girls section" with all the girly toys and dolls and stuff.  We had a "boys section" that held, obviously, all the boys toys.  Then a preschool section that was behind our living area with our tv and couches and stuff.  The entertainment center that our tv was on was moved (and boy was it heavy!!!) and it now holds board games and my teaching supplies.  It's right there next to my desk.

You can see the "preschool section behind the loveseat on the right.

The boys section was by our air hockey table.  These "before"pictures are from 2010 and there were a few adjustments made since these pictures were taken, but it's a pretty accurate "before" pic.  

Anyway, this is the "after" taken from our new bedroom area.  It's all open now.  The couches have been moved and the space has been carpeted and the preschool shelves are over by the furnace and new loveseat location now.  The kids are LOVING this space, because they can rollerskate all over the place now. :-)

This section used to be where we had the girls stuff.  The bookshelf is a reminder of that.  We are planning on getting a new larger tv to put upstairs and will move our 50" flat screen down here.  That's kind of what caused all of this to happen.  We didn't want the tv to be out in the open like the other one was.  The kids (and their friends) can be a bit wild at times down there and we didn't want the tv to suffer the consequences of that craziness.  So we moved the entire girls section to the old living/tv area and put the living area where the girls stuff was, so the tv would out of the range of those nutball kids. :-)

This gives you a better look at the new rugs and openness we have now.

The dress-up clothes and girls stuff is where the entertainment center used to be.  It all fit perfectly on that wall!

And, this is another view of our living area.  The Wii is down here now and the bookcase is now full of sock monkeys.  Noah finally has a place to put them all!  We love the new space and have spent a lot of time down there enjoying it already.  We still have a bit more sorting to do, but it's nearly done and we're all so excited about our new, open space!

Open House

As many of you know, I'm a preschool teacher.  I am the teacher for our 2 yr old parent/child program and the asst teacher for our 3s class.  I absolutely LOVE it and I feel more than blessed that I was given this job after 10 yrs as a stay-at-home mom.  This past Monday was our all-school Open House.  The first time we've ever had it for all the classes at once and it was a lot of fun!

Because I have parents and caregivers in with our students, it's hard to come up with anything new that they haven't already seen their child make.  So, I decided to take their projects and make it into a mural.  I got lots of compliments on it too!  I added the leaves they painted a few weeks ago to the tree and added their farm animals (the Open House was farm-themed) and their pumpkins as well.

By their pumpkins, I took their pictures and made them into scarecrows. :-)

By their farm animals, I added a picture of them working with their parent/caregiver next to their project.

Our 2s room was all decorated with more projects that they made, from spiders and spider webs to more leaves.

Down in our 3s classroom, my lead teacher (also named Lori!) got the room all ready to go for both our 3s and her 4s.  Those pumpkins on the table and on the wall were made by our 3s.  Cute, aren't they?!

She had lots of pictures hanging up as well.

And, several projects hanging up in the hallway.  Each family was given a list of the projects to look for from their class.  It was like a scavenger hunt and they all had fun looking for their child's artwork/pictures.

Because I work with both the 2s and the 3s, I had to run up and down the stairs a lot to try and make sure I saw all of the kids.  It was a lot of running, but it was fun, because not only did I see our 2s and 3s, but I got to see some of my former 2s that are now in the 4s class.  It's so much fun to see how much they grow each time I see them. :-)  Plus, I get to talk to the parents, who we also grow close to during our year together in class.  I love building those relationships.

Only about half of our 2s came, so our classroom wasn't very busy, but it was fun to see the dads (who usually aren't able to come to class) and the siblings come and see what the room is all about and all the fun artwork that they've done.

The 3s and 4s had special homework assignments for our Open House.  They were supposed to make recycled farm animals.  Here is some of what our 3s made.  So cute!!

After everyone went home, someone took a picture of all of our teachers.  This is such a great group of women!  I'm so proud to be among them.  Lori, my 3s lead, is in the front row on the left.  My 2s asst is Katie and she's in the middle in the front.  They're all fabulous!

I stole this from Facebook.  One of the parents of this adorable little gal took a picture of us with her.  Now you can see why I love my job so much!  I get to spend my time with sweet kids like this!!  It was a really fun evening with our preschool family and I'm glad that I got to be a part of it. :-)

It's THE Day!!!!!

Remember me mentioning a couple weeks ago that it was "the day", but not "THE day"?  Well, today, folks, it is "THE day"!!!  Noah is shot-free and hooked up to a pump full of insulin!

We had to be in Peoria by 9am, so I wasn't able to babysit the neighbor boys this morning and ended up dropping Livie off at another neighbor's house by 7am, so we could leave.  Thank goodness Madie had cheerleading, so I didn't need to find her a place to stay until school started.  We had to go through 3 hours of discussions and explanations and all that, so we could make sure we were ready to switch over.  They looked at our downloads and food journals and gave us the thumbs up!  Here, Noah is getting his pump ready with all of his ratios.

He did a great job with the site change today, even though he said it hurt.  We bought him that little Spongebob as a "Great job!" present.  He liked that a lot. :-)

By the time we finished up at the hospital, it was time for lunch.  We let him pick where he wanted to go and, of course, he chose McDonalds.  It was so weird NOT giving him a shot!  I kept thinking I was forgetting something.  Then I thought, "Oh no!  I forgot to give you a correction dose!".  Then I realized that the pump did all that for me.  I didn't have to do the math myself!  I can't tell you how awesome that was.  For once, we didn't have to calculate anything.  We didn't have to get a shot ready and try and hide it as we gave it to him (so we didn't offend any of the other people eating there).  It was simply just a couple pushes of a button.  It was so awesome!

Now we go through another 3 weeks of homework.  This homework is all about trying to get his ratios right.  Because the pump delivers insulin differently than the shots did, we have to figure out what numbers work for him.  How to deliver the basal best, since he varies throughout the day.  Things like that.  So, once again I am keeping detailed food charts and will have to download his meter (which connects remotely to his pump), so all of his information is on the Medtronic website. We also have to do checks more often and specifically test him at midnight, 3am, and 6am, so they can see how the basal insulin is affecting him throughout the night.  Then, each day I will call PDRC and tell them his numbers, so they can make adjustments.  They said it takes about a week to really get the numbers in place.  And, as we all know, with juvenile diabetes, numbers never last long, so I'm sure there will be many phone calls to come in the coming weeks/months.  But, we've started and I am thrilled to pieces for him!!  We have some sleepless nights ahead, but it will be so worth it to get rid of those 4-6 shots a day, to just the one injection site every 2 days. :-)  It's a brand new adventure!

LOL4JC Community Meal

Today was the first official day of youth group for our kiddos.  Last month, you may remember, we had the kick-off event at Grand Bear Lodge.  It was a really fun time for everyone and I was anxious to see what the first follow-up meeting would be like.  For their first meeting, they were also slated to host the community meal.  The community meal is something our church does the third Sunday of every month to feed the homeless and others in our community in need.  Because LOL4JC (our youth group) meets on the third Sunday of the month, Melissa (the youth director/leader) thought it would be fun for the kids to host that in the morning and meet in the evening for their first group.  I thought it was a brilliant idea too!

Unfortunately, Melissa wasn't able to make it, because her dad wasn't expected to live through the weekend.  So, I quickly took over the community meal, while the other three leaders took over the meeting tonight.  Thankfully, Melissa and I had talked about the menu the Sunday before, so I had some idea of what she was going to do, so I could try and do some of the same things.  The menu was sloppy joes, mummy pizzas, veggies, orange applesauce, witches' brew chips, and cake/pudding.  Melissa's mom made up the sloppy joes for us, but I quickly realized there wasn't going to be enough to serve the community AND us, so I made the executive decision (with my friend Donna's blessing and financial help) to make a pizza run.... during church.  The kids talked to their parents and got the ok to do that, so we worked a bit in the kitchen to get things set up (since I was busy teaching them during SS the hour before), then we walked down to Papa Johns and hooked ourselves us with a few pizzas and breadsticks, but not before taking a selfie! :-)

When we got back, all the rest of the kids and adult helpers came down, joined us in eating the yummy pizzas, then got to work!  Everyone put their hands in something, whether it was making the mummy pizzas or getting the applesauce dyed orange.  They all worked hard and did a GREAT job!

Did I mention that our meal was Halloween-themed?  They all got to dress up, if they wanted too.  Noah wore his banana costume from last year and it was hilarious!

My friend, Julie, took this picture of our crew.

She also took THIS picture, which cracked me up!!  Her son Nick is the one trying to eat Noah the Banana!

We had a huge crowd today!  The other times I've been there, we've served maybe 30 people.  Today, it was nearly double that.  We totally ran out of buns for the sloppy joes and had to send Ron out on a bun run to keep up with the demand!

I was proud of all the hard work my kids put in today.  Their costumes were a hit as was mine. :-)  And, might I mention the compliments I got for my stunning moustache and goatee?

Of course, during the down time, Noah quickly went to work on his ipod. ;-)  The evening meeting was a lot of fun for them too.  I didn't go to this, but heard all about it on the way home.  Madie invited a couple friends to go, so there were only 5 kids total, but they and the three leaders turned off all the lights in the church and played hide-and-seek sardines.  They had the best time and can't wait until the next meeting next month!

Livie was sick with the croup, so that's why you don't see her or Pete in any of the pics.  Pete was ready to go help me get the community meal going, but plans change when kids are sick.  So they spent a busy day at home working in our basement.  Well, Pete was busy.  Livie rested.

It was a fun-filled, jam-packed day and I am so stinkin' tired now, but so glad we were able to have such a great time doing lots of great things!

Pumpkin Patch

Today was our annual trip to the pumpkin patch.  We've been going for so long, I'm not even sure what "annual" it is.  We've been going with Aunt Jill, Uncle Adam, Trev, and Ty since Ty was in a stroller, though, so it's been a long time - and we were going alone before that!

We've managed to go the weekend following the boys' birthdays (10th and 11th) for a couple years now, so it's nice to be able to give them their gift in person.  As they get older, I need new ideas.  Thank goodness for Pinterest who showed me how to tape dollars bills end-to-end and have them unroll them as their gift.  Unrolling $25 in ones is pretty fun for a 9 and 12 yr old!  Ty was wearing his as a scarf, while Trevor was trying to get all of his stuffed into the car again. :-)

The kids are so old now, that it's hard to get them to stand still and take a picture, but I was able to get a few out of them.  This one is my favorite, because of that adorable photobomber between Noah and Livie. ;-)

They played on the hay stacks a lot and spent tons of time playing tag.  They're almost too big for the little houses now, so tag fit them perfectly.

Trevor liked hanging out with the guys today.  I love this picture. :-)

This is another spot where I get pictures taken of them every year.  Pretty soon, they won't be fitting into these windows very easily!

They were having some wild animal thing and they brought this wolf with them.  Madie LOVES wolves, so she was pretty darn excited to see one up close and in real life.

You can see the crowd that gathered to see them.  He was showing everyone a porcupine.  My camera starting dying at this point, so I got very conservative about taking photos.  In fact, most of them were taken with a quick turn-on and click motion, so they aren't very good.  Because, I was careful about the pictures I took, I didn't get pictures of them going through the corn maze or riding the train.  They went into the corn maze all by themselves and I totally thought it would take them a good solid 30 min to find their way out.  Nope!  Finished that thing in 15!  They rode the train too, which is something they love to do, even if their heads hit the top of the train car.  It's fun to watch them, that's for sure.

My attempt to get a quick shot of our kids on the pumpkins didn't turn out great, but it makes me laugh.  Noah fell into the pumpkins and I didn't have time to make him sit up again, so we dealt with what we had!

The boys did a great job carrying the cart around and, as you can see, we filled it up with tons of pumpkins!

Of course, their very favorite thing in the whole wide world?  Picking out gourds.  They could stand there for a half hour just finding 2 gourds to take home.

I stole this picture from Jill.  She got a great shot of the kids!  So glad they love each other so much and have so much fun when they are together.  It was a beautiful day and we were so glad to spend it with them!

Last, but not least, is this picture that Jill took on Pete's phone.  I always love to get one family picture when we're at the patch.  Again, with my camera dying, we took what we could get and this is what we got.  Madie's not smiling, but hey, I still say it was a successful picture!  Thanks, Jill!!  So, there you have it.  Another fun time at the pumpkin patch.  Hope we continue this tradition for years to come!

Saline Class

Today was a big day.  Not THE big day, but a pretty big day nonetheless.  Today Noah got hooked up to his pump!  The reason it's not THE day (in all caps) is because he's hooked up with saline and not insulin.  

I can't tell you how thankful I was that we were the only ones in the class today with our rep.  It gave me time to deal with the emotions I was going through and have her undivided attention when I was finding myself overwhelmed and confused by it all.  It's literally like starting over again.  Thankfully, once I navigate through this and figure out how it works, it'll be so much easier!  But, for now, the learning process is a hard one.  I'm not device savvy.  Noah and Pete, on the other hand, were picking it up in seconds.  When I was feeling particularly overwhelmed, I got pretty teary-eyed.  How was I going to learn all of this?!  Then, a bright shining star was presented to me - a step-by-step manual with pictures!!  Ahh....  There was hope!

When Noah was diagnosed, we went straight to the insulin pen.  It was something I used when I had gestational diabetes with Livie, so I went with something that was familiar to me.  Well, now we have to use vials, because you can't fill the reservoir using a pen.  You have to use a syringe.  So, check me out looking all nurse-y!  Kinda felt cool, I'm not gonna lie.

Angela, our rep, walked us through many different features just to get us started.  Noah has a new BG tester, that communicates directly to his pump.  He loved that!

Then he got the whole thing hooked up to the infusion set.  The scary part for him was having to get the needle inserted.  It's attached to a spring-loaded stamper-looking thing.  The needle looks a lot longer than his insulin pen needles, so he got very nervous and a little weepy.  But, he mustered the courage and let me do it and he said, "That didn't hurt at all!".  So, after that it was all easy-peasy.

We finished up everything, got our new prescriptions and our new doctor's appt (with his new doctor) and headed out the door.

His sisters did a great job of being quiet and content while Pete and I worked with Noah and the rep to get things started.  Can you tell how proud Noah is of his new pump?!

He picked out the pump belt.  It's a sock monkey one, of course.  I hope to get another one soon, so he has a plain one for church and stuff.

I thought I'd give you an idea of our homework for the next 2 weeks.  Each day we have to do what is listed.  It will get us familiar with many of the different aspects of the pump and its settings.  We also have to keep a detailed food log and insulin log to help the doctors determine what his setting should be.  Because he will be getting constant doses of insulin, his ratios could very easily change.  There is a lot to learn and a lot to do, but the first steps are taken and we're off!  Just so glad I have my cheat sheet book that gives me those step-by-step instructions that I so desperately need!