Nose Bleeds...And Unfinished Work

Today was one of those days where I never quite felt like I got into my "groove".

Carson had Mother's Day Out today, so we got him up and ready, and dropped off in time for me to start knocking out my "to do" list. I had my list broken down into 30 minute time segments (as I often do), and had lots to accomplish.

About an hour after he got to "school", we got a call that his nose was bleeding, and that they couldn't get it stopped. They said that it had gone on for 20 minutes or so, and said that they thought that we should come and get him, so we did.

A couple of weeks ago, the same thing happened. We got the call from school, but that day, right after they got in touch with us, it stopped, and so they called back and said that he was okay. They said that they had probably used 20 tissues while it was bleeding! They also said that they didn't think that he had fallen or had any kind of an accident.

These are the only 2 nose bleeds that he has ever had to our knowledge! I am kind of confused as to what it could be.

Corey mentioned that he might be allergic to something at "school", but I don't know if it would cause that kind of a problem.

Also today, and a few weeks ago too, Carson has complained of eye pain in one of his eyes. Two times today, once after he got home from school, and another time later this afternoon, he started crying and rubbing his eye, saying it hurt. After about a minute or so, he stopped fussing, and forgot about it.

Any ideas? I am a worrier, so it is hard for me to just let things go. Corey said that it is probably nothing. I told him, that one or the other wouldn't necessarily worry me, but both together...I just want to know what the deal is.

Anyway, after Carson got home, my day full of accomplishing things kind of fell apart. I am bad about that. If I know that Carson and I will be at home all day, I can plan with that in mind, and still get quite a bit done, but when I have a plan, and it gets thrown off, I am not so great about getting back into my "groove".

My "to do" list for tomorrow just got a little bit longer!

Wish me luck!

Writing the Waves,

Christi

A Whole Lot Of Laundry Going On!

Well, I said yesterday that I was going to have to dig myself out of a pile of laundry today, and I'm almost there! So far...6 loads!

Looks like I won't be having the "Mom, I don't have anything to wear" conversation in the morning! Yea!

I hate when it gets out of hand, but that happens around here from time to time. Each time I dig out, I swear that I will never get behind again, but...well, you know. Don't you??? (Please say yes...just to make me feel better!)

Tonight, we sat out in the front yard watching the kids play. As I sat there, I sketched out my master plan for a total garage makeover. I think that when we decide to dish out the $200 on new shelving, that it will be fabulous! We would have room to park, or for the kids to play around, while still having easy access to everything! I am getting quite a bit of satisfaction out of just the thought of it!

Well, off to put away my piles of wonderfully clean laundry before I get ready for bed, and watch me some Dancing With The Stars!

Writing the Waves,

Christi

Tomorrow...back to reality

Tomorrow is Monday. Spring Break is over. Although we haven't gone to a far away, exotic location, we have enjoyed our mornings of sleeping in, and our days of hanging out together. Tonight the kids had to get into bed at a decent hour for the first time in over a week!

Well, although I hate for the down time to end, I think that when the house if full of people just hanging out, well, I want to just kind of hang out too! So...I am just a little bit behind on my laundry and cleaning. After about 1...um, I mean 10, loads of laundry, I should be able to check that off of my list. The other fun stuff like floors and toilets...I will probably space them throughout the week. Oh, the fun!

Since I need to wake up at a decent time to get the party started tomorrow, I better get to bed myself!

Writing the Waves,

Christi

A Day In The Life....

Today we all slept in, and then decided to go to the Mid-America Science Museum in Hot Springs. When we got into the car, Caylie looked under the seat, and found her wallet that has been missing for at least a month...a good start to the day!

Before we left town, we had some business to take care of...a yummy breakfast at Denny's! We all left fueled up and ready to go!

When we arrived, we were surprised at how MANY people were thinking the same thing that we were! It was a very cold day, and everyone was trying to find something fun to do while staying WARM! The line to buy tickets was very long, and so Corey waited in line while the kids and I headed to the gift shop to kill some time...and have some fun...

The museum was lots of fun! It had neat stuff for everyone to do. Here, Corey and Christian are trying to brace a "building" to be able to withstand an earthquake. After they built it, and secured the strapping, they pushed a button to make the platform that it was built on shake in order to put their work to the test..it held strong! Good work guys!

While Carson was slightly interested in Corey's and Christian's earthquake resistant structure, he REALLY took an interest in the LEGO table! Same general concept...try to build an earthquake resistant structure.

Carson couldn't have cared less about that though...he just wanted to build.

Period.

We saw, by building our own arch, how an arch adds so much strength to a structure...both on a small scale....

and on a much, much larger scale!


SUCCESS!!!


...at least until Carson came along and acted as the demo man. He worked up a belly laugh over that one! A missed photo op...

Caylie and Carson adjusted lights on both sides of a window, to see what kind of an effect it had on how well they could see each other...and make faces at each other!

They had a water fountain that was built into a TOILET!

Yuck!

It was supposed to show how much your preconceived ideas impact you. Funny how Caylie could get past the thought of drinking out of a toilet, but gets grossed out if she has to share a drink or a bite of food with her brothers! Ha!

I freaked out a little bit on this one...I was afraid that Carson would come home and think that he could start drinking out of our toilet!

In this water play area, Christian and Carson had fun attaching rubber bands to the boat paddles, and seeing how far they would go.

By the time we left the museum, everyone was ready for a treat from Dairy Queen.

So with a fun day, and a full tummy checked off of the list...we headed home. Some lasted longer than others....

Writing the Waves,

Christi

PS: To my sweet, sweet mom... YOU. ARE. THE. BEST!!!! You know what I am talking about!!! An awesome end to an awesome day! WE LOVE YOU!!! :)

Movie Night

Today began as a pretty uneventful day. We got a few things done around the house, and then didn't really have anything planned.

After Carson got up from his nap, Mimi came over to visit. Caylie has really been wanting to see "Confessions of a Shopaholic", and asked if we could have a girls movie night. Corey said that he would stay home with the boys and so we headed out to catch the last matinee of the day. It was a cute movie. Totally a chick flick! Love that!

After the movie, we went to get some dinner at Chick-Fil-A. Yum! Mimi was so sweet, and treated us to dinner...which makes even the best chicken around, taste even better! :)

It has been a while since we have had a girls night out together! We should try to make time for it more often!

Mimi hung out for a little while after we got back home. We were all laughing at Carson's antics. Among other things, these are a few of the cute things that he is entertaining us with recently...

*He says "la" for "yeah".
*He says "set, uet" and squats down on the floor when "playing football" in the den.
*He does the funniest dances when we sing or play songs for him. He especially loves Alicia Keyes "No One".
*He loves the Burger King "fillet of fish" singing fish commercial, and the "Yella Pella"
commercial, and always say "do again" after seeing one of them on TV.
*He loves to "fight" with daddy while wearing the single boxing glove in his toy box.

He is so good at keeping everyone smiling and laughing around here!

After Carson went to bed, Corey took Christian to see "Race to Witch Mountain". Corey received several movie gift cards for Christmas, and LOVES getting to go to the movies for "free"! He often goes to see late movies with his friends after the kids are in bed, so movie gift cards have been JUST the thing for him!

Tomorrow, we are planning to go to Hot Springs to wind up our Spring Break fun...then back to reality next week!

Writing the Waves,
Christi

Spring Break Trip To Nana And Papaw's

Yesterday we headed out to visit Corey's parents about an hour away. We had borrowed their camper for our camping trip earlier in the week, and it was time to return it. Corey suggested that we just make it an overnight trip since we didn't have any other plans.

We arrived (as did Corey's sister and her family) soon before dinner. We enjoyed a good meal together, and then the men played games, while the women (Caylie included), watched American Idol. I have not followed it this season, so I didn't really have strong opinions about any of the singers, but being from Arkansas, I jumped on the Chris Allen bandwagon with everyone else! I must say...the guy can sing! Our two boys, and Corey's sister's boys all just played around the house. Occasionally Carson and their youngest son would have a little spat, but overall, they did pretty well.

We let Carson stay up WAY past his bed time! He was going to sleep in the bed with me upstairs, and we knew that there was NO WAY that we could put him in an open bed (not a baby bed), and have him stay put and go to sleep with all of the commotion that was still happening all through the house. It was probably 10pm before we went upstairs to go to bed, and oh, maybe MIDNIGHT before he went to sleep!!! Aagh! I couldn't believe that he wasn't winding down when it was already so far past his bed time. Usually at home, in his bed, he is out like a light the minute his head hits the pillow! Even after going to sleep, he had a very restless night, so now that we are back at home, and he is down for his nap, I'm expecting him to sleep for longer than usual!

Since we had to head out pretty early this morning for Corey to get back and do some work, Christian stayed behind to play with his cousin for a little longer in the treehouse that Papaw built for them. He loves that treehouse! They have so much fun playing in it, and on the zip line that Papaw also set up for them.

We are considering adding in one other short day trip before school begins again next week. Maybe we will head to Memphis to visit their fun zoo if we get a pretty day!

Christian Has A Blog!

My oldest son, Christian is 11. We are planning to begin homeschooling next year, and a daily blog entry about whatever he selects, is in my plan for him. I plan for him to print out what he blogs each day, and for us to edit it, and then for him to make the revisions the next day. I had mentioned this to him, and he LOVED the idea! He has asked me several times if we could go ahead and set it up, but I kept telling him that I wanted to wait, so that it would be something exciting to look forward to.

But...I caved!

He wore me down today!

I finally gave in and got him all set up. He has spent most of the day playing around on it, and learning about many of the features. We won't start the editing and revising process until we begin school next fall, so for now, it is just for fun!

His blog site is mycribbspace.blogspot.com. His nick name is Cribb (long story), so I think that it is a pretty appropriate title. Check in and see what he is up to whenever you have a chance!

Caylie also has a blog. She doesn't update it very often (look who's talking!), but hopefully she will
start checking in a little more regularly. Her site is livelovelaughcaylie.blogspot.com.

And while I'm plugging family blog sites, I might as well throw my husband's photography sites out there. Check him out at gillumweddings.blogspot.com, and gillumphotography.com.

Well, I think that we are all accounted for now, so I will move on the the next thing on my never ending list...laundry!

Writing the Waves,
Christi

Petit Jean Mountian

We returned last night from a fun camping trip to Petit Jean Mountain. It was Carson's first time to go camping, and it was a hit! We borrowed Corey's parent's little bitty camper for Caylie, Carson, and me to sleep in, and Corey slept with Christian in a tent.

As we arrived, and started getting set up, we ran into some friends from our neighborhood that are also in our small group at church. They invited us to come to their camp site to meet another family that they were camping with, and make smores. So after roasting hot dogs for dinner, we headed over to visit and have dessert! We all enjoyed hanging out, and visiting around the campfire. There were 11 or 12 kids in the group, and they had fun playing around together! It would have been a fun photo op, but I didn't have the camera!

After we got back to our camper, it took a while to get Carson to wind down and go to sleep, but after he did, we made it through the whole night...yea! I wasn't so sure about how that would work out! He even let us sleep in until around 9! Love that!

Yesterday, we started out with an easy hike to see a big cave that has old Indian markings on the walls. It was so cool to be there, and think about how many things had happened in there over the course of many, many years. The kids all liked climbing and playing around on all of the rocks, and were pretty good sports about posing for some pictures!

We headed back to the campsite for lunch and nap time. Carson wasn't very interested in taking a nap, but after he finally gave in, he slept well, and woke up ready for more action.

We decided that since things had gone so well earlier, that we would be a little more ambitious this time around. We hiked down to a stream that leads to a huge waterfall. After we got to the water, Carson and Caylie took off their shoes and socks, and put their feet in the cold water. Caylie said that she couldn't believe how long Carson was keeping his feet in the water! I think that he would have just jumped right in if we hadn't held on to him! He must have gotten that trait from Christian...Christian is a little heater! We are always amazed at how warm he stays while everyone else is freezing!


Christian found his way onto a dry rock in the middle of the stream, and decided to take a little break before heading back up!

Although Corey held Carson for a few very small parts of the hike, Carson did the vast majority of it completely on his own, or while just holding one of our hands. He really enjoyed himself. We were all so proud of him.

As we headed back, we went on to an overlook where we could see the actual waterfall. It is amazing! Maybe the next time, we will take the 2 mile hike all the way down to the bottom of it!

In the picture below, you can see part of the waterfall, and the tiny white dots on the side, are people!

We had used up all of our marshmallows the night before, so we went to buy some at the shop in the lodge. They were out, but told us to check in the restaurant. Caylie went to ask, and when the lady came back, she was holding a little styrofoam cup full of tiny marshmallows! Caylie, not wanting to waste any good marshmallows, headed back to the camp fire, and got busy roasting her some baby marshmallows on a tiny stick! Look closely, and you can see them! Just as yummy....only smaller!


After having some "technical difficulties" (a little bit of a sink overflow issue!), we decided to wind things up one night early and head back home. No need to sleep in a wet bed when you don't have to...right? The kids were kind of disappointed...and I guess we were too, but we all had a great time while we were there, and look forward to going back!

Just Checking In

I haven't completely disappeared, I've just been busy. I decided that even though I don't have time to get all creative, and do a blog with pictures, and fun descriptions of all that my family has been up to lately, that at least I could check in with a 5 minute blog!

I have been consumed for the last few weeks with designing wedding albums. It is something that I have done from home for years, and is very time consuming. I like the creative part of it, but don't love having to feel so crunched for time. I have a couple of albums to get knocked out, and then hopefully I will have a life again.

Also, we have decided that we will homeschool Christian next year. I am excited about it, and he is too. I have been spending the free moments that I do manage to squeeze out, on researching and reading about homeschooling. It's really interesting. There is so much that I want to read about and find out about before we get started next year. I have also gotten to talk to some homeschool moms that have been at it for a while, and that is sooo helpful. Let me know if you have any pointers!

My sister is still in the hospital. She is expecting to get out on Friday...let's pray that things go as planned. She has been in the hospital for sooo long. My mom flew out to be with her again yesterday. This is mom's 3rd trip to DC since Christmas!

Christian and Corey are on a Scout camping trip tonight. Maybe they will take some pictures for me to post later. It is the first camping trip that they have done with Christian's Scout troop, and Corey said that it is really neat, and that Christian is learning lots of practical things.

Christian played his last Upward basketball game today. He has always done Upward Basketball, but next season, he will plan to join the homeschool team if he makes it. He is excited about that possibility. Corey coached his team this year, and said that Christian made lots of improvements this season. Yea!

Caylie is doing her final performance in her high school play tonight. She has really enjoyed it. It has been VERY time consuming, so she won't know what to do with all of the extra time that she will suddenly have after tonight!

Carson has started saying "Oh my dosh!" He puts his hands on his mouth when he says it. He is trying to say "Oh my gosh", but it is one of those things that is WAY too cute to correct, so we just laugh every time he says it!

Ok, I think I went a little over the 5 minutes that I had allowed, but at least I feel like I have done something that I have been wanting to do for a while now.

I feel much better!

Maybe this time, it won't be so long until I check back in!

Writing the Waves,
Christi