Motrin is amazing

Last night Ronan had a fever before bed. I can tell that he feels yucky; his eyes are droopy and tell me "I feel yucky". But of course he didn't want to go to bed. I gave him some motrin and the fever went down a bit but it was back this morning.
Then Emma woke up this morning and mentioned that she didn't feel good. She said she felt warm but I thought that she was just saying it because Ronan wasn't feeling good and she might have wanted some attention. I felt her head and she was a bit warm but it was hot in the house so I didn't think much of it. Later she said that her eyes were stingy when she would blink. so I took her temperature and she had a fever as well. :( then she decided to lay on the floor and mentioned that she was hot and cold at the same time. 2 teaspoons of motrin and 1 hour later and now she's sassing and running around like normal. it's a miracle! I'm sure she will wear herself out and crash in a couple of hours.
Being sick is terrible all by it's self, let alone in the middle of Summer.


p.s. my spelling is horrible today

a post in progress

I haven't been on my blog for about a week and I'm feeling like I should be writing something.
I'm sure that I will be adding and subtracting from this one today. I really don't know what to talk about since our lives are very average and I think fairly dull to the average person.
A list of our excitement consists mainly of keeping Ronan from playing in the toilet or maybe a terrific recipe I made for supper.

With that said, our recent excitement is that Erica is home from camp. She is tan as tan can be and she had a wonderful time. She took some pictures but I thought that she would have had way more than she did so I guess they kept the girls very busy. The evening that she got home my dad had a get together at his house to celebrate pioneer day. Leonnie made bonnets for all the ladies and little ladies. We didn't get any pictures of us all wearing them; I don't know why. But anyway, we ate a lot of yummy food. Dad made chicken and potatoes in his dutch ovens and the rest of us were told to bring a salad or something. we all brought the or something. I thought I was being all clever and brought a bunch of strawberries and bananas and grapes and apples, I cut them up and mixed them all together to make a yummy fruit salad. Much to our amusement, Alice was the only one to bring something other than fruit. (okay, Adrienne probably was the one who brought chips and of course pickles)
We played with Dad's new pups. They are so cute. As soon as I have my pictures transfered to my computer I will post one of the dogs. We would like to have a dog but we believe Timothy to be allergic to dogs. However he didn't have any kind of reaction from petting the dogs on Friday, so perhaps it's something he has outgrown. (but then again maybe we have been using Timothy's allergy as an excuse... we'll see)

so I looked at all my pictures and they all turned out kind of miserable. So you only get one.
my nephew, my dad and the puppies. Charlie is the one on the table, Max is sitting on the bench. They are so nice. They are learning pretty well and didn't jump too much.

tim and I love my dad's back yard. I love his house, but his yard is a nice little Eden. They have wonderful raspberries which are delicious. Tim and I snitched one. They have mulberries by their garden at the top of their ravine. They have a terrific little garden. Some day Tim and I will be able to have a nice, newish kind of house and nice yard. Of course by then our children will be grown up and we won't be able to remember them anymore.

I can't believe the day I had

Erica has gone to camp. The plan was that I was going to drive her, my niece, and a couple of other girls to camp about two hours away from here. I was looking forward to taking her but on our way to the church to pick up a few more campers the power steering went out on our van (and then some other junk, but I don't like to think of it because it makes my blood boil). Anyway... Thankfully it was only two blocks away from the church. I did make it to the church, but there was no possible way that I was going to be able to take them. They packed up in an other mom's van and off they went. I'm sad. I miss her even though she has been driving me coo coo for the last few weeks. I want to know how her day went. I'm eager to hear what she is doing. :(

But my brother in law is so great. He is always willing to help and I am so thankful. It was a horrible challenge for him but he was able to fix the van. the water pump had gone ppppppl which caused the belt to come off and then the power steering to go. It was a blessing that it happened so close to the church and help. I can't imagine what would have happened if I had the van packed full of girls and my Ronan and then have it break down 70 miles away. Oy!

So to cheer myself I will share some pretty pictures.
It has been so very hot and I think I got sunburned today, so this picture of ice and snow hanging off the roof at the church is very nice. I wish I were rolling in it now. But this cavern was very tall and I wouldn't be doing much rolling.

Flowers are always happy. Well, most of them are. These are pretty. We like them for the ruffly crinkled edge. How fancy.

Bright colors are so cheerful. I like cheerful.
ahhhh.

My husband is wonderful

no pictures yet, there will be some soon, I just wanted to take this moment to tell you all that I love my Tim. I love that he is so patient and clever.
you see, my computer broke. it would not turn on no matter what I did. I ended up going to the computer store and had a couple of tests run and the guy there said mother board was the most likely problem. So I bought a new/used motherboard and it should have been a quick fix of click this from this board to that board and then turn it on. So I did this. I moved everything and it still would not turn on. after hours and hours of trying to get it to work ~ moving bits back and forth at least three times~ my frustrations were getting the better of me and I gave up hope. I was so sad that I would not be able to play with my pictures anymore or find out what was in my grocery list for today. :(
But he fixed it. no new motherboard required.
Hooray for Tim!

what a world what a world

Bath time is the most dreaded event in our home. My four oldest kids would much rather smell like a dirty, sweaty dog; with the exception of Erica, she smells like a sheep.

I don't understand how trying to wash hair suddenly turns me into some kind of psychotic killer. The decibels that Connor can produce with his screams are ear splitting and he felt the need to test that out directly in my ear.
Ronan was in the tub as well and of course was terrified, not by the water and shower - he's my only child who loves water -, but he was terrified by the screeches of bloody murder radiating from Connors throat. I never knew that Connor had that kind of lung capacity.
Good Grief! It's only water! Yet he has a fear that far exceeds the wicked witch of the west. If this continues I fear I will have permanent hearing loss. Too bad the job of mother does not come with workman's comp.

a little fishy

This morning Erica and Timothy went fishing with three of their cousins. Timothy caught a bullhead that is described to have been about a foot long. He released it.

They caught turtles and let them go as well.

When they got home they had a surprise. Not dinner.

it's a bit blurry so you can't tell by this picture that it's a baby bullhead. There are two. They are still in the icky lake water because we thought it might be too great a shock to their systems if we threw them straight into clean water.

Erica put some sand on the bottom of the little bowl. They seem much more content now there is sand in there.

I don't know how long they will be living with us but I think I would feel sad to put them back in a lake with great big fish who would eat them.

This morning I opened up my email and had mail from a long lost friend. I read through it and answered and then checked out her sister's blog. I have missed these people for years and years so it was wonderful to hear and see what they are and have been doing.
But Sarah had asked me a question about church. When I was much younger my family always sat in the same pew every single Sunday. She had wondered if we are still in the same pew and I sadly reported that the pew was gone as there had been a huge amount of remodeling approximately 11 years ago. So I thought I would show a picture or two of what our old church looks like now (at least from the outside).

I will start with the new bits that they don't know and bring it back around to what hasn't really changed (at least not by much)


Long ago this parking lot used to be a beautiful, large back yard with a thick wooded area at the back. I miss it. I think I especially miss it because this lot is never ever used to it's capacity. But I suppose it means less expense when it comes to lawn care, but I don't think that's such a great compromise.

This is the back of the building. The corner nearest my husband is where the chapel is located. behind that is the gymnasium. The new Bishop's office is in the new addition as well as the clerks' office. The old chapel was converted to the Relief Society room and the gym was turned into the Primary room. Everything else is class rooms except we now have two mothers' rooms instead of just having to nurse your baby in the bathroom. That's been a nice switch.

This side view shows where the old and new collide.

And this is the good old Mankato Ward.

ugh!

It's hot.

It would be easier if the humidity was low but living in Minnesota means humidity that almost matches that of tropical rain forests.

Okay, maybe not, but I hate being sticky.

This morning Emma and I filled a whole lot of empty water bottles and put them in the freezer. I pulled one out a while ago and ran it up and down Connor's back and neck. He has never sat so still. Maybe, if we can hold out for a couple of days we will be able to avoid putting the air conditioner in the window this summer. When I was a kid we lived without an air conditioner. It is possible to survive without it but we've been spoiled over the last 7 years since two of my sisters bought me a window unit.

Anyway, I am kicking my children out of the house today. At the very least the breeze will help them to stay cool as will the sprinkler.

So this last weekend we were at the arboretum, a favorite place for our family, and this summer they have a kind of arbor art theme going on. Some of the stuff they have set up is fun and pretty while the rest of it is kind of ... well we'll just say weird. most of it is very contemporary and I just don't like it ~ like the thing that resembles a bunch of enormous clothes pins stuck in the ground with a multicolored plexiglas roof. But they have a few that are fun like this tunnel of twisty branches and roots.
the kids had a great time climbing through it and even raced through to see who could go through it the fastest without touching any part of the tunnel.
It's a nice change of pace to have them playing together and having fun verses their normal fighting all day long and me not having fun.




Along with the contemporary art features this yellow and orange ribbony kind of deal was fixed into a tree. The sign next to it said that it was fixed to a single point in the tree and it lied. They were fixed in lots of places in the tree and I'm guessing it was meant to resemble rays of light. The kids also liked this one and I don't think that I would do this with any of my trees but it might get the kids outside a bit more (so would a fence around my yard).
We took this picture thinking it would be a nice picture and I'm not really sure it's so great. This one was the first shot I took thinking that I would take a whole big bunch and then I would use the best of the bunch. Well, that's exactly what happened. I took a big bunch of pictures and the first was the best of them. Even then it didn't turn out like I had envisioned and I didn't have the energy to make them stand a certain way and work on one picture all day long.
So I think that I will be best with still life photography and candid photography, therefore I won't be for hire to photograph any weddings any time soon.

Here we see my baby. He really liked these gazing balls. He kept trying to pull them up and play with them. I'm sure he would have loved to play ball with these but he was so well tempered and didn't get angry when none of them would lift off the ground, he just kept trying new ones. He was captivated.

Intro

This is my first blog that I might actually be willing to share with people. That's right... I'm hopping on the blog wagon.
I really don't know how well I will keep it up, and I don't think much of it will be interesting but I guess in a way this is the best I'm going to do by way of a journal for a while.

For starters I will show you a lovely picture I took this weekend. I like roses. Usually dark, rich colors are my favorite, but this rose looked like frosting and I thought it was lovely.

Eventually I will post pictures of my charming children and write about the things they do to make me laugh or cry or whatever. But today I have things to do that will keep me from my photographs.

So this is my blog. Feel free to comment.
(any pictures posted in this blog are ones I have taken. I'm not being modest when I say I don't think I'm that great, but if you like it let me know. Also if you think it's a horrible picture let me know what you think would make it better. I really do want to know)