Just Keep Living

alright alright alright...

in the words of my still-celebrity crush MM...just keep livin'!

Wow.  I realize I haven't posted since July I think?  or maybe June?

what have we been up to?  question is probably what haven't we been doing.

August:  School.  3 different schools.  4 if you count Mothers' Day Out for Mason.  5th grade at Eastside, 2nd grade at Northside, and Kindergarten at Clinton Park.  AND yep, I chair the fundraisers at ALL of these.  and yep, I sit in ALOT of car rider lines.

September:  took the oldest two kids with us to England!  Spent 2 days in London and then a few days with my uncle Jeff on their west coast in Minehead, Somerset.  Toured all the areas in between.  Weather was a bit fierce, Mati Claire suffers from EXTREME motion sickness, managed to avoid terrorist bombings, but overall we had a FANTASTIC trip!  London was great!  I usually don't care for the bigger cities, but I enjoyed it.  Course it helps when we have a tour guide to give us inside tips so we aren't stressing over the details.  

I've been debating homeschooling next year.  Still on the fence.  More on that later.

We've been renovating the new house for the past 3 months.  Its been slow but it will be great when its all done.  We also bought the 20 acres behind the house.  Looking forward to all that space!  The backyard is really what makes that house amazing.  With the added land, we have so many options and ideas being thrown around.  Matt is already feeding the deer.

Because we are in between houses, I had to cancel our annual Halloween party.

We were home from our trip a few days when Merritt started vomiting.  7 times in an hour.  She got so dehydrated and exhausted that she collapsed on me.  After knowing her friend Eliza that suddenly passed away (different circumstances), fear and panic found me.  I think at one point she was choking on her vomit, and was unresponsive for longer than my brain could contemplate.  In reality it may not have been that long, but too long for me and I began to shake her.  I haven't been that scared since she was born.  I decided calling 911 would take longer than me throwing her in the car myself.  so that's what we did.  the boys were asleep so I left Mati Claire in charge until my SIL could drive from Madison at 2:00am.  Merritt threw up again in the car on the way to the ER.  Matt was working so he hooked her up to fluids and zofran IV.   3 days later she was still vomiting after the smallest sip of water.  Dehydration again and children's group not calling us back, we decided to take her to UMC Children's ER.  Also in the hopes of talking with her omphalocele surgeon if it was due to her anatomy.  High fever also didn't play around.  We thought it might be her appendix with those symptoms... but never did find her appendix and her fever finally broke.  IV fluids and IV Zofran again.  Barium dye test, 2 ultrasounds, 2 X-rays all showed no intestinal blockages.  She definitely has a messed up stomach, but nothing that should have been causing that level of vomiting.  7 days overall and she started feeling better finally.  In the words of Eliza's mom:  God is good all the time.  The hospital stint proved we needed to get Merritt an upper GI scope.  That's something we had been putting off.  Hate to put her through that unless it was necessary.  She suffers from severe acid reflux but has never had any major problems since birth.

She's getting scoped in about 2 weeks.  :(  Testing her for Celiac's Disease and Eosinophilia among other things.  But apparently it was a SEVERE stomach bug.  However, that had to be the weirdest stomach bug I've ever seen because my professional-vomiter, Mati Claire, never got it.  Mati Claire tends to get every stomach bug within a 50 mile radius usually.

Moving on.  Literally.  We show our current house alot.  Someone make an offer for goodness sake! Do you know how hard it is to keep a house this size CLEAN WITH FOUR KIDS on a somewhat constant basis???

3 Fundraisers.  Red Ribbon Week.  Field trips.  Homework.  Class parties.  moving.  packing.  stressing.  Sicknesses.  Pink eye.  Flu-type virus.  Stomach bug.  Allergy sinus crud.  Doctor appointments.

So what do you do when you're stressed and not feeling well?

You go to NOLA with your sister to see Bruno Mars!!!!!!!!!!

Finally.  We've been counting down that concert for almost a year!  But what was great about that weekend is that I couldn't remember the last time JUST me and my sister went somewhere by ourselves.  Maybe 20+ years ago?  Now, any trip would usually include husbands or kids or parents.  But we had a great time and got to talk about stuff that otherwise would have been censored in one way or another! ha!  Dinner at Delmonico's, Bruno Mars, Cafe du Monde beignets for breakfast, and shopping in the French Quarter is what the doctor ordered!   Its good to get away from my kids for a day.

Mom even babysat on her birthday for us.  She's great!  Thank you, mom!  and Happy Birthday again!

Holidays are upon us... not sure if thats a good thing or a bad thing at the moment.  Considering I just cancelled our annual Halloween party... I think I've reached a breaking point.  Wondering if I can cancel Christmas too?  Can we just go on a trip and escape for a few days instead?  No decorating, no shopping... just relax?

I'm turning 39 soon... and must be hitting a sort of mid-life crisis--- I want to simplify.  I'm tired of always worrying and stressing and being on the go.  I feel like I'm always yelling and in a rush.  I feel like Ferris Bueller kind of:  "life moves pretty fast".  So I want to slow it down.  Which is ONE of the many reasons I'm considering homeschooling.  Life doesn't HAVE to be so stressful.  It CAN BE easier.  But that's a post for another day.  Its all about what your priorities are perhaps? Yes, I realize life will never slow down having 4 kids... but I think it COULD be easier in some ways.

Here's a few pics of recent days to top off this post.

She went from this to this in about 1 hour: