Heart of a Champion

What an amazing afternoon. At the last LCK (Levine Cardiac Kids meeting) there was an announcement that Heart of a Champion was looking for volunteers. This is a day where upcoming 10th, 11th and 12 grade athletes in charlotte can sign up and get free screenings. They get an echo of there heart the whole nine yards.

Can you imagine what it takes to screen over 1800 students in less that eight hours. The amount of doctores, nurses, techs and just plain ol people like me. It was really fun. I was supposed to be working the volunteer check in table. However when I got there they needed more help at the athlete check in tables. Think about this.....about every 45 minutes there were 300 students walking through the doors. This day was planned down to a science

Technically I was not supposed to have any contact with the patients because I was not a Carolina Healthcare Systems employee. However when I walked in and told them I do not have a hospital ID I was just a volunteer. The lady knew it and sent me out there anyway. It was fun by the end of the afternoon we were guessing what sport the student played when they walked in the door and the afternoon went by really fast.

I still believe there is a reason all of this happened to us with Madelynn. That there is a road I still need to travel in my life that I would have never fathomed had it not been for Madelynn. I still think it has something to do with the hospital. However, needles and blood not really my thing. I thought about just finding out about volunteering and the hospital. Hopefully the light will come on as to what this journey entails because it is really tugging on me right now.

It still gives me chills to drive down the main enterance of the hospital because the first thing you see os the Levine's Children's Hospital all lit up. Someday I hope it becomes a comfort knowing they saved her life.

TTFN

Trip to the beach part 1

Below you will see some of the photos I took while at the beach over Memorial Day Holiday. I took over 500 Photos and these are some of my favorites. I have a few projects I want to work on that will take a while. I will do a separate post of the kids and family. I wanted to show some of the scenery first.

I can not even put into words what a great time we had. Phil and his siblings have such fond memories and really happy times at this point in their lives. I can truly see why. There was just a sense of peace. I never looked at my watch or cared a ton about meals. Some how I just knew when it was time to feed Maddie. It really was great.

In a five day period we visited Ft. Macon (before the wedding), spent time with the kids at the beach, Phil, Jason, Jacque, Sandy, Franka and Tony went to Cherry Point, Had the Wedding at the top of Ft. Macon and took some family photos at the beach, Went to Cape Hatteras and walked all 500 plus stairs up and down, the view was amazing, went to Kitty Hawk (my personal favorite) and on Memorial Day we toured the USS North Carolina.

I believe the best part is that I went there with no expectations and only know we would be at the beach, we were there for a wedding and I was taking pictures. All the rest of the trip was decided after we got there. I can not wait to go back as the kids get older so they can appreciate all there is to do.

Family photos coming up soon.

TTFN

The stranger is gone. LOL

In a previous post here I told you about Phil's deoderant issue. The stranger is gone and the smell of the man I married is back. The strange smelling deoderant is all used up. LOL LOL LOL

Are you kidding me??????

You hear about it all the time....it is a common practice for most little boys....and it is no different for my little boy. We have been working with Jack because he has had lots of problems with behavior. I have even contacted a family therapist to help my little man. I met with her today for the first time. After the meeting and some of the things she said I decided to give Jack his toys back.

For most of you that don't know, about 2-3 weeks ago I was called at work by the director of the daycare because of a very embarressing behavoir my son exhibited. I know I should not laugh but I can't even say it out loud with out laughing now. Anyway to punish him I cleaned out his entire room of toys. I boxed them up and put them in the kitchen. He would have to pass them every day out the door to school to remind him why he has to be good in school. I told him he could earn them back with good behavior. He only earned a few back.

Ok so today I decided we would give him the toys back. Phil was working late so after dinner Katie, Jack, Maddie and I went up to Jack's room. I carried Maddie up and then made trips up and down the stairs with boxes of toys. Jack was very excited to get them back. Then something stange happened.

I looked at Jack and he is picking his nose like he looking for buried treasure. He has a had time with a dry nose. So bad that we run a humidifier quite often. So I tell him to go get the saline spray and some tissues and I would make it feel better. He gets about a foot from me with the saline can and just starts SOBBING!!!!!!

Quickly I remind him that I do this all the time. I asked him if I have ever hurt him before and he says no. I was not ready for the next phrase......But Mommy there is really something up there. It took about a whole minute before I realized there was something up there.......and he put it there.

Here goes my racing mind......okay it is 7pm urgent care closes in 1 hour, Phil is at least 40 mins away, who can watch Katie and Maddie so I can get him there (the urgent care is 1 mile away), what in the world is up there, how far?????? So after I calm down and call my neighbor she doesn't answer. So I start working on his nose.

I was feeling on the outside to see how far up his nose whatever it is is. I try to start working it down without putting anything else up there. I was just rubbing my fingers on the outside of his nose working it down when all of the sudden I hear FLING!!!! I look at Jack's nose and out comes the blood.

After I stopped the bleeding I start looking around for whatever it was that went fling. I asked Jack 3 times if he was sure it was out of his nose. What I found was a little plastic red craft light bulb. As if my son doesn't have enough bright ideas he felt sticking a red light bulb up his nose was necessary. I asked him another three times if that was what he stuck up his nose and if that was all he stuck up his nose. He assured me that it was. He has never even watched the story of Rudolf....Where does he come up with this stuff????

Hope all of you had a great chuckle over this one and whatever parenthood test that was I just experienced I hope I passed with flying colors....especially red.

Never a dull moment.....

TTFN

hyped up

So many things to share and not enough hours in the day. We just came home from a great time at the beach in NC. I have so much to share about that but I have a better story right now. To take a family of five to the beach is quite a feat. All the packing for each personality and needs and favorite things....you get my point. And of course Maddie still has a few special needs. She became ill about a week before we left and needed extra breathing treatments. She is getting better for her it just takes extra time.

One night we were doing the usual, dinner and bath night. We had some extra help because Phil's mom was there. Phil was bathing Maddie, I was controlling the shower and Grandma was help dress or what ever else we needed.

I have this nervous tick, maybe an anxiety tick but I spin my engagement ring around on my finger. Most of the time I don't even know I am doing it. While the bath/shower chaos was going on I suddenly felt a sharp poke. I caught myself spinning my ring and something was wrong. When I looked down the diamond was gone. One of the prongs appeared to be damaged.

Suddenly my mind was racing what did I do and where do I look????? I remembered my ring snagging on a towel I handed Phil. So I was frantically searching the bathroom floor and could just feel my heart breaking. I am not superstitious but it just like a bad omen. I never found it. I very sadly removed the empty ring and put it in my jewelry box.

At the time Phil proposed we made almost no money. He had only been out of school about a year and had just been at his job a little less than a year. A few people made him feel bad that the diamond was small. I didn't care, I wasn't much a jewelry person. So for my first Mother's Day Phil bought me this beautiful ring. He told me it was to replace my engagement ring. I told him no. I love the new ring and will wear it but I have an engagement ring already.

So when I went to bed the night the diamond was lost I was very depressed and could not figure out what was going on or why it happened. The next few days I would stop in the middle of the day catching myself trying to spin a ring that was not there. Except for the last three months of pregnancy for each of my children I never took that ring off, EVER. I finally had to just not worry about it anymore and get it replaced, even though it would never be the same.

Tonight while waiting for the washer to finish I decided to clean the kitchen. We dumped so much stuff in the kitchen when we came home today my OCD was setting in and I need something to do. I started the dishwasher and wiped the counters down. All of the sudden, I heard a tinkling sound. I looked down and low and behold there was my diamond on the kitchen counter.

I was so excited I could not speak my brain was screaming OMG OMG OMG. Finally, I was actually able to verbalize it and Phil asked what my problem was. I said do you know what I am holding in my hand. Irritated he said NO What??? I said look closer and he just smiled.

So I still have to get it reset....but I found my diamond to my engagement ring.

I have so many fun things to share about our vacation and the wedding (Phil's brother was married this weekend) but the ring story was more exciting. I was so hyped up and it was kind of late I figured this was the best way to share.

The washer is probably done now.

TTFN

Graduation Day

Friday was Katie's graduation from pre-school. We were very lucky that we had Phil's mom, my mom, Ray and Linda (Katie's godparents) and the 5 of us there. It really was a great time and the kids were so funny. If I can figure out how to get the video downloaded to the blog I will. In the mean time see the little bit I put together below. Enjoy (turn up the volume)!

TTFN