yogurt, sickness, and blessings

A few noteworthy things have happen in our household in the last week.  First of all, Travis, Austin and Joseph camped out in the parking lot of the Earthfruits Yogurt restaurant last Friday night, to earn free yogurt for a year.  They were having a grand opening and offering  free yogurt to the first 100 customers.  They had a great time camping out, and ended up earning 2 free yogurts for a year (52 coupons for free yogurt) and Austin got a $20 gift certificate.  My wonderful husband did it for me, since he knows how much I love yogurt, and since we can't really afford it, he camped out and got it for me for free.  Unfortunately, the timing wasn't so great, since Friday I got really sick, really fast.  I couldn't sit up or stand up without intense pressure and pain in my head, neck, and upper back, and I couldn't keep any food down.  By Saturday morning, after talking with my OBGYN and another nurse, they determined I needed to get to the ER.  Travis and the older kids were still camping, and I couldn't get a hold of him because his battery on his cell phone always dies.  I finally got my Visiting Teaching companion to watch my two youngest children, and take me to get Travis and to the ER.  After running some tests, the Dr. ruled out Meningitis and a few other things, and told me I probably just hurt my neck, and sent me home with a muscle relaxant prescription.  I got a hold of my cousin Eric who is a wonderful chiropractor and he came over Saturday night and adjusted my neck.  The next day some of the pain in my neck and back subsided but the rest was still overwhelming.  My cousin told me, it was probably nutrition related, and so I got an appointment for Tuesday morning with a naturopath/nutritionist  that has been recommend to me by my aunt, who has had lots of success with her.  Travis drove me to the appointment, and the Dr. was able to perform all her tests while I laid on he floor.  Her and another Dr. were able to determine that I have parasites, and I'm allergic to soy, the wireless signals cell phones and wireless Internet sends out, vitamin B6, and the growth hormone my body is producing to help the baby grow.  Anyway she was able to give me some drops under my tongue to ease some of the pain, and by the end of the appointment I was able to sit up for a short amount of time.  After paying the bill, which was over $400 we came home.  I was worried about the money because we're living off our savings, and have everything budgeted out for the next two years.  But when we got home their was a check from the GI bill for $500 that I wasn't expecting, so we are blessed.  The Lord works in mysterious ways, sometimes even through a government check.  Anyway, I've gradually gotten better, and I'm at the point where I can sit or stand for 5-10 minutes until I have to lay down again.  Travis has been wonderful taking care of a lot of my household duties, and getting the kids to and from school.  Although Travis has been getting a bit behind in his school wok, so I'm hoping to get back to healthy status very soon.  But I know the Lord is watching out for us and blessing us.

singing videos of kids

There is a website scriptures4kids.org where the kids can upload videos of themselves singing about Jesus, and Austin had done it awhile ago, and her video is on the website, and the other kids wanted to make videos too, so here they are.  I'm having trouble sending their videos to the website, so I decided to put them on the blog instead. 

Samuel's Scooter Accident

Samuel and his "owwies"

Austin comforting Samuel after his scooter accident

Travis  was picking the kids up from school on Friday, because I wasn't feeling very  well, and he and Samuel rode a scooter to get them.  Well just as they were getting to the school, the scooter hit a large crack in the sidewalk and Samuel face-planted onto the sidewalk.  Travis scooped him up, and saw his scraped up face and took him into the nurses office in the school, got him some  Tylenol and ice and picked up the kids, and ran Samuel home to me, while the kids kept up with Travis as best they could.  I was in my bed upstairs and heard Samuel's crying before they even got to the house.  I took Samuel in my arms, while Travis explained what happened, after about 10 more minutes Samuel finally calmed down and fell asleep.  We kept ice on his lip, it was quite swollen, and put antibiotic ointment on his scrapes.  He slept in my arms for 1-2 hours and then started waking up, crying about his face hurting.  But thankfully a package had just arrived from Grandma Kirkman for Betsy's birthday and she always puts things in it for all the kids.  Samuel was so excited about the package that he forgot about his face hurting for a little while.  For the rest of the day he was pretty sad, and trouble eating because his lip hurt, but with another dose of Tylenol and cartoons he made it through.  Saturday morning we had a list of chores for all the kids to do, and Samuel worked really hard and got all of his chores done so we took everyone to the farmer's market.  Samuel really wanted some of the produce at the farmer's market, and after looking at his face I couldn't turn him down, so he got most of the stuff he wanted.  He picked out a cantaloupe, and carried it the whole time, he didn't want anyone else touching his cantaloupe.  He ended up eating the whole thing, he loves cantaloupe.  He picked out corn too, but he ended up not being able to eat any until Sunday, because it hurt his lip too much.  Samuel has healed pretty quickly and his owwies are mostly gone now.  Last night Samuel was a little sneak.  In the middle of the night he snuck into my room and took my water that I keep by my night stand, and took it back into his room.  When I woke up at about 4 in the morning and went to grab my water, and was surprised to discover it wasn't there.  I knew I had put my water right there, and looked around to see if it fallen, but I couldn't find it, I woke up Travis and asked him if he knew where it was, and he didn't.  I got up and got another drink from the kitchen, and tried to go back to sleep.  But, of course I couldn't go back to sleep, I couldn't figure out where my water had disappeared too, so I finally got up again to check on the kids and make sure they were okay, and discovered my water cup on the dresser next to Samuel's bed.  I couldn't believe he had snuck into my room and taken my water cup, but I should have known, he is always taking my water cup during the day.  So anyway, I was finally able to go back to sleep.  When Samuel woke up I asked him why he took my water, and he said "cuz, I wanted to" silly boy, oh well, at least I know some physco didn't break into my house just to steal my water cup and make me think I'm losing my mind.