Becky Kelley - Wheres the Line to See Jesus

Christmas in May

I am so glad I did all of my Christmas shopping in May and left the gifts in Texas.  I have a few small gifts for the kids that we will put under the tree here, but are all anticipating opening gifts in Roscoe!!  I see all of the Black Friday commercials and am glad I have no need to brave the crowds for a 'good deal'.

I can hardly believe Thanksgiving is THIS week.  We are meeting some fellow residents and their families at Cracker Barrel for Thanksgiving.  This Friday we might check out the Jamestown settlement to learn how the Indians and Colonists gathered, prepared, and preserved food that would have been in the ORIGINAL Thanksgiving meal.  Maybe everyone else will be going shopping crazy and it won't be too busy!!!

The kids are looking forward to putting our trees up this weekend.  Our trees this year will be:  a Texas tree in the playroom,  4 ft girly tree in Avery's room, 2 ft tractor tree in Josiah's room, and a purple/silver/black tree in the living room.  I can't remember if I have an extra tree for the playroom, may be the ONLY purchase made on Black Friday.

Tough Week

The day Mom left, Walter also left for Orlando.  He stayed there until Sunday night.  He was gone when I really needed him!!
On Friday morning, Josiah and I took Avery to school, came home and ate breakfast, and I started walking on the treadmill while he played with his trains.  All of a sudden I heard him behind me screaming.  I immediately turned off the treadmill, but it had already sanded his fingers down to the muscle/cartledge.  I grabbed him, ran upstairs, had him chug some Children's Advil right from the bottle, threw him in the car and sped of to the E.R. at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda.  We were both crying as we drove, I felt so bad for him because he was in SUCH pain.  On the way he said, "Remember how our car died?  Am I going to die too?"  It just broke my heart!  I just started praying out loud for his pain, our anxities, and that traffic would clear out of the way.  When we got to the hospital, they got us in to the doctor quickly.  At some point I texted Walter that we were at the ER cuz Josiah had hurt his hand.  The doctor started out by putting some cream on Josiah's hand to numb the fingers.  Josiah and I started watching Polar Express.  About 30 minutes later they came to clean his hand, but it was not numb.  It took three grown men to hold him down to give some injections in his fingers to numb them.  About thirty minutes later, they could finally clean his hand.  Then the doctor had to cut away all of the dead skin that was just hanging from his fingers...Josiah and I kept our eyes glued to the TV.  Once everything was bandaged up, they sent us to the pharmacy for antibiotics and I had a follow-up in the ER on Sunday morning.  Walter called me as we were leaving, "What's an 'er'?"  I wanted to throw the phone!!!  DUH!!!
On Sunday, we had to miss church and the kids and I spent the morning hanging out in the ER.  The doctor took her sweet time!  They decided to treat his injury as a burn, since there was no skin left.  They gave me a large box with silver nitrate cream, petroleom infused gauze, 'ouchless' gauze, wrap, and medical tape.   Monday morning, Josiah refused to let me bandage his hand after bath time.  I had to take him up to Walter on Walter's lunch break.  (He has cried in pain everytime we have to change the bandage.)  On Friday, Walter took Josiah to the pediatrician for a follow-up.  She referred him to a hand surgeon because she thinks he will need a skin graft.  Me and the little guy will go for the consult tomorrow.  There are two types of graft:  a synthetic one, and one that requires them to remove skin from another part of his body under anethesia.  Neither option sounds like a lot of fun!
In the meantime, my back has decided to spaz out.  I have been in so much pain that I can barely walk.  I have been very good frieds with Icy Hot and the heating pad, and the 800 mg Advil has done nothing to ease the pain.  I guess I should see the doctor, but that is on the back burner for now.

A little Sad

Mom came and stayed with us for 12 days...much too short of a visit.  There were tears all around when we dropped her off at the airport this afternoon.  We have to comfort ourselves with the thought that we will be in Texas from Dec 21st-Jan 1st.
We crammed in as much fun as possible while she was here.  We visited the park  to enjoy the colors of fall, went to Brookside Garden, went to Avery's Brownies investiture ceremony, Trunk-or-Treat, pumpkin patch, fabric stores, the B & O railroad museum and more.  We discovered that if you wait until the day after Halloween to go to the pumpkin patch, you get your pumpkins for free!!!  I introduced Mom to my favorite Thrift store and she made some purchases of her own!!  She recovered my kitchen chairs, sewed curtains, and helped recover some upholstered chairs for the living room.  We got the house clean and organized...including the terrible playroom.  She and the kids had several 'slumber parties' downstairs where there was popcorn, cupcakes, Uno, dominoes, and FUN!  We look forward to having more family come and visit, and we hope it is soon!!
Josiah and Avery both say their favorite thing to do with Mia, was learning to play Uno.

New Look

Okay, it's been 10 months since my last post. Ridiculous! I've given my blog a pretty new look to help motivate me to keep posting new stuff about my precious kiddos!

Monday night Josiah asked if we could move to a new house. I asked if he wanted a new house in Maryland. He looked quite disgusted and said no, he wants to move back to Texas. Poor baby, I do too! Mom will soon be coming for a two week visit. I'm hoping that will help us all with our homesickness. San Antonio today is 80 degrees and clear, and here it is 55 degrees and pouring! My fingers are quite frigid as I type, but I don't want to give in and turn on the heater this early in the season! We are not really appreciating having an Autumn. I'm afraid that winter might just do us in!!!

There are a lot of good things here. We have found a great church and joined a Monday night small group. Josiah and I joined a MOPS group and are looking forward to our meetings and play dates. Avery is taking ballet, tap, and jazz at the Community center and taking Spanish after school. She joined Girl Scouts (Brownies) and the two of us went on a camping trip with them this past weekend. Walter is doing well in his residency. He is looking forward to the annual American Prosthedontics Association's conference in Orlando this Nov. He is hoping to see both professors and classmates from UTDB.

Josiah and I went to IKEA this morning and people were amused at him chanting I-K-E-A through the store. I love the As-Is section where I bought $120 worth of curtains for a mere $9. I now have enough for the wall of windows + sliding door in the playroom. The kids want to go with a Farm theme in the playroom, but right now I believe the theme would best be described as Chaos!! Maybe Mom can help with that when she is here.

This is about the time of year when I usually start stressing over Christmas gifts. It feels great to know that all my gifts have already been purchased! It was one thing I made sure to do before leaving Texas in July. The gifts are all waiting in Roscoe! Now I can focus on crafts, sewing, and scrapbooking. Fun! Fun! Fun!

Well, I just heard Walter walk in. I'll bee back soon.

Snuggie, Sweet Baby, and Americans

We had a great time over the holidays, but I'm glad they are over and we are finally back into our routine. For a while, I was too busy to post, and then I couldn't remember my password =). Now, I'm back and have several funny stories about my kiddos.
A couple of weeks ago we went out to eat with some of our friends after church. They have a precious 5 month old girl named Julia. Avery was talking to Neil and Raquel about Julia. She told them that she really wished Julia could be her sister, but that since she couldn't then they could just be sisters-in-law. Then she told them that when she was a baby she slept on her daddy's tummy a lot. She said, "he is really furry so he kept me real warm, he's kinda like a Snuggie." Gotta love it!!!
Josiah and I were running errands one day while Avery was in school. He told me he wanted a sweet baby. I asked if he wanted a baby brother or sister. No, he said, he wanted a SWEET BABY. I told him that he is my sweet baby, that we don't need another one. He was quite put out with me that I was not understanding him. "No, Momma! I wanna sweet baby. In the box. Under your arm." So, I opened the console to see if I could figure out what he was talking about. He has a great memory! He wanted the box of Sugar Babies...I don't know how long they have been in there. I gave him the box and he was a sweet boy!!!
Avery has had a great time at school. She has made a lot of friends and has done very well academically. She has never mentioned the racial difference between her and her classmates. But, they got new homework folders this week. Each folder has a cute little kid on the front. Avery was highly indignant that all of her classmates have brown people and she has a white one. She said that she was upset, so Mrs. Shackelford told her that it was because all of her classmates are something-Americans and she is just regular American. She said that made her more upset. I asked if Mrs. Shackelford said they were African American. "Yeah. Why can't I be African American too?" "The only way you can be African American is if you move to Africa!" I told her. She seemed to accept that answer, but she is probably still scheming...trying to figure out how to be something-American.

Brady--My Guest Blogger

Next election I am not going to really vote for any candidate as much as I am going to vote against all current politicians in my district. Cielo Rodriguez just secured one vote against himself by voting in favor of Pelosi Care. I know my one measly vote doesn’t matter too much, but if enough measly votes are added together then it does matter. He’s outta here!!!!!!!!!!!! So here’s some democratic party irony. If this bill becomes law, then refusal to acquire health insurance could result in imprisonment. The whole agenda here is to make me, a healthy young person, have to get insurance in order to offset the cost of my old degenerate neighbors across the street. The way to reduced health care premiums is to enlist more low-risk candidates, essentially make a bunch of really healthy people have to pay for insurance even when they don’t think they need it, so that those who do need it won’t have to pay their own way. Their cost will be offset by the younger healthier generation. Now here comes the irony. In Texas, the average inmate costs the state somewhere in the neighborhood of $21,000 per year. Sending somebody to prison is not cheap. So let’s do some math. Currently I pay for health insurance for my wife at the rate of $98 per month, a total of $1,176 annually. Under the new legislation if my wife refused to continue paying for health coverage she could possibly face going to jail. If the average cost of imprisonment is $21,000 per year in the sate of Texas, then the daily cost is $57.53. Therefore, if my wife was required to go to jail for 30 days for failure to pay, it would cost the sate of Texas(taxpayers) $1,726. How is this going to save taxpayers any money at all?
Brady