Why I hate Peanut Butter

Jax's 504 Plan accommodations came in handy today when he excused himself from homeroom while the rest of the class had a party and ate peanut butter cups. While I am pissed about the peanut butter cups and him being excluded, he has matured enough to not feel like he is missing out - he cared more about his well-being. Of course it meant that he sit in the office for an hour reading but better than choking to death from the aroma of peanut butter while 30 other kids ate them around him.

I hate peanut butter. Even if it were just shelled peanuts, there would be no smears of peanut butter around. :\

Ok, off to email the guidance counselor to suggest that his homeroom class might need to have the desks washed.

I received a Bounce Dryer bar to try (gotta love free samples!). I use Bounce sheets in the dryer so I thought the Bounce bar would be good to try. I had seen it advertised in the past but did not quite know how it "worked".

I put the Bounce bar in the dryer and for the first load I of course reached over and threw in a Bounce dryer sheet (old habits die hard). I had to fish it out and put it back in the box the started up the dryer. Easy-peasy! Except for the next two loads I automatically reached over and got the dryer sheet again and threw it in. I even wondered two of those times why the sheet was not neatly in the box. The next load I reached over but caught myself before I threw in the sheet. Then I smarted up and turned the Bounce box around so even if I do reach over I will touch cardboard rather than the sheets.

Anyway, the first few loads looked fine. No static. Fluffy towels. Seemed to be working. But on a load of darks, the Bounce bar left these white chalky-like marks on my son's jeans. I only noticed them because the jeans are brand new and a very dark blue. I looked in the dryer and the Bounce bar looks like this:

Oops, that is sideways.

Anyway, you can see that the Bounce bar has dark marks on it (like from jeans??). I will give it another few loads to make sure that it doesn't happen again and if it does I will pry it off my dryer (although it seems to be stuck on there really well - hope it doesn't leave an adhesive mark when it comes off!).

Anyone else have the same experience with a Bounce dryer bar?

Crafty

I mentioned last month that I am addicted to Pinterest. There are so many cool and exciting crafts, DIY things as well as neat ideas, beautiful homes, etc posted on there. I saw a really cool wreath craft posted on there so I had to make one for myself. And here it is:

I made it last month for Spy's birthday and had a bright pink ribbon on it and a sign that said OVER THE HILL. Then for Halloween, I just changed out the ribbon and added the orange spider. I am making a Halloween costume inspired by something I found on Pinterest as well. I will post a photo (if it turns out!). Love being crafty!!

I took Stephen's car into the dealership today because he got a flat tire last night.  He *insisted* that only tires from the dealership were good enough for his baby.  And not only that, they had to be identical to what was already on the car.  Unfortunately, since the car is an AWD and the tires were 3+ years old, we had to buy 4 new tires!  And as I said, he wanted them to be the same kind that were already on the car so those tires cost $400 MORE than a cheaper brand. Ouch!  And to top it off, he said his brakes were squeaking so I had the dealership look at them and the back brakes needed to be replaced!  Another small fortune because no cheap brakes for this car because, as the service guy told me, "this *is* a sports car".

I am feeling very fortunate that Stephen has a job and we can afford these repairs!

This and that

This week, my elementary school-aged kids had 1/2 days on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and an early dismissal on Wednesday and no school today (Friday).  Nice.  The junior high just had today off.  I woke up with a migraine and wished so much that they were in school today.

Anyway, I took them to an indoor trampoline jump place.  It was $11 for an hour of jumping on trampolines, into foam pits and playing dodgeball.  I left with a carload of very sweaty, smelly boys. P.U.!  They love that place.  I did buy a groupon for it recently but it can only be used Monday through Thursday.  I hope I remember to use it before it expires.  Maybe we'll use it during the time off at Christmas?

Afterwards, we left the trampoline place, we stopped at a halloween store that had recently opened up (it is a chain that opens up in empty store fronts for 6 weeks or so before halloween).  The kids chased each other around the store with fake chain saws and Cars begged me to buy him a mace for his halloween costume (which will consist of a black t-shirt, black shorts, his hat on backwards, a scary mask and a mace <--huh?  What is that supposed to be?).  I said no.  Put a little more effort into than that...and you don't need a weapon.

Now I sit and watch the clock until bedtime for me (probably before the kids).  Hockey games start tomorrow so up at the crack of dawn on Saturdays for the next few months for Cars' games.  Jax's games are all over the place time-wise.  Should be a fun season.  Go Mite Green!  Go Bantam Grey! 

For some reason the formatting on my blahg is not right.  I am sorry, dear readers, for what looks like one giant paragraph.  I don't know how to fix it.  Well, two of my posts were created using the old publisher and this one is with a new so we'll see if it is any different.

I went away for a 4-day weekend with a friend of mine.  We drove to Anacortes, WA and took a car ferry to Sidney, BC, Canada then drove down to Victoria.  We walked around the downtown Victoria area, toured the BC Parliament building, stayed overnight then went to Buchart Gardens .  It was lovely!  Then we took another ferry across to mainland, British Columbia and drove up to Vancouver where we stayed over for two more nights.  We walked Robson Street, shopped, went out for dinner, walked some more and took a water taxi over to Granville Island where we met my brother and niece for a lovely lunch.  It was a very fun weekend.  I especially enjoyed the ferry rides.  It was exciting to think that these HUGE ships could carry all of these cars, trucks and people across the expanses of water.

The weather was surprisingly nice (well, overcast but no rain!) and I really, really enjoyed Buchart Gardens.  I know I could never, ever get my kids to walk through them or Stephen for that matter.

I did miss my family though and wish that we did more sightseeing trips.  Our trips to Vancouver usually consist of hotel, hotel pool, Costco, grocery store, Whitespot, the Hockey Shoppe and home.  Not that thrilling. I am going to think about where I'd like to go and make it happen!

I had decided that this was the year that I was going to scale back on the volunteering at school. I was there so much last year and I really started to resent the time I spent there. So cutting back I felt was the way to go. Besides, our school now has 700 kids at it (probably designed for 500) so there are lots of other parents who can volunteer, right?

This year, to save on paper costs, the PTSA did not send home volunteer forms but just instructions on how to go online and print off the required forms (stating what you are interested in helping out with as well as the official volunteer background check that goes to the school district). Well, guess what? They had hardly anyone return the forms. So all of the things that are staffed by PTSA volunteers have virtually NO volunteers (I don't think classroom volunteers really are because parents always want to be in their kids classes helping out, especially in the younger grades).

Our fundraising walk-a-thon is on Friday - initially not enough volunteers but because it is after school hours, junior high and high school kids can work it to get their volunteer hours in. The Scholastic Books Book Fair next week had just ONE volunteer for 3 hours (they need at least 3 people to staff it for the 22 hours it is slated to be open through the week). The Vision and Hearing screening needs 21 people to help out from 8am-2:20pm and they have just 13 so far. The Health Room has 10 two-hour shifts each week and they are having trouble getting people to fill the slots. See a pattern? And the people who ARE volunteering are the same people so we are looking at a future burn outof these volunteers.

Yesterday, an email went out with "A Cry for Help" as the title, in which they are trying to get more people to help out with the book fair and Vision/Hearing screening because those are the most pressing volunteer positions right now. And I just deleted the email.

I feel so guilty! But I just cannot take on any more volunteering. But, I had already signed up to do the Hearing/Vision screening, and I help out in the health room. And I volunteer once a week in the computer lab for Carson's class. And I will be teaching Art Start in Carson's class as well as Declan's class. And I have volunteered for Reading Naturally program for Carson's class. And in Declan's class for inventorying the science kits for the year. So much for my 'taking time off from volunteering' year. Oh, I just remembered that I have signed up to help out with the 6th grade promotion but none of that work will need to be started before February, I think.

And at the next PTSA meeting, I am going to ask about sending the forms home hard copy to see if they get more responses. And also the schools need to figure out how to get things done without volunteers, I think. It seems to be a sign of the times.

Well, I got my ads back and my sitemeter but I have lost my blahg format and all of the comments for the past 7 years. Heavy sigh. Comments can now be made in the blogger comment section (had always had that turned off).

I feel really blue today and I am not sure why. I had some disturbing dreams last night and that might be part of it. And the new facebook format sucks so I feel that I have lost the ability to keep in touch with some friends because I just do not want to go there. I have disliked a lot of the changes they've made over the years but this one takes the cake. It feels a lot like about.com changed their format and I lost touch with a lot of friends from the stay-at-home parents forum. Sure, a lot of them were on other forums on delphiforums but there was not one place where everyone was an active member.

Ok, the younger kids get out of school in 1.5 hours. Time to stop sulking and get on with the day.

Darn! I tried to edit something on my blahg but blogger had changed the interface and now I have lost my original blahg template. No time right now to try to get it back, including customizations like my ads! Aargh!

School is back in session and while I thought I would have a lot of time to do stuff like working out, cleaning, running errands, etc but it seems that my time is being Words with Friends and Pinterest. At any given time I have about 10 WWF's games on the go (denines is my user name if you care to start a game!!).

And Pinterest - omg...hours have been frittered away as I drool over images of cool furniture, mouth-drooling food and crafts. Oh, the crafts! I have been liking and repinning tons of cool crafts and sewing projects. I have so many wonderful ideas for Christmas gifts, crafts, decorating thoughts for just about every holiday and am feeling ambitious enough to alter some clothing. Love it! I have plans to make this

Source: dana-made-it.com via Denine on Pinterest

and this

Source: obsessivelystitching.blogspot.com via Denine on Pinterest

and this

Source: connectthedotsons.blogspot.com via Denine on Pinterest

All cool and things that I can do!

But in reality, until I actually do any of them, Pinterest is just this:

Source: lemontreecreations.blogspot.com via Denine on Pinterest

Sad news this morning. I just found out that Nanny died suddenly this weekend. She had fallen and had torn a ligament in her knee last week so she was bedridden. Her daughter and her daughter's family came down for the long weekend to visit and help out but early Sunday morning Nanny died from a blood clot in her heart/lung area. It is very shocking and terribly sad. Nanny was just 10 years older than me.

I think back when I was at my craziest, I left my not quite 4 month old, my 3 year old and my 5 year old with a virtual stranger for half a day each week so I could get out of the house. The second time she was there I remember driving along the street thinking "I CANNOT STOP I CANNOT STOP" because I knew that I could stop driving my car if I hit a red light and thanking God that my kids were at home with that stranger.

Over the months (then years) I got to know Nanny quite well. She loved to talk and sometimes I would get mad at myself for spending 45 minutes of the time she was there just chatting with her when I should be out and about getting groceries or whatever. But I enjoyed chatting with her. She was interesting, was a good story teller. And most importantly of all, I knew that she both liked and loved my children. She shared a common interest of Harry Potter and Lego with the kids so they thought she was great. She would often bring over books that she knew would interest them, movies, toys and crafts. Once she brought four huge sheets of cardboard (the sheets that were used between the stacks of toilet paper at Co$tco) and crafted a play structure for the kids - a cardboard castle.

After it was time for her to move on to a new family (both her M-Th family and us, her Friday family were ready to move on) she struggled at for a while with finding a family that was the right fit. Then she started working with a family who were treated her very well and had the resources to do things for her like take her away on vacation with them. She was very happy working for that family. She was also less available for babysit for us in the evenings or on the weekends but I was happy for her.

The last time we saw each other was just before we went to San Diego. The kids and I ran into her at Co$tco one evening. She was originally from San Diego and suggested a few places for us to visit. After that, I did not see her again although we did exchange emails every few months.

And now she has suddenly passed away. I think it was a blessing that her family was visiting her when it happened. There will be a memorial service for her at her M-Th family's home next weekend. I will be glad to see her daughter and grandson again and tell them I am so sorry for their loss.

School starts in 10 days! Time to finish cramming in as much Summer O'Fun as we can! This will include a camping trip. We are hauling a jet ski for some friends (we are all camping together) and get to enjoy the use of their jet ski. The weather will be HOT on the other side of the mountains. We are all looking forward to it!

Jax and Cars has hockey camp this past week (well, just 3 of the days). Yesterday, Jax also had a birthday party to attend so he was out of hockey camp a couple of hours early. I had so much running around to do that day that I put 105 miles on my car! Just running errands and shuttling kids! Wow.

Dex went to a sleepover on Tuesday night and managed to lose the stuff sack for the sleeping bag. Lost in this kid's house! And the thing is, this is the SECOND time he has lost a stuff sack in someones house. Last time was early in the summer. So now we have two puffy sleeping bags that would pack much more conveniently in the car if they were nice and compactly stuffed in a little bag. Aargh!

If we ever go camping again, we are buying or renting a trailer to haul all of our stuff. Or maybe I could leave half of the kitchen at home? ;)

Three weeks ago, my friend took her kids and my kids to the lake for some afternoon fun. On the way home, they were rear-ended! Both cars were drivable although my friend's car needed a new bumper, back gate, side panel and apparently the floor was cracked. She is still driving a rental car. Two of my three kids initially complained of some neck and back pain but I shrugged it off. Mostly because one is highly susceptible to the power of suggestion and the other tends to obsess over aches and pains. Well, three weeks later, the power of suggestion kid has made no mention of any aches but my other son begged me to take him to the doctor. He was sitting in the third row on the passenger side of a small SUV, right at the point of impact.

The doctor took copious notes (for insurance purposes??) and gave my son a page of exercises to do. We are to call back in a week if things are still the same. I hope that the reassurance from the doctor that all is well will be enough to make him realize that he is ok. And if in a week he is not, we'll be going to some physical therapy to help make his back stronger and (it is his upper and lower back that hurt) hope that these issues do not follow him throughout his life. In the meantime, I have tons of paperwork to fill out and need to call the main office of the pediatric clinic tomorrow to work out the billing for this visit.

I know this accident could have been a lot worse. And it is funny but I have never had any misgivings or second thoughts about letting a friend drive my kids before but now I do think twice before I say OK.

Oh, and the rest of the passengers? They were all ok with the exception of my friend, the driver. She has put off going to the doctor for neck and back pain too because she does not have insurance. Yes, the auto insurance will cover but I think the paper work involved is overwhelming to her too.

When I was growing up this was never a problem because we rarely drove in other's cars (no one had 7 or 8 passenger vehicles) and we'd just take public transit (the TTC) where ever we went. I wish we had that option here.

Summer o'fun 2011 continues...

It has been three weeks since I last posted! Shameful!!

The summer finally kicked in (weather-wise and activities-wise). Cars did a two-week intensive swim lesson session at the club. He did ok but not well enough to move up to the next level. I *promise* not to go so long without him swimming again so he doesn't lose all of his swimming know-how again.

On the 8th, we went on vacation to Pacific City, Oregon. We had so much fun! We went with Spy and her family (they go there every year). We rented a house just up the street from where they rented a house so it was perfect for the kids to ride their bikes or scooters to each house. We were 4 blocks from the beach. We'd pack up the cooler then Stephen would drive it down to the beach (you can park on the beach there) and I'd walk down. The ocean was COLD so we rented wet suits for the kids so they could boogie board. There was a huge SAND mountain that we could climb up (a lot of hard work). We rented sand boards one afternoon too so the kids could sand board down the hill. We hiked and we biked. Stephen and Spy's dh took the kids crabbing too. It was really an awesome vacation with lots of downtime to relax. Stephen and I have both said that we'd love to go again sometime.

We were back for three days then we headed to Vancouver for the weekend. We used our Nexus passes for the first time and it was fantastic just driving past the long line of cars in the Nexus only lane. I waved my cards at the scanner then drove up to the border guard. She asked me how many in our party (5!) then she said "Thank you" and handed our cards back to us and away we went! Awesome!! We drove the the Vancouver airport next so we could get our irises scanned so we can use the Nexus passes when we fly to/from Toronto.

While in Vancouver, we went to see the Zombie Walk which was a lot of fun as there were so many zombies and some people's costumes were awesome! The best zombie was an older man who was missing his left arm but he had tied a fake bloody bone to his shoulder so it looked as though his arm had been bitten off. Gruesome but hilarious! My kids were a little freaked out by him and some of the other very realistic zombies but overall they loved it. Before we had quite made it to where the Zombie Walk was starting, my 4 year old niece saw a clearly drunk scruffy-looking man staggering down the street and screeched "Look! A zombie!!".

So the summer activities are clearly getting better for my kids. We still have hockey camp and camping to do (as well as finishing buying school supplies as well as clothes for back-to-school).

This is indeed a summer o'fun!

Back in October when I went to help my mom pack before she moved, she gave me about 100 35mm slides of the family because she could not throw them out. She had already thrown out hundreds of others of my dad's political life, their vacations to Greece and many other things that were not "personal". I looked through the slides (by holding them up to the window) and they really are treasures.

My brother was visiting this weekend and so I asked him if he had access at his work (he works at a university with access to many media products) to a machine that could easily transfer slides to digital prints, otherwise I would buy a 35mm slide image scanner. Fortunately, he has access to professional products so I very warily and reluctantly gave him the slides to copy for me and my siblings and my mom. I hope he is able to get it done by Christmas because I think it would be great to give copies to my mom and sister and other brothers then. I hope it gets done!

Some of the photos are real gems! A Christmas when our family lived in Ottawa (we lived there for just 2 years after my dad lost an election and became an aide to a member of parliament so we rented out our house and moved). Photos of our family with the family up the street at our rented twin cottages. We just rented them for two or three summers in a row and I was very, very young but I still have such distinct and wonderful memories of those times.

The thing about slides is that they were never made to hard copy prints. My dad would occasionally set up the projector, take the painting off the dining room wall and we'd sit and look at the slides. It was fun and interesting as long as it were photos of us that we were viewing.

The worst slide shows were of the trips to Greece that my mom and dad made in the 80s. Literally HUNDREDS of photos of the Greek country side in Florina (the sister city to my hometown). Zzzzz We used to joke all of the time about my dad and his slides. When Stephen and I were first dating my dad pulled out the slides and Stephen sat very politely through them. I think my dad loved him just because he had a captive audience and Stephen made all of the correct nods and asked just enough questions to make him seem interested. Oh those slides!

I am not sure why my dad loved slides so much. He was an amateur photographer and he probably thought that slides were superior to negatives/film. So many of our family photos were on slides (and lost somewhere in moves). Or if he did use film, he'd have them developed onto contact paper rather than in regular sized photographs and the negatives long gone. (No doubt my mom threw them out at some point as she often called my dad a pack rat and when he wasn't looking she would throw out boxes and boxes of his papers that he had stored in the crawlspace. Just an aside but after my dad died my mom dumped so much crap only to find out later that my dad had been hiding gold coins that he had been collecting in them. Who knows how much gold is now in the Toronto garbage landfills?!).

Anyway, the slides are a real treasure and I hope it isn't too long before I have digital copies of them. I would also like to have the actual slides back but Stephen may accuse me of being a pack rat like my dad! Unfortunately, I have no gold to stash with them though. :)

All about Cars

Cars starts swimming lessons tomorrow. He is mad that I signed him up but really he cannot swim! I mean he can kind of swim but since we had NO summer last year and we spent the winter in the hockey arena instead of pool, he seems to have forgotten how to swim. When he last finished lessons, he "graduated" to youth 4 but when I signed him up for these lessons I put him back in youth 3. Anyway, it is a 2 week intensive course so hopefully he will pick it back up quickly.

He also learned to ride his bike finally. For shame on me that it is less than two weeks until his 8th birthday and he could not ride a bike. Well, to be fair, he had no incentive to do so. He is a stubborn little Leo and while he can balance and we did take the training wheels off his bike a year to two ago, he just doesn't ride. "It's too haaaard!" he'd complain. So, I had to figure out what his currency was to learn because we are going on vacation in a few weeks and we are taking bikes. Enter Pokémon. He is obsessed with Pokémon and I told him I would buy him 5 packs of Pokémon cards (he is now claiming that I said 6 but whatever) if he could ride from our house to the end of the street and back. Sounds easy but the road has a slight hump in it so on both ends so it really is uphill both ways. :) Hopefully by the end of this week we'll be at the drug store buying him those cards.

And today he went to a birthday party that had a video game theme. There was a truck with 4 50" tvs and 4 xboxs, 4 Wiis and the kids can play video games together for 2 hours. Cars knows that I do not allow him to play Halo and so he did not play because he knew he wasn't supposed to play. I could totally see Dex playing anyway and saying "well everyone else was playing". I am pretty proud of Cars for doing that.

Summer O'Fun 2011 Day 20

I took Jax and Dex to see the final Harry Potter movie tonight. We tried to go see it in 3D IMAX but traffic was bumper to bumper along 520 so we got off, turned back around and went to a small cinema to watch it. We still saw it in 3D but just not IMAX.

I did not take Cars with me for a few reasons. First, I knew the movie would be a little dark and he is not quite 8 years old so I thought it be best to let him see it at home. Also, whenever we go to the movies he has to peed like 2 or 3 times and I have to take him and I really did not want to miss any of this movie. So Jax, Dex and I left as soon as Stephen got home from work. I also did not mind saving about $15 on the cost of a ticket and snacks for him (sorry, Cars).

* * * * * SPOILER ALERT BELOW * * * * * *

Anyway, I really enjoyed the movie. I have enjoyed all of them as well as the books too. I recently finished reading the 7th book for the 3rd time and I can say that this is the first time where I felt Harry's compassion for Snape. Before that I was just still pissed that he killed Dumbledore and while he was a pathetic character and I felt for him, it did not seem believable to me that Harry would name his son after Snape. However, this third time through I could see that Harry is far more compassionate that I ever could be. Also, and it showed Harry's maturity and understanding.

I feel a little sad at the end of this series. I remember reading the first three books back to back just after Dex was born and I could not wait until book 4 and of course the movies! When book 7 was released I took Jax and Dex to the midnight release party at our local Borders store. (a sad note too that Borders is going out of business this week). I have read all of the books at least twice (and some of them three times). I've seen all but this last movie 3 or 4 times. My kids have had Harry Potter birthday parties, we have tons of Harry Potter lego (in fact, Jax's first Lego set was Hogwart's Castle).

I wonder if there will be another series like this that captures so many hearts and imaginations. I hope so!

Breaking Through the Hoard

For months Stephen has been saying that he wanted to buy a mini-fridge" to put downstairs so we could keep beer and pop cold without crowding our main fridge. He finally bit the bullet and purchased one last month and I was sweating, wondering where the heck he was going to put it. We could make room in the garage but not easily. Even worse was trying to make room in the laundry room with all of the crap I have in there. Anyway, the fridge came (and it is far from being "mini" fridge. I think it is called a compact rather than a mini as it is 5.7cu ft. The first one was damaged so we just took it right back and had to wait a week for the next one and it arrived on July 1st which was too close to our party date to do anything other than make room in the kitchen and plug it in there (the fridge fit nicely in the space where the garbage can was but the garbage can fit not well in the middle of the kitchen).

Anyway, today, two weeks after we got the fridge, Stephen announced that we were moving it and we had to find a spot for it. WHAT?! I started to panic a bit because all my stuff was in the laundry room and what was I going to do with it?? Breathe! Breathe!

I told Stephen that I needed help to make room and he was very patient with me while we made room for it. We did have to move my craft table (which was really nothing more than a flat surface to put unfinished crafts, empty bags and anything else that did not have a home. I filled three garbage bags of stuff for Goodwill (many of them craft stuffs) and two garbage bags (did I really need 15 empty tie-dye bottles? Yes people, it was that bad).

We cleared out room for the fridge, moved some things into the garage and now the laundry room looks much better. My next project is to go through all of my craft containers and drawers to really get rid of the things I will not use. And it would be good to consolidate everything so, for example, my beading tools and supplies are not in 8 different containers.

Babysteps. Flylady would be proud.

Summer O'Fun 2011 Days 8-17

It has been a good summer so far! We have had much nicer weather that we had all of last summer (although the past couple of days have been cool, overcast and a bit wet). Our 4th of July party was a lot of fun! We are still recovering (well, in the sense that the keg still needs to be returned to the brewery and we have a little fridge in our kitchen that needs to be moved to the laundry room).

I took the kids to the beach last week and they had a grand time although Dex insisted that he could apply his own sunscreen and ended up with a bad burn on his shoulders where he completely missed applying it. Ouch!

Dex has also started back at counseling because he had a bad few weeks. His anxiety levels were ok but it seems to be depression that is kicking his ass right now. It breaks my heart to see him so sad at times. I am sure he'll have to be on medication in the coming years. :(

Yesterday our Summer O'Fun included a 7:15am appointment with the orthodontist. The good news is that Dex does not need a palate expander after all though both he and Jax will probably need braces by next summer. The bad news is that Cars needed to start his treatment now and he'll get a palate expander later this month to help fix his cross-bite. He also has a severe overbite and needs braces now (as well as later) but his lateral incisors have not yet grown in so there is nothing to attach the wire to. In fact, the incisors have not moved at all since last year and the orthodontist things there is a change that they are impacted (maybe from the trauma of them being knocked out a year ago May?). Anyway, keeping my fingers crossed that they will eventually erupt on their own.

Today I took the kids to Seattle to Archie McPhee's. They had a good time poking through everything. In the end, Jax and Dex bought some "handerpants" and Cars bought a huge box of Kraft Dinner (empty box probably used as a promotional item). Whatever.

Summer O'Fun Day 7 (2011)

I had to stay indoors today as my face heals from the photodynamic therapy so I hired Babysitter to come and take the kids for the day. She is a wonderful babysitter. She first started helping out when we moved into our old house up the hill and she was 9 years old. She LOVED Jax (he was 15 months old). She would come over and play with him as often as she could. When Dex was born the following May, I hired her in the summer for $1/hour to be a mother's helper (her parents would not let me pay her more and I had to *insist* to them that I needed her to take the money).

Anyway, she babysat for us whenever we wanted to go out (which really wasn't that often). It was a sad day three years ago when she moved away to go to college. She is planning to become a teacher and she will be an excellent one!

Today she took the kids to see a movie, then out to lunch and then to the skate park while I huddled indoors and read, baked cookies and did laundry. It is a shame that I could not go out because it really was a lovely day - sunny and low 70s.

The redness and swelling in my face is nearly gone and it definitely does not hurt anymore. I have the ok to go outdoors in the morning. I get to repeat this again next month and in August. I still keep using the ointment on my face for 5 more months though and we'll see if it brings any more pre-cancerous cells to the surface.

Wear sunscreen!