Praise God

If you remember I posted back here about Keith's eye.  Well we have an amazing update!  We had his vision appointment on friday and the Dr. said he has no vision loss!!!!  No more "what if's"!

Joseph just can't win ....

He still has to have his arm wrapped for about a week and half, and now he added another injury!  This one still blows my mind, and is a great conversation starter!  He was playing with his friends at recess and they were running through the girls.  Well one of them was doing a hula hoop around her neck and it clocked him.  Yes you read that right.  He has that amazing black and blue eye from a hula hoop!

Weekend recap

We had a family date night in Galena on Saturday.  We left early so that we could walk around the shops.  There was an AMAZING gallery(I obviously couldn't take pictures inside), but I wanted to purchase every single portrait in there!

Me and my girl all dolled up!

Completely normal!

Love him!

Her Daddies Daughter!

Joseph just had to stop and get his picture taken with this statue!

I fell behind a little bit, because I just had to get this picture!  I love how they all just fall into line and follow Daddy!

Then we went to Vinne's.  This is where Fred and I had our very first date.  I always tell the kids, "This is where our story began!"  I love it!

Flowers that Fred and David got me when they spent the day together Friday.

Picture by the lions!

All underneath the Vinnie sign.

David decided he would dress for the weather(it was about -3 at that point!)

Our whole Sunday was spent basically staining and prepping more on our basement!  But we did it together so it went by so fast!

Homemade Fruit Roll Ups

I saw this recipe on facebook and thought, what a great idea!!  Super simple too!  

I did too much fruit with this one, so I am cutting the recipe in half.

1/2 a container of hulled strawberries

1 container of raspberries

1 tbs of honey

Puree until smooth.  Spread very thinly on a cookie sheet line with parchment paper.  

Bake at 200 for 3 to 4 hours.

Sledding is a dangerous sport.....

Friday the kids all went out sledding and they loved it because it was nice and slick and slightly icy.  The flew down the hill!  However with speed comes the big chance of getting hurt, and that is just what happened!!!

We waited until Saturday to go to the doctor, but when he woke up it was still swollen and very tender.  So off to the doctor we went!  Luckily after x-rays, it was confirmed there was no break.  But he sprained it really bad.  The doctor has him off of all sports for 2 weeks(which he wasn't too fond of).  After the 2 weeks we should be back to normal!

this picture is flipped because it was scanned(it is his left arm casted)

A little present

Fred spent the other day locked up in the garage(and the woods) to make me a fun little 

surprise and I love it!

Check out these awesome bird feeders.

A new game

Fred came home from shopping the other day and informed me that he bought the kids something.  "I just had to."  If you know Fred he loves to spoil the kids ;)  

After a little bit of time to put it together, he shows me, a suction cup bow and arrow target game.  And let me tell you, the kids all love it!  It is fun to watch them set up their "hunts" and have their own competitions.

Beauty all around us!

Fred took this picture the other day, I am always amazed at God's creation!  He is the masterful artist and if we take our time to look, actually look, at these things you will find yourself breathless!  

Carmyn, Roxie and i got a nice little walk in last night, before Joseph left for wrestling.  This was one of those, "You know you're from Wisconsin if..." everyone just had to get outside yesterday because it was warm and so gorgeous!  I even had our patio door open a crack!  It was a balmy 29*!!  We loved it!  

On that note, we are anxiously awaiting spring!  I have already started planning my garden and buying some seeds!  We also decided to try growing some spinach inside, I will let you know how it goes!

A new healthy snack!

I have started the 21 day fix this week.  I have a HUGE sweet tooth, and I wanted to find a snack that would go along with this plan.  Someone suggested this and thought I would use David as my guinea pig!

All it is( seriously the most simple, easy recipe!)  1 purple container of frozen berries(I choose blueberries) and 1 red container of plain greek yogurt.  Puree together until smooth.  ENJOY!

By the way, David loved it!

Things that make me laugh

and wonder if I live in a crazy house...Oh I think I do!

These little men are all over my house!!  Sometimes I am a little surprised by them because they show up in very odd places! I feel like they are little spies for the boys!

Our Family "Heart Attack"

I got this fun idea from Shawni and loved it!

They each have a heart with their name on them.  On the other peoples hearts, they had to write something they loved about that person.  I didn't get a picture of David comment on Freds heart, but it made me laugh.  "I love that you let me sleep in your bed with you!"

And this is what the boys do when the girls are cutting out the hearts!  They become some sort of super hero!!

Sight is a beautiful thing...

2 weeks ago K had a 24 hour flu.  It was a typical flu(with all of the joys that go with it), but then 2 days after he finished throwing up, he woke up with a incredibly swollen eye.  No matter what people had told me I knew it was not pink eye(I have seen that and this was so different).  It hurt him bad, his eye was so red.  I was so unsettled by it that we took him to doctor.  After going over all of the tests the doctor determined that the flu virus he had, had settled behind his eye. By the time we had gotten to the dr. his eye looked like the picture(so you can imagine how bad it looked before).  Even with the swelling going down, the virus had started to affect his vision(at that moment his eye was 20/70).  He was put on a steroid drop and a antibiotic drop to hopefully release pressure and get that infection out.  He had to be seen by the eye dr. to check his eye pressure.
Now the reason Dad and I were very worried about this(since a lot of people had not heard of this happening), Dads grandma(so K's great grandma) actually lost her vision in her eye because of the same thing happening to her when she was little.  We knew what would happen if we didn't get him on his meds right away or if for some reason they did not work.  That night I slept very little, I kept going through all of the "What if's".  Would he be able to drive a car, shoot a gun, play sports normally....How bad was this going to affect his vision?!
We got good news from the eye dr., the pressue was releasing and his vision was not permanently damaged.  We have another eye dr. appointment set up for him once he is off of the antibiotic drops, to see how much/if any this did affect his vision.
As always K has been a trooper through this, very rarely fighting me with his drops.  Something like this makes you realize the little things you don't think about until bad things happen.........Thank you God!

We live our life!

It is sometimes crazy busy and others are nice downtime!  I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world!

We started this week off with a nice little blizzard.  I don't even know how much snow we got, it was blowing so hard and drifting.  Dad and J spent(literally) the whole day out plowing snow for us and others.

The other 3 kids went out to play but did not last very long!  I don't blame them!

Roxie on the other hand LOVED the snow!!  It was very hard for me to convince her to get her cold tush back inside.

This was the drift in front of our driveway.

This was D before school one morning.  He was in desperate need of a haircut, and was not that impressed with me taking his picture!  But darn he is so cute!

I got to hang out with some friends who I haven't seen in a while!!  I love them and had such a great afternoon!

This is pretty much normal at our house!  C has no clue who cousin IT is, but man we laughed so hard!

Dad surprised me with flowers and wine the other day!  

K ended up with another hole in his head!  He pulled yet another tooth out!

I signed up to be a beachbody coach and have now started doing the 21 day fix.  I am super excited and can't wait to work with others on it!