Nick's Birthday

As if there was any question that I did indeed do Nick's cake this year, I have proof that I was caught blue-handed. :)

I was so excited this year. I always do the kids' cakes but this year I was working in a bakery. And I was given free reign to use all the cool tools to make Nick's birthday cake. I was counting down the days. Put in the order 3 weeks ago with "I WANT TO DO THIS CAKE" in big letters. I started by asking Nick what he wanted. First he told me a Thomas cake. Well, I've done that before with Nate's cake. Not only that but Nick had a cake last year in Wisconsin with the same kit that we carry. So I told him to think of something else, to think "outside the box". What else did he want on his cake besides Thomas. He thought about it for a minute then turned to me and said, "Candles." Finally I got an answer I could use. "A pig". We had one kit with a pig that was pretty cute. It just happened to be Little People which Nick loves. So a week ago I was telling him about his cake. I told him it had a rainbow. "I don't like rainbows." Then I told him there would be grass. "No, Mommy. Pigs don't go in grass. Pigs have to go in the mud." So I went to work on Saturday knowing I was going to have to make some adjustments to the cake. All in all it turned out pretty good. I regret not taking a picture before I put it in the box and brought it home. The box nicked it on the sides and the back and Kyra got her fingers in it before I got a picture. :( But here it is...

I got home to a very excited Nick who was so excited that when his daddy called to wish him a happy birthday, Nick answered with "Happy Birthday". I asked him how old he was and he told me 4. But we had some trouble holding up only 4 fingers. So he just took the other hand and tried to hold down one finger.

This wonderful child of mine wanted spaghetti for his birthday dinner. :) I made the comment that he was definitely my child and my mom said, "I wasn't going to say it." I can't even remember how many spaghetti birthday dinners she had to make for me. After dinner we did cake. Everybody sang. Even Kyra. "Happy Dirfday to Nick" Then Nick proceeded to blow out one candle at a time. When he was done he immediately started pulling out the candles to lick off the frosting. Then he dug in.

Next we started with presents. He loved the dinosaur and clothes from Great Grandma and Great Grandpa Miille.

Then he opened his present from Grandma and you can see how much he loved his new Henry.

He also got a new Thomas movie, a soccer ball, and a frog. He wanted a Webkinz like Nate so today we went online and registered Oscar and set up his room. He had fun. Overall the birthday was so good that he's already planning his fifth. :-P

Promised picture

I have been asked pretty much every time I get excited about having completed another cake if I took a picture. Well I just so happened to have a camera with me one of the last times I made one. This was my first kit cake. In other words a cake made with a character kit so I actually had a picture I was trying to make the cake look like. The cake went in our case and someone bought it the very next day. :-P I was very happy. They must all think I'm such a dork. But here it is...

Train trip

Its a yearly tradition at the boys' school for the 4 year old preschool class to take a field trip on a train. A group of parents drive the kids, some extra adults to go on the train, and the teacher down to Sedalia and drop them off. That same group of parents then drive from Sedalia to Warrensburg in an attempt to beat the Amtrak in order to pick up the group that rode on the train. The trip this year happened to fall on my day off so I volunteered to be one of the drivers. It was fun. :) The boys' teacher rode with me so I got to have a very long interesting talk with her about all sorts of fun stuff. Then I led the caravan of vans from Sedaila to Warrensburg where we did indeed beat the train. And were there to see the kids arrive. I regret to say that I didn't get a picture of the whole class. I wanted to but just didn't seem to catch them at the right time. Nate had a blast and Nick can't wait for his turn next year.

The clueless looking one would be mine. ;)

Life for now...

I haven't written anything for while so I thought I would give a little update on the new job and life in general. First off, I love the job! I'm having so much fun with this. The people I work with must think I'm quite the dork because I get excited over every little thing. There are 3 of us doing donuts with two of us working each day. We all 3 work together pretty well. A few minor frustrations here and there but overall its pretty good. The job is separated into two job duties each day with corresponding responsibilities (sounds pretty technical for donut making doesn't it ;P ). There's the fryer and the decorator. The fryer is responsible for the yeast ring donuts and pretty much all the glazing and the decorator takes care of all the donuts that need sugared or frosted. I've pretty much nailed the fryer routine. The decorating is probably more fun but I'm slower at that. I'm learning the other parts of the bakery too. I'm learning some of the different breads that we bake and package. I've learned how to decorate cupcakes. But my favorite part is the cake decorating. Its actually what I get the most excited about. I actually got applause the day I wrote on my first cake. They were all standing behind the glass behind me watching me. It was pretty funny. I made my first frosting rose this past week and while it was far from perfect it was very clearly a rose. Today tops it though. Today I actually decorated my first cake and it happened to be a birthday cake for one of the girls that trained me in donuts. The whole cake was purple. I got to airbrush it (way too cool) and write on it and decorate the edges with sprinkles. I tried the cool border thing they do on paper first and wasn't comfortable enough to do it on the cake but that may be something to just practice a little more. Everyone seems more than happy to help me learn all this other stuff. I think its because they know the more they teach me, the more I can step in and help when things are short handed. But I love being able to challenge myself by learning new things. Its neat. I'm almost having enough fun to make me consider giving up an education major and look at culinary school. We'll see. In an another couple months I may be waiting for my time there to be done. For right now, though, its awesome. :D

The kids are doing well. We've had some sickies here the last week or so. Kyra had the stomach bug and Nick had croup. Both at the same time no less. Nick still has a little bit of a cough but is doing better than he was. Kyra has reached full blown two. She's decided that no is her favorite word unless someone else is saying it and then we head into instant tears. Her tantrums are something to behold. She sees herself as quite the little mommy including bossing around (or attempting to boss) her two older brothers. She definitely makes her voice heard. Today she actually told her grandpa to "Go away". Yet just yesterday she went up to grandma unsolicited and told her she loved her and gave her a hug. You just never know with her. Probably the best though is when she argued with her grandpa that she DID like boys (no matter how much he told her not to).

Nick is working on catching up with Nate. He learns something new every day. Yesterday he spent probably a good half hour trying to do somersaults around my friend's living room. We're trying to work on fine motor skills which he is somewhat weak in. Right now his little sister can cut better than he can. But his teacher loves him. Although the littlest in his class he is one of the best about looking out for the other kids. Always willing to help.

Nate is ...well,... he's Nate. I'm looking forward to him being able to go to school all day because I think he'll do a lot better with an all day routine and activities. He hasn't clicked very well with a couple of teachers at the kids new day care and its causing some behavior issues. He only goes there right now on the days he doesn't have school and I'm not at home so its only a problem two days a week. He continues to amaze me with how smart he is. Last week was National Lutheran Schools Week. They had a book fair for all the kids. They let them all preview the book fair on Monday (except for Nick's preschool class who viewed it on Tuesday) so the kids could make lists to give to the parents of what they wanted and how much. Big kids were sent around with the little ones to help them make their lists. I got to see Nick's list first. He had 8 or 9 books on his list. Typical Nick books. They ranged from books about counting to books about dinosaurs and ducks, all of them just a few dollars each. So I picked out about 4 books. Then I saw Nate's list. Nate had one book. One. All the books at the job fair and Nate wanted one. I even asked him about it before Friday when he got to go buy the book(s) thinking that maybe the kid that was with him just didn't write anything else down. Nope. He really just wanted that one book. That one book cost as much as all of Nick's put together. What one book did Nate want? He wanted "My First Dictionary". We are talking an actual dictionary here. There are not pictures for everything though there are pictures. He loves looking through this book. His favorite picture? The picture above lightning. Its a picture of a night sky with lightning streaking down around a big city. A city that is recognizable by one distinct landmark that Nate has a picture of on his favorite shirt. The space needle. And he recognized it. Turns to that picture every time he looks at the book. Its too funny.

That's pretty much it around here. The weather has been pretty warm here so we've been trying to get outside as much as possible. Kids will be all going up to WI for Easter this year so I've started trying to prepare myself for that. I think I'll be okay. I've been making new friends with my new job and have even been on a couple dates this past week with a very sweet guy. Not really sure where this is going yet but I'm enjoying it so far.

And that's pretty much it. End of the update for now. :)

A New Dawn, A New Day...

A few of you were aware that I quit my job last month. It was becoming a very bad situation to be in. Overall I think I was burnt out on that field of work but the last straw came when my supervisors actually informed me that my work should be more important to me than my kids. I gave them a month's notice and began putting out applications like crazy. This was at the end of December. When January 31st rolled around I was a little nervous but felt sure that I had done the right thing in getting away from that place. My stress level went down tremendously from the moment that I turned in my resignation. I didn't realize the extent of what the facility was doing to me until it wasn't a factor anymore. And while there are people there that I miss being around, I don't miss working there at all. I've spent these last 2 weeks tending to sick kids and trying to fight a major cold myself. Then, last Thursday I got a call from one of the places I had applied at asking me to come in for an interview on Tuesday. Come Monday night, I was worried that I might not be able to make it at all. We had rain all day on Monday which turned into sleet Monday evening, followed by about 4 to 5 inches of snow Monday night. Then school got cancelled Tuesday morning. I decided I was going to try to make it anyway. I dropped all 3 kids off at day care and drove down to my appointment. Got there 15 minutes early. By the time I had been there an hour, they had offered me the job pending background check and drug test. So basically the job was mine. I got a call today asking if I could come in already on Friday for orientation. I am so excited. And you're probably all going to laugh when I tell you what the job is. I'm going to be on the donut crew in the bakery at the Super Walmart in Warrensburg. :) I'll be working from 4am to 12pm Tuesday through Saturday which actually keeps my hours pretty close to what they were before. My starting wage is less than $1/hr under what I was making before, which is pretty good for a starting wage. You all know how much I love baking. The basic job itself sounds pretty easy and fairly routine which will be a nice relief after what I've been doing for the last 8 years. The part I'm excited about though is that I will have the opportunity to get to learn all the other different parts of the bakery. I might even get to learn how to decorate cakes. :P I am really truly excited about this. Probably the best part of all this, however, is the fact that I've decided to go back to school in the fall. This job is perfect for that as I'll be going to school in Warrensburg. Getting off at noon it'll be fairly easy to arrange my classes around my work schedule and I'll already be in town. I want to thank those of you who knew the situation and were keeping me in your prayers. I know they helped. I am truly humbled by how God has blessed my life even when I was unsure of what to do and where to go. I love you all and I hope you all have a wonderful Valentine's Day.

We have snow!!

Most of you know by now that we got nailed here last week with a major ice storm (though not as bad as it could have been.) Last night it got better. Seriously better. We got snow!! We think about 4 inches, though maybe a little more. The kids were having a blast today. They almost couldn't wait until after church. I had to discourage several snowballs on the way down. :) So after church we came inside, dressed in layers, and headed outside to make a snowman. They had so much fun. Well, the boys did. Kyra didn't quite know what to make of it and was NOT happy when the boys through snowballs at her. The last straw was when she fell down in the snow. That was it and she was ready to come in. But I got some nice pictures to share. :)

Some pictures of just the snow. And a snowball fight right before Kyra had enough.

Here's our snowman. :PAll I asked for was a smile. I got two snowballs and a crabby face.

Piggy Pies

I have the best mom ever. Christmas this year was different. Good, I guess, but different. I had my sister here, which was wonderful. She and Mom and I got to play bells for pretty much every service. :) Children's Christmas program was especially hard. I couldn't help thinking, "My kids should be up there". Especially when I saw some wandering sheep that were about my little ones' sizes. It was good though. The kids opened their gifts before they left and LOVED everything. They loved their new books from Great Grandma and Grandpa Mille. The boys thought all their new cars were just awesome (thank you Aaron and Maren) and Kyra thought her new baby was the best thing in the whole world (again, thank you Aaron and Maren). She even insisted on taking it to bed with her. :) They loved the toys from Aunt Lexi and the trains (for the boys) and the check-up table for dollies (for Kyra) from Great Grandpa Morris. They liked all the toys but were not so impressed at the time. :) It was fun to watch them open everything. A week alone was quiet. Well kind of. I sort of tried to avoid spending too much time at the house. Did a really good job too. Lext left on Tuesday so I worked a double shift on Tuesday, played cards (spades) Wednesday night (kicked some major butt. Aaron, you would be proud of me. I went nil twice and covered my partner's nil for the last hand, setting the other team and winning the game. We rocked), played 80's Edition Trivial Pursuit Thursday night (got my butt majorly kicked), and went into the city Friday night for a major night out. Got all dressed up with a few friends and went to The Cheesecake Factory to eat, to see "The Holiday" at the theater, and to Barnes and Noble to have Starbucks and use my gift card. ;) It was so much fun. Saturday night I stayed at home and vegged. It was so good to pick them up again on Sunday. I missed having them here. It was nice to have the time to go out and do things but I would rather have my babies here.

On to why my mother is the best... for Christmas I got a really awesome coat from my grandparents, a funky new purse from my sister, a comfy robe and very useful gift certificate from my brother and his beautiful wife. All really wonderful gifts. From my mom I got a cookbook. The whole cookbook is filled with fun recipes (most of them very simple) to make for kids. I love it. I can't wait to try them all. I couldn't resist taking a picture of my first adventure. Piggy pies. :) They're chicken pot pies made to look like little pigs. The kids still didn't eat the bottom part but they all had a blast with the making of the piggies. Well, Nate did until he realized I was going to put the piggies in the oven. "But, Mommy, you can't put the piggies in the oven. They'll die!" I told him they couldn't die cause they weren't real. And they wouldn't die anyway. They were just going to get a good tan. :) This is why I missed my kids.

Bah-Humbug

I'm not in the Christmas spirit. There I said it. I've actually admitted it. I don't know what it is this year. Maybe its the fact that my children won't be here for Christmas this year. Though my sister will be, thankfully. Whatever the reason, I'm just not into it. The decorations up, my shopping is maybe halfway done, the songs are playing on the radio. But my heart just isn't in it. I can't even blame the commercialism of the holidays. Its not that I can't remember what Christmas is all about. Am I the only one feeling this way this year? Just curious...

My Last Little Terrible Two :-P

I'm really too entirely tired to be putting all this up tonight but felt I needed to get these pictures up before a whole month had gone by. Little Miss Kyra quite enjoyed herself on her birthday. She got a new baby, a fridge radio (really cute little Leapfrog thing that all the kids love to stand around and dance to), a little child size rocking chair and some cute clothes (like the little dress from Grandma that she's wearing). As you can see, she hammed it up rather nicely. :) My little drama queen.

Halloween

Since I have been commanded by the US Navy ;) I had to get on tonight and post pictures of my kids' Halloween costumes. I'm sorry, Lexi, but you will have to wait for birthday pictures. It is late and I am tired. But here's Halloween...















Nate wanted to be a car. And he wanted to be red like Lightening McQueen. :) He was so proud of that cardboard box...


And then there was my turtle. He had gone through a list of everything he wanted to be for Halloween including but not limited to: a witch, Tinkerbell, a pumpkin, and the list goes on. He seemed to like the turtle though.
And then we have my little lady bug. Isn't she so cute?

Thoughts and prayers

I don't do too many of these blogs with just simple thoughts. I guess when it comes to me I tend to share everything except those innermost thoughts. I love to share my pictures and funny stories about my kids. I've even shared a couple of my poems. But when it comes to those real thoughts and emotions that run so deep inside of someone, I hold back. I'm not saying that you're all going to get a truly deep insight into my soul here. But I would like to share a little bit with you. This has been one of those truly trying weeks. One of those weeks, I guess, where I find out exactly what I'm made of. One of those weeks where I discover that in everything I try to do alone I fall so very short. I managed to make myself sick this week. That's how bad it got. I actually wore myself out to the point of getting sick. I've been trying to work a lot more overtime lately. I realized that Christmas is coming soon and if I want to get the extra pay in time to actually use it for Christmas, I need to do it now. So I've been going in at the only time I can really work without disrupting anyone else's schedule. This means going into work at about 1am and working through to the end of my normal shift at 2:30pm. I actually don't mind working at that time of night. It does tend to deprive one of sleep though. Something I was handling fairly well until my job took an emotionally bad turn. A week ago today, one of our consumers (patients) at work was taken to the hospital. They suspected impaction of the bowels or a hernia. The next day we were informed that it was neither. They had discovered that he had cancer. It was everywhere. And it was terminal. I've been taking care of this gentleman for over 3 years now. He is one that I have grown quite attached to over the last few years. Stubborn as they come, but he could always make me laugh. They gave him less than 3 months. Tuesday they (they being my supervisors) informed us that the decision had been made to transfer him from the hospital to a nursing home instead of back to our facility. We (the direct care staff who had worked so closely with him) were crushed. This was the only home he knew. We were the only family he knew as his don't really have a lot to do with him. The thought of sending him some place to die alone tore us up. Wednesday I sat with him in the hospital for my entire shift. At the end of my shift he was loaded up onto a stretcher and taken to the nursing home. Thursday I got a call from my immediate supervisor saying he was looking worse and probably wouldn't make it through the weekend. Friday morning I went to see him along with several of my coworkers. That very afternoon we got a call saying he had passed away at 2pm.

Where do you draw the line between caring too much and not enough? I've heard more people than I care to speak to me about how you have to have a certain amount of clinical detachment in this kind of field. But how much is too much? I cared very deeply for this man. Not quite like watching a child die, but at the same time, we're talking about someone that I was partly responsible for nearly everyday for over 3 years. I was responsible for feeding, bathing, medicating, entertaining, ... the list goes on. I knew what the man did and didn't like. I knew how to get him from one area to the next and knew when he just wasn't going anywhere. And in the course of one week he was gone. From when he went into the hospital to when he passed away, it took less than a week. One of my closest friends from work is taking it even harder. This was her favorite. She would have done anything for him. She did do a lot for him, above and beyond what was expected of us. Why is that bad? If we went to work everyday trying to keep ourselves "emotionally detached", how would we be honestly improving any of their lives?

I guess I'm just tired. This past week has worn me down. And I know that this one is going to be rough as well. Halloween costumes, Kyra turns 2 on Wednesday, Brian's coming down this weekend to get the kids (just for the weekend), and simply dealing with the aftermath at work. Its not all bad stuff, just tiring. If I could ask all of you to keep my coworkers and the family of this man in your prayers. Thank you, everyone.

Walk!!!

The Walk was awesome. Here's our crew, minus me of course, waiting for the walk to begin.
The weather was beautiful. :) Actually it was raining the whole way to the park and misting when we got there, temperature continually dropping. This meant of course that it was perfect weather for sweatshirts. The park itself was beautiful. I had never been to this park before. There was a duck pond complete with a little waterfall, a couple of bridges, beautiful plants, and some weeping willows with benches placed underneath them. There was a rose gardern as well. Many of the flowers were still in bloom so there was color everywhere. There was a rock path leading in a circle around the outside edge of the garden underneath a trellis. Four paths led through the roses to the center where a huge fountain stood. Even with 3 kids running around me there was something about the entire park that just made me feel at peace. I think I will definitely have to go back at some point. The turn out for the walk was pretty impressive. The goal for Kansas City was $30,000. It was met and exceeded. The walk only lasted about 1 1/2 miles. But I'm glad we did it. It felt good to know we had done something. Thank you to everyone who contributed financially and with prayers. I don't think I could possibly express how much it means to us. I think the phrase they put on the t-shirts was very appropriate: "A cure is our finish line." I'm looking forward to doing the walk next year. Hopefully you will all look forward to helping out again. ;)




The kids of course had more fun playing on the totally awesome playground then doing the walk. :D

My kids were monkeys. Nate climbed the rock wall. Not only up but over the top and down the other side. The other two were happy with their own little climbing ramp. These children never cease to amaze me.

My New Window!!!

I think some of you may know about my van. This summer the window just shattered one morning. Got in my van, closed the door, and down it fell. Into a million little pieces. My very sad looking van has been driving around with plastic on the back. I've had to replace it 3 times. :) My friend Amanda told me it looked very ghetto. Well its finally fixed. And I couldn't help posting a picture cause I was just so excited. So here it is. It's probably the best looking thing on my van right now.