Writer's Block

So I noticed it's been about a week and a half since I last posted and I had good intentions of posting here more regularly. Last week I was out of action with sickness, this week I find I have nothing to say. I have started a few topics only to delete a few sentences in. However I did not start this blog post to tell you I have nothing to say, that would be really boring and lame. Instead I have confessions. These are not deep confessions, but nevertheless, confessions. Our Sunday school teacher, Matthew, did something similar on Sunday morning about confessing his love of Broadway musicals and other quirky facts about himself and it go me thinking...what are secrets you may or may not know about me. Maybe the more appropriate title of this should be "Random Facts of Liz."

1. I, like Matthew, have a deep love for musicals. Any of my Dockside friends can tell you this. I used to sing the show tunes in the kitchen. This loved started as a kid, when my mom showed up Mary Poppins, Wizard of Oz, Sound of Music, and other musicals. My love grew even more in college when I took Musicals in America as my fine arts requirement. And now I dream of going to New York to see a show on Broadway.

2. I LOVE peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, still. I ate one almost everyday in elementary school. It is still my sandwich of choice. Oh and grape jelly all the way.

3. I push my favorite things onto my kids. For example, I love bunnies/rabbits, and I am making the choice for Kayla that she will also love bunnies/rabbits. So far so good, she can't sleep with out her bunny pillow and Peter Cottontail bunny.

4. When I paint my toenails, I let the paint stay on until just a little strip is left on my big toe. Weird and a little gross I know. But it does save on finger nail polish remover.

5. At meals, I can only eat one food at a time until it's gone before I move onto the next. And most importantly my foods can't touch.

6. I'm slightly embarrassed about this one and I ht ink I've only told a few people. Some how growing up in church, I missed a lot of Bible stories. Important ones, like David, Samson, and Joseph. Seriously I thought the only Joseph was Jesus' earthly dad. I knew about David and Goliath, but just a couple of years ago I heard the phrase "David, a man after God's own heart" and heard the story of him and Bathsheba. When people talked about the Prodigal Son, I was honestly confused. I'm learning them now.

Whew, I'm glad I got all of that off my chest. That's enough for now.

♥ Liz

Look Me Up

Hi, my name is Liz and I am addicted to Facebook. Now let me clarify, I have been with Facebook since the beginning. I bet most of you didn't know in the beginning you had to have a college email to join. Now they don't discriminate and allow everyone on, including my mom. Yesterday someone started a chain status, not sure if this is a real term, but I am making it up, it'll catch on, it's when someone posts something and others can follow suit on their profile, for example when all the women posted their bra color or the ones that say Repost this if..., anyways back to the chain status. It read "Go to urbandictionary.com, type in your first name. Copy and paste THIS as your status. Then paste the first entry for your name under comments." This sounded like fun. I HAD to do it. So here's my definition:

1. liz
basically the definition of being amazingly cool and fun. can dance black as hell, whether their black or not. athletic, fun and wild. gets into trouble a lot. says stupid things, but people like Liz's. sexy, and fiiiiiiiine.

-Damn liz, will you be my baby's mama?
-Hey liz, can i please worship you, YOU'RE MY IDOL.

2. Liz
1. (Verb) The act of being incredibly cool. Commonly misunderstood to mean "one who is attracted to homosexual men."
2. (Adjective) A positive attribute that one possesses, or can be gained by physical and mental labor, similar to coolness and beauty

-"She is very much Liz."

3. Liz The most beautiful woman in the world. Despite what she may think of herself, she's very smart, and very very sexy. She's also the sweetest person in the world.
-I love Liz so much...

Now I will say, most if not ALL of this is true. You fellow Liz's out there know it, now it's the rest of the world's turn to figure out. The only part I would question is the athletic part, but everyones definition of athleticism is different. I'm a Pro at Wii bowling, and I can kick some ass at Wii tennis, and have you seen me to the Hula Hoop on Wii Fit? Therefore, I'm an athlete.

♥ Liz

Welcome back!

It has been a long 2 months, but I am back!! My friends Tanya and Kate of ParentTrend encouraged my return. Hopefully my posts will become more frequents. I now can post from my iPhone :) Thanks Dee!!

Since the last time we've talked not a lot has changed. Both kids are growing. Kayla is using words. Hubby is great and loving. Work is busy, if not busier, as always. No worry flu still seems to be along with RSV and parainfluenza.

The only other thing on my mind is Kayla's sleeping habits. She has been in her toddler bed since last summer. We had problems with her staying in her bed in the beginning and we would find her on the floor by the gate at her door. Then for a long time she has been doing great. She'll go up there at bed time, grab her paci or how she likes to say her "papi" (please no comments, it's only for night time), and climb into her bed and fall off to sleep. However, since Christmas all Hell has broken loose. We do contribute some of this with her being sick, but not all of it. Basically she prefers the floor and not her bed, especially the spot right in front of the gate. We can move her 20 times and she will always go back to the floor. One morning I couldn't find her at all. Once I walked around the other side of get bed I heard her breathing and saw her hand. She had scooted under her bed and had fallen asleep there.

Now we've passed the crib onto someone else. We are not sure what we will do. For right now we will keep picking her up and moving her. All suggestions are welcome.

♥ Liz


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Traditions

When I said before I was busy, I was not kidding. Work, home, and myself have been nonstop. And now it's that time of the year where everything flies by and I feel like I am running behind a train that I am trying to catch. The stores do not help either, even before Halloween the Christmas stuff is out!! Really, let me get through Thanksgiving first, so then I can think about Christmas. I will say I am proud of myself. I am almost done with Christmas shopping. Never have I been done this early. The kids and Dee are completely done...

Well except for a new ornament for each of them. It's a tradition that my mom did with us. Every Christmas we all got a new ornament. They would be special to us and our likes and style. Almost all of mine are bunnies. My brothers were football and Star Wars and my sisters were bears. Every year we would help her put the ornaments on the tree. We would be going through them and asking "Is this mine?" We would only want to put up our own and hand over the ones that were not ours to the rightful owner. Some we fought over. There are a few ornaments that are 3 replicas, so it didn't matter. Then when I moved out and got my own tree my mom gave me all of my ornaments. That first Christmas I did not have a bare tree and I had a piece of my childhood in my new home. She still gives us ornaments. Last year's was great. Everyone got a snowman. They all gave our birth order, for example mine said "Middle Child." On the belly was written our names. And everyone had a sign the snowman held that said "Mom's Favorite."

I have started the same tradition with Dorian and Kayla. We put all the ornaments on the tree this past Sunday and Dorian was asking the same question "Is this one mine?" It brought back so many memories and I can't wait to hear Kayla ask it too. And one day I can't wait to give Dorian and Kayla their own special ornaments from years past.






By the way these pictures were taken with my new iPhone. Love it!!! Thanks Dee for an early Christmas present.

♥Liz

Milestone alert!!

I haven't been posting lately because of work. The short story is I do flu research and for those of you that live in bubbles and don't turn on TV, look at a newspaper, listen to the radio, or join in water cooler chit chat, it's flu season and not just nay flu season...it's H1N1. Oooh scary, not really, but I bet you're scared thanks to the media. Beside the point, I have a lot of catching up to do on my regular blogs, giveaway entering, and blogging on my site.

I couldn't let this go and had to share...Dorian has hit a milestone. What milestone can an 8 yr old have, how about a fear of shots?? Fear does not describe how Dorian used to act, just the mention of a shot would send into a frenzy. His last shot was when he was 6. This is also the time when I realized how much stronger Dorian is than me. The "mom hold" no longer worked. He flailed about with a needle sticking in his arm. Not a pretty site. Yesterday was our "shot day." Kayla was getting her 18 month shot as well at seasonal and H1N1 vaccine (they had just gotten their shipment in that week, we were lucky!) and Dorian also needed the 2 flu vaccines. May I add that I love FluMist...no stick, no pain, no tears, everyone is happy. Well the dr only had injectable. Uh-oh! We very gently told Dorian he would be getting shots, which brought on the pouting. He felt better in knowing Kayla was getting one more than him. Aren't siblings great? Dee and I tried to calm Dorian down by saying if you don't tense up and you stay loose and relaxed it won't hurt as bad...it'll still hurt, just not as bad. What happened next was a miracle only God could have performed! No tears!! No screaming!! No flailing!! He took it like a man! :) He flinched a little and balled up the opposite shot arm, but he did great! He even said "That didn't hurt that bad." Now Kayla on the other hand is another story. You would have thought we ripped her toes off one by one.

I am so proud of Dorian for his grown up moment.


On another note, please keep Jonah and his mom and dad in your prayers. They are having a rough time and are going forth with a g tube.

♥ Liz

Check this out....

I hate junk mail!! Over half my email inbox is filled with junk and I'm constantly hitting DELETE over and over. So why would I sign up to receive more junk mail?? To rack up points of course! A friend of mine introduced me to MyPoints, and I am reeling them in!!

This website gives you points to click on their sponsors' websites, shop at the sponsors' on-line stores, answer surveys, post your opinion about new websites, and even print coupons. Everyday I get "Bonus Mail" with offers to click on a website for 5-10 points, if I purchase so much or register with the company, pretty much something that brings that company revenue somehow, then I get more points. Most of the time I open the email, click on the company, then close that new window that pops up, so I can get my 5-10 points. I have also answered surveys about my family, shopping habits, dining out favorites, any consumer survey, I get 10 points to see if I qualify and if I do I can get 50-100 points for completing the survey. They even have a search tool bar you can download and use to search and every search brings in a certain amount of points. I have used the search tool bar and it's slightly confusing and the results are not clear and jam packed with ads, so I prefer the Google tool bar. If you refer your friends and they sign up you get 250 points per friend!!

What do you do with these points you ask?? MyPoints Rewards lets you "cash" in these points for gift cards!! They offer gift cards to so many shops and restaurants: Target, Wal-Mart, Applebee's, Old Navy, Pottery Barn, Pizza Hut, FTD, LL Bean, JC Penney, Gap, Foot Locker, Chili's, Amazon.com, iTunes...the list goes on and on. You can even donate you points to the American Red Cross!! The more points you collect, the higher the amount of gift card you can receive. I am saving up for a $50 gift card from Tar-geh :) I'm well over half way there. I could have cashed in early for a $10 gift card and I have just enough for a $25, however "Go big or go home!"

You should try this out!! What's a little extra junk mail, if you are getting gift cards in the end??

I did not receive any payment for my review. All opinions are of my own accord and is not affliated with the company.

♥ Liz

I'm not giving up

Our family has been really busy over the last week, between school, fall break, Halloween, and now prepping for a couple's retreat to the beach this weekend...my head is seriously spinning off. But this is usual craziness, as well as dealing with Dorian and his behavior. Since the early age of 2, I have had multiple meetings with Dorian's teachers, from daycare, to school, and even church leaders. I'm used to them. Most of the time the teachers are helpful and try to get information to help them with Dorian, sometimes I feel attacked like I am not doing enough at home and it's my fault why they can't get Dorian to listen. I've had a few teachers/leaders just give up on him and just want to get that year or session over with and move him on to someone else. I'm his mom...I am not giving up!! Last spring I thought we had a major breakthrough with his behavior. We introduced the "Behavior Highway." I have to do a post about this later, but it worked. His behavior improved DRASTICALLY. The teachers were calling and sending notes saying what a change they saw in Dorian. I thought we had finally gotten over this obstacle...until now. In his first year in kindergarten, the teacher kept saying his bad behavior was ADHD. So I investigated it, everything I researched said his age was too young to determine, it could be immaturity. The pediatrician said it was too early as well as a specialist I talked with. So I stopped her allegations and continued to work with him and ultimately held him back a year. Last week we had a teacher/parent conference. I've got to hand it to this teacher...she stayed positive about his academics, but all the problems she described pointed straight to ADHD. She never mentioned it as a problem, she didn't have to. I knew. She wasn't complaining about his bad behavior, she was complaining about the fact that he can't sit still, so they let him stand, but then he can't stand still. It'll start with his hands, then his legs are moving, by the end his whole body is a wiggling, which is distracting to the class. I have come to a point where if it's not ADHD, then I have no clue what is affecting him.

I know a lot of parents now are against the whole notion of ADHD. I am too, to a point. Back in kindergarten, I think it was immaturity. She was describing misbehavior. I am not going to drug my child because you can't control him. The following two years the teachers had problems, but we were able to work through them. Now I have to visit it as an answer. I am against just "treating" him with just medicine. What I have researched, medicine is just a quick fix, there is no evidence that in the long run the medicine will change them. I will be treating him with a specialist to help teach him how to control his hyperactivity. I also want to investigate learning disabilities. I hate the word "disabilities." I think our society puts a negative connotation on it. Maybe learning obstacles is better? I have noticed and it has been seconded by his teacher of him being unable to express himself in writing, even when giving a topic. I feel like I am pulling teeth trying to get him to tell me what his favorite thing to do outside. "You play outside every single day, and you can't write 3 sentences about what you like??" Do you see my frustration? I feel like he can't express himself, which could lead to his misbehavior. But how do you teach your child to express themselves? I need help.


I love Dorian sooo much. I want him to be a successful adult one day. Is that too much to ask? I'm just so frustrated with everything.

*****************************

On a lighter note, I didn't get any Halloween pictures, I think I'm going to have the kids put their costumes back on this week so I can take a few shots. However, one of the houses we visited took pictures of their trick or treaters and posted them here. I found Dorian, Dee and Kayla!



I know what you are thinking...it's only a good one of Dorian...but you get the idea of Kayla being a duck. :)

♥ Liz