Yay for "A"!

After a VERY LONG week, Ned went to the Doctor this morning to get the results of his liver panel. He has Hepatitis A. The doctors were fairly sure that he had a form of Hep, but had to run further tests to determine if he did and what form he had. Hep A is a virus that we are all vaccinated against but 10% of the population is resistant to the vaccine. So anyway, somehow he came in contact and contracted the virus. It's mostly carried by small children. Anyway, I feel so bad for him, it's a serious illness and Ned is quite sick even after 3 weeks of being totally down and out. The Doctor said it could last 2 months! YIKES! But the good news is that he will never get Hep A again. He will still be able to continue his Navy duties, and the kids and I will not get it because we haven't gotten it up to this point. Big sigh of relief all around. I am so grateful that everything will be OK. I am so glad that it's not Hep B or C, because those can be lifelong conditions! So poor Neddie has yet another week off work to rest up. This will be going on a full month of this awful illness. My heart really goes out to those suffering with chronic illness. It is hard to deal with something like this day in and day out. Thanks for all your prayers and concern. It means a lot to us! So now we just continue on and be grateful that he will recover, though a long recovery seems immenint at this point.

Tatum's new 'do...

Tatum got an impromptu haircut on Saturday. We decided to cut most of her length off. I was scared to death...but I LOVE the way it turned out. Much easier to take care of than her previous look. I liked her hair longer, but only when she let me actually fix it. This way, it looks good no matter what. Tatum's a sweetheart. She is such a sweet little girl.

A little bit of this and that...

What is it about a new blog post that makes me happy? Well this week has been a crazy one but despite everything I have been taking a lot of pictures. Tatum started preschool this week. YAY! Her first day was Thursday. I was all excited to take pictures of her first day...but she was just not cooperating. As you can see from the picture below. This was all I got on day #1:
Carson smiled cute for me, though. So we tried again after day #2 and she did much better. Here is her "preschool photo shoot". Don't mind her shirt being half wet, please!

Carson has recently started joining in at craft time. Tatum is very patient and such a great teacher. She will make a great Mommy some day!


My two favorite guys. Desptie Ned's illnesses, he is still putting on a happy face for the kids. We love you, Daddy!

Ice Cream...a James family favorite.

A rainbow to remember...

Boy, where do I start. The past 3 weeks have been really difficult for our family. A while back, I posted about Ned's headaches and pains. Guess what...they STILL are going on. He has been to several different doctors over the past week and a half. All of them are running tests and we are waiting to find out the results on Monday. Without going into to too much detail, he is having a lot of liver problems that are contributing to his symptoms. It's not looking good and we are hoping for some really good news at this point. Anyway...the whole point to this post is this: yesterday I was coming back from the store with the kids and saw the most beautiful rainbow I had ever seen in my life. It wasn't this rainbow pictured, but it was even MORE gorgeous. Yoou could see perfectly both ends to the rainbow and no clouds were covering any of it up. Plus, it was really wide and the colors were so bright. It was breathtaking. In that moment, I got a comforting feeling and I was reminded of our Heavenly Father's love for us. Is life always perfect? No. Do bad things happen to good people? Yes! But in our trials we must somehow look to find the good and experience joy within ourselves. It is up to us to keep going. It's easy to get sidetracked and I'm grateful for the reminders! We could really use everyone's prayers this weekend- it's been really difficult to just "sit and wait". But we're just trying to hang in there! We'll post some news when we know anything!

Primary Program!

Yesterday was Tatum's Primary Program. I am the chorister for the ward, so it was a big day for me, too. She did an amazing job singing and saying her lines. The very first song was I Am a Child of God sung by just the Sunbeams and Nursery class. I was so nervous about it, but they all sang so well. Great job, Tatie!
Poor Carson has been down with a bit of a cold. I think it started out as a teething issue, but has since settled in his chest. He had to stay home and we were sad that Dad had to miss the program, too.
Dinner time smiles...
This has been Carson's face lately. Mischief. It's the "I'm up to something...wouldn't you like to know what" face. The past month he has really turned into the 2-year old little boy stereo-type. Always getting into something. Always tying to put something into the DVD player...but always making us smile. We love you, Carson.

Movie Night...

Saturdays are our "fun" day. We always try and do something special with the kids before or after housework. Ned's still not feeling well and Carson was a bit under the weather. So we did a fun movie night and watched Cars. Carson had never seen it before and he LOVED it.

It's always exciting to eat by the TV instead of the table.

We made Halloween cupcakes for dessert. Carson was in charge of lining the pan with the wrappers, he did a great job. Tatum poured everything into the bowl and added the sprinkles on top. hopefully next week everyone will be feeling better and we can be outside. But staying in is always just as fun.

Say What??

My little brother, Mark, is leaving for a mission to Calagry, Canada in a couple weeks. He went to the Chicago LDS Temple today for the first time. When he walked in...there was L. Tom Perry at the reccomend counter. So Mark went up to him and introduced himself and they chatted for a few minutes. How cool is that? I have to admit, I'm jealous. I'm also happy for Marky and I know that story will be a moment he'll remember for the rest of his life.

Thanks for the tag, Alisa. I miss you, too!

FIVE
Ten years ago I:

1. Was starting my Sophmore year in High School
2. Working at Subway on the weekends
3. Living in West Lafayette, IN
4.Was going to EARLY morning seminary
5. Was wondering where my future Husband was (Come on...everybody does that!) Turns out, he was serving a mission in Portugal.


Five things on today's "to do" list:

1. Laundry
2. Dishes and other housework
3. Finish Tatum's preschool paperwork
4. Start working on a quiet book for the kids for Sacrament Meeting
5. Finish up my prep for the Primary Program on Sunday

Five snacks I enjoy:

1. Strawberries
2. Popcorn
3. Anything chocolate
4. String Cheese
5. Blackberries

Five things I would do if I were a millionaire:

1. Buy a house
2. Go on a cruise with Neddie
3. Bring Amy and Scott, too
4. Save for the kids' College
5. Give to a charity

Five places I have lived:

1. West Lafayette, Indiana
2. Mesa, Arizona
3. Sonora, California
4. Groton, Connecticut
5. Whidbey Ilsand, Washington

Five jobs I have had:

1. Subway
2. Accurate Optical
3. Andersen Chiropractic
4. Target
5. PCA Portrait Studio


Five friends I tag...

1. Cassia
2. Heidi
3. Sheree
4. Melissa
5. Aimee

I also tag anyone else who would like to do this. Okay ladies, now answer the questions yourselves and then tag 5 more people and post their names. Then go to their blog leave a comment letting them know that they've been tagged asking them to read your blog. Let the person that tagged you know when you've answered the questions on your blog. It's fun:)

What a week!

First of all, this is not a great picture of my wonderful husband. HOWEVER, in my defense I said to him "I want to take a picture of you for the blog". This was the face he made...so I'm posting it! Ha Ha. I love having a goofy hubby! On another note with Ned, he has had kind of a mystery illness for the past 11 days. He has fever, chills and migraines at night. It's been really rough and we're hoping it's a bug and it will pass in time. Poor guy has been miserable. We took him to the Doctor yesterday and they did a CT scan and bloodwork and luckily it was all normal. So we will have to wait it out. Below are some smiles from the kids. They were being silly the other day and I happened to have my camera close to capture the moment. Most of them are of Tatum, but Carson refused to stay still to take pics.

A weekend in Portland...

Ned's Sister and her family live in Portland. She had knee surgery last week and Ned and Catherine's parents came up to Portland to help her out. We went down for the weekend to see them and spend time with Catherine's family. (She has three adorable boys!) Tatum and Carson had a good time playing with Cousins! A Blogger's worst nightmare...I forgot my camera! So these were just a couple that my Father-in-law took at a Soccer Game.

This is Carson with his cousins Scott (far right) and Spencer. Uncle Brent is in the middle.

I love this picture of Tatum with my Mother-in-law. Her face just looks so happy. All in all, it was a good weekend!

Fruits of my labors...

I made some blackberry jam this morning. It was the first time I'd ever attempted to can while the kids were awake, so I was nervous. But it turned out fine. My favorite part of canning is after they are all proccessed, and they start to seal. I love that little "pop" sound it makes. It tells me that I followed all the steps perfectly, everything went to plan and the jam will stay good for a while. It always puts me in such a good mood to clean and do things around the house while hearing little "pops". Wouldn't it be great if life was like canning? How awesome would it be if we heard little "pops" when we did something right. It would surely take a lot of guesswork away from my life. As a mom, I am always second guessing myself. Am I teaching my children? Is this the right punishment? Am I spending enough quality time with my children? Is my family happy? Am I striving to improve myself? Am being the kind of friend I'd like to have? Sometimes I wish there was a clear line about all of these things. Life seems a bit simpler that way, but I guess we all have to learn to draw the lines for ourselves. Maybe I'll start by drawing one between philosophy and blackberries.

Lunch with the girls...

One of my favorite days is the second Wednesday of every month. All of my girlfriends from church get together, bring a dish...and visit while the kids play. Sometimes being a wife and a mother can be lonely and difficult. Throw the military into the mix and there are times where you can feel like you have no control at all! But everytime I get together with my friends I'm reminded that I'm never alone. I'll always have great friends to lean on! Tatum and I decided to make apple cupcakes- it was a lot of fun. You take a cupcake and add half of a mini donut to make the cupcake taller. Roll it in some red sugar, add the stem and the leaf...well you get the idea...
I did one to look like someone had taken a bite out of it. Maybe a little creepy...but still cute!

YIKES!

I just did this parent center bulletin thing on child height prediction. It had all of this fancy equations and you put in your child's info, and the info for the parents. Poor Tatum. The results that I got said that she has a 90% chance of being within 1 inch of 6' 5''. And I thought I was tall! Oh wait...that's probably why she'll be that tall. And Ned being 6' 7'' doesn't help things either. Guess we'd better put a basketball hoop out in the driveway! LOL

Hello, Cupcake!

I WANT THIS BOOK! Good thing my birthday is next month...I think I will have to drop some hints to Ned that this is what he should get me. My friend has this book and I was looking through it the other days. It's all about cute ways to make cupcakes. There are also a lot of cute ideas on April Fools cupcakes that look like something else. Anyway, I can't wait to get it.

Back on the wagon!

"I'll run tomorrow..." That was the theme of the last two weeks. Pitiful! I don't understand myself sometimes. I love to excersise. I love the feeling I get when I finish running! I feel better, I sleep better, I eat better, I'm not as down about things. And yet, when a few days go by...I still have to FORCE myself to get off my behind and go and workout. In this case, it was two weeks. With most people, two weeks isn't that big of a deal. But I can gain about 7 pounds in two weeks if I don't watch it...and guess what- that's exactly what happened this time. I didn't step on the scale to confirm my suspicions but I didn't need to. Anyway I finally forced myself to get outside and go for a run tonight. Within a minute I was feeling back to normal and kicking myself for letting two weeks go by! During my run I had a bit of inspiration. I have decided to start a second blog called Fit For Life. It's just going to be kind of a daily journal on my fitness journey. I am hoping that by having a blog specifically for fitness I won't skip out on workouts here and there and will do better! I know that a lot of readers out there check my blog for pics of the family and updates with the kids and such. So it will be great to have an outlet just for me and I won't have to feel guilty about being "wordy"! I will be posting fun and healthy recipes and whatever I find inspirational at the moment. I hope to see you there, I appreciate all the support and encouragment you give me!

Here's the new blog...

http://wwwkerstinfitforlife.blogspot.com/

Please note that there is not "." after www
I don't know what happened but the link is correct without it.