The Adventures of the Reese's Pieces Gang

I'm sure by that title you are wondering what this post will be about. Well, for the past couple of years our little 6 person table has 8 squeezing around it. We weren't able to put food on the table along with all the plates and silverware without being very crowded. We had many spills and accidents because 4 people were sitting at the corners where the legs were, and overall it was not a comfortable eating experience. We had decided that when Phil got a job that a new dinning room table would be one of our first "big" purchases.

Two weeks ago Phil went shopping for one and found one that he thought would work and he had filled out the paperwork to purchase it, however, he was a little apprehensive about it since I hadn't seen it. When he got back to his apartment his landlords showed him a table in their basement that was perfect for our family with the exception of being short 2 chairs. Phil decided it would be better for us to have to buy just two chairs than to have to spend well over $1000 on a new set of 8 chairs and a table.

All that being said, he brought the table home this Friday. What a joy it was to sit at "brunch" this morning and have us and all the food on the table with lots of room to spare! We can fit another 2-4 chairs around the table which will be so nice when we have guests. I almost cried at breakfast because my heart was so filled with Thanks for God providing exactly what we needed at a fraction of what we thought it would cost. Praise the Lord!! Lord willing this table will last us through the years of the kids being little. Eventually we will look for an even larger, nicer set for the teen years & beyond. Phil took pictures of us this morning as we had our first meal around our new/used table. Hopefully later today he will teach me how to load pictures onto my blog posts. I'll be sure to post when I've loaded pictures for all the past posts that have pictures to go along with them.

In conclusion, I had wanted so badly to have a dinning room table that we could all fit around before Christmas and God granted the desire of my heart! I am so thankful!

I just wanted to take a minute in between dealing with sick kids and trying to complete all the gluten/casein free baking for the holidays to share with you two cute things that the boys have said this week.

A couple days ago Philip was wiggling while standing in the hallway so I said, "Philip, go potty." I said this or course because I thought he was doing the potty dance. Philip then said, "But mama, I'm not doin the potty dance." We all started to laugh! :-)

Thomas is sick right now and struggling with an ear ache. Yesterday after watching a Pooh movie he came up to me and said, "Mom, I have fluff in my ear." I asked him if the fluff was what was making his ear hurt and he said, "Yes, the fluff makes my ear hurt." He came up to me again this morning and told me that the fluff was hurting his ear again.

Are there any other mom's out there severely lacking in sleep these days? We've had the cough cold moving through the house for the past couple of weeks. I got it early last week, thankfully since I loaded myself with Kyolic Garlic, Vit C & Echinacia I'm not feeling that bad even though I do still cough occasionally. Last night my poor little Philip was up coughing until after Mid-night. I tried the Vicks on his feet with socks, propping him up on several pillows so he was practically sitting, cough medicine, sipps of water, etc. and nothing was helping to relieve his cough. Finally, he decided to head back to his own bed much to my relief! I couldn't sleep with him coughing.

6:30 a.m. seemed to come awfully fast this morning! I think the one thing that is most difficult when single parenting are the times when you cannot get the sleep you need! For me I have to make sure to spend some extra time in the Word on days like today so I can have a sweet spirit while dealing with my kids. I'm a red head and very good at allowing my temper and tongue to fly but for the grace of God!

So now that the kids are off to school I'm off to shower and spend some time "resting" in the Lord.

James 1:22 "But prove yourselves doers of the word, and not merely hearers who delude themselves." NASB

This evening I wandered down the steps after tucking in Thomas & Philip to find little tiny pieces of paper all over my office chair. I noticed on one a bank routing number. Then I found on the floor one larger piece of what was once a check from one of my Pampered Chef Customers. AHHHH! Nathan had taken a pair of scissors and cut it to bits. The largest piece still recognizable had the amount and 1/2 the signature of my customer on it. I had to humbly write her a letter explaining why a small piece of her check was enclosed with a request for a new check. I did send her a self addressed stamped envelope too since it isn't right for her to have to pay to mail me a new check.

So the answer to my equation this evening was: Scissors + Nathan = Finely Cut Check!

Lesson learned!! Put all important documents HIGH so little hands cannot find them and practice their cutting on them!!

We had a lovely snow storm on Saturday. It left us 8+ inches to enjoy. The kids have had a lot of fun playing in it over the past couple of days. I was telling Phil that I really enjoy all the seasons and I'm thankful that for the time the Lord is allowing us to live where there are four distinct seasons to enjoy. I hope that this winter will give us fresh snow each week. Winters where we get fresh snow every few days are my favorite kinds of winters. I can endure the cold when there is beautiful sparkling snow to remind me of God's everlasting forgiveness. He washes our sins white as snow!

Hopefully next weekend Phil will be able to teach me how to upload pictures onto my new computer so I can ad pictures to my posts!

Dear friends, my mothers heart is so burdened for one of my boys today. When you end up reading this entry please pray for God to win the battle in one of my sons hearts. Those of you that know me well will know which son it is, but that is not as important as seeking God to break down the stronghold of anger and bitterness in his heart. His realization of his struggle has been surfacing over the past couple of weeks. Phil and I feel that through this realization he is on the edge of making a choice to forsake his sin and accept God's love for him or to continue in misery, anger, depression, and self pity. Currently he is struggling with God's love and God's ways in his life. Please pray for him and pray for us as we try to turn him to the Lord.

I am so blessed to have a great network of friends in the area and far away! Today I got to spend several hours with a dear friend while we took our Autistic boys to their bi-monthly progress review with their ABA Therapy provider. We were both looking forward to our day together. It was so refreshing to spend so many hours sharing struggles, blessings, lessons, and so much more. I'm so thankful that God blesses us with human relationships that can honor Him! We had the opportunity to be a testimony to the therapists and even to the Psychologist who review the boys progress in their programs.

So for all of you who read my blog that have been great friends over the years I want to take a moment to say, "Thank you!" Thank you for being a blessing to me and for being used by God to help me grow closer to Him. I pray that we will always be Iron Friends, loving each other enough to not only encourage but to confront and challenge each other in our walks with the Lord!

Proverbs 27:17 "Iron sharpens iron, So one man sharpens another." NASB

Yep you guessed it, the Christmas tree has fallen! It lasted less than 24 hours. We were hoping to get one more year out of our fake tree. Last year the stand snapped when we were taking it down. Phil used the Yooper Man's favorite tool...... ducktape and tried to get the stand to work. It was fine until Thomas tried to hang an ornament as high up as he could reach. Then it came crashing down. Thankfully I only have plastic shatterproof bulbs since my younger boys still think that anything round is a ball for throwing!

Phil tried to reinforce the stand again with something stiff & ducktape but it only took a couple hours for it to fall again.

Next weekend he will take the older kids out for a real tree. Then after Christmas I'll go shopping for a nice fake tree on clearance. I got the one we've used for the past few years for about $35 on clearance and it was a $179 tree. I'm praying I'll find just as good of a deal this year. I like the advantage of getting to enjoy our tree for at least 4 weeks without having the mess of the needles falling off and being dragged through the entire house.

When do you Decorate for Christmas? We usually try to decorate for Christmas the day after Thanksgiving. Sometimes we start on Thanksgiving evening. Usually I dread decorating only because we have so many little hands. Several years ago when I was an avid Flylady follower I changed how we decorate and prepare for the holidays. It has taken a few years for me to tweek the system but this year I think we finally did it!!

I usually try to have all my Thanksgiving meal shopping done by the beginning of November, this time it was the week before which worked out fine. I put the Turkey (24 pounds) in the fridge when I brought it home from the store (6 days before Thanksgiving). The week of Thanksgiving I prepared all my side dishes and pies with the exception of the 9 layer salad. The day of Thanksgiving was so calm as we prepared a nice "brunch" of Ham & Cheese Omlet roll, fresh hashbrowns, and Thomas's GF/CF Crunchy Coffee Cake. When we were done with brunch I stuffed the bird and got it in the oven for its 4 1/2 hours of cooking. We then enjoyed a lazy day as a family until shortly before meal time when we took out the bird & finalized the meal prep by making gravy, cooking the rolls, and carving the turkey.

We enjoyed a time of reading Psalms of thanks before praying and partaking of our Thanksgiving Dinner. It was really a lovely day.

Yesterday after my black Friday shopping and a nap we got out all the Christmas decorations and decorated the house in less than 2 hours. It was the first time ever that I was relaxed and really had fun decorating with the kids. While our leftover dinner was warming I fluffed our fake tree so we could decorate it. The kids decorated it after dinner. Phil hung Christmas lights in each of the kids rooms. We've wanted to do this each year and simply never got around to it. This year I love the way our home is decorated. I put out only the things that I loved and that are for the most part "kid safe". I have a few of my favorite breakables up very high.

So, we are all decorated for Christmas, and all the gifts are wrapped. I have to yet wrap and mail the gifts to my nieces Summer & Ashlee, shop for our Christmas Dinner meal, and do my Christmas baking. I'm primarily doing all gluten free cookies and have a couple friends who also have children alergic to wheat that I am baking for too.

If you always have a hectic holiday season I'd really encourage you to check out www.flylady.net. Click on and read her Holiday planner. I made one years ago and still pull it out each year. It helps me to keep the holidays calm which gives us the ability to focus on the true meaning of the Holidays. Thanksgiving is for the purpose of giving Thanks to GOD for all His mighty provisions. Christmas is for the purpose of celebrating the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ and the wonderful Gift He has given us.... Eternal Life.

I hope you you will enjoy Celebrating this season of our Saviors birth!

So, do any of you take advantage of the Black Friday sales? Last year was my first year of Black Friday shopping. Elizabeth & I traveled to Marinette last year to shop at Menards, WalMart & Shopko for some "deals" that I wanted to get with the Grandparents Christmas money for the kids & us. Last year was QUITE an adventure since we left for Marinette in a THICK fog at 4 in the morning to hit the stores when they opened. We stood in line for a LONG time at each store, and ended up with a counterfeit $50 that I had gotten from the credit uniion only days before shopping. Overall it was quite an adventure.

This year was much calmer. I woke at 3:30 on Friday and left for Iron Mountain by 4:15 to get to WalMart. They had a portable DVD player for just $59 that we wanted to use in Thomas's Therapy room. He does his therapy programs with a token system. That means that he earns a token each time he complies and completes a program without fighting the therapists. Each time he earns 5 tokens he gets to pick a "prize" or fun activity from his prize box. In his prize box he has a remote control car, a slinky, candy, movies, etc. Since we do NOT want the kids watching movies all the time we need to put the full size TV under lock and key. If we don't Thomas will find a movie and turn it on. Anyone who knows "autism" knows that these kids like to watch a lot of TV/movies, I guess most kids do. Anyway, we don't want that for Thomas nor for the rest of the kids. So the portable DVD player will allow it to be kept in his Therapy box and only brought out during therapy to use if he choses it with his tokens.

The portable DVD players are usually around $100. So it was a great deal. Anyway I got to WalMart and found the spot where the DVD player was and stood in line with the other folks that were nutz enough to get up so early waiting for them to peel off the plastic at 5 a.m. I was able to get a DVD player and they were ALL gone in about 10 minutes or less so if I hadn't been there early I would have missed out.

While looking through the black Friday ad's Phil also mentioned that he wanted a digital frame to put on his desk at work so he could have pictures flashing through of me and the kids. Phil is a difficulty man to shop for so I was very glad to find out that he wanted one and was able to get one for a very good price at the Black Friday sales. Phil's folks give me the money to spend on the family since I know what everyone needs or wants and then Mom doesn't have to ship it all from Canada. So Phil's frame will be from his folks. He saw it when I came home so it wasn't a great surprise, however I did wrap it and am making him wait unitl Christmas to get it. That was tough for my techy hubby who is really excited about playing with it and trying to figure out how it works!! :-)

I only missed out on one of the Black Friday deals that I REALLY wanted. Shopko had a 250 piece set of Magnetix for only $29 which is normal almost $60. The boys love playing with these but you cannot do much with only a few. So a nice large set would've been nice. I was out of Walmart by 5:15 and off to Shopko, arriving there by about 5:25. Shopko opened at 5 and the magnetix were gone by the time I got there. I don't think they had very many which is usually the case with many of the door buster items.

Anyway, I was up at 3:30 and back home before 7 a.m. and back to bed! :-) Iron Mountain was much calmer than Marinette was last year! Last night I had fun wrapping all the Christmas presents. I only have one more gift to purchase for Phil which I will not write about since I really want it to be a surprise for him. He is very hard to shop for but I found something very fun that I know that he will like and it doesn't have ANYTHING to do with a computer! :-) '

I wanted to update everyone on our quest for a house. At this point we will not be purchasing a home nor renting. When we were going through the financing we realized by crunching the numbers that it would not be wise for us to purchase a home until we knock off some of the debt we've accumulated the past two yeras of living without much income and until we get a renter in this home that we own in Pembine. We aren't planning to sell our Pembine home right now simply because we owe more than we can sell it for because of having to use the second mortgage to live off of the past two years.

For now Phil will be renting in the Clevelane/Manitowoc area and gone Sun evening - Friday evening and we will remain in Pembine.

Some of the advantages of this arrangement:
1. We will be able to significantly reduce our debt.
2. The kids will remain in the Pembine Public school for the remainder of the year. Thomas & Sam are striving academically making this a good choice. Plus it will save us a couple thousand dollars that we would have had to spend on home schooling material.
3. Thomas will keep his current therapy team. Our Senior Therapist told us that the team of therapists that we have for Thomas is the best she has ever worked with. Thomas is really triving through his in home therapy program through WEAP (Wisconsin Early Autism Project).
4. There won't be the stress of moving to rent for a year then moving again to hopefully purchase a home.
5. It will give us more time to determine if we want to purchase this year or wait until next.
6. It will allow us to seek some counsel from a Christan Mortgage broker about the coorect price range to search for a home. A price that will allow us to reach our goal of being debt free all but the mortgage within the next 3 years.
7. More time to find a renter for the Pembine Home.
8. The opporunity to apply for Wisconsin Charter school for the fall. This option will give us all our home schooling material FREE plus we will have a school teacher available to tutor the kids in areas that they are struggling in. Yet we will have the kids at home an be able to give them a Biblical Worldview and complimentary education.

Some disadvantages of this arrangement:
1. Having to be seperate from each other for the next several months all but 2 days a week.
2. Me having to single parent the majority of the time.
3. Sam having to stay in the Public School where he is really struggling with peer pressure and His security in Christ. Please pray for him.

How can you pray for our family during this time:
1. That we will stay close and focused on God's goodness during this time of seperation.
2. That God would provide a renter for the Pembine Home.
3. That God would prepare the home he wants us to rent or buy for Fall 2008.
4. That our hearts & lives would remain pure, righteous, and tender during these months.
5. That the Lord will teach me how to be a balanced parent as I fill two roles during the weekdays.

This past week has gone really well for our first week away from Phil! We are all REALLY excited about seeing him tonight though! He is getting off a little early today and hopes to be home when the kids get home from school. They will be so surprised to see him!

We have put an offer on a home in Kiel Wisconsin that is a 6 bedroom 2 1/2 bath home with 2500 square feet and a 4 car garage all on 4 acres of agriculteral land! We hope to find out next week if it will be ours. There is a primary offer that has to remove the contingency of selling their home and come up with financing. If they cannot then we will become the primary offer with hopes of closing on the house by December 7th. There are so many things to work through that we are simply praying that if this is the house God wants us to have that everything will come together smoothly!

We've looked at 35 homes in the area down there and this one is the only one that would really work well for our family. I have a stack of about 12 more for Phil to look at if the one in Kiel falls through.

Saturday we will be celebrating Samuel & Calebs' birthdays with a pool party at a place called the Four Seasons in our town. They are very exciting about getting to swim with their friends! Samuel will be 10 on Nov 16th and Caleb just turned 8 on Nov 3rd. This is the first time we've done a combined party for them and I think it will be really fun! We've decided to buy each of the kids a cool car instead of donig a junk filled goodie bag. I hope it will go over well with the boys!

I only packed a few boxes this week. I'll focus more on packing next week. This week I just wanted the kids and I to find a new routine with Phil being gone. Mornings are still the most difficult time. It didn't help that a couple mornings ago we had a bit of snow on the ground so we had "fun" digging for snow pants & boots for everyone! I'm so looking forward to having calm mornings before our home schooling begins each day. No more mad dashes, looking for the GLOVE that has legs, finding the coat that never made it to it proper place, or signing papers that should have been signed the night before!!!

I know it probably sounds insaine but I am really looking forward to home schooling! We will take it slow this winter and do some modified schooling over the summer so the kids stay up on their skills and we complete the required home schooling hours for Wisconsin. If all goes well I hope to have our family join the local YMCA by March so we can start on regular gym & swimming times throughout the week. Plus it will give the kids the opportunity to be involved in some sports with kids in the community.

I'm off now to get the house all tidied up for Phil's return, and get our supper ready so we can have a fun family night together!

Today is the second full day of no daddy for us. We are praying that we will be able to find a home soon close to Phil's new job so we will be together again. Phil will be gone Mon - Fri each week. It will be a big adjustment for me and the kids. I think it will be really good for Phil to have his first couple of months at work without the pressure of coming home to family each night. It will allow him to spend all the time he needs learning what his company requires of him. BUT I'm not looking forward to being away from him 5 days a week.

I know our time apart is nothing compared to the military wives/families who are without daddy for months and sometimes years. I have a good friends who's husband is in Iraq and she is here taking care of her three little ones. I am thankful that the Lord is my strength and not my hubby. For with God all things are possible!! I sure will miss him though.

I'm in good company with other Reese woman who have had a be a super mom! My dear sis-in- law is often separated from Phil's brother while he travels for his company. And my dear mom-in-law for years was on her own while Dad traveled with an evangelistic team. I pray that God will use this time to draw me even close to the kids and prepare us for the move and home schooling. I'd covet your prayers for me that I will be selfless and tender to the needs of the kids even more now that Phil is not here daily. Phil is such a great father!

We'll I'm off to finish dinner and have a birthday cake with the kids to celebrate Caleb's Birthday. We are having his "real" party next week. Sam & Caleb will celebrate their birthdays together by having a swimming party at one of our local hotels.

It has been a very busy and tiring week! Phil and I were in the Manitowoc area Monday through Wednesday looking at houses. We saw one on Wednesday that might be a possibility but had many things that didn't meet our needs with 6 kids, home schooling and a need for a room designated for therapy. We looked at 20 homes, went into 8 of them and none really met our needs.

We came home and spent hours more looking through homes online. We found another 12 to drive by/look at. Phil left Thursday early afternoon to head back down to look at those homes. He found one that looked like it would be perfect for our family. When he called the realtor he found out that it already has a offer on it. We were so disappointed. We decided to pray and see if there were any holes in the offer or clauses that may allow us to put in a secondary offer that might have a chance.

Phil heard from our Realtor this morning. He told Phil that the current offer has a "bump clause" that states they have to sell their home within a couple weeks or they loose the opportunity to keep the home that we are looking at. Phil is seeing the house this morning and plans to put an offer in on it this afternoon. If the other person who put in the offer cannot sell their home within the next couple weeks we might be able to get the house! It seems awfull to pray that the other people won't sell their house.... so we will pray that God will make His will evident. We will pray that if this is the home God wants for us that He will allow our offer to be accepted as a secondary offer and that within the next couple of weeks it will be accepted as the primary offer.
The two weeks waiting will give us the opportunity to continue to look as well as to make all the necessary preparations for our financing to go through quickly.

Pray with us that God will make it evident if this is to be our home, or that He will guide us to the house he wants us to have.

Have you ever had a time in your life when you have had to wait on the Lord? God put us in a position in January 2006 where we started a long phase of waiting on God. The Lord led us away from NBBC and into the Independent Business Owner life. Phil started Tri-Star Computer Solutions with the hope of building a successful business. It has been a long road since then filled with many bumps, curves, and dead ends. Phil found a few really great customers and yet, he found it difficult to build a business that was sufficient to meet our family needs. He enjoyed his business and loved being home more, but the financial stress was very difficult. The summer of 2006 he decided that he would actively start looking for employment. He has applied for more jobs than we can count and has had many interview's. Only two in this long process looked promising. For one, the Lord obviously closed the door. The other, we saw it looking positive, then for a while we thought he was not the choice the company was going to make. Each time Phil would remind me that it was Good to Wait on the Lord. I often failed to see God's goodness in it all, so I'd cry out to God for His grace and strength, begging Him to help me to wait as He was desiring me to wait.

Last week and this week he received more communication from the company that caused us to believe that they were very interested in Phil. Each time another positive step took place we were excited yet felt the Lord encouraging us to continue to wait on Him. Today Phil received the official job offer from Dynamic Campus Solutions. He is excited to join their company in the position of User Services Manager. He has been very impressed with the research he has done about the company and how thorough they have been in the interviewing process. His first day of work will be November 5th.

I've been crying since about 4:00 ish when he got off the phone with the woman in charge of personnel. We are rejoicing in God's mighty provision of this job. We prayed specifically that he would find a job that would be in Wisconsin for Thomas's Autism Waiver qualifications, meet our needs financially and that would allow us to move out of the area. We have been blessed with a great public school here for the kids but really felt the Lord directing us to home school. We didn't feel it was in the best interest of the kids nor our relationship with the school, which is VERY good, to pull them while living four houses down from the school. I am very excited about being able to have my husband, children, and home as my total focus. I have a couple Pampered Chef shows in November, but I do not intend on taking my business with me. I'll be notifying my loyal customers about our move and letting them know that I am willing to do catalog shows but will not plan on traveling back to the area to do Cooking Classes. I've had 10 GREAT years in the business and am excited about letting go in order to turn my focus totally onto my family. There is a time and a season for everything and my season is that of being a mom, disciple maker, and teacher to six children who we pray will grow up to be soldiers for Christ!

The Lord has provided a place for Phil to stay for the first month of his employment or until we are able to find a place to buy in that area. It is our desire to look at the churches in the area and choose the place to look for a house based on which church we feel the Lord wants us to be at.

There are still many loose ends since Phil needs a vehicle, we need to sell or rent this house, we need to find a new house in the Cleveland, Manitowoc, Sheyboygan area, WEAP needs to find a new team of therapists for Thomas, and much more. Thank you all for praying for us and we would continue to covet your prayers as we transition into a new home, area, church, and a new family routine with Phil being gone during the day and the children being home schooled. We are hoping to be able to move around Christmas time so this kids will finish up the first half of their school year here in Pembine and we will start homeschooling in January. All of these plans are in the hands of the Lord. We will continue to move forward as He unfolds the path He has for us.

Psalm 27:14

It has been a long time since I have blogged. Over the past couple of weeks we've had many adventures so I will try to briefly update you on Life with the Reese's Pieces!

About 2 weeks ago Nathan hit his head wrestling with Caleb. He seemed fine, only crying a minute or two. Then about 1 1/2 hours later Phil noticed that his left eye was fixed and dilated. That is usually the sign that there is serious brain trauma! We took him to the hospital where the CAT scan was normal. The doctor there was baffled so he consulted an Opthamologist who said that often people will hit their head and it will cause a dilation in one eye that will dissipate after about 48 hours. We were still a bit nervous but went home. Two days later Phil was up until 4 am studying about it. That next morning one of the kid brought us and empty eye drop bottle. Caleb had to take a medicine that forced his eye to stay dilated to help with the healing process. We discovered that Nathan put some of this medicine in his eye because he looked at the bottle: Held his eye open, pointed to his eye and said, "my eye...." So we figured out that the dilation was because of the medicine, what a relief!!

One of my dear friends had her first baby, a sweet little girl on October 2nd! It has been fun keeping up on the babies first weeks. My friend is going to be the BEST mom!!! She was always wonderful with our kids and I know that she will be a Godly sweet mommy!

Elizabeth celebrated her 11th birthday on October 13th by having a friend over the spend the night and for cake and ice cream! I'm so thankful for how our children have graciously gone through this time of Phil not having a job. Elizabeth had a present from her friend, a card with money from Grandpa & Grandma Conover, a very small gift from us, a present from Grandma & Grandpa Reese (Jonathan Park Adventure Cd's-- if you've not heard of these they are AWESOME Creation vs. Evolution adventures, check them out at www.jonathanpark.com, they'd make a GREAT Christmas gift for kids between the ages of 6 - 12). She was very sweet and so excited about what she did get. Usually we hold a large party with several friends and she gets lots of nice things, but this year we just couldn't afford a large party. She accepted it with such a sweet spirit!

Caleb had an appointment at Children's Hospital on Monday, Oct 15. It was a very encouraging appointment! The doctor said his eye is healing well and that he is lifted from all physical restrictions. Caleb is VERY excited to be able to have recess, play in gym, and ride his bike!

We had parent teacher conferences last week and I was shocked and so excited to see that our Samuel has all A's & B's. Many of you know that Samuel has really struggled academically the past couple years. His teacher this year is AMAZING. She has really sought to connect with Sam and help him with his various learning struggles. He is thriving in her class!

Phil's job search has been on hold the past couple weeks because he has been VERY busy with his own Business! PTL! However, about 3 weeks ago he started the interview process with one company. They did a phone interview and at the end of the phone interview he was asked to set up an in person interview. Then he got a call a couple days later asking if he'd do a phone interview with the Executive VP. That interview also went very well. His in person interview was next. Phil thought it went ok, but he didn't get so much of a "We'll be in touch". Since we didn't hear anything for 2 weeks we assumed that they had decided that Phil wasn't the right fit for the company. We were pleasantly surprised last week to get an email from them stating that they were sorry they hadn't been in touch and that they are trying to make their final decisions this week. We were encouraged thinking that they must still have some interest in him or they wouldn't have emailed. Then last night right before church they called and asked for another phone interview today. He will be interviewing with the person who will be his boss. The interview will be some time this morning or afternoon. Please pray with us that God's will, will be evident and that we will be able to accept a rejection if they don't choose Phil. This is the farthest we've made it through the interview process. For those of you who didn't know, Phil has been without consistent employment since Dec. 2005. His computer business is not strong yet, we are very thankful for all the business he has had the past two weeks though!

As for me, I've been trying to switch over the kids summer clothes to winter. Last week I spent about 24 hours sorting, packing, switching, laundering, etc. I still have to pull all the summer from Sam, Caleb & Elizabeth, and make sure they winter clothes that fit properly. WHEW!!


Sorry this ended up being so long, I'll try to get batter about posting.

Chapter One:

Once upon a time in the small town of Pembine a little curly headed boy lived with his family. Samuel was a sweet 6 year old boy full of adventure and life. He loved hunting and killing bugs, building all sorts of weapons, and inventing new ways of making it essential to remodel his modest home.

On one especially warm fall day the flies decided to awaken in hopes of spring. The flies, seeking the warmth of the sun, were enjoying an afternoon sitting calmly on the Reese Families Large living room window.

Samuel was deeply concerned about the invasion of these pesky black flies on the exterior of his house. He was determined to make them pay for turning his beautify tan home into a sporadic polka dotted sight. Since Samuel's stature was slight he decided the only way to rid the house of these flies was to get his mothers kitchen broom and attack them with vehemence!!

He walked out of the kitchen and around to the window which was covered with flies, determined to kill as many as he could with each blow. He lifted the broom and took a powerful swing! CRASH! Samuel was not only successful in killing a few flies, he also single handedly broke the window into many large and small pieces. The look of absolute horror on his face..... PRICELESS!! The cost of the window.... we won't tell, we'll simply ad it to his "bill of release" which will be handed to him on his 18th birthday!

Elizabeth and I were cleaning the kitchen tonight when Nathan started to scream. He had tried to open a folding chair and sit on it. Well he didn't get it opened all the way and when he sat down he pinched his ring & middle finders in the fold of the metal legs. After icing it they are still quite red & swollen. I think he will be ok. It may break him of sucking his fingers when he sleeps because it is the two fingers he sucks at bedtime. We'll see what happens tonight!

You may be wondering why we had a folding chair in the kitchen. Well our dinning room set is a severe eye sore! We have been given or purchased for VERY cheap (like $25 dollars) FOUR dinning room sets since we got married. The four tables have survived and are still in used in various rooms of the house or have been given away to others who needed a table. The chair situation however are very sad!! We have 2 matching from one set, another 3 from a different set, and two lone chairs from two different table sets. If you ad that up we only have 7 chairs and 8 in our family. So we have to use a folding chair for the 8th person. It is quite a sight seeing us eat dinner because we have a table that only seats 6 and all 8 of us squeeze around it at breakfast and dinner. We keep saying that once Phil gets a job one of our first purchases will be a dinning room table set that can easily seat 8 or more! If you know of anyone giving away a new/barely used table and 8 chair set pass them our name! :-)

Today Samuel got his stitches removed. The cut looks quite nasty still but it is sealed up! I was reminded of all the amazing ways that Samuel has found to get blood out of his fingers:

1. Easter Sunday's 2006 episode with the whiffle ball! For those who haven't heard this story I will share it! Easter Sunday we were all ready to go to church when Sam came into the kitchen crying because he couldn't get his finger out of the whiffle ball. He had decided to take his pinky's and stick them into holes on opposite sides to see if they could touch. Well Sam's fingers are a bit on the pudgy side so they got STUCK! Phil managed to pull one of the pinky's out but the other was VERY stuck and started to swell. We tried, cold water, ice, oil, and butter with no luck. So Phil took Samuel to the hospital hoping they'd have something that could cut it off. At the hospital, I'm sure it was their most interesting Easter Accident, they had to numb up Sam's finger and pull the ball and deep groves of skin off his finger. Sam couldn't feel a thing. Later that day of course his finger throbbed quite nicely. I had hoped he had learned his lesson about shoving body parts where they didn't belong only to find him on the deck a few days later crying because he had decided to stick his knee's through the side panels on the deck and was stuck there. I was afraid we'd have to saw him out but thankfully I got him to relax enough so I could pop his knees back through!

2. The Serrated bread knife to the finger which needed three stitches. He decided to cut the end off a piece of celery by using his hand as a cutting board.

3. Stapling his finger. This just happened a couple days ago. The story: I called Phil on the phone while I was in town grocery shopping and all of a sudden heard Sam screaming. He was loading staples into his stapler and put his thumb over the area where the staple come out and pushed to close it not realizing that it would staple right into his finger. The staple was all the way in his thumb! The staple bruised him pretty good.

Someday I will have to post other of the past adventures of Sam..... like the time he ran through the garage door in Phil's car, the time he stepped on a nail that was sticking out of a board just to see what would happen, and the time he decided to kill flies with a broom..... the flies were on my living room WINDOW!! So, look for more adventures of Samuel in the future. I'm sure there will be many new stories . I often wonder if he will survive until he becomes a teenager!!

Tonight at dinner Thomas was complaining that his tummy hurt because he ate to many meatballs. He was saying he wanted to go to my bed to sleep because he was sick. Philip said, "Don't you want to go to your own bed Thomas?" Thomas said, "No, I'm sick" Philip said," But your bed is so cute!"

Elizabeth and I just cracked up hearing Philip say so sincerely that Thomas' bed was "so cute."

Today Caleb had a Doctors appointment at the Children's Hospital and we are very excited to report that the Doctor is pleased with how Caleb's eye is healing. Caleb is able to tolerate more light and is was able to see some letters with his left eye. He is no longer on bed rest so he will resume going to school with the exception of recess & gym class. Caleb will not have to wear the eye patch 24/7 anymore. He will be able to wear special sunglasses or an eye shield. The doctor wants the eye protected and he is still sensitive to light so the sunglasses will be worn most of the time. The eye shield requires medical tape which irritates Caleb's skin, so we will try to do the sunglasses as much as possible. I'm sure there will be times when he will wear his pirate patch too but he will not be wearing it as much.

Sorry to not be blogging much lately. I was down with a head cold Sun. & Mon. and yesterday I played "catch up" on the house and laundry. It is amazing how many things go undone when mom is sick. Thankfully I'm feeling much better, however, Philip has an ear infection. Since we don't do the "doctor" thing much we are using all the homeopathic treatments and Motrin for the pain. He will most likely have to miss school tomorrow if he isn't feel better.

Will try to write more later about all that has been happening here.

Phil and Caleb got home at about 9:30 last night. Caleb went straight to bed. Today we started his eye drop medicine which brought some whinning and tears from Caleb. Thankfully I was prepared for that since there is a dear friend of ours, who lost an eye many years ago before there was the technology available to save her eye, shared with me how painful the drops were and how difficult it was being on bed rest for so many weeks. Her experience has made me more simpathetic to Caleb when he fusses about the eye medicines.

Today Caleb is simply exhausted. He is laying in bed with his eyes covered. I haven't seen him attempt to open his good eye yet. He just wants to rest. We are thankful that his head is not hurting him.

Please pray that he will start to eat. Yesterday he had one bowl of cereal, today he still doesn't have an appetite. He is a skinny boy and I don't want him to get too weak from not eating. He told Elizabeth that he has the stomach flu. :-)

We are thankful that he is home. His next doctors appointment is scheduled for Sept 19th.

I just spoke with Phil and Caleb struggled with head aches through the night and vomited once. So they have all the lights out in the room and Caleb is resting. His appointment is at 4 this afternoon so Phil and Caleb will stay one more night at the RD house and leave for home sometime tomorrow morning. Phil is planning to get a hold of some Tylenol or Childrens Motrin sometime today to help Caleb with the head aches. Pray the head aches will subside until Phil is able to get him some pain reliever which probably won't be until they go out for the doctor this afternoon since he doesn't want to leave Caleb alone to go to the pharmacy and Caleb isn't up to go out yet.

Phil said that at this time Caleb does not have any meds because the Dr. wanted the patch on until his appointment at 4 today. After the appointment Caleb will be starting on some medicines for his eye. Last time he was on oral and topical antibiotic along with other drops to help the eye. I'm not sure what his medicine protocol will be this time.

Thank you for your prayers and encouragement. If you would like to send Caleb a card or something he can do while on bed rest (he loves transformers - the auto to robot ones, Lego, Magnetics, Knex, dollar store toys, and coloring). You can mail any cards or packages to:
Caleb Reese
PO Box 141
Pembine WI 54156

Caleb was in surgery this morning for about 4 1/2 hours. As suspected they found a few things once they got in there that needed to be taken care of. Below is a list of all that was done in the surgery:

1. Removed/released part of his Iris - it was bunched up making his eye look funny & I'm sure it effected the eye in other ways too.
2. Removed 90-95% of the fluid/blood in his eye and replaced it with a special oil.
3. Repaired the retinal detachment with a lazer treatment and placed a band on his eye to hold the retina in place. This band will be a permanent band. The band and the oil serve as inner and outer splint for the damaged retina.
4. Fixed the pressurization problem.
5. Removed the Cataract.
6. Removed the stitches.

Of course this list is not in order, it is just a detailed list of all that they did in the surgery.

Caleb is an outpatient and will be released some time this afternoon. Phil and Caleb will be staying at the Ronald McDonald house right across from the Childrens Hospital. Caleb will be seen by Dr. Connor again tomorrow. Depending on how Caleb is feeling Phil may need to stay with him tomorrow night at the RD house too. Caleb will be on bed rest for at least a week, Phil will find out tomorrow if it will be longer than a week.

There will be future surgeries. They will have to go in and remove the oil eventually and once everything is healed he will also have to get the contact lens.

We are very thankful that God has allowed us to be here in Wisconsin so that Caleb can be treated at the Childrens Hospital. It is amazing what damage a little stick can do to an eye! We are very thankful for the Doctors Caleb is seeing and for the Ronald McDonald house too!

This is going to be a long process of surgeries and doctors visits so please pray that Caleb will be able to handle all this with a sweet spirit and that he won't be disappointed about the results of this surgery. We were thinking that this surgery would get him to the point where he would be able to see and not have to wear a patch any more. However, the damage to his eye was much worse than were were expecting. God knows the end from the beginning and we are praying that this will be used in Caleb's life to allow him to learn at a young age how precious it is to trust God with everything, for His grace is sufficient and His strength is made perfect in our weakness.

On Saturday evening we had a bit of excitement. Phil came into dinner from the garden with a great big grin on his face. He told me to look out the window where the cat cage was sitting on top of the refrigerator. I smirked and asked, "What'd you catch? A rabbit?" He laughed and said "Yes!" This of course started and erruption of excitement from all the kids as they wanted to see it and hear how daddy caught the rabbit. We tried to get them to settle down so we could pray then daddy would tell his story. That didn't work, so Phil shared how he caught the bunny.

Phil was out in the garden and heard a squeel from an animal in pain. He turned to see a stray black cat with a baby bunny in his jaw running out of the garden. The cat ran toward the neighbors yard where he was greeted by two barking dogs. Startled he dropped the bunny and dashed away. The bunny scared by the dogs too ended up cornered in a section of the fence. Phil ran to get gloves and the cat cage. He put the little guy into the cat cage.

That evening we fed him some carrots and Phil did some research online about caring for a bunny. He was very young our guess was about 8 weeks old or so.

The next day after church we let Elizabeth hold it and the others pet it. Phil will ad some pictures of the bunny to this post, later. Sadly, Phil discovered on the DNR site that it is illegal to keep a wild bunny. So he and the kids let the bunny go less than 24 hours after he had saved it from the cat.

Last week Tuesday was the first day of School for Elizabeth, Samuel, Caleb & Thomas. I was able to get a picture of the four of them in front of the school before they excitedly rushed in! God provided almost all their school supplies via gifts from family and friends. That was such a blessing!
Since Philip didn't start until today, Phil took him fishing for a couple hours! However, since they didn't catch any fish Philip says, "Ackshey (thus translated Actually), I didn't go fishing." When I asked him why, his response was, "I didn't get a fish!" He was quite sad! :-)

Below Phil will ad pictures of the kids on their first day of school. Philip just started today so he was all alone for his picture. Today he was quite sad that the rest of his class got to get on the bus and he had to walk home! He was so excited them morning that I left him with a great big smile on his face. However, there were bitter tears all the way home because he couldn't ride the bus.

Sam is on his way to the hospital with Phil. We were about to sit down to eat dinner after church tonight and Sam decided to try to cut a piece of celery with my good Pampered Chef serrated bread knife. Of course he was NOT practicing safe knife usage and was cutting toward his own finger instead of away or on a cutting board. He started to scream and I grabbed his finger shoving it under the water. It is a cut about an inch long, as I was holding it under the water I released my squeeze on it and it spread to about 1/4 inch when I put it back together a bunch of tissue oozed out. Phil just called and I guess it has stopped bleeding so I don't know if it will need stitches or not. I was freaked out by the fatty tissue oozing out. We'll see what the doctor has to say when he looks at it. Boys will be boys!

Update: Samuel did have to get three stitches in his finger. They will come out on the 18th.

Thank you to the many friends and family who have been praying for Caleb over these past weeks since his eye injury. His surgery has been scheduled for September 11th at 7:30 at the Children's Hospital in Milwaukee WI. The doctors will be removing his lens because the damage and cataract are too severe to be corrected. They will be putting a contact lens in that will allow him to see until he is old enough to get a lens transplant. They will also be correcting the problem with his eye pressure. The eye is still too soft which indicates that he eye is not pressurizing properly.

Please pray for Caleb and the doctors on the 11th and for us as we are with Caleb. I say "we" in a very prayerful tone. As of yet we have NOT been able to find anyone to stay with our children so that I can go down to the surgery with Phil & Caleb. Please pray with us that we will be able to find someone to be here so that I can be there with Caleb. My mama's heart is struggling with having to be hours away while my baby is having a major surgery.

Thank you for praying!

WHEW!! After several hours we have FINALLY finished the boys room and moved them in. Below you will see pictures of the completed room. I'm sorry that I didn't take any before pictures. Try to picture in your mind a room that was completely white with several nicks, crayon marks, and stains on the walls and trim.

Yesterday we fought with the border for a LONG time. We learned after our first failed attempt that borders are NOT supposed to be put up over textured walls. The walls in this room have that rough sand finish (which we HATE). Phil had to pick up border paste and it took both of us and 1/2 a bottle of paste to get this self adhesive border to stick to the wall. Not to mention a lot of sweat & some tears/tantrums. Tee Hee!

For those of you who don't know me well. I am NOT a painter! The only thing I've ever painted in my life is my finger and toe nails! So painting this room was quite an undertaking. It was also my first time using faux glaze and sponging. I'm hoping that the textured look will help to hide the finger prints. Wishful thinking hey??

None the less the boys have a new room and I think they will enjoy being away from the three little boys!

Many of you know I love to cook and bake. I am a huge advocate of healthy snacks for my kids, however, often our budget or lack of time to shop does not allow me to always have enough fresh produce for fruit for their afternoon snack. So I usually try to bake something healthy at least every other day for their afternoon snack.

Yesterday we had gluten free Blueberry cake and today we are having WW Chocolate Chip Banana Bread.

Here are the recipes:
WW Chocolate Chip Banana Bread
3/4 cup sugar (organic sucanat)
1/2 cup raw organic butter
1 cup (2 -3 ripe) banana's
1/2 cup sour cream
2 eggs
2 cups WW pastry flour
1 TBSP flax meal
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 cup miniature or 1 cup regular chocolate chips
1/2 cup chopped nuts

Beat together butter & sugar until light and fluffy. Add bananas, sour cream & eggs; blend well. Stir in flour, flax, bk soda, & salt; blend well but don't over mix. Fold in choc chips and chopped nuts.

Bake at 350 degrees for 55-65 minutes in a stoneware loaf pan (you can use a regular pan too just watch for too much browning). If using a regular pan be sure to grease and flour it, no need to do so if using seasoned stoneware. Bake until tooth pick or cake tester come our dry in the middle of the loaf. Cool in pan for 15 minutes then remove to rack to complete cooling.

This same recipe can be used in mini loaf pans. Put 1 cup of batter in each mini loaf pan and bake for about 45-55 minutes. This recipe freezes very well if you wrap it in saran then put it in a freezer bag.

I'll put in ( ) what to use if you are able to have gluten and casein.
GF/CF Blueberry Cake
2 cups all purpose gluten free flour mix (2 cups all purpose flour or WW pastry flour)
2 tsp Xanthan bum
1 cup sugar (organic sucant)
1 TBSP flax meal
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup CF margarine (1/2 cup butter or margarine) -- softened
1 cup rice milk (1 cup milk)
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
2 cups fresh or frozen blueberries (do not thaw)

Combine flour, Xan gum, flax, sugar, bk powd, & salt in bowl. Use pastry blender to cut in margarine until it is in course crumbs. Add milk, eggs & vanilla, stir until well blended. Pour 3/4 of batter into a 9X13 pan. Sprinkle on blueberries. Spoon remaining batter over blueberries.

Bake at 350 degrees for 35-45 minutes or until toothpick in center comes out clean.

You can put a glaze on this cake if you want but I usually don't because it is just adds extra sugar.

Today is the first day of a TV Fast for our family. Last year our school rule was not TV on school nights and we don't allow TV on Sunday's either. However, Thomas (our autistic son) watches TV when he needs to escape from the "stress" of living in this crazy house. So he would be allowed to watch TV as needed on weeknights which made it is struggle to keep the older kids away from it.

Phil and I decided to fully remove the TV from the living room so no one will be able to watch it. I'm excited about what this will mean for all the kids. We have only been allowing approved DVD/VHS's since we don't have satellite or cable, however, they really don't need the TV. I call it "dead head" time since it does nothing to challenge them creatively or intellectually.

I'm sure it will be challenging when the little ones are underfoot and I'm trying to get stuff done, but they will learn to play better and I will learn to include them more and use it each opportunity as a new training experience for them.

Our home is going through some changes these days. We found out last week that the person we thought was going to rent for a couple months is not going to. That started us thinking on using the apartment space for our family since currently we have three bedrooms for 8 people.

In our basement we have a very nice newly remodeled efficiency apartment that has one bedroom, a large living room, large kitchen/dinning room, and a bathroom. Usually we rent it for $400 a month which includes all the utilities. We prefer to rent it out to NBBC college students, however, this year we don't have anyone interested in renting.

Many of you know that Phil has been without consistent work since January 2006. His last month at NBBC was December 2005 where he mutually agreed to leave as a result of our desire to head to Canada and NBBC's need to make cuts in his department. We made the decision to leave NBBC in Oct of 2005 and we found out in November that Thomas qualified for the Wisconsin Waiver for Autism which provides in home therapy FREE up to 35 hours a week for 3 years. When we found that out we decided that we would stay in Wisconsin for 3 years to give Thomas a chance to improve with the aid of this therapy.

I know this is backtracking a bit in the history of our family but it helps to explain why we have decided to use the apartment for our own family living space. When Phil left NBBC he decided to start his own Computer business. It has been very slow going over the last 1 yr and 9 months. Some months are ok others are extremely low in business. One of Phil's difficulties is having a place to use for an office that offers quiet and privacy. It is hard for him to make business calls when kids are screaming the the background or pounding on his locked door because they want to talk with daddy. Currently Phil is trying to work his business while applying for jobs all over Wisconsin and in Kitchener/Waterloo & Kenora Canada. It also does not give a good impression to a potential job interview when there is total chaos in the background of a call.

So, in light of his need for an office and our need for another bedroom (currently all 5 boys share a room). We have decided to no longer rent our apartment and use the space for our room and for Phil's office. It is really quite nice!! Phil and I have a "master bedroom suite" and he has a very nice sized office.

We moved out of the small bedroom that is off the living room and have spent the past few days painting it for Sam & Caleb to move into. We are doing a sports theme with the room since they have bedding in that theme and I had matching border in the closet that I had never used. I'll post pictures of the room when we are finished and have the boys moved in. Our goal is to have it finished today and the boys moved in.

The little boys will be upstairs and we will move all the toys up to their room. This will allow Phil to have a little more quite since right now it sounds like drums above his head as the boys walk/run around the living room playing. Eventually I want to paint and finish the little boys room too. As we've been painting Philip keeps asking me when I'm going to "color" his room.

Phil is getting settled into his nice office space and we are really enjoying having a private room and bathroom.

Yesterday Caleb had another appointment at the Eye Institute at Children's Hospital of Milwaukee.

For those of you who are not aware of all that has happened with Caleb I will give a quick re-cap.

Mon July 23 Elizabeth, Samuel, & Caleb left the Reese Family Reunion in Michigan with their dad, grand parents & brother Steven. The kids were scheduled for a one month visit with Grandma & Grandpa. Phil was going to see about any possible job opportunities in Kitchener where his folks live.

Tues July 24, the kids were playing with neighborhood kids running through the woods. Caleb jumped over a pile of sticks, landing on a stick that flew into his left eye. They ran back to the house, he had blood on his face, coming from his eye. Phil called an ambulance and off to the hospital they went.

The Canadian Doctor they saw said he needed surgery right away however, we are not insured in Canada. So the Dr. called ahead to Children's Hospital in Milwaukee to let them know Caleb was coming. Phil's Dad, Phil & Caleb drove 9 hours through the night to get him to the hospital.

Wed. July 25, Caleb was seen by a Pediatric Ophthalmologist and had surgery around 7 that morning. They spent the night with friends from Brookside Baptist.

Thurs. July 26, Caleb saw his doctor again before coming home.

Since then we have been making trips to Milwaukee 1-3 times a week for Doctor appointments. Caleb wears a "pirate" patch on his eye 24 hours a day. He is very sensitive to light and has occasional very bad headaches.


Last week Doctor Ruttum expressed concern about the retina so he wanted us to see another doctor at the Eye institute which is who Caleb saw yesterday.

Yesterday at the appointment they saw one doctor first who ran Caleb through some tests in the office then sent him to get another Ultra Sound (he has had several Ultra Sounds of his eye). Finally at about 6:30 they were able to see the doctor they were scheduled to see. Doctor Connor let Phil look into Caleb's eye. Phil said his pupil is white. The doctor has decided that Caleb's lens is too severely damaged so they will be doing surgery to remove the stitches and his lens and place a special type of contact lens in place of his real lens. He is too young for a lens transplant. The contact lens will help with the astigmatism that he now has as a result of the injury. This lens will be doing the job that his real lens should be doing.

We will be scheduling his surgery tomorrow hopefully and will let you know when it is so you can pray.

This morning at brunch Phil asked the boys if any of them would like to go "hunting". Our hunting adventures mean that we are going hiking through the woods that surround the school football field which is behind our house. The boys (ages 9, 7, 6, 4, &2) all shouted, "YEAH!!!"

So after brunch they made their weapons: stick harpoons, bow and arrows made of sticks & yarn, and stick knives. They put our new puppy Bandit (a pure bread Siberian Husky) on the leash and off they went.

Mom and I (my parents are visiting from Florida until Thursday) finished the dishes and were chatting when I looked out the back window and saw them returning. It has only been about 10 minutes and Phil had told me they'd be gone at least 30 minutes. At this point I started to hear the screams. My first thought was that Caleb had somehow hurt his injured eye (I'll post about Calebs eye later). Then I realized it was little Philip who was screaming the loudest, and that ALL the boys BUT Caleb were crying.

As they were wandering through the woods Samuel decided to start to hit a log with a stick. They were trying to scare out a rabbit to chase. Bandit then came sniffing around the log when he Yipped, then before they knew it bees were stinging all of them except Caleb because he was up on the hill. I grabbed the Benedryl bottle and my mom started to get wash cloths & ice. I double dosed Philip & Thomas because they had the most stings. Total sting count: Phil - 1, Sam - 1, Caleb - 0, Thomas - 3, Philip - 5, Nathan - 1, and Bandit - at least 1. Bandit looks quite pittiful, one of his stings is located at the base of his ear and his ear is floppy now. Philip was in the worst shape as two of his stings are on his left cheek, thus his eye is quite swollen.

Some of you may think I was wrong in double dosing but I have a very good reason to do so. I'm so highly allergic to bees that I have to have an epipen if I get stung. I thought it was vital to get the benedryl in the boys right away so we wouldn't have any aniphilactic issues. It took us a while to get everyone calmed down and feel relaxed about Philip not having a severe reaction.

This of course has been another good lesson for Samuel who is our cronic Dennis the Mennis. One of these days I will have to start posting past stories of Sam so you will have a better understanding of his "act before thinking" trauma's. Samuel will now think twice about hitting a log the next time he is out "hunting".

We praise the Lord that they each only received minor stings and that none of them reacted badly other than swelling up a bit.

Oh and if you are wondering who won the battle....................................... THE BEE'S of course! Ha Ha!

Welcome to the Adventures of the Reese's Pieces Gang. I am a middle aged busy mom of 6. One precious angel and 5 beastie boys. We are a family who are thankful for Jesus our Savior and all that He has done and will do in our lives.

Life in the Reese home is never dull! This blog will be used to journal the funny, sad, and amazing adventures of daily life and how the Lord is using these events to draw us closer to Himself. I hope you will enjoy reading and participating in our blog through your comments!

Since I am new to blogging and not very good with computers it will take me a while to learn how to post pictures, but I will make it a priority so those of you who are family & friends who live far away will be able to keep updated on the kids.

I'll do another entry later today sharing how Phil and the boys survived a war with the bees earlier today..................