We're Not Hoarders, Promise!

We are not hoarders. I've seen the TV show Hoarders - some of those people have serious mental issues and you can't see the floors of their houses (and there's usually a dead animal in their house). I don't have any serious mental issues (most of the time, anyway...I think), you can see my floor and I don't have any issue throwing something away, taking it to be recycled, or taking it to Goodwill (and I don't have any dead animals...except maybe some dead bugs...somewhere).

But somehow we still acquire all this STUFF! Where does it all come from?! I know some of it is us just being lazy. Sometimes we just don't want to take care of a mess when it pops up or throw something away right away even when we KNOW it's TRASH. Some of it is we don't really like a routine unless it's absolutely necessary. Some people have certain days when they do certain chores, but we as a family shy away from such regimented house-keeping. And then we sometimes keep things just because we "might need them one day."

Well I have declared war on the items that we "might need one day." Why? Because mostly it's just junk. I don't need shoe boxes, I don't need seeds that expired in 2012, I don't need foamy sheets that were probably packing material, I don't need sandwich trays that I got from Walmart, and I certainly don't need the trash I've been overlooking for a while. Am I nesting...maybe. But I think all this STUFF is just stressing me out. Many years I put my deep cleaning off to summer-time when I'm off 24-7, but this summer I'm going to have a baby to think about. And wouldn't it just be fantastic to come home from the hospital with our little bundle of joy to a house that is ridiculously CLEAN and ORGANIZED? A house that isn't stressing me out?

We'll see how well I can do in the next couple of months! Wish me luck!

Snow!! And a PKU Update

You know that Christmas song "It's Beginning to Feel a Lot Like Christmas"? Well, there's a line in the song that says "And mom and dad can hardly wait for school to start again." I think I know how the writer of that song felt!

Now the news would have you believe that January 2016 Winter Storm Jonas was the storm of the century, but I'll tell you that we got more snow in my back yard two years ago. But here's the difference between this year and two years ago...I'm pregnant. That means I wasn't really able to shovel snow like I would have. And Colby tried to help (when he wasn't completely distracted!!) but he's just not very good at it. And just like every time we get a major snow fall, Brandon was working all weekend. Soooo....I was stuck in the house with two smallish children for three days! Yay! Well it was okay for the first two days. The boys were pretty chill and the boys entertained themselves with massive binges of Jake and the Neverland Pirates, Star Wars Clone Wars and Power Rangers. Plus we went out and played in the snow, but only for a bit because it was extra cold. The third day involved a lot of fussing on Carter's part. I sent Brandon this text message at 6:19 p.m. "Too. Much. Time. With. Small. Children. I'll be glad that you will be home tomorrow :-)"

And I WAS glad. Brandon took us over to a local elementary school in his four wheel drive vehicle where we sledded for a couple hours. Then Brandon and Colby had a snowball fight from the snow fort Brandon had built. And last but not least, I talked Brandon into taking me to Texas Roadhouse for dinner. It was a great day. It's so much easier when you're not outnumbered by small children who are irrational :-)

Ok - PKU update: We tried a new formula and of course Carter hated it. So after a day of not really drinking any formula (which made him extremely grumpy) I said screw it and I gave him some of Colby's formula (Colby had said that it tasted just like original Periflex Jr.). Well Carter sucked it down with no fussing involved. So the nutritionist relented and is letting him drink the Periflex Advanced just like his big brother. Problem solved!! Which is great because I was getting pretty stressed about this.

Pink, Pink Everywhere!!

Update to my last post: I'm down to three can of regular Periflex Jr. Carter's nutritionist did not get back to me until last Friday, but she's sending me more things to try. The mail better hurry and deliver because I'm almost out of options :-(

On to more exciting things...we're having a girl in May!! Let me be clear, I would not trade my boys for anything. They are the light of my life. But...here's the whole story: Back when we were in college, Brandon used to teach swim lessons at the Blacksburg Aquatics Center. There was this wonderful family with a whole gaggle of wonderful kids, one being named McKenna (who had red hair). Ever since then Brandon has wanted to have a little girl named McKenna. So we had Colby and Carter and now we have our McKenna (but ours won't have red hair). Colby for one is excited to be having a baby sister as he thinks there are too many boys in the house (I agree!). Carter doesn't quite know what is going on, but we've been talking it up and hopefully things will be okay when she arrives. Best advice I've recieved so far: Everything will be okay if you are intentional about spending time with each child.

One of the best things has been having super supportive co-workers. I think some people would think that working with a bunch of women would be hell on earth, but I love working with these ladies! For the most part we get along and we count on each other to get through the school days, months and years. So I decided to have my own little special gender reveal for these special ladies. One of our mottos in the English pod is that no reason is a bad reason to have cake, so I went to Walmart and got a pink frosted cake and had them write "It's a girl!" on it. Then I wrapped it in a bag and took it to school. Of course they wanted to know the gender as soon as I walked in the door, but I made them wait until lunch. When they saw that cake they were all just as excited as me!!

Now...what needs to be done before McKenna arrives?? Well, I have a whole to-do list broken down by month...unfortunately it will mostly be Brandon's responsibility because I don't think I can make a loft bed in my condition. I'll do some cleaning and organizing!! :-)

Carter, Drink Your Moo!

Howdy! So I noticed it's been about 11 months since I last wrote anything on my blog. I think that's kind of pathetic. I'm not going to set a resolution concerning the blog because in my experience, resolutions are made to be broken. I'm simply going to set a goal. My goal is to post once a week. I think that will give me time to come up with ideas to post about because honestly posting more than once a week might be boring for all you readers out there who put up with my sporadic blogging :-)

Now, in the past I've used this blog to talk about my sons and their PKU and how we sometimes struggle as a family. Well, today we are struggling with one aspect of PKU so if you don't mind, I'll just post about that. So since Colby and Carter can't eat a lot of foods, they drink a formula (similar to baby formula) three times a day to give them the nutrition they need. This has not been an issue until lately. The boys both drank a formula called Periflex Jr. for some time now. This formula is made by a company that I believe is located in Europe (maybe England) and they charge a huge amount of money for one case of formula. Fortunately insurance considers the formula the boys' "medicine" so they cover 80% of the cost. The 20% we cover is about $90 a month per kid so that gives you an idea of how much the formula costs before insurance. And honestly they can charge as much as they want because I'm pretty sure it's the only company that makes this formula.

Well anyway, they decided to "improve" their formula. So now it's called Periflex Jr. Plus. What makes it better? Who knows. Colby never had to drink the Plus formula because his nutritionist switched him to Periflex Advance since he's getting older and bigger. We switched Colby to Advance with nary an issue. Carter, on the other hand, has had to switch to Plus. And? HE. HATES. IT. I've tried slowly transitioning. Nope. His nutritionist sent us flavors (orange and berry). Nada. Lately I've been putting hershey's chocolate syrup in it. That sort of worked okay, but not really. He maybe drank half of his cup. Before I handed him his formula and he just chugged it. Now it's like "Carter drink your moo" every five seconds. It's exhausting...for me.

So what to do? Well, at the last PKU picnic we picked up some samples of Lophlex. This is a pre-made fruity kind of formula that comes in a pouch similar to those pouches of applesauce that you can get at the grocery store. We let him try it a while back and he seemed to like it and I'm currently trying to get some more samples so that we can make sure he definitely likes it. It is my hope that this will work better than the Periflex Jr. Plus. I don't know if it's doable or not, but if he likes the Lophlex I'd like to send back the cases of Periflex Jr. Plus and get them replaced with the Lophlex, but insurance might be an obstacle on this. We might just have to eat the cost, but we'll see.

Anyway, now you have a glimpse of our issues with PKU. Send up a little prayer that we can get this worked out soon. I'm going to lose my mind if I have to beg Carter to drink his formula any more! And now you also know why I'm praying that Baby Gill does NOT have PKU!

Snow Days!

So, six snow days later I am fully ready to go back to school. I enjoy being off with the boys in the summer, we can go to the park, the pool and any number of cool places. But during the winter? Well if you can't get out of the house you got shoveling snow or playing in the snow. If you can get out, you got Chick-fil-a...the indoor pool if you want to brave it...shopping? No way I'm taking two stir-crazy kids shopping! Today I took Carter to daycare and left Colby at home with Brandon. I went to school to do some planning and make some copies and did some grocery shopping before going home. It was pretty great to be by myself.

I'll say that one good thing about being off is doing some pre-spring cleaning. I've been cleaning out the closet in the boys' room and trying to use the space more efficiently. I've also cleaned up nearly every room in the house, but don't be too impresses because it sure doesn't look like it! But I promise I've been to the recycling center twice today...did you know you can recycle all those Belk gift boxes? No you didn't know? Your welcome!

Changing Traditions

When I was growing up we had a Christmas tradition of making peanut blossoms, toffee bars, pistachio cookies and gingerbread men. When I was pregnant with Colby, one of the things I was looking forward to was passing along our traditions including our Christmas cookie tradition. Then my boys were born with PKU and there wasn't a single Christmas cookie that they could eat. It was really hard letting go of those expectations and traditions. My dad said to me sort of wistfully the other night after he had cooked some really yummy oysters that he wished the boys could try them. And I totally get it, daddy. Sharing the foods you enjoy is like sharing some of yourself. One of the easiest ways to share yourself, actually. In lots of ways its sad that we'll not be able to share some things with Colby and Carter.

Q: So what's a mom to do? A: Change the tradition!

The past couple of years I've made peanut blossoms (because I love them), but I've also made marshmallows covered in chocolate almond bark, sugar cookies with frosting (Colby helps cut them out in holiday shapes!) and cracker candy.

I never thought things would turn out like they did, but now veggie straws, formula and coffee creamer in cereal is pretty normal for our house. Fixing two dinners, planning ahead to bring snacks to various activities, and "training" teachers and daycare providers are all things that I do almost without thinking about it. It's so interesting how normal it all feels when compared to my childhood.

Sure, there's some things I can't share with the boys, but there's other things I can that don't involve food - my love of sports (especially baseball/softball and football), my love of reading, and my love of gardening. Ultimately those things will mean more to them than what sorts of cookies we baked on Christmas.

Garth Brooks Concert!

Ever since I was a kid I wanted to go see Garth Brooks in concert. I remember my mom trying to get tickets over the phone back when they had those curly cords. I think tickets were only $10 back then and it sold out very quickly. I had Garth Brooks tapes back in those days that I listened to a lot. So when Garth Brooks announced he was going on tour this year, I was super excited. When he announced he was going to be at the Greensboro Coliseum, I was ecstatic! That's only two hours away! Now Brandon doesn't really prefer concerts, but he agreed to go with me and we had a blast!

So first of all, we found a sitter to watch the boys overnight. I love the boys, but I wasn't taking them with me to Greensboro. Luckily one of the young ladies that usually sits for us was able to watch them overnight. The only bad thing that happened was I woke up sick that morning. I'm pretty sure the only thing I had to eat that day was a banana, applesauce and a slice of pizza at the concert. After the concert I was finally starving and had a burger. When we got to the concert they wanted $20 cash to park and I didn't have $20 cash and didn't anticipate needing $20 cash so we made a u-turn and parked in the neighborhoods nearby for free. It was a little bit of longer walk, but totally worth not paying $20. I mean that's highway robbery!

We got in the Coliseum in enough time to listen to one of Garth's backup singers. And then when he came out, he was full of energy, totally in love with the crowd and he put on a fabulous show! He sang pretty much everything I'd want him to sing - The Thunder Rolls, Friends in Low Places, The Dance, That Summer, The River, Two Pina Coladas, The Fever, Ain't Going Down 'Til the Sun Comes Up, Much Two Young, Callin' Baton Rouge, Unanswered Prayers, his new song People Loving People and he sang In Another's Eyes with Trisha Yearwood. Then Trisha sang some of her old songs and one new one. The only song he didn't sing is To Make You Feel My Love, which kind of disappointed me, but he did sing for like two hours :-)

All in all I'm really glad we went. We stayed at an awesome Embassy Suites that had a fabulous breakfast. If you're looking for a place to stay in Greensboro, I highly recommend it. And if you have a chance to see Garth Brooks anytime soon - GET THE TICKETS!! He's one of the more reasonably priced tickets out there! (BTW: This picture was not taken from where we were sitting - we were much further back - but this is him on the night we went)