Baby Ryder turns 1!

I can't believe my new nephew has already turned 1!!  I'm so excited for him, his parents and my kids who love their baby cousin.

A Cooper's Hawk

April 2011, Maylee convinced her dad and I that we should get chickens as pets. We were down at Grandpa Buckle's house and he always had chickens in his backyard. The girls LOVED playing in the backyard with the chickens. Darren and I talked about it and I start researching chicken coops. Well non of the coops were exactly what I wanted,and having the handy husband that I do, I decided to design it and let him build it. He LOVES me, he really does. We brought home our new pets in June 2011!! Living in the house with 3 small girls our life pretty much revolves around Disney Princesses, so all 4 of the hens were named after one: Mulan (dark/black), Cinderella (buff/brown), Pocahontas (buff/brown) and Kiara (light/white).

Well back in February, I went out in the morning to let the chickens out of the coop and into the yard, but noticed there were only 2 (Pocahontas died of the heat back last August). I started looking around and found a chicken behind the coop, something had gotten to her. I rushed off to do my school drop off run and was going to clean it up later. I got home and was getting the babies settled in before I went outside when I noticed a feather butt in the air that did NOT belong to our chickens!! I ran outside and found a hawk behind the coop!! Well him and I did a stare down and we were both unhappy!!

I got him shoo'd off and got Mulan cleaned up, put the other chickens back into the coop and let my neighbors with small animals know that there was a hawk in the 'hood. I called Kansas Wildlife and Parks to see what options we had to get rid of him as he was perching all over our yard waiting for his next meal, we since we live in town our only option was to wait it out and keep our other chickens cooped until he found another place to hunt for food. Finally, after 2.5 weeks we were able to let the chickens out in the yard again and they have forever been grateful since!!

So much has happened....

And I know that is a totally lame excuse for not keeping up the blog. I have a lot of blogging to do if I am going to meet my goal of 52 blog posts by the end of the year!! I cant believe that school is almost out and summer is almost here. I am in the process of planning for our summer and how we are going to have a great summer on a greatly limited budget, but I know we can do it, we always do!! I thing I have been trying to do (if your on Facebook you already know) is ride my bike more, hopefully I can keep it up too. We will see. I know this is short and sweet, but I am going to go ahead and post it and work on another blog post that will have more guts to it and let you know what is going on in the Pousson Abode!!

Recovering from the Plague

Maylee was released from the hospital on Wednesday morning, February 15th, the doctor told her she could go to school starting Thursday. Well unfortunately she didn't have school on Thursday or Friday due to parent teacher conferences. So instead, on Friday I took all of the girls and one of our friends boys to the school to play. I walked and pushed Albany and Rori in the stroller, Maylee and Dominic road their bikes and we enjoyed the awesome weather and NOT being sick. Except for the fact that Dominic joined us because his brother and one sister were sick and the other sister wasn't home. We do a lot of things with Dominic's family (they were the family that we went skiing with and shared a condo with back in November) so he is used to playing with my girls and I think he enjoyed himself!!

Plague...

On February 6 I came down with what I thought was the plague. It was the flu like I had never had before. All day Tuesday I laid in bed with the TV remote (gasp, no computer or iPad) and restarted Rio anytime it was over (the remote reaches from my bed to the DVD player). Poor Rori didn't want to watch Rio for days afterwards. I even had to call Darren home from work as Albany, at the ripe old age of 4, was the baby sitter came in telling me she got a stool to wet a rag and wiped Rori's (who is 1 lb smaller then Albany) hands, face, and nose.

Just as I was recovering from it, Rori got it. We were semi prepared for her and called the pediatrician immediately for Zofran. Once we got the Zofran in her she slept through the night and was fine. I then had time to totally disinfect our house and bleach, Lysol and wash anything and EVERYTHING in our way. Obviously I was to late, but I tried. Sunday night following Darren got sick like no ones business. He slept downstairs so Albany wanted to sleep with me which was fine, but she kept telling me her tummy hurt. SOOOOO..... I slept with a bucket on my bedside table. Of course not long after she woke up telling me she needed the bucket. After I got her comfortable I called the 24 hour pharmacy to get her dosage of Zofran. After she got that she was able to sleep and only missed dance for that week. Well we thought we were going to be done with it, but Monday night as I was taking Maylee to gymnastics she said she was going to be sick.

So I turned around and took her home; but Albany who hadn't eaten in two days wanted chicken nuggets, so I dropped Maylee at home and ran to McDonald's for Albany. By the time I got home at 6:15 pm Maylee had a dose of Zofran, by 6:30 the Zofran wasnt working. She got so dehydrated by 7:15 that we made the decision that she needed to go to the ER. We were at the ER by 7:40, were in an ER room by 8:30, on an IV by 9:15, second dose of Zofran by 9:30, through the first bag of fluid by 10:15, started on a second bag of fluid by 11:00, the decision to admit her to the pediatric unit by midnight, and in a pediatric unit room by 2:30 am. Fabulous Uncle Adam stayed the night with her as I had to get the little girls around in the morning (Uncle Adam didn't know how to do long static hair) and Darren didn't have anytime off work. I was in and out of the hospital dealing with little girls stuff and normal mommy things till about noon. By noon I had me and the little girls ready to camp out till Maylee was released. At 3 pm the nurse came in and said Maylee had to stay another night as she was not eating and drinking enough to sustain her without IV fluids. I called my parents and they came up to help with the little girls and Darren and I both stayed the second night in the hospital with Maylee. That night the nurse came in and brought Maylee the most amazing blanket gift. There is a group of women (piecedthings.blogspot.com) her in Lawrence that strive to give EVERY child who is admitted to the Lawrence Memorial Hospital Pediatric Unit a quilt for their stay.



(sorry about the quality its an iPad photo!)

The next morning the doctor came in and released her immediately. We were able to be home by 10:30 am Wednesday. Unfortunately Maylee didn't have school on Thursday or Friday, so she was READY to go back this past Monday. Thankfully our week was pretty usual and no big surprises, but I of course have been trying to play catch up.

All of this to say, I am sorry it has been so long since my last blog post. Check back soon though cause I am back in the saddle!!

7 Year Anniversary

Yesterday marked 7 years of marriage for Darren and I. Had I been asked 7.5 years ago where I would be now, I would not have said married for 7 years with 3 kids. But alas we have been married for 7 years and have 3 girls and many other things that we have successfully done... together! Looking back I will say that the last 5 years have been relatively easy compared to the first 2, in fact they have been what most people would call normal.

In our first two years, well really the first 18 months we got married, Darren changed jobs, had a baby, Darren was diagnosed with Lymphoma, I went back to work after having a baby, I changed jobs, Maylee turned 1 AND Darren got his remission, we bought a house and we sold a house!!

Like I said the last 5 years have been less of a roller coaster and more 'normal' for people our age, had a couple more kids, sent one off to all day school, have a second in preschool, still in the same house, sold the little compact car and bought a minivan, I quit working and started staying home. In fact, the last 5 years have gone bye a whole lot faster then the first 2 did, but somehow I feel like I have less to show for it. I guess I dont have a good way to measure time.

I am so very thankful for everything Darren is and everything he has ever done for me and our family. I don't know where I would be without him by my side everday. He is the most amazing father to our girls and the most dedicated husband I know.

Last night we had an in house date, Darren grilled steaks and twice baked potatoes. We fed the girls chicken rings, mac and cheese and bananas before our food was done. It was a lazy day where the girls didnt even get dressed, but it was a FABULOUS day!!





To add to the day, Maylee found some left over red heart magnets from Albany's Wizard of Oz birthday party last year and wrote on them for us!!



This one says: It is mom and dad anniversary



This one: rori and albany + maylee all love you

I do love the sweet, wonderful, caring girl that Maylee is becoming!!

KC Boat and Sport Show

Today we packed up the family to go to the KC Boat and Sport Show. Ross was very kind and gave us two free tickets that he had received. We ended up splitting them with Reece and Missy. We had a great time and spent some quality time together with Reece, Missy and Ryder!!






And then it was time to head home!