The beginnings of our renovations

We've begun the renovations and moving of bedrooms!! Don put up a temporary 'wall' at one end of our current bedroom (the room is 'L' shaped, we're cutting off the bottom of the 'L'). We built it with 2 tall sets of shelves, 2 pieces of paneling and a couple of 2X4's.

The above picture is looking in our bedroom door, that's the edge of my dress on the left. The paneling is new.

This picture is looking down the small hallway next to Tori's room where we knocked out part of the wall.

Here's Don working on the wall. That's the backside of the paneling being attached to the shelves for stability and strength. For those who know the house, the water softener area is to the right of Don.

Jordyn got to help Don with some of the cutting, but was completely bored after a while...she took a couple of scrap pieces of 2X4 and wanted to 'make something' with them. I wouldn't give her glue, nails or anything else that would stick them together, so she settled for drawing on them for a while.

I will post as we go. Next we have to clean up the mess from putting up the wall, clear out what's in the newly created 'office' space and start moving office items down to this space. At the same time (more or less), we'll be moving our bedroom up to where DJ's room used to be (he's sharing with Jr during the renovations). Then, we'll clean out our former bedroom and move DJ & Jr down there and decorate (I can't wait to get that done, and get pictures up!!). As soon as they are out of their current bedroom, Ariel will begin moving back into 'her' purple room. Once the office is completely moved downstairs, Don and I will move into the master bedroom (where the office is now), and Tori will have her bedroom available to paint and move into.

With Don out of town all next week, we may end up just letting Tori paint in her new room and move what I can manage from our bedroom upstairs and from the office downstairs. Whatever happens, I'm going to try to post every day or two.

I LOVE destruction/construction!! :)

Through the eyes of our 14-15 year old

And...I'm sure this comes as a great shock to everyone...pictures that will give us a look into Tori's 'self'. These pictures have been taken over the past year or so. Most of these show her with her long hair, but it was cut pretty short over the summer and is growing out one again (she's vowed to never go that short again!).


*Self portrait in lime green (1 of her bedroom walls!)*

*Self portrait, I like the 'messy' hair here, almost looks curly-ish*

*In a dress from her BFF, Lexie*

*Just chillin' in her very cool clothes*

*With Ariel right before Prom*

*With cousin Terryl @ Uncle Jim's 50th B-day*

*Her very biggest obsession!*

*BFF, Tori C. (again with the lime green wall)*

*MOST BFF, Lexie*

*The kids playing in the freshly snow-blown driveway, she thought this was cute*

Through the eyes of Ariel

Alrighty, time for a peek inside of Ariel's 'head' by looking at HER pictures. I did this for DJ & Jr a while back, and just posted a bunch of the random pictures they took as I thought it was sort of interesting to see what they thought was important enough to take a picture of. So, I thought I'd raid Ariel's pictures and show y'all what SHE'S all about (ok, so I'm the mom, and I'm probably picking all of the wrong pictures to represent her...but, then, I AM the mom, and I get to pick! LOL). Enjoy this peek into Ariel.

*Squirrel on Paito, squirrels are funny, I guess*

*Sunrise out her bedroom window*

*Mom's favorite self-portrait so far*

*Driving in the fog & snow*

*Self-portrait, Christmas 2008*

*1st Guitar she taught herself how to play, thanks Aunt Leslie...Grandma let her take it!*

*Ariel's 2 BFF's, Rena Marie & Jessica*

*Keyboard; she'd 'die' without music, FYI*

*Colored pencils, she loves to color AND organize!*

*Shot of her closet floor* (NO, mom didn't take this!)

*Museum lighting Ariel loved*

*'Ariel' written in Egyptian (as close as they have to her name, anyway)*

I'd loved to have put those in some sort of cluster, rather than this long line, but I couldn't figure out how to do it! Ariel loves random objects that appeal to her, scenery shots and self-portraits. I love some of the pictures she's taken over the past couple of years, and I'd love for her to put together a photo album just of the random pictures she takes.

DJ catches a butterfly

*NO, SERIOUSLY, HE CAUGHT ONE!*

Ok, imagine this: DJ bought a small insect catching set with his own money this past summer...he actually CATCHES a butterfly!
I rather expected it to be a waste of his hard earned money, being rather small and 'fragile' (for lack of a better term). The net couldn't have been any bigger at the opening than this plastic container you see, so his aim and speed had to have been exactly right to catch anything. However, within a few days, DJ comes racing into the house with this little plastic container and a butterfly frantically flittering around inside of it!! I quickly helped him put something in there so that the poor thing could land for a second (though, being a butterfly, it did NOT enjoy this small space, and therefore did NOT sit still very long).


*Can you say 'Proud'?*


*Inside are a crumpled piece of paper and a piece of our Butterfly Bush for it to land on*

*Butterfly under glass* (ok, so it's plastic)
DJ REALLY wanted to keep the butterfly as a pet. We talked about it for a bit and he understood that this fragile little butterfly needed to be outside and free. I gave DJ the camera to take as many pictures as he wanted of the butterfly, and we decided that about 15 minutes was enough time to keep it inside. We have at least 15 pictures of the butterfly, some with DJ, but mostly just of the butterfly! :)
I think that his excitement, and the experience of actually catching the butterfly, made the spending of his own money very much worthwhile!

Ariel's hospital stay in October

Ok, so I missed out on blogging about Ariel's hospital stay this past October. Ariel spent much of October sick, and missing much school. She'd run a fever for a couple of days, and then feel a lot better and go to school. Then, she'd be sick, coughing and running a fever again. We must have been to the doctor's office 4 or 5 times that month!
We finally saw her CF doctor, and he did a lung function test on her. Her lung function was down to 76%...this is not good...generally, her lung function (even having asthma & CF) has been 97-99%. He asked if I thought she should be in the hospital...well...seeing as Don was out of town that week, and not due back until the following night, I was hopeful we could either avoid a hospital stay or post pone it a bit. He gave her a new medication and we went home. Unfortunately, the next morning she was in considerable pain every time she inhaled, and had a fever (again). I got the other 3 kids off to school and called back the CF doctor. He told us to head over to the hospital and he'd have the admissions paperwork there for us. Thus began a 7-day stay at St. Joseph's Regional Medical Center in South Bend (yes, South Bend is where Notre Dame University is...for those sports fans out there).
Ariel's fever was 103.4 when she had her vitals done once we got to her room. She'd lost around 10 pounds in the course of the month (huh...and why couldn't I be the one losing those?), and she was dehydrated. In goes the IV...but, she was admitted on the pediatric unit as she's under 18, so she had the BEST nurses (ones used to 'sticking' small children and not letting it hurt much) for the 1st needle pokes of this stay! Thank Heavens for small miracles!

*Ariel's IV*

*A shot she took of some of the equipment in the room.*
Before we even got settled in, they had to move her to another room due to the high number of smaller kids who were being admitted. She ended up down the hall and around the corner from Peds...in the Oncology unit (that's cancer for you non-medical people). She was put in the only open room at that time...and it was a HUGE corner room! I mean, I've been in hotel rooms that were smaller than this room! There was a great recliner for me to sleep in, and a fold-out couch as a 2nd option (it was NOT comfy, nor long enough for me!). Well, I got someone to stay at the house until Don got there from after school time, and Don stopped by the hospital on his way home after his trip. I went home twice, Don visited 2 or 3 times, and Ariel's friend, Shawn (yeah, you kind of do see his name pop up frequently along side her name in our blog here) visited her 3 times. He was the only friend who was allowed to visit as he is the only friend she has who is over age 18, and the hospital wasn't allowing visitors under 18 due to the H1N1 flu problems. Can you say, 'Boring!'?


*Recliner I covered with a sheet and used for my bed*
Anyway, it took 2 or 3 days before Ariel started to feel better. We were so incredibly touched to find out that the Young Women in our Ward held a special fast for Ariel the Sunday after she was admitted (she went in on the 30th, and missed out on Halloween!). Coincidentally enough, it was Sunday that she began to take a turn for the better. When she was discharged, her lung function was about 94%, but it was good enough, and she'd been improving enough, that the doctor said she could go home.
She got to go home on the 1st day of the school play, but she did not attend that evening. It was kind of rough because she had a small speaking part in the school play before she went into the hospital. She missed a lot of practices, but the director was SO great about trying so hard to keep her in the play. It was very sweet of him. However, the hospital stay finally fixed it that she just wouldn't be able to do it. So, on the last night of the play (before she even went back to school), I took Ariel in to be with the cast (we took cookies for them too) before and during the performance. They were all SO sweet about welcoming her back and wishing her well!
It took a full week for Ariel to work up the stamina to stay for a full day of school, but she did a great job trying to get caught up on the work and back into the swing of things. Her attendance record, when she returned to school, was 56% attendance. I don't think she's missed a day since!

*Self-portrait in the hospital*

*Flowers from mom & dad and from Don's office*
Now that she has medications that were actually meant for Cystic Fibrosis patients, she's doing very well. I drive her to and from school simply to avoid the school bus atmosphere & germs. I can't imagine that the drivers have the time (nor desire, I know I wouldn't!) to disinfect the buses between every run, and kids come to/go home from school sick more often than I care to think about.
All is well now, and Ariel landed a supporting part (ok, chorus) in the Spring Musical!! I think they are a bit 'gun-shy' about giving her anything too big right now for fear she'll get sick over the winter. We're hoping we can prove that theory wrong so that she can take on more next year! Now...just to keep the rest of the house from getting sick and thus getting Ariel sick again! (as I type this, I'm listening to DJ coughing too much in his bed tonight...Clorox wipes anyone!?)