Rays of Sunshine

My rays of sunshine on a dreary Easter day.

Mackenzie is not a fan of matching her sister. She will occasionally agree to "color coordinated", but they both wanted the yellow version of this outfit so Mackenzie agreed "only for Easter".

Link Love

I have the pleasure of calling the author of the After the Bubbly blog my friend. Lela wanted a little link love and of course, I am happy to give it! As usual she is very entertaining, this time giving tips on getting blacklisted from the PTA. Click on over for a laugh!

Egg-cellent Day!

After Peyton's soccer game on Saturday we headed over to have an egg hunt and dinner with friends. It was such a beautiful day and dinner was delicious - best ribs ever!
After the hunt, they sorted their candy and the negotiations began. Jason and I feel they traded away all the "good candy" (Twix and Snickers), but they do love those gummy crabby patties. And they weren't loving the Sixlets that I was so excited about (Oh, the memories...).

Soccer Saturday

Yesterday was a beautiful day for a soccer game. I think I got a little bit of a sunburn! The team didn't play on their normal fields - they were quite a bit bigger (and no clumps to twist your ankle on). Peyton enjoyed the larger fields.

Happy Birthday Jason!

So, Jason's birthday is like most other things in our life right now - on the back burner. BUT, they are supposed to inspect the house in the morning and if things go well we will get our certificate of occupancy.

After Jason got home from work we went to eat at a place he's been wanting to try - JC's Catfish House. We've tried a couple of other times but they've always been closed (they are only open Thursday - Saturday). We ended up eating very quickly because severe weather was moving in. It was pouring with a lot of thunder and lightning when we left.

Now we are home and we were all hoping to watch Survivor and cuddle but all that's on is weather. Store bought birthday treats BUT a homemade coupon for two of his favorite desserts to "cash in" after we move - Coconut Creme Pie and Banana Pudding.

Happy 33rd Birthday Jason!

Also I have a CF question over on my other blog.

Hip Hip Hoo-r"A"

Awards assembly for Mackenzie today.

Tonight before bed she was so funny - she asked us what the weather was going to be tomorrow and I said "colder than today is what I heard" and Jason said "I thought it is supposed to be warmer than today". She said "Aye yi yi, I'll watch the weather in the morning".

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Peyton starts standardized testing in the morning and requested Banana Boats so I stopped at Walmart to get everything (ran into her teacher - love her!) and by the time I made it home - about twenty minutes after Jason and the girls - very responsible Peyton was already in bed and fast asleep.

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Exciting news! Christy was having a contest on her blog and I won!!

PJ's PJ Day

It's PJ Day for Peyton at school today. They need to rest up for standardized testing next week. I'll need to hit the grocery store this weekend so we can follow all the rules for testing week including a GOOD breakfast!

Go To Your Room! (Update)

Back in November, I posted pictures of the girls in their future rooms. We went out today and got to see the floors (they've been staining them so we haven't been upstairs in a while), I snapped a few more of them in their future rooms (and bathroom)...

We should be in pretty soon!

I actually updated my other two blogs! $48 T-shirt I'd actually consider buying and bits and pieces about some of the television shows I've been watching.

Mackenzie's Clinic Visit

It's been a wonderful day - It's beautiful outside, Bunko with the girls is tonight and - most importantly - Mackenzie had an great clinic visit!

Up from 33rd percentile to 44th for weight!! PFT numbers either stayed the same or improved. Lungs sounded good.

Clinic wide treatment changes were explained (no more albuterol via neb or saline during vest time - changed to inhaler). Also a change for the vest - specific to her - she'll be flat on her back for two rounds. Also changed from Zantac to Previcid. Yesterday she finished the current round of TOBI and with the new changes that means I'll be going from needing to sterilize 5 nebs a day to 1 (for Pulmozyme).

Anna's Story/Great Strides 2009

Last night I created Team Mackenzie on the CFF website for Great Strides NWA 2009. I had no idea why I was doing this so early, the event isn't until late August and I have so many other things that need to be done now.
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Tonight, a CF friend on Facebook posted a link to a news story about a little girl named Anna and I knew why I took the time last night to work on it. Because there is no rhyme or reason when it comes to this disease. It's so hard to understand. My heart is breaking for Anna's family.
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Please take six minutes of your time to hear Anna's Story then go hug the people you care about: http://tinyurl.com/dcbqn9
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If you live locally, please consider joining our team and marking your calendar for August 29th. Click here to join and/or view our GS homepage: http://www.cff.org/great_strides/MackenzieJobe . Also, please bear with me over the next five months as I promote the event and raise funds.

Softball, Soccer, Boxes...

Snow on Saturday tried to throw me off but it can't fool me, I know Spring is here because Peyton had her first soccer game last night and Mackenzie is at softball practice right now - sure signs of Spring. In between we are going through boxes that have been packed since we sold our house and moved into the rental last July and thinking of packing boxes of things we unpacked.

House is looking like it will soon be a home and just typing that makes me a little emotional. I can't wait to make memories there!

Mackenzie has a pulmo appointment with Dr. Warren tomorrow at 10am and I'll keep you posted on how it goes.

A Little More Mackenzie

The majority of the catch up posts today made it "The Peyton Show". She's just had a lot more going on for photo ops. Mackenzie's had a few things going on at school and I forgot to remind her to take her camera. She and a couple of classmates put together a cheer for the upcoming standardized tests and were chosen to perform it during a pep rally. She also took her Vest machine to school today to share a little bit about Cystic Fibrosis with her Science class. After school we went to the junior high that she will be attending next year to learn more about how things work there and to work on her schedule. I can't believe she'll be in junior high school. I wanted to cry during the PowerPoint!

Here is a picture I took from Mackenzie's choir teacher's blog (Thank you for sharing!). Mackenzie is on the bottom right corner.

Mackenzie Led Conference

Parent/Teacher conferences are going on this week at Mackenzie's school. It's a little different in the way that it's a Student Led conference and the teacher joins us at the end to go over things. Mackenzie is doing great - she may need to curb the talking a little bit (but she comes by that honestly) but we are very proud of that girl!

Accelerated Reader

Peyton was recognized at yesterday's Rise and Shine for getting 100% of her Accelerated Reader goal. She loves reading so much - dinner table, late at night when I think she's already asleep, or walking through the grocery store...if she finishes a book and doesn't have another to start, I hear about it!

ETE Art Auction 3/11

One of the fundraisers at Peyton schools is an Art Extravaganza where the students, families and classes get creative and submit items that are auctioned (silently and live). Peyton wanted to submit something and Mackenzie decided she wanted to submit something too. I set them free at the kitchen table and here are there masterpieces (both greens in the backgrounds are Sherwin Williams paint samples that I was considering for my office - ha! I went with dark brown instead).

Peyton's ladybug:
Mackenzie's circles:

Mackenzie decided she liked hers so much she ended up keeping it. Here are some of the items we came home with. Peyton had a lot of compliments on her artwork - luckily we had the highest bid and it came back home with us. There is a gift for someone that sometimes reads this blog hiding under Peyton's artwork.

It is such a nice way for the school to raise money and for the students to get involved.

Peyton - Field Trip 3/10

The ETE 2nd graders went on a field trip to the WAC to watch Magic Tree House, The Musical (based on the Magic Tree House series of books). I joined them (bus ride and all) and enjoyed spending the day with Peyton and the rest of the her class. We enjoyed the show followed by sack lunches in one of the rooms (no park because the trip fell on a very cold day).
Here we are on the bus heading down:

Waiting for the show to begin:

With cardboard Jack and Annie:

If this comes through your town, Peyton and I recommend you see it!

Peyton - Student of the Week 3/2-3/6

Peyton was Student of the Week the first week of March. That morning when I was taking a shower I see little Peyton standing outside the shower door so I peek out and try to focus without glasses or contacts to find out what she needs. She says "I'm going to be recognized for Student of the Week at Rise and Shine". I was so glad I was in the shower getting ready and I only had to call one person to let them know I was going to be late to meet them. Can you find Peyton in the sea of faces?

On Fridays, the Student of the Week gets to bring something special to share with the class. Another student this year brought kittens so of course Peyton wanted to take Eddie. Peyton introduced Eddie to the class and he was very well behaved. Very interested in the Kindergarten class that was at recess but was a good dog!

The Mitten 2/24

Please bear with me as I try to update throughout the day - I hope to have six new posts by the end of the day (and because I'm far behind there will probably be a lot of pictures and not many words!)...

Peyton's class had a Reader's Theatre performance of The Mitten. Peyton was a speaker and was very entertaining. One of these days I'm going to figure out putting video off the camcorder (I can do it if it's a video off my phone or Flip but haven't attempted the camcorder). The entire class did a wonderful job and we are thankful for a great teacher that tackled this extra activity for the students.

They celebrated the performance with Popsicles and my girls are all about the banana flavor!

Because People Love Lists

(According to Christy) :)

Other things in addition to blogging that I have NOT done.

1. RSVPd for Peyton's classmates birthday party until the day of.
2. Remember what day it is...because when I did RSVP to that party, and said "Peyton isn't going to be able to make it to the party today", the Mom said - "The party is tomorrow".
3. Attended Activity Night. I remembered this when Peyton went to bed. She remembered and started crying. (I'm going to try to make up for this one by going on Peyton's field trip where I can take pictures to blog and then not get around to it).
4. Let our friend's dog Harley out when they were gone for the day. (He was fine, and we remembered today).

Would you believe me if I had scheduled to blog from 2-3a.m. this morning but at 2, I had to Spring Forward to 3 and lost that hour of blog time! (Hey, I'm trying to come up with any excuse I can!).

Someday this house will be all finished and my mind will not be in a hundred different places...

You Know You've Been A Bad Blogger When...

...friends e-mail you to make sure you are okay because you haven't updated your blog in so long.

...you are at the bottom of fellow blogger's blogrolls (at least the ones in order of most recent posts).

...you can't even remember everything you need to blog about.

...you make it a goal to update all three of your blogs and you don't even make an attempt.

...when you do attempt to update (just) one of your blogs you just type a lame list.