The world of Gillis

Well, I started this blog post yesterday morning.. I got as far as the title and then the phone rang and my busy busy day began.... well..I should say busy morning... in the afternoon I took 6 kids to the beach and then just lazed around watching them play and talking to my friends.... I know some hardship huh?  I love living near the beach........

Well I haven't written a good blog post in a while so I thought I would bombard you with pictures and stories of what has been going on in the world of Gillis.  We kicked off summer with a trip to shining waters.. I was really busy having fun to bother with too many pictures but I did take a few.  Sweet pea was miss scaredy cat with almost everything.  She went on these little cars meant for toddlers and looked to be having fun until she looked like this....

I don't know if she suddenly decided that the ride was going a little too long or what but they had to stop the ride for her! Silly girl.  Since that was the first ride she had been on, she was timid the rest of the day.  Although I did get her to go on one of the water slides with me and she had fun there.  She also had fun playing in the water at the wading pool.

The rest of the kids had a blast though!   They ran all over the place exploring the woods and going on rides!

J even did a bit of purple dragon surfing!

My sister and her family joined us and Sweetpea was so very happy to have her bestest bud G with us.

And Sweet pea caught this gigantic fish... no not really... actually when she saw we were walking towards it she wanted to go a different way but I convinced her that it was okay.  That face tells you everything she's thinking... "Mom says it's okay but I don't really believe her...."

Last week we also to a trip up to Cavendish to the Avonlea village.  Here I took lots of video but for some reason only one picture.  Here Sweet Pea is making her letters on an old slate in the school house.

When we aren't out roaming the roads, the kids have plenty of stuff to do here at home.  We are doing a bit of schoolwork during the summer.  Just some reading and some ancient history.    Here's Jules with her cuneiform and hieroglyphic writing.

We also have some great kids who live next door and they are always over playing.  Last week they decided to have a lemonade stand/yard sale.  They made signs and sold cookies, lemonade and random toys.  What I didn't know was the signs that they made said things like "Raising money for Africa"  "Every dollar you spend goes to Africa"  Here I was watching from the house and wondering why when people stopped they gave money even without buying something.  One guy gave them 5 dollars for a blue crayon.  Another woman gave them 7 dollars for a little tealight candle holder one of the girls had made.  They made about 130 dollars in two days and gave me the money to take to Africa.  What sweeties!

There was a little bit of playing going on in between customers!

Love this picture of my boy!

My boy with his best friend and his friend's brother (behind them)

Sweet Pea even came out to add some cuteness factor.

And then there was Canada Day last weekend.  We celebrated the day by going to the beach, having a bbq and seeing fireworks with our good friend Holly and her girlies.

While we were relaxing at her house for supper the kids were just begging to come down to the shore and get good seats for the fireworks.  Then we had some time to wait so I took pictures!  Here's me and my hunny!

There were silly hats......

And Silly faces.....

There was climb all over Jeff time.....

Time to practice some gymnastics....

I don't know what Jeff is thinking in the above picture but I assure you he was not plotting his revenge for the previous attack of the kids.

There was also time for some snuggles...

Sweet pea had been fed cupcakes for dessert that night so with all the sugar she was in an exceptionally good mood.

There was even some time for some contemplation on life....

and FINALLY the fireworks started....

Sweet pea was hilarious... she covered her eyes for the whole time but was peeking out with one eye. I don't think she knew what to think of them.  She said later that she didn't like them because they were too blue and yellow.

so funny...

And that brings us to yesterday.... The beach... I did take a few pictures there too.. we had a blast.  We left after lunch and didn't come back until 8 at night.  We took our two neighbor boys with us and met a bunch of friends there so the kids had a ton of kids to play with.  

It was my nephew Griffin's first time at the beach and I must say he did really good.

Sweet Pea is not a huge fan of the beach so far but I did manage to get her to venture off the blanket this time.

Look at this gorgeous girl... she could be a model!

Sweet Pea got to play with her cousin again... she loves her.

I didn't take a lot of pictures but I did take one video that was hilarious.  At one point we look out to the water and see the kids doing this..... can you guess what they are doing???

If you guessed baptism then you are right!  I think each kid got baptized 3-4 times throughout the day.

What funny kids.

Well since this post took me over 24 hours to write I think I'll go do something else now.  The kids are waiting on me to help them make cuneiform tablets out of modeling clay.. so off I go!

"No Greater Love" A review for Tyndale Publishing

A little while ago, I got the chance to read this book, No Greater Love by Levi Benkert.  I received it free from Tyndale Publishing in exchange for a review.  I was not required to give a positive review but I'm going to give one for this book!   I wanted to read this book because it's subject has been touching my heart lately.  As I prepare myself for going to Africa myself in November, I wanted to read about other peoples journey's.   I think it arrived in the mail on a friday and by Saturday morning I was finished with it.  It was by no means a short book but I just couldn't put it down.  I was in tears before I even finished the first chapter.

Levi Benkert had been playing at the park with his kids when he got a phone call from a friend urging him to take a two week trip to Ethiopia.  He went and 6 weeks later, he and his wife sold their house, packed up their kids and moved there.   They rescued children who were condemned to death by a tribal superstition.

His stories of their triumphs and their failures will touch your heart.  His stories were honest and at times very raw.  His journey was not an easy one but he found purpose and meaning to his life.  I highly recommend this book.   One statement jumped out at me and I'd heard it before but forgot it was this.  "We were made for more than this"   This book challenges you to step out in faith and do the unthinkable.  I loved it.  

The things you can be thankful for.

I know it's been a while since I updated my blog..... You know I always felt blessed that my children were healthy.  My mother in law would tell me stories about how all 5 of her boys would come down with something one right after the other and I had never experienced that with my kids..... until the past 6 weeks. 

It seems like for the past 6 weeks not a week as gone by that someone wasn't sick throughout the week.  We've had pretty nasty colds, we have had every single person in the family have the stomach flu, we've had unexplained fevers as well as allergy and asthma issues.

Last week,  Sweet Pea had a fever for about 3 days.. Pretty high between 102-103 for the most part.  Then suddenly, it was gone.  Just like that.. there were no other symptoms but the fever.  The fever made her miserable and lethargic but she didn't have a cold or anything else.  We had a great weekend and first part of the week.  Yesterday however she woke up okay but by 10 o'clock she was whiny and crying and we crawled into my bed for a little snuggle.  I took her temperature (101.9) and she had a tiny nap and when she woke up she started crying about her head hurting.  Thought maybe she was getting an ear infection but when she started complaining that her neck was sore, I started to get worried.

Now normally when my kids tell me their neck is sore, it usually means their throat is sore but this was different.... Whenever I would sit her up to a sitting position, she would put both hands to the back of her head and neck and just start crying and shaking.  Thankfully Jeff was home for lunch at that point and was able to see what was going on.  We decided to send the other kids off to his mom's and I would take Sweet pea to the hospital.  Let me tell you right now, never google your child's symptoms... especially if it's fever and a sore neck.  On the way to the hospital, I had all kinds things running through my head.

God was definitely with us. It was evident when I pulled into the ER parking lot and there was only ONE car in the lot.  Even more evident when I walked in and there was not a soul waiting in the waiting room.  That's a great sign for our hospital where I waited three hours with my cut hand and I thought that wasn't bad.  Anyway, we got in to see the triage nurse right away and she took us to a room right away.

Sweet Pea fell asleep on the gurney waiting for the doctor to come in (see adorable picture above) but woke right up as soon as the doctor came in.  I had talked to her about what the doctor was going to do when he came including looking in her throat.  In her groggyness she remembered and promptly opened her mouth even while the doctor was doing something else.  hehe.  So her ears were fine, dr said her throat looked a little red, he checked over her neck, her belly and checked her urine but couldn't find anything wrong with her.  Then he listened to her heart.  He asked me if I knew she had a heart murmur.  I didn't but I wasn't surprised because both J and T had one as well.  He said that I should probably follow up with my family doctor.   He eventually said that he was going to take a culture for strep throat because that's the only thing he could think of that could cause the fever.  After he was finished with that and was writing the prescription for antibiotics, Sweet Pea started to cry again.  After prompting her to tell us what was wrong she said that her chest hurt.  So the Dr decided to call the pediatrician to see what he thought.  The pediatrician ordered a chest x-ray and an EEG for the heart murmur.  Like I said before, both J and T have heart murmurs so we've done the EEG thing before.  T was even younger than Sweet Pea when he had his first EEG.  But it never gets less scary to see your child hooked up to so many wires.  Sweet Pea didn't appreciate them hooking her up to wires either.  Got that finished and were sent for the x-ray.  She didn't appreciate that either.  The x-ray made a big noise and shook after each picture and that really scared her.

Anyway,  after the doctor looked at the x-ray he came in saying he had found the cause of the fever.  She had pneumonia.  He said they would never have known what was wrong if it wasn't for the heart murmur because her symptoms didn't meet the criteria for a chest x-ray.

So today I'm thankful for a heart murmur...even though it means that we have to follow up on that and put Sweet Pea through probably another EEG and seeing lots of other doctors because of it.. It helped us know what is wrong with her and get the right meds to help her feel better right away.

On Monday I was praying and an old camp song came into my head.  The words go like this, "Rejoice in the Lord always and again I say rejoice"   Emphasize the word ALWAYS...  I remember a sermon I once heard and always tried to apply.  Be thankful in all things... even when things go wrong.. be thankful...

What are you thankful for today?

There's an ORANGE BELT in my House!!!!!

Last night T had his belt testing for Karate.  I think I was more nervous than he was.  I don't know why because he knew his stuff but still, I was nervous.   Well I had no need because he did excellent!  I'm gonna try to upload a video of him doing his Kata.  He did really good. Only one mistake because he got distracted when the sensei corrected another student.

Even with his one mistake, he recovered and got back into position pretty smoothly I thought.  Anyway, he passed his belt testing and got his orange belt!!!!

Look how high he can do a side kick!

Getting his new belt!

 Getting ready to bow to the Sensei.

 And bow... dirty feet and all....

 Class picture!

 Picture with his Sensei... he wants it framed and on his wall.

 Doing a punch!

His certificate in a frame and ready to go on his wall.

In other news, I love to build stuff.  Luckily for me, my dad is a jack of all trades and has a fantastic wood worshop at his house.  And he's patient enough to help me with all my projects.  He's a great guy!  So 2 weekends ago after having a hard two weeks, Jeff told me to go have some fun.  Little did I know that I was heading into a week of stomach bug hell so in hindsight, I'm glad I listened to my wise husband!

Dad and I always have a few projects on the go.  Right now we are building a kitchen cabinet for my kitchen.  That one is slow going and next time I go over there I'll try to take some pictures of it.  I'm very excited about it.  But last saturday I had a different project in mind.  I needed something to organize my laundry room and I found some simple plans for an organizer here on THIS BLOG . It turned out perfect!  It fits perfectly between my washer and dryer.  It's so great, I'm thinking of building more of them for the kids rooms!

Well, the kids are starting to slack off in their schoolwork  so it's time to go crack the whip again.  

I'm a slave driver....

Feeling better and our weekend.

Well turns out that on thursday when I posted last, it was just the eye of the storm in regards to our sick household.  Unfortunately T got sick again that night as well as myself.  Sweet Pea and Jeff got sick on saturday.  It ran through our entire household which is believe it or not very rare.

So yesterday we decided we would stay home from church in efforts not to expose anyone else to our germs.  We were feeling better though so we ended up having a family day.   We spent the morning trying to get the germs out of our house.  Rooms were cleaned, laundry was done, floors were scrubbed with bleach.

After the house was done, we went outside!  Here's what J did....

I got some weeding done in the front and when I came around to the back to tackle my very over grown garden, I found this!

T  and our neighbor boy had already weeded 4 of the boxes and finished the last one too.  I was sooo grateful.. I had actually contemplated not planting a garden this year just because of the vast amount of weeds in the garden as you can tell by the over grown herb garden to the right. 

After that was done we set out on an adventure... 

 We walked through the woods......

Sat on logs......

Fanned ourselves with fern leaves....

Waved at camera welding moms.....

 Overcame obstacles in our paths.....

And most of all ran the heck out of that woods swatting the mosquitoes away as we ran.  Seriously... We only lasted about 5 minutes on our nature walk before we bolted.  The mosquitoes were unreal and being crazy spontaneous parents that we are, we forgot about bug spray.  So our walk was postponed until we can remember bug spray....

We decided to go get Mr Freezes from a convenience store and went to the park that was in full sun and therefore scary for mosquitoes.  Then we headed home where we had planned on some pasta salad and barbequed pork chops for supper.  Unfortunately our barbeque is really on it's last legs and would not work for us so we had to improvise.  We did have a fire pit however and a steel grate that we could put our barbeque grates down on.  It worked rather well.

As always whenever we are home, we had a slew of neighborhood children in our yard.  I love that my kids have so many friends close by to play with.  I have a feeling this summer is going to be a fun one for them.  Adding a campfire to the magic of our yard only enhanced the attraction.  It was like I was pied piper or something.  

One of our neighbor girls wanted to take pictures with my camera so the following pictures are just some of the things that went on in our yard last night....

With the campfire going, the kids wanted to eat outside.

 T doesn't like getting his picture taken by neighbor girls....

 Rhino loves this neighbor girl (and her ipod) and she is very sweet to him....

 Apparently we were trying to BBQ one neighbor boy...

mmmm supper!

All in all, we had a wonderful family day.  The kids went to bed late but they went to bed happy.  Since we homeschool, we don't have to be up early for any reason so late bedtimes can happen without consequences... most of the time....