Getting things ready

This week I have been trying to get things ready so we can put our house up for sale again. Organizing closets, toys in the play room, bookcases, etc. I know I'll have a load for the Goodwill. This is right up my alley. I think I was born to organize. It's amazing the stuff you find in closets you didn't remember you had! Anyways, we are hoping to get the house back up for sale by next week. We pray God will send the right people to look at it and it will sell rather quickly this time. PLEASE keep our little house in your prayers and pray it will sell fast. We have another home calling our name.

Funny Story

So, I know this story had the potential to not be funny at all. I am thankful that it turned out the way it did. Tonight I gave Kristen her bath, but didn't give Lauren one. The doctor said that Kristen's baths needed to be 10 minutes max, so bathtime is all about business and we usually make it out in 5 minutes. We don't mess around! I then have 3 minutes from getting her out of the bath to get her Eucerine/Vasoline mix on her legs. I feel like I am on minute to win it or something. It becomes very stressful. Well, I have been leaving the water in the bathtub and after getting her ready going back in and emptying it. Tonight after getting Kristen ready I called for Lauren who was in the living room with Paul. Well, I called for her again and heard her crying. She obviously thought it was her turn for a bath, so she climbed right on in with her diaper and pajamas and all and was sitting there in the water crying. It was so cute and all I could do was laugh. She has never climbed into the bathtub before tonight. It worked out though because I was telling Kristen she could get some candy tomorrow for doing so good at keeping her wet pants on. She asked if Lauren would get any candy and I told her I thought we should be nice and give her some. She said she didn't because Lauren didn't have to wear wet clothes. After I got Lauren out of the bath I told Kristen that Lauren didn't want her to be the only one wearing wet clothes so she was trying to get hers wet too. Kristen thought that was just so nice of her and now she deserves a lot of candy too.

Day 1

Today we completed one full day of our regimen. Can you see a difference?

Before

After

Before

After

Dermatologist

Today was Kristen's dermatologist appointment. I was so happy to finally go and speak to an expert. The doctor said Kristen's eczema was just caused by sensitive skin. It was not food allergy related or she would have it from the tops of her head to the bottoms of her feet. Kristen's is just on her legs and feet. Sometimes in the bends of her arms, but that is rare. She said it wasn't allergies, although that doesn't mean she doesn't have allergies, but it isn't causing her eczema. With the type of eczema she has it is usually caused by a combination of things - heat, laundry detergent, home air fresheners, fabric sheets, soaps. Those sorts of things. She gave Kristen an oral antibiotic to take for 10 days because she said that Kristen has a bacterial infection, most likely caused by scratching. She scratches CONSTANTLY!! She also prescribed a potent topical steroid ointment to apply to her skin in the bad areas. After bath I have to wet some cotton pants and put a combination of Vaseline and Eucerine cream on her legs then put the damp pants and socks on. Now this should be fun. Kristen hates for her clothes to be wet. I am so not looking forward to this and I have to do this every night for 6 nights. During the day I need to put Cetaphil or Aveeno lotion on. She said within a week her legs should clear up. We will then switch to putting lotion or cream on 3 times a day and put on the Vaseline/Eucerine combination after bath and only using the steroid ointment when there are flareups. She said to keep her in pants until her legs are clear. Any friction from the carpet, sliding off of the couch or chairs can cause irritation to her skin, which makes sense. In the winter her legs look fine, probably because she has pants on creating a barrier from the friction. The doctor said even on days where her skin looks good, since we know heat is a major irritation factor, if the temperature is above 85 or 90, do not take her out. We have pretty much been staying inside during this hot weather. I went today and got some lotions/creams and her prescription. We won't mention how much all of that cost. I tell you, eczema is really something that should only affect rich people because it is too expensive for us poor folk. I took some pictures of her legs so in a week I will be able to see if they have improved. Here are a couple so you can sympathize with Kristen...oh and me too!

*When I was taking the pictures Kristen said, "There looking good mom." We haven't even tried anything since going to the doctor. She is very optimistic.

Bonding

Lauren and Degas bonding. Every time he would get too close she would yell "Hey." It was cute.

Popcorn

Not much has been happening around here. This week started off hectic and so far has been a pretty lousy week, so I decided since we didn't get to our "school" work so far, we are just going to take the week off. At least that pressure is off of me for the week and we can just enjoy things. Tonight I decided to pop some popcorn for the girls using that popcorn popper. That is about as exciting as it gets around here. I have had it for a long time, since before Kristen was born, and I just haven't gotten it down to use it. It sits on the top of our hutch and you would think that it would have occurred to me before now to get it down, but it hasn't. It has just become a normal thing to be sitting up there along side our big stock pot. Anyways, the girls had a blast watching it. Lauren kept saying popcorn and it was just so cute. Here are some pictures of the pop corn from start to finish. EXCITING!





You probably noticed that the Harris girls (including myself) got a haircut. I went yesterday and got mine cut off. I had been talking since February about getting my hair cut short and finally went for it. I like it and Paul says he does. He is probably just trying to keep the peace. After my appointment I took the girls to Divas n Dudes hair salon for kids. They love it there. Kristen picked the barbie car and watched Max and Ruby and Lauren picked the Dora car and watched Dora. Here are before and after shots of their hair.






Here are two random pictures of the girls that I snapped this past week. This is about as exciting as it gets in the Harris house.

Kristen wearing Lauren's bloomers from her dress on her head. She is a mess.


Lauren after she woke up one morning. She is just so cute.

Finger Painting Fun

Today our lesson was on dolphins, my favorite sea animal. I had planned on letting the kids get into the kiddie pool, but it is extremely hot. Heat and Kristen's eczema just doesn't go together. Plus, Paul and I are going to a conference at the Convention Center today so we have to be there at 2:00. Our lesson was very short today. We basically worked on Kristen's alphabet. As you can see she is doing very good.




We read a book called Swimming with the Dolphins. Then we did our finger painting craft. Now, I was under the assumption that if you use finger paint it would come right off when you washed your hands. Well, not so. My kids are walking around with blue hands. Kristen went to go wash her hands in the bathroom while Lauren was still working on her picture. She frantically yelled, "It's not coming off." For her this is a big issue. We are talking about a girl who had to change her shirt this morning because she got a little milk on it from her cereal. A blue hand just doesn't fit in her world. Well, I scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed some more. It still didn't come off. I told her she was very special because she was the only little girl in the world to have a blue hand. Through tears she announced that she wasn't special because sissy had a blue hand too. Oh well, I tried. She just had to cry it out. I didn't scrub as hard on Lauren's hand because she didn't care what color her hand was. I was a little disappointed in the finger paint though because I wouldn't have thought it would stain their hand. We used real paint on our craft yesterday and it came off just fine. Anyways, here is a picture of their dolphin craft. I'm sure I'll be finding glitter in my kitchen for weeks to come.



The kids loved the snack. I made blue jello last night and put Finding Nemo fruit snacks in it. It was a BIG hit.



Our snack from yesterday was a big hit too. Since it was D is for Daisy, I cut cheese out in the shape of a flower with a cookie cutter. It was very simple, but Kristen was very impressed with the cheese. She kept saying, "You cut this out all by yourself."



Yesterday we went for a flower walk around our neighborhood. We went at about 8:30 before it got too hot. The girls wanted to take their baby strollers and push them. We saw lots of pretty flowers and Kristen wanted to pick them all. This turned into a lesson of, we don't take things that aren't ours. It was a very nice and peaceful walk until...Kristen pushed her baby stroller too hard and it went to the side across where Lauren was pushing hers. Kristen then ran to get it and Lauren just ran right over her with her stroller. Kristen skinned her elbow and it quickly turned into a disaster. We hadn't seen any cars, but once this happened there were so many cars coming by I thought they had to be evacuating our neighborhood. We live on a culdesac so their shouldn't have been THAT much traffic. I was trying to console Kristen while trying to make sure Lauren wasn't running away because of course at that moment a cat had to appear. Anyways, we all made it home. Me carrying both of the strollers, Kristen crying and Lauren calling out "Kitty Cat." I was happy to be back home. (The picture from below is before we went on our walk when we were all happy)

Flowers For You

D's

So, we are steadily plugging along with the alphabet. This week we are focusing on the letter D and Kristen has already conquered it. It was pretty easy, though. Yesterday we focused on Dinosaurs. I knew Kristen would like that lesson because she enjoys watching Dinosaur Dan on Nick Jr. I bought some plastic dinosaurs at the store and they were a BIG hit. It was so cute hearing Lauren yelling "roar". Kristen kept wanting to fight with her dinosaurs. I had to keep reminding her that they were nice dinosaurs. I decided to put different types of dry pasta in some sand to go on a dinosaur bone dig. It would have been a great idea if the outside sand hadn't been wet. I put the pasta in the sand the night before because we usually do our lesson in the morning. Well, since the sand was a little damp it made our pasta get all gooey and soft. It was a MESS and very disgusting. Kristen kept saying we were going on a gold hunt. She was very confused. Lauren kept flinging sand across the kitchen, so she eventally lost all digging privelages. It was a disaster to say the least, but I tried. For a snack they ate chocolate pudding with white chocolate chips in it so they could go on a fossil dig. Lauren just wanted the chocolate pudding and Kristen just wanted the white chocolate chips. Go figure.






Today we learned about ducks. I let the girls play with some rubber ducks in the bath. That was a hit for Lauren. Kristen's eczema is bad right now, so she doesn't like to get in the water because it hurts her feet. Poor child. She goes to a dermatologist next week and I can't wait for that appointment. Anyways, I had a good idea that we would go to the pond that is in my mom and dad's neighborhood and feed the ducks. Now, only people who live in this neighborhood have rights to use the pond, but I still was going to go. Clearly I didn't think this through. Well, there were no ducks. On a side note, never tell your kids you are going to go feed ducks unless you are 100% certain there will be ducks there. We then drove to another neighborhood that had a pond. While there were two swans, we couldn't get to them because of the gates. Obviously they have had issues with non-residents feeding the ducks. Then I decided to go somewhere else where I knew there were no ducks but Geese. I just wanted the kids to be able to feed something at this point. Well, there was a BIG sign that said no feeding, obviously they have had desprate moms there who just wanted their kids to feed something too. I thought about it, but then figured it was across the street from the court so I figured getting arrested or getting a ticket just wasn't worth it. I could really see me trying to explain that to Paul. So, we came home and made a duck instead.

Fast asleep

Yesterday while I was cooking dinner we lost Kristen. I knew she had to be in the house somewhere. Lauren found her and yelled "There she is". She was under her bed fast asleep. I am sure she was probably hiding from Lauren and fell asleep in the process of waiting for her to come and find her. Too cute.

Super Mario...from the perspective of a 4 year old

I have been playing Super Mario on the wii these past couple of weeks. I got it as an early Christmas present a couple years ago when it came out. In the Harris house we go through periods where we play the wii for a month, but mostly it just sits there. Just one more thing I have to dust. I decided to start over at the beginning, mostly because I got to world 7 and it just became more frustrating than fun. The girls enjoy watching me play. I have found that if you say anything with enough enthusiasm they are on board with it. Call it manipulation, but those mom's out there with preschoolers know that we mom's very seldom get to do anything we want to do before the kids bedtime. By the time they are in bed we just want to enjoy the peace and quiet and not move at all. Well, Super Mario has become a great conversation source. Kristen wants to know if she has to wear a penguin suit when it snows since Mario does. She also informs me, when I jump and fall in a hole, that nothing was there. Well, I was defeating the last castle on world 2. You have to choose which path to take and if you make the wrong choice it takes you back to the beginning and you have to choose again. Well, there is also fire balls that come out of the fire and you have to jump over them. I knew I had gone the wrong way and said so. Kristen informed me that if I went down Jesus's road there wouldn't be any fire and maybe that is the way I should go. Perfectly and simply put....period

Icecream

The girls got icecream tonight for their snack. Lauren is just now starting to eat icecream or anything cold for that matter. She hasn't liked popcicles either. Well, tonight she couldn't get enough of it. It was chocolate though and I put m & m's on it. Kristen LOVES icecream any way and any flavor.

Completely Random Pictures

It's Over

I hate to sound so happy that our church's Awana program has ended...but I am. It has been a LOOOONNNNG 32 weeks. I am looking forward to enjoying my summer and hopefully staying on top of the blogging. We'll see how it works out. I did learn something from all of this. Always be thankful for those people who freely give up their time to run something or put something together because there is always a lot of work that goes into it. I think some times I forget that and will be mindful to always show my thanks and pitch in to help when I can. I really appreciate all of the help I received from those faithful workers.

And...drumroll please....Kristen has conquered her B's.