Showing posts with label snow. Show all posts
Showing posts with label snow. Show all posts

Wednesday, January 20, 2016

A semi-snow day!

We have had measurable snow multiple times a winter every year since we have moved to Bentonville.
Until this winter so far! 
My kids have been spoiled by snow to play in every year and have been looking forward to snow this year.
Monday morning, we woke up to this "dusting" of snow.
It was melting quickly but they were still excited to suit up and go play in it!
 They had a lot of fun!
Hopefully, February will bring us more snow!

Monday, March 9, 2015

Happy March!

Happy March!
Well, I sure have missed being here lately. I only posted 4 times last month! That is one of the smallest number of posts in a month since back in 2009 when I started blogging and thought you should only post when something monumental happened, lol. 

These last 2 weeks have been terrible. I'm just now getting to where I feel human again. I still do not feel great, but I know I'm getting there. 

I'm not going to lie, though. This has been very hard on me. I always seem to have a very rough time during the late winter months. When you mix sickness with snow days on end, it's just tough. I have felt like a terrible wife and mother. I haven't felt well, so I haven't cooked, cleaned, or wanted to do anything fun with the kids. I know that I can't help that, but it doesn't stop me from feeling guilty. I can't remember a time when I was ever down for this long. I have had periods of health issues, but I always seem to still be able to function through most of it. This time, I have been just completely worthless. It's amazing that your ear can cause so much havoc.

I just feel like I have been home-bound for too long! I'm longing for sunshine and warmth in a way that I can't even explain!
 I think we all are dreaming of spring time!
 I'm so thankful that we can watch our church services on LiveStream when we have to miss.
 This was leftover snow from February that had not melted last week. So dreary!
Last Tuesday, I saved up my energy to be able to go to my hair appointment. A girl needs her hair done even when she feels bad! I think it was the first time I put on makeup in over a week at that point.
Last Wednesday, we got another winter storm. It started with this layer of sleet.
 And then, huge puffs of snow began falling.
 At one point, it looked like a blizzard outside!
Alas, this caused us to be out of school on Wednesday and Thursday last week.
 C Girl and I did some coloring though! I find it so relaxing!

We did get out of the house on Thursday afternoon to take me to a follow up appointment about my ear. The doctor said that in all, this infection will be a 3 week ordeal. I am at a little over 2 weeks now, so hopefully this week will be a huge improvement. I went to see him on Monday last week as well. At that appointment, he had to drain my ear. If you are not sure what that means, he had to basically cut a hole in my eardrum that had ruptured. It had healed and fluid was bulging behind it. It was extremely painful until he was able to drain it. It is still draining now, thankfully. I will be so ready when all of this is behind me!
 On Friday, I went to lunch with some friends at the Wooden Spoon in Gentry. We mainly go for the dessert. That my friends, is a yummy bread pudding swimming in a bath of butter sauce. Oh, it was so good! It was so nice to get out of the house and visit with friends, but it exhausted me. I spent the rest of the day/evening laying on the couch. I cannot believe how tired my body gets!
 Saturday morning, we headed to Cracker Barrel for breakfast. It has been a long time since we have went out for breakfast. We love us some CB pancakes!
 B Boy had his first baseball practice that afternoon! He was actually supposed to have soccer practice as well, but it was cancelled. It was the 3rd soccer practice that has been cancelled due to the weather. We haven't had 1 practice yet! Hopefully, we will on Thursday evening. It is going to be a busy spring with both of these sports going on!
The baseball fields were still wet, so they had practice at a batting cage. Tim said that B Boy did pretty well!
The Razorbacks played LSU at Bud Walton Saturday afternoon. The Hogs are No. 18 in the country and are going to be in the NCAA tournament this year. I cannot wait! Sadly, we lost at the buzzer for this game. They have played so many games down to the wire this year. It's exciting, but very stressful!
This boy is COMPLETELY obsessed with the Harry Potter series. He just finished the 4th book this morning. He is constantly telling me about what he is reading and pretending to be Harry Potter. It's so fun! I remember reading these books and how much I loved them!

So, it's Monday. 
C Girl has the PARCC test this week. They only test until 10 am everyday, but I know that it's not fun to have to go to school and take a standardized test.
This girl of ours is something else.
I'm always so proud of her. She is super independent, smart, and tries new things, which is something I used to think would never happen.
On the flip side, she is super independent and wants everything to be done/go her way. 
It can be very tough dealing with that. I know she is on her way to becoming a "tween," and to be honest, I'm not real excited about that. 
I can already see things in her attitude that she is picking up from other girls. I know it is completely normal, but it means that things are different now.
I'm trying to learn how to teach/discipline her without doing it constantly. I don't want her to feel like that is all I do. I know that she needs lots of my love and support right now. 
That is so easy to say, but way harder to implement when you are dealing with attitude.
Pray for us!

I am trying to catch up on things around here, but I can only do so much before I am tired. I know it will all get done eventually, but I hate not being able to do everything that I normally do. I also hate sounding like such a complainer!

So, happy March! it is the month of spring! Flowers, sun, and warmth!

Saturday, February 28, 2015

a ROUGH week and more snow days

The Sparacino house has had it rough this week. 
I started getting sick last Friday and went to the ER super early Monday morning with incredible ear pain. I can't even describe how bad the pain felt. I got antibiotics and pain meds and nothing improved. 
I have had constant pain and drainage from that ear. I saw my PCP on Tuesday and he referred me to an ENT. The ENT examined me and ordered a CT scan (!!!) to make sure I did not have mastoiditis or other worse infection. I have a ruptured eardrum and very bad infection. I have new antibiotics and better pain meds. 
Tim got a terrible stomach bug Wednesday night and has missed so much work this week. He's been sick but taking such good care of me. I married up and I thank God for him continuously. He loves me selflessly. We have some good kiddos that have been troopers at all of these dr/hospital visits.
I was really worried about the infection because Humira can cause you to get infections easier and make it harder to get better after getting one. I was literally pretty close to having to be admitted to the hospital and be on antibiotics intravenously. 
I have not eaten much at all in a week and I'm still having lots of pain and drainage from that ear. I do think that I am getting a tiny bit better everyday.
The first few days, I did not get out of bed at all except to go to a doctor appointment.
The last few days I have been able to camp out on the couch. However, I have not felt like reading or blogging or anything. Today, I seem to be doing a bit better.

Yesterday, we got some unexpected snow. Tim left work early but he still had trouble getting home. He had to run and get us some groceries and a normal 6 minute trip home took 35 minutes. The roads got bad very quickly! Thankfully, it was a teacher work day, so all kids were home.
It has been snowing the entire day here. We probably have around 4 inches of snow. The kids went outside and played in it earlier. I snapped a few pictures from the back door. Those pictures are below, along with a few from the last week and a half.
A beautiful cardinal visiting our bird feeders during the snow we had a week and a half ago. I believe this was from February 18th.
I cleaned and organized by "office."
My sweet kitty bear has been keeping me company.
A beautiful sunset on my way to a baby shower.
A baby shower for our friend, Jen who is having a baby girl very soon!
Beautiful cookies made for the shower by my friend, Robin!
I have been a pitiful sight!
 Having fun playing in the falling snow!
 Tim enjoying playing some Solitaire
 I love how much fun they have together and what sweet childhood memories they will have!

Tuesday, February 17, 2015

snow days

Well, it did end up snowing here. We got about 2 good inches of snow. However, we also had freezing rain and sleet underneath that snow.
Due to that complication and really cold temperatures, our roads have been terrible and we are on our second snow day.

We have cleaned, watched Little House on the Prairie and Fixer Upper, the kids have played outside and sledded in our flood ditch, we have baked cookies, played Phase 10 and Tim even taught B Boy how to play solitaire. Tim was able to be home yesterday, but had to go in to work today. 

The kids can now put on all of their snow gear themselves and it is amazing! 

I organized our "office armoire" today and it looks so great!

The sun is shining now and I'm praying that the roads will be clear enough tomorrow for school to be back in session! We do have a chance of a little more winter weather tonight but hopefully it will not cause the roads to be worse.

It really has been a nice couple of days!
Aerial photo of our square by Jimmy Harmon