Happy 4th of July!

Hi Everyone,

Last year, we were with the Laylocks for the 4th of July; we had a great time and I know the boys loved all the fire crackers that Matt and Paul did with the kids.

This year, I am tempted to let the kids stay up for a local fireworks display.  The past couple of years we've always had the kids in bed well before 9:30 so we didn't even consider it, but lately we've had a hard time making that happen so I figured we could take them to see some fire works, since they might be laying awake in bed at that hour anyway.

What are you doing to celebrate the 4th?

Paul is out picking blueberries with Dominic, Thomas, and Andre, and I have a few quiet moments so I wanted to do an updated blog post...

There are so many things I have wanted to post about these last 8 months... I don't even think I ever did a post on Carl after he was born.  But finally we are having some normalcy in our lives and I feel like I can pull away from life a little bit to do blog posts. 

This week we are in the middle of a kitchen improvement project.  We had all our old cabinets removed and new ones are being installed.  Right now, the new cabinets are in place, but none of the doors are on, and it doesn't look that much different from before.  Hopefully I will feel like it was worth all the money when all is said and done.

I am sure that by now, you are aware of what is going on with Andre, but in case you don't, I give a quick recap.  At the end of April, shortly after returning from Florida, he had a seizure.  He had more in May, for a total of five that we know of.  We took him to see a pediatric neurologist who ordered an EEG and an MRI and also recommended that we start anti-seizure medication.  So we've done all that and have a follow up appointment with the neurologist on Tuesday.  I'll try to let you know if we find anything else out at that appointment.  Theses seizure episodes were, of course, very scary, and it is frightening to think of what could happen to him if he had a seizure and we weren't nearby to make sure he was safe.  Things are temporarily better, with him being on the medication, but we are hoping to find a better long term solution, or even better, that he grows out of the seizures completely.

Today, while Paul is gone, I am hoping to start a massive re-orientation of my entire life... I am going to attempt to start getting rid of everything we don't absolutely need.  I'd love to live with much greater simplicity and much fewer things.  Do you know what I mean?  But it's hard for me.  I am so attached to the stuff!  So I am going to start with the master bedroom closet, which is a wreck.  And then I am hopefully going to make my way to every closet and room in the house, so that next time you are here, you will be so impressed with minimalism that you will want to do it too.  Good bye toys.  Good bye clothes.  Good bye numerous sentimental trinkets.  That reminds me, I need to go get to work.

Sorry I have not posted any pictures, but because my kitchen is all torn apart, I don't know where any of those handy devices are that help you get the pictures from the phone to the computer and emailing the pictures will take too long.