Update on this, that, snow & soaked tea bag?

Yesterday, we had a little winter storm :o/ This is how much snow that fell in one day.

Poor old Ernie and Chief kept getting stuck in the snow while doing their business. Ernie will be 14 years old this Saturday and Chief will be 13 at the end of this month. Can you imagine! The Vet said Chief should have been long gone when he was 9 years old, but he's still hanging on.

Last year hubby and I both would have said Ernie, hands down would be around the longest. However, we're not sure what happened, but it seems Ernie has taken a turn for the worse and is quickly declining. We doubt he's going to be around for another year as he can barely see, hear, smell, stand, walk, tries to bite us when we touch him. Needless to say he looks quite scruffy.

There's no way I can drag either Ernie or Chief out of the snow and so hubby had to create a path with it ending in a big mound to prevent them from going further into the yard.

All the snow we've received recently couldn't have come at a better time. Vince was home all week to have his teeth fixed. He has to eat soft foods for 2 weeks and is recuperating quite nicely. On the subject of teeth, Soph lost her 4th tooth today. Now she really looks like a little hillbilly...lol. It bled a little more than her last tooth, however I just applied a soaked tea bag for about a minute and the bleeding immediately stopped.

That's all for now. Staying super busy and really looking forward to our upcoming vacation.

Happy Labor Day

Yes, fall is my favorite season; however, I'm not quite ready for it this year.  Summer just flew by especially with all the rain and cooler weather that fell upon us almost daily in May and June. 

Here is a  picture of a mammoth sunflower I planted in June.  Now if I can just have a whole backyard of these sunflowers and other wildflowers.  Instead we'll probably end up having a golf course behind us...lol.  BTW, that sunflower is taller than Soph.

Soph really likes Kindergarten and likes her teacher, Mrs. Westover, a lot.  Heck, I even like Mrs. Westover.  She's a very nice, soft spoken, but stern teacher placing a lot of emphasis on reading.  Based on previous experience, she has seen great strides amongst kids reading abilities when parents read to their child every day versus the ones that didn't.  I read to Soph every night, if not several times throughout the day.  For every 10 mins of reading, Soph colors in an apple for each day during the month of September.  Once all the apples are colored in, she can hand in her "colored apples" to her teacher.  This is an on-going assignment until the end of school.

Mrs. Westover's way of discipline is something I never heard of; she uses the marble method.  She said when kids hear that marble drop in the jar...uh, oh.... it's a sound kids don't like to hear.  They know they better shape-up, wise-up, otherwise parents will be receiving a phone call.  Soph's a pretty well-behaved child and very mature for her age, so I'm not too worried about it.  

She looks forward to school every day and wishes she could go even on the weekends.  I can already see she is very interested in how everything works, including the human body.  She saw a human body model at Barnes and Noble and immediately wanted it....NOT the barbie dolls, not anything one might think a 5 year old little girl would be interested in.  From the time she was a baby, I can recall she showed definite preferences and was quite willful.  She knows what she likes and what she doesn't and is still quite willful even to this day.  However, she isn't very noisy about expressing her wants unless she wants it badly.  So I broke down and got her the model human body even though it was geared for 8+ year olds.  She absolutely luvs it!    

If I had to point out one of Soph's strengths, it would definitely have to be her knack to memorize.  She has excellent memory, memorizing all her favorite shows, commercials, books, etc.  I find it quite humorous and amazing.

Hubby is home for this long weekend laboring around the house and work as usual.  He's also enjoying his new car we got a couple of weeks ago.  It's a beautiful bluish, gray sedan that has a lot of cool features.  We had our car search narrowed down to one of three Mini JCW's and an R32.......BUT....... I received in the mail an outstanding, smokin', sweet deal for the BMW 328 iX. ....almost too good to be true....so, we thought....surprise, surprise!!  Even though the BMW is more expensive than my Tiguan, payment wise it's cheaper than my Tiguan (same terms and all).  I'm beginning to believe my.....ahh, never mind :o)

Enjoy your long Labor Day weekend!

Just Us Update

You might have noticed I haven't updated the blog as often as I usually do...just really, really busy with day to day life.  However, I do Tweet every day.  If you're interested and want to see more pictures, be sure to follow me on Twitter.  

It's about time for Sophie to start Kindergarten this Thursday, 5 days a week.  Last week during the "Open House" at Ridgeline, we met her new teacher, Mrs. Westover.  I sense Mrs. Westover is going to be a great teacher.  Soph even told me she liked her new teacher a lot, perhaps more than Mrs. Chris and Mrs. Clark :o/  

During "Open House," Mrs. Westover had her students along with their parents go on a scavenger hunt to find specific things like their locker, cubby, garbage can, as well as slide down the slide, know how to open the gate to the playground, etc.... and last but not least find the school principal, Dr. Higgins.  And so we met with him briefly as Soph decided to put on her shy persona to avoid situations she feels uncomfortable in.  Nonetheless, he's a very nice, personable and gentle man.  

I'm debating on whether or not I should volunteer for the PTA.  It seems a bit much as I always help out as much as I can volunteering just for Sophie's class, but for the entire school, not too sure about it, especially if some of the things that have been tabled in our household spring into action.   

Initially, I had Sophie enrolled in the morning class.  Because I do not work (outside of home), I decided to give up the slot for those parents that do work and go with an afternoon class instead.

During this summer, I believe Soph had a major growth spurt.  I deliberately bought size 5 pants that were a tad too long the latter part of May.  Thinking Soph had plenty of opportunities to wear them later, they were shelved in her closet for a couple of months.  Recently, I had Soph try on the pants to see if she grew into them.  And to my surprise, she was wading in water!

When Lennie, Soph's swim teacher mentioned she's tall and skinny, I actually laughed it off. Today, I finally took some measurements and she still weighs the same as she did 2 years ago and so that was no surprise.  However, when I measured her height....that just about blew my mind.  According to the children's growth chart percentiles calculator, she falls in the 23rd percentile for weight and 62 percentile for height.  Last time I measured her, she was in the range of 60% and 26% respectively.  Complete opposite of what it is today.  When I measure her up against me, her head is right below my...ughm, bosom.  So Soph has transitioned from Sumo wrestler to Olive Oyl (well maybe not that extreme).

One final note, tomorrow, is Soph's "getting acquainted " and assessment visit with Mrs. Westover.  I sure hope she has not forgotten everything she learned from preschool.  Her memory tends to flip flop from elephant to fish.  At the same time, she does a remarkable job at reminding me of things when I'm having a senior moment.

Just Us Update

I should have my sauna by next Tuesday.  Once it's here, I'll be sure to write a post about it.  

Sophie and I finally got to meet with Dr. Hugo Rodier today who is a Medical Doctor that specializes in treating the root causes of health issues versus the symptoms.  He's written several books, which I plan to read.  "Sweet Death" is about our addiction to sugar.  I've read other articles how glycation, very simply the spontaneous binding of glucose to proteins,  is the reason why we age.  If you can believe it, it's considered to be more dangerous than free radicals.  A critical enzyme to protect yourself from glycation is "glyoxalase 1."  So, if you want to slow down the process of aging, don't eat refined sugar.  The more sugar (sucrose) laden foods you eat, the faster you'll age as proteins are needed for proper functioning of the body.  

Anyway, I digressed.  I can tell Dr. Rodier is a brilliant Doctor, a little intimidating because he's extremely smart.  But I'm so glad our insurance finally covers "integrative medicine."  

One of the things I learned from Dr. Rodier is that there's a huge connection between your brain and your gut.  Your gut is actually like your second brain.  The correlation between the two is astounding.  For example, people who suffer from IBD, colitis, Crohn's disease, etc. showed a significant higher percentage of white-matter lesions in their brain.  Sophie's allergies are being treated and corrected via her gut.  As most people already know, a large percentage of your immune system is located in your intestines and gut.  Dr. Rodier said  the best way to determine which food is the culprit is by going through a process of elimination.  I'm 50% sure it's either going to be dairy, wheat or soy that's causing her allergies, but aside from those foods, she also needs to eliminate fish, eggs, red meat, pork, and nuts for 2 weeks and then I have to re-introduce each one of those foods back in her diet every 3 days.  

You should have seen the look on Sophie's face when the Doctor mentioned she can't have "eggs."  Her eyes got as big as saucers.  Later that evening, Soph asked if she could have some prosciutto.  I said, "remember what the Doctor said."  She told me, "I don't want to remember, don't remind me, I don't want to remember."  So, it should be interesting the next couple of weeks ;o/