May into June (A "catching up" Monster Blog)

Hello! This is a big post because I have chosen to get my blog caught up before vacation!! :) It is going to be mostly me slapping pictures up here to do their "thousand words" so I don't have to. ;) Maybe I can convince you that I'm "saving you time", ha, because you didn't have to come back again and again to see each of these reports as they happened over the past two months.

Oh, and, as usual Blogger has uploaded these pictures all in backward order. I'll be leaving them that way for the sake of time, since it won't probably bother ya'll too much.

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So, in case you don't know, I'm now fighting Shingles. I'm sssssso thankful it's just a mild case. Weird, weird disease. Justus took this picture for me to show a nurse friend on Facebook. Thought I'd post it here for ya....



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Here is Natasha's latest painting that she is gifting to Mom and Dad. Dianne is very insistent on teaching Natasha "technique only", and letting her still paint whatever she wants to paint, so it is truly Natasha's. I like that. However, it leaves room for a quirky 11yo's imagination.... The yellow grass above the sheep(singular) by the creek (eek) is the sheep(plural)'s 'potty spot' (like how a dog usually goes in the same general area all the time - evidently N thinks sheep do that too, and that their urine kills grass ... neither of which do I have any idea if are true).

Each of Natasha's sheep is in a different position. This was very important to her because she wanted to practice making each sheep unique. The sheep in the middle is facing directly away. It took me 'til just now to realize that next to the potty spot, that sheep is backed up to it. :\ Oh, my, this child...!!





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Jo sent a little care package to the three kids who were at Bible camp last week. Natasha wrote this thank you card to her. I took a picture of it because it is another good example of how this girl can draw just about anything, but her handwriting is still just atrocious, even when she is giving it 100% effort, and really WANTS it to be great. I'm beginning to educate myself about Dysgraphia; it's similar to Dyslexia, but shows up more in the kid's writing than reading. It sounds a lllllot like Natasha. The spots where the pencil marks are darker are the spots I had her fix. [And yes, that is a picture of Natasha kissing a mounted deer head. The tradition is that when you receive a package at camp you have to "Kiss the Buck". GROSS!! WHO THINKS UP THIS STUFF! And now you know why she received NO care package from her loving mother and father....]



This one shows the items Jo sent, two of which Natasha lost before camp ended, which she was EXTREMELY sad about, those items being *gifts*, and all. (Love language)



Front:



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Here is Natasha's cursive after practicing for one year. Cursive, great! Print, awful. Helllllllp!!!!!?!



An example of Natasha's and Justus's 'natural' print (relaxed environment, with no edits/corrections), together on a page. They answered every other question, Natasha starting with number 1.



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These three pictures are in backward order. Justus drew the story of him flying off the swing. Jeremy told him, "Slow down and get off; we have to go." Justus didn't obey perfectly (skipped the slow down instruction), and reaped a significant natural consequence (terror and a few days' worth of 'reminding' pain, tho' thankfully no significant injury!!!!!)....



Tyler was standing beside Jeremy, and said later all he saw was a blur when Justus was flying through the air after having jumped off the swing when it was higher than Jeremy, not waiting 'til his momentum had slowed. The line on the left symbolizes the railroad tie that laid on the ground. Justus's head came within 2 cm of landing on its corner. This rattled Jeremy and Justus pretty badly!! SCARY STUFF! Kids must learn to obey, immediately, completely, and with a happy heart, every time!!





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An old Grandview tradition was revived this year, much to everyone's delight. The Mother/Daughter/Sister Tea! Volunteers chose a table to decorate. There was a little program of scripture, prayer, three songs (I agreed to lead.), and a slide presentation from a college student from Osceola (quickly becoming a close family friend) who we recently supported to go to Africa for a semester. I took a few pictures before everyone got there, and a couple during the program when others were taking pictures....

Elaine and I didn't purposefully dress to match, but it made a pretty picture!



Sherri's table. L to R. Dianne (ART TEACHER!), Sherri, Beth, Sherri's mom Elizabeth, and Sherri's niece Emily. Emily was the guest speaker for this event. Emily is also Wes's girlfriend now; it is her brother, Jared, whom Wes's sister, Jess, married last February. lol Keepin' it interesting!



Linda made a princess table, so at one point all the girls wanted to take a Princess Picture.



Natasha chose to sit at this table, which Amy P. decorated, because Natasha just HAD to wear a lei!





Here is Linda, her daughter and granddaughters (members in Ankeny), at the princess table Linda decorated.



Here is the table that Gwen (Amy P.'s mom) decorated. Gwen is Dutch!! :)



Danielle and Emma ... and Zoey, who hasn't arrived just yet. ;) Give us a week or two on that one. :)



Beth's table. Beth is a Grandview "old Timer" (lol!) who organized this event, with lots of assistance from Amy P. (For the record, the other Amy is Amy Bailey, N and J's piano teacher, who just graduated from high school.) Sitting at the table are two of our oldest, most precious members, Ruth and Gene.



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Now we move on to some fire aftermath pictures. We stayed out of our house for eight nights, seven of them in a motel, one at the Sparkses' while they were out of town. GOD BLESS THE SPARKSES!!

This was just a "Like Father, Like Son" picture.



Marnie, Hope, and Kristin loaned us their Snap Circuits 'game' to use in the motel. This was a wwwwwonderful gift!! N & J had a BLAST with it, and started learning about electricity while having fun. That thing is COOL!!!! If you've never heard of it, look it up!! Great for kids, probably age 6 and up...?



I took a video of one of Justus's own creations (meaning, he didn't follow one of the 'mapped' options in the book), one that made the red propeller fly up into the air. You'll probably have to view this a few times (At least, I had to!) before you can actually see the propeller pop straight up, way into the air, and then see it flash through the screen again as it falls to the ground at the lower left.... [Yes, we had to try this a few times, to coordinate the timing....]



Now that we're home, Justus's room is stills tripped down to the subfloor. The construction crew is supposed to finish the project while we're on vacation so I don't have to keep getting up at 8am just for them to NOT.SHOW. Or, to show, but then have to trip over us, and vice-versa, while they're here all day, gr. That got frustrating.... We opted to "live with it" the three weeks 'til vacation since they and the landlord agreed with us that it would be better for everyone that way. So, Justus has gotten very used to sleeping on the couch. :\



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Okay. Fire pictures. I took these pictures at 6am, an hour after the fire department had left, before the Red Cross had come to rescue us to the motel. lol

The stairs and stairway got verrry dirty from all their trips up-and-down, including carrying out our fried dryer.



J's room. Yes, those are leaves you can see through the hole in the wall right at Justus's pillow.



Coming into the laundry room/bathroom.



The wall where the dryer was.



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I am almost to "30 Adjustments" at the chiropractor's office. Of course Jeremy, Natasha, and Justus have fewer than I do because they started after I did. At thirty adjustments the doctor does new x-rays, to track progress and change/intensify treatment if necessary. So it's a milestone, so to speak. What has interested me is that during the last couple weeks I have come across three or four reminders/remnants of our 5-year experience suffering with Justus's aching "tummy". It's amazing to think that instead of this being something I have to deal with on an hourly basis, it now seems to be a thing of the past.

You know what?! >> I've been wanting to share with a number of you the spine scan reports the chiropractor gave us when we started our care there. Instead of carting them around the country, or waiting 'til you come here, I just now decided to shoot these and include them in this monster blog.

So, how to read these spine scan reports!!? First up is mine. The shorter the line in blue, green, or red the less severe the subluxation. Subluxations, additionally, are measured on both sides of the spine. Of most concern are the lines that "max out" - in black - meaning the severity of the subluxation is more than the instruments are set to/able to(?) measure.

The reason I was going in for care, if you'll remember, was because my neck was all-but-paralyzed. I could twist it, tilt it, and nod it only about 1/4" in each direction before it would either freeze up on me and/or be severely painful. This explains how in all three scan reports, my C1 is dramatically out!! When everything is aligned great, all three pictures look like the upper right, "Normative Data". Upper Left is "Static EMG Amplitude", Bottom Left is "Static EMG Asymmetry", Bottom Right is "Rolling Thermal Scan". It is interesting to note that each scan does reveal some unique information, so clearly all three tests are needed. Of course, the two Static EMG measurements are taken at the same time.



Here is Jeremy's. He purposefully postponed his own torso-twist "pop my back" until right before the scan 'cause he wanted to see if it aligned everything! He was 'affectionately chided' for that, but he got the information he wanted, and from now on I'm sure he'll be interested to see what the professional chiropractic care is actually doing. Ssso, due to the "Do-it-Yourself Chiropractic", as Dr. Stickel calls it, from S1-T4 Jeremy has almost no subluxations! However, all those upper thoracic and cervical subluxations his own back pops don't reach probably explain everything from his headaches to his allergies ... maybe, you know.... !! MMMAYBE they explain his personality!! :D Gotta get that thing ad-JUSTED!!!



Moving on to Natasha's. All I can say about this is, "EEK." Or maybe, "Ohhh, my."



And then Justus's. C1 affects the brain, head sensors, and all organs to various degrees. (Likely this subluxation caused his lazy eye.) T12, down there, protects the nerves that go to both intestines, where Justus's pain was. "WAS!" That is so great to say!!!



So anyway, the point of all of this is that we are all feeling SO MUCH BETTERRRR!! So many aches and pains are gone!! So much complaining now absent. Energy levels are improved, dispositions are improved, etc. I'm so thankful for God's timing, that He allowed me all that back pain/discomfort during the last three years so that it came to a head at exactly the time Justus's stomach problems were becoming unbearable, and that He led us to the CHIROPRACTOR, and provided one that cares more about patients' health than money, so that we can afford to get ourselves FIXED and avoid the trauma and stress of having Justus undergo more weeks/months/years of pain and test after test, which may or may not have identified proper conclusions. We're going to try to let our bodies heal themselves as much as possible. NOT THAT WE AREN'T STILL APPRECIATIVE OF DOCTORS AND MEDICINE AND SURGERY!! Just ... hopefully not as a way of life!!?

N has survived another year at Bible camp. :) She had a very, very good week, and is appreciating the blessings of being one of the rare people in the world who, this year, gets to attend two week-long sessions at Bible camp, in different states! I'm so curious to hear her reports of the differences between Midwest Bible Camp and Yellowstone Bible Camp! There was one set of three 'mean-ish' girls at camp last week. They weren't awful, but a good learning experience for N about how cliquish people, especially teen/tween girls, can be. I'm almost thankful she had the experience of being on the "outside" of that so she learned how it feels. She did a good job of making friends with other girls not in that clique, while still being as sweet to them as possible. Yay! A victory.

A couple nights ago Natasha was singing something annoying and unrecognizable in the car. I almost told her to be quiet, when I realized the lyrics to her made-up song were, "Mom is the best mom in the whole wide world...." LOL! *blink!* MY GOODNESS!!! (How much longer do ya think I can keep up that rating???!!!)