And the ants coming marching in

It's that time of year again. The time of year where we get a little too familiar with bugs. So far we've already spotted our first ticks (luckily only on clothing and not yet in the skin of our children) and now it's time for the ants. It seems a little early this year but they're out in full force this week. Tonight Jake and I killed two while we were cuddling on the couch, he and Daddy killed another one in the bathroom, and since I've been chilling on the couch watching TV I've killed two on my blanket and one that was crawling on my shoulder (that one really freaked me out). I hate ants.

As for the ticks....last weekend Kiki was down playing with the kids and I heard her yell out that they found a tick on Hannah. Before I realized that it was only on her clothes and hadn't actually bitten her yet I was downstairs with my tick kit and ready to go. I've become a pro at getting ticks out. So far I've taken multiple ticks out of both Hannah and Jake (dog ticks and deer ticks) and one dog tick out of Lincoln. To date I'm the only one that hasn't gotten a tick around here (knock on wood).

I guess it's just one disadvantage to living in a wonderful wooded setting.....unless I count each ant and tick one by one. In that case it's Disadvantage #1,050,305.

This is why I don't cook

Tonight when we got home from Family Fun Night I decided to warm up some leftover pizza for dinner. Lincoln had taken the kids to Dairy Queen before FFN but I had gone straight there from work. Instead of putting the pizza on a cookie sheet I figured I could just put it directly on the rack like I've done 100 times before. One of the two slices fell off and fell right onto the coil below and started doing some serious burning. Smoke was coming up through the crack at the top and when you opened the door it came pouring out. Of course it set off the smoke detector which really freaked the kids out - particularly Jake. We got the smoke detector turned off, the smoke cleared out, and the kids settled down.

Jake: Is there going to be a fire?

Lincoln: No, Mommy is done cooking.

Hannah's fashion sense

Lately all that Hannah has been wearing to school are dresses and skirts over jeans. She actually looks pretty cute. You might remember this dress from the first day of school. That one was fairly practical because the dress is almost short enough to be a shirt now but the one she wore today was a fairly long silk dress with a kerchief hem. I'll try to grab a picture of it tonight at FFN.

Update on the Snow's

I'm sorry that I really haven't posted much this week except for a few quick updates on our doctor appointments. This week has been a doozy. On top of the usual things life throws our way I've also been dealing with the scheduling of doctors appointments, tracking down yearbook waivers, and of course, working on the yearbook itself. Wednesday night I also went with Tracy to see Katy Perry at the House of Blues, Thursday night was my PTO board meeting, and tonight is the Math Family Fun Night (isn't that an oxymoron?) and basket raffle. The few minutes that I actually have to sit down and not do anything the last thing I want is to be sitting at a desk and typing on my computer. I just want to veg.

So.....quick recap on everything I didn't write about this week:

KATY PERRY: Great show! Tracy and I had a great time and Katy puts on a fantastic show. Tracy even bought me a Katy Perry cherry chapstick from the merch stand. I told her I would treasure it as much as the NKOTB key chain she got me at their concert last year. It's the little things that make me happy.

PTO BOARD MEETING: I made it through the board meeting without volunteering to be on next year's board. I really need a break. I did, however, volunteer to chair the Fall Family Fun Night but that is something that I had really wanted to do this year but it didn't happen because of my other commitments. I chaired a FFN back in November 2006 and I loved doing it. The theme that year was "Around the World" and we set up seven rooms as the seven continents. We had sno-cones in Antarctica, karate demonstrations and lessons on using chopsticks in Asia, we had a drum group in Africa, a kangaroo (yes, a live one!) in Australia.....you get the drift. Next Fall I'm doing a Time Travel one to tie into History and Social Studies lessons. I'm actually really excited about it.

MATH FAMILY FUN NIGHT/BASKET RAFFLE: Tonight is the Math FFN which I honestly just don't see as potentially fun but I'm sure it will be for the kids. The co-chairs have put a lot of work into it and my understanding is there is a train theme and kids get to go around to different "train stops" and play games that fool them into thinking that math doesn't suck. (Gee, can you tell how I felt about math class through my educational years?) This is also the night of the PTO spring fundraiser which is a basket raffle. Each classroom chooses a theme and the kids all bring in one item that goes with their classroom theme. The baskets are then raffled off. Hannah's class chose the New England Patriots/Football as their theme so Hannah contributed a Patriots' Monopoly game. I co-chaired this event last year with my friend Denise and I have to say, I'm glad I'm not doing it again. It's a lot of work and I would have loved to have been involved again but there is no way I could do it at the same time as the yearbook without me ending up curled in the fetal position and Lincoln wanting to divorce me and the kids turning me in to Child Services for having abandoned them. See Lincoln....I am learning how to say "no" to things.

This weekend brings more yearbook (what else?), a hair appointment, and about a million other things that I don't have time for but the good news is that I talked Hannah out of having her slumber party this weekend. I just couldn't do it. I told her we'd choose another weekend sometime soon but neglected to tell her that it probably won't be until the end of May. This weekend is out, next weekend is Easter, the weekend after that is our trip to Niagara Falls, the weekend after that is April Break (which a lot of people go out of town for), the next weekend is Derby weekend, and then Grandma and Grandpa are out here the following weekend so that puts us into middle or late May for her slumber party. I'll just sell it to her as an "end of the school year party" if she complains about it. I'm certain I can get her to buy into that.

And that's all folks..... Thank you for reading the latest installment on the crazy life of the Snow Family.

Our schedule of specialists

April 8th - Oral Surgeon for Diane
April 11th - Eye doctor for Hannah
April 29th - Dermatologist for Lincoln
July 28th - Neurologist for Hannah

I hope all of these turn out to be nothing. I'm starting to firmly believe that the medical industry is in cahoots with each other and they just pass around referrals to keep business healthy.

The only thing that scares me....

.....is that I found out about my abnormal blood count within 24 hours of having my dentist tell me I have some potentially, but not likely (I really have to stress that to myself!), pre-cancerous thing in my mouth. Don't those two things often go hand in hand?

Our medical saga continues

So, in addition to Lincoln's "suspicious" mole that he's having checked out on April 29th my dentist discovered something in my mouth today that is "potentially pre-cancerous but most likely just excess tissue" that needs to be removed and biopsied. I haven't called for an appointment yet but I will shortly. I just left the dentist office and she referred me to an oral specialist. On top of that the dentist also looked at Hannah's teeth and she said that while Hannah probably does grind/clench her teeth (which is common in kids) she doesn't show any wear or tear on her teeth and therefore the headaches are unlikely to be caused by that. My next step is to take her to see an eye doctor although her pediatrician said that probably isn't necessary since she passed both her pediatrician's eye exam and the school eye exam but I'd rather rule that out before subjecting her to a neurologist which is the pediatrician's next suggestion. I suppose I'll probably end up making both the eye and the neurologist appointments at the same time just so we don't have to wait but hopefully the eye doctor will say her headaches are caused from that. Who knows. I'll keep you all updated.