YIKES!

So I hinted a couple of days ago a little something about Lyme's disease. Well...The Gooch has got it, or at least he's being treated for it. We went camping in Upper New York State on Victoria day weekend, and when we got home on Monday night we noticed a red bite on the Gooch's tummy, but I thought it was a mosquito bite and dediced to wait to see what would happen. Fast forward three days later and his little "innocent" bite is now the shape of a bull's eye or target about an inch in diameter. Internet here I come! Now, normally I'm not one to believe everything that's on the Net, but I kinda knew what I was looking for, and the Net seemed to prove to me that our little Goochie has somehow gotten bitten by a deer tick and now appeared to have the typical bull's eye rash associated with it. I called my pediatrician, and in we went to see her. We were put in isolation...not that Lyme's disease is contagious, but ya never know---after all I was diagnosing my son based on some pictures I had seen on some skin/rash website. Our pediatrician was a little leery to say that it was indeed Lyme's disease cause The Gooch didn't have the flu like symptoms to go with my story...hmmm, I wasn't convinced, but I thought I'd give it one more day.

Woke up in the morning and found THIS in my little guy's tummy:


Yup, I was SURE it was Lyme's, so back we went to the pediatrician's...and back we went into isolation...

She still wasn't convinced, but wanted a second opinion from a dermatologist. Sure. No Problem. NOT! There was not one dematologist on the West Island who cold see my guy until OCTOBER!!!! Say what? THIS IS AN EMERGENCY PEOPLE! But I digress...

We ended up in the emergency department of the Montreal Children's Hospital (great place by the way---and it has NOTHING to do with the fact that I work there!) I had worked the night before, so keep in mind that I was a little giddy and WAAAYYYYY overtired from a 12 hour shift, but everyone was awesome and very understanding, and after three and a half hours of seeing every specialty under the sun, voila! he'll be treated for Lyme's disease. No duh. So we started a three week course of Amoxil. The Gooch was a trooper and he took his meds VOLUNTARILY, God love him!

And then, six days later, THIS happened...




I have to admit, that even though I'm a nurse and suspected an allergic reaction to the Amoxil, I was still FREAKED OUT! So, off to the pediatrician's office again, but this time with a different rash, still the same isolation room (they really gotta change up the books in that room cause we must have read them a dozen times each...)

So, we changed the antibiotic to Ceftin and headed back down to New York and some more camping with the ticks (but we had some DEET with us this time!) We tried to give The Gooch the new med and he vomited EVERYWHERE! Add this to the fact that our poor little trooper now has big time diarrhea from the Amoxil... We never did get a dose of that med into him, and the poor guy vomited a couple more times after that as well.

Oh, and his rash got WORSE before it got better:



Well, we came home on Sunday night, very tired, and on Monday we changed his med once again, and this time it seems to be working (except that we have to bribe The Gooch with M&M's with every dose...smalll price to pay I'd say)

And THAT'S what's been going on with me!

Bad blogger!...bad,bad blogger!

Okay, so I've been kinda neglecting my blog, and it's not like there hasn't been anything happening to blog about... For example, did you know that Lyme disease has nothing to do with citrus fruit of ANY type? Stay tuned...

Grieving is hard...especially long distance...

I found out yesterday that my Uncle Art, who has been suffering with heart disease for several years, has passed away peacefully in hospital in BC. It 's incredibly difficult to hear that a great man has now moved on to better things, but I am even more saddened by the fact that I can't be there to celebrate his life with my aunt and cousins... I wish them the best and send big hugs and kisses. My family have had a very emotional past couple of months, and the only thing that brings me comfort is that the ones we love and now mourn are in a better place, a place without pain or suffering.

God bless...

Happy Birthday...

In loving memory, Happy Birthday...

Some more challenge stuff

I think this contest may be coming to a close, and I've already got enough points to participate, but I decided to do two more LOs for it anyway...

March On-Line Crop

I participated in the Scraptivity online crop, and managed to get six layouts done, despite having to run around for easter egg hunts and suppers (by the way, thanks for all of that...it made a lot less work for me!) Here's what I completed this long weekend...
A quick thanks to scrapmomof2 for the lift!






And also the ribbon challenge for week 10 (a little late, but c'est la vie...) It was my attempt to get a "nice" photo of my two hooligans for easter...didn't really work out as well as I had hoped!

ABCDEFG I've been tagged by Tanya B!

Alrighty, I was tagged by Tanya in some form of alphabet answer format, so here goes...

A- Attached or single: Very happily attached

B- Best Friend: Is it cheesy to say Steve?

C- Cake or Pie: Cake (especially if it's chocolate...or cheesecake...or spice cake...or angel food cake...alright, pretty much ANY cake...oh, and pie, but only apple...or pecan...or chocolate cream...or any Rockaberry pie...)

D- Day of Choice: Saturday

E- Essential Item in your purse: purse? I still carry a diaper bag for crying out loud, so I guess my essential item would be diapers and wipes (technically that's two items, but you can't have one without the other! Well, I guess you could but it would be MESSY!)

F-Favorite type of music: really love the Beatles, but will listen to anything, except heavy metal and country

G- Gummy Bears or Worms: gummy bears...do you know that if you lick the back of a gummy bear it will stick to a car window? I'll now take the time to apologize to anyone in Kingston who may have woken up to find their car windows and rearview mirrors decorated with tiny rainbow coloured gummy bears...

H- Hometown: Pierrefonds

I- Indulgence(s): red wine, chocolate and pedicures (well, not at the same time, but man, that would be one awesome esthetician!)

J- January or July: July

K- Kids: 2

L - Last movie: last movie I saw in the theater was Enchanted with Ella, otherwise I saw some rather thrilling Baby Einstein movies this week (real suspenseful stuff, had me on the edge of my seat the whole 30 minutes!)

M- Marriage Date: October 12, 2002

N- Number of Siblings: 1 younger sister

O- Oranges or Apples: apples

P- Phobias or Fears: SPIDERS and VERMIN like mice and rats!

Q- Quote(s): "If you build it, they will come"...okay, that's not really a quote I live by, but I was stumped and it's the first thing that came to mind...

R- Reason To Smile: my family

S- Season: Autumn

T- Tag: nope, not gonna do it!

U- Unknown Fact About Me: My parents almost named me Heidi...Yodelei-hee-hoo!

V- Vegetarian or Oppressor of Animal: CARNIVORE!

W- Worst Habit: I bite the inside of my cheeks and lips...

X- X-Rays or Ultrasounds: Ultrasound

Y- Your Favorite Food: pizza

Z- Zodiac: Pisces

Well, there ya have it, a few more tidbits about me from A to Z!

A little bit O'Irish

Well, Happy St-Patrick's day to all you Irish out there...and all those who are pretending to be Irish today!

I think I've said this before...

I really, really dislike snow...

Scraps Away and other stuff...

I had to use up some scraps for this one (25 of them to be exact) and it was FUN! I'd definitely do it again cause Lord knows I got tons of scraps (some of us keep 'em ya know!---and they can come in handy, isn't that right Tania?)


I also got a chance to scrap Ella and her cous' goofing around with some poker chips on New Year's Eve at the cottage...(this one is just scraps too!)



And a page of my Ella with her beautiful blues eyes while we were tubing in December...(for this one the paper is new! Go figure!)

Who doesn't love a sock monkey?

I had so much fun completing this page, and am very proud of the cute little monkey I painted! Someone should come up with a sock monkey paper...hmmm, if only I knew of someone who creates scrapbooking papers...

Supersize Me!

I submitted this LO for an oversized picture challenge on the Scrapmode site...

Kiss kiss!

I know it's a day late, but Happy Valentine's Day everyone!

Here's a page from this month's edition of Scrapbook Extra


And while I'm at it, here are a couple more...

Tag...I'm it!

Okay, so I've been tagged several times, but have never answered because I am WAAAAYYY lazy. But, I guess at some point I'l have to play, so here goes:


6 things you don't know about me:

1. I have never done recreational drugs. I've never even smoked a cigarette for crying out loud! It's not that I'm a goody-two-shoes, it's just that I never felt the need to experiment in that way. I've had Valium though, and that was FUN! I did however lose half of that day somewhere...

2. Pizza is by far my favourite food. Thin crust, pan, all-dressed, veg, pep and cheese--whatever, doesn't matter, I'll eat it!

3. In another life, I would like to be chef with my own tv show...

4. I want to adopt a retired Greyhound. We almost did this before Ella was born, then chickened out. I think it has to do with the fact that I'd gave to walk the dog, even in -30 weather----nope, not gonna happen!

5. I want to hire a housekeeper...she doesn't have to come all that often, just once every two weeks would be helpful!

6. I'm going to marry Orlando Bloom. It's okay, Steve knows about it...



Now I'm supposed to tag 6 others, but I don't have that many friends......sigh......

doodly-doodly-doo!

I had some fun creating this page for a "No Bazzill" challenge...got out my pens and started to doodly-doo on some Scrapmode paper, and Voila! A page about how The Gooch is really slow at starting to say Mama (the scan is really crooked, but I didn't have the energy to do it again!) BTW, he says Mama now, and I've been told that boys are slower than girls to start talking, so I feel a little better!

The good, the bad, and the "oh so much fun!"

I just had the oddest weekend... Work was something awful, we had way too many patients, not enough nurses, and the kids were really quite sick requiring ALOT of one on one nursing time which we didn't we have time to spare. I ended up leaving work an hour late on Sunday, and after a twelve hour shift, let me tell ya that leaving an hour late is the LAST THING you want to be doing! Add the cra**y snow and freezing rain to the mix and VOILA! no parking downtown near the hospital so I had to pay $15 a day to park so that I could WORK! ARGH!

So that was obviously "The Bad".

The "good" was that we had some great friends come and visit from Boston, and we hadn't seen them in a while so it was great to be able to catch up, even if I did get there and hour later than I was supposed too!

The "oh so fun" part was a great group of gals (you know who you are) who got together in cyberspace and had a fun time creating together and challenging each other. I had a BLAST, so thanks ladies, from the bottom of my rather exhausted heart!

I think I'll take today to recoup a little, spend time with my OWN kids who are both healthy (thank GOD!) and maybe finish up a few scrappy things from the weekend that I didn't get a chance to accomplish!

Have a great week....and HAPPY MONDAY

CS rejects

Here are a couple of pages I had submitted a while ago for Canadian Scrapbooker which didn't get chosen (boo hoo...)

All of the circles and dots on this one are hand drawn with my uniball...

Three pages in three days?!!!

I have been busy these past three days, working on some challenges for a forum on the web...All three were done rather quickly too, about half and hour per page (I LOVE THAT!)Here's what I got so far:





I have to admit that I'm particularly pleased with the "take care" page. And now I'm really looking forward to the new challenges that will be posted...I think I'm addicted! "Hi, my name is Wendy and I'm a scrap-a-holic..." LOL!

Couple of pages...

I did these at the cottage...

Go Habs Go!

Thanks to the generosity of an old friend of Steve's, we went to the Habs game last night, and it was AMAZING! We had tickets right behind the visitor's penalty box (and I mean RIGHT behind....I coulda poked Havlat in the eye if I wanted to!) It was pretty amazing too to have the Habs win in overtime...what an exciting and fast paced game! Here are some pics...

Since it was an orginal 6 matchup, they had a little ceremony beforehand, got to see Ken Dryden, Vinnie Damphousse, Yvon Cournoyer, Phil Esposito, Lafleur and Richard!


and I got to see Pierre Mcguire too (it actually looks like he's looking at my camera, but he's really just looking at the TSN HD camera behind me...)


My favorite player lately (Tomas Plekanec...I just love saying his name)


And Koivu, a player I continue to love, with Brisebois, a player I continue to loathe!


And Havlat in the penalty box!

Tolwatch Cottage

Here are a couple of pics of the lovely cottage my dad rented for the holidays...it was beautiful and everyone (all 15 of us!) had a great time!

A belated Happy New Year!

We've been fortunate enough to have been at a cottage in the Laurentians (Ivry-Sur-Le-Lac) since the 29th of December and have just gotten back yesterday afternoon! We had an AMAZING time, although a little crazy and hectic at times with all 5 kids there, my SIL and BIL, my sis, my parents, Steve's parents, the dog and a bird.... We all survived the week cooped up together, and had a lot of fun at the same time! So, thanks dad for the week!

My goddaughter celebrated her 7th birthday while we were there, and we went tubing at Mont-Avila---SO MUCH FUN!!!! We had a beautiful day for it and the kids were exhausted by the time we got home! (btw, so were the adults...I think we all had naps!)

I managed to get three layouts of The Gooch done (I am WAAAYYY behind
on his albums)and will likely post my fave of them as soon as I get the chance (and the will to scan it!)

New Year's Eve was fun too, all the kids stayed up, and even The Gooch got up for the occasion (he had been teething and had a cold, so he was pretty miserable, but he still managed to smile and be rather good-spirited despite it all).

We had a couple of days where it was FREEZING so no one went outside really, but on the second day of minus 20 degrees, we packed them up and went to an indoor play-area at Mont-Blanc and let them burn off some of their energy! We played ALOT of games with the kids, and the girls did a lot of coloring and running around screeching. We only had one accident where Ella slipped on the hard-wood floors and busted her upper lip (there was ALOT of blood, but she was fine! She's a really tough cookie!)

The guys watched a ton of football and hockey, and we all ate way too much (especially cheese---everyone had felt the need to pack at least two types of cheese) and drank probably a bit too much too, so intensive treadmill and yoga are in my near future!

Hopefully, as soon as I get my act together (and since I have to work tonight) I'll post some pics of the week.

I hope you all had happy holidays spent with family and love ones...and I wish you all a happy and health new year!