Don't mind me.  Summer has finally arrived.  Around here it might be a two-day summer, so when the sun is shining, the family is at the river. 

If I go missing for a week Rejoice with me...we will have had a week of summer.  *snicker*

Sorry about cutting Sam's head off.  Its hard to see in the view screen on a bright day.  LOL

And if by chance we get "bored" at the river.  The beach is a mile away.  So I'm thinking boredom might not be a problem. 

Okies I've never done this before at xanga, but several people from a group I want, would like a tut for a little critter that I created, and this seemed the most logical place for me to put it.  For those who aren't psp'ers...just skip this. 

Open a 4 inch by 4 inch blank canvas.

Go to elipse preset shape.  Set the background to this pattern Right click on the pattern to save.

Set foreground to null  Width at 3 in the tool bar. 

Draw an elipse filling about 3/4's of your blank canvas with it.

Convert to raster layer. 

Take your selection tool and select half of the elipse with the rectangle shape. 

Right click on the layer and choose promote selection to layer. 

Click back on the original layer, and hit delete on the keyboard

Select none.

This should give you two half circles on two seperate layers. 

No grab the deform tool or the pick tool depending which version you use and use the handle to tip them open like wings.  Look at my sample to see approximately what it should look like.

I had the right half on the bottom, and prefered it on the top, and thus rearranged it in the layers.  I thought it looked slightly better. 

Select rastor one, and the elipse tool.

Leave foreground the same, change background to duotone red.  Draw a slightly smaller elipse underneath the wings.  Again look at the sample for an approximation.  Convert to raster layer.

change elipse tool background to black white gradiant. 

Draw a third smaller elipse under the wings for the head.   Convert to raster layer.

Again using the elipse tool set foreground to null, and background to white.  Draw a fairly tiny elipse.

Choose paintbrush, set to circle, black size 22, or smaller.   This is to make the black eye speck inside the white.  This should have automatically converted the elipse to raster, but if it didn't do so now. 

Now select all, float, defloat.

Open effects, artistic effects, balls and bubbles.  I used the preset for the glass rocks we used having saved it.  If you don't have it saved...the settings are as follows.

Shape.  Single ball/bubble.   Surface;  15 Shininess;  50   Gloss;  80  Material white.

Illumination 17  Individual light properties Light 1 Color white Highlight size 28. 

I use this quite a lot, you'll find yourself using it.  Save it as a preset it will save a TON of frustration. 

Click okay.  You now have ONE googly eye.  Go to your layer properties and click duplicate on this layer.  Move second eye the proper place.

Now for the antennas.  Grab your pen tool.  Set start point under the head/eye of the ladybug.    Set second point off and to the left.  Keep hold of the mouse and drag into the right amount of curve.  I'm assuming you know how to use the pen some.  If you don't...please email me, and I'll try to help.

You can add as much curve to the antenna as you want.  I've changed it each time, makes it more unique.  Once your happy with the shape,  click apply, and switch vectory layer to raster.

select all, float, defloat

You can use a inner bevel here, or you can use super blade pro if you have it.  I used super blade pro with the cheap gold setting. 

Select none.  Duplicate.  Image mirror.  Wa-la two antenna's. 

Now add a drop shadow to each layer starting at the top so you don't forget which you've done haven't done.

I used vertical 2, horizontal 2, opacity 44, blur 16 shadow color black. 

Don't fill bound by my colors, they just happened to be what I picked. 

Merge visible. 

Grab paint brush set to circle.  Set color to black, and add spots.  I changed the size of the brush for almost every spot.  Play with what you think looks best.  You could even use a jewel tube instead if you wanted, or on top of the spot. 

On a lighter note...

Yesterday was our grocery shopping day.  The kids always help me unload the grocerys.  WE loaded up some, and then had to wait until the checker got those unloaded.  Each of the kids was holding a big bag of fruit, Rainee was holding a cantalope.  Kids being kids they quickly got bored.  So they started pretending the fruit they were holding was their baby.  "Oh my baby."  They'd say while rocking it just like you would a slightly fussy baby.  I was trying not to laugh.  And then Rainee one ups it.  She rocks the cantalope and says.  "Oh my precious baby...oh my baby...my family's gonna crack your head open and eat you...and I'm gonna join them."

Phew a long busy day.

Rainee had her blood work first thing this morning.  As in I was at the hospital at 8:15 and out by 9.  I live an hour and fifteen from the hospital.  Thus life started very very early. 

We did our bi-monthly grocery shopping as well, and in the middle went to a doctor's appointment for rainee where we heard the results of the blood work, and discussed options.  We've upped Rainee's Prevacid quite a lot (doubled)  and are continuing to experiment with diet.

She did mostly better today in pain, and we have so far only had ONE crying jag.  Lots of I need food now's, but fortunately I had planned for that, so as soon as I gave it to her it was averted.  Phew.

The blood work came back clean which rules out any of those questions. He also did a urine analysis, and blood work for her kidneys, liver, etc.  All of which came back normal. This is a good thing, now we just need to wait for the appointment with GI.

I spent a while this morning doing the above scrapbook page.  I was quite happy with the way it turned out. A lot of you will recognize the picture from last summer.

Last night was...long.

Rainee ended up sleeping with us, and quite frankly she was just MISERABLE!!!   We were exhausted by the time morning came, and decided to cancel baton for the day.  Rob figured if I tried to drive to town I'd get in an accident.

We had one small issue with pain today, and several small crying cause I'm hungry jags, but it was a mellower day for the most part.  Tomorrow is pay day, and its a good thing, cause that kiddo ate me out of house and home.  One of the symptoms of an ulcer is being extremely demanding about eating cause it dulls the pain.  It gets very hard to meet Rainee's needs when she's a stickin' bottemless pit...and still amazingly skinny.  Go figure.

I was able to get a hold of Dr Weller and will take Rainee in tomorrow for blood work, and a brief consult.  At least I think I have a consult..I was woke up to answer the return call, and was a bit dazy.   

I don't know how I survived Rainee's three years of apnea and 10-25 times up a night, cause one night and I'm just a basket case.  LOL  Tomorrow I will run into the clinic early in the morning and get the order for the lab work.  At that time I will confirm the appointment...or discomfirm it. 

I have hypoglycemia so crying cause she's hungry I understand...and am aware of.  So is she.  LOL  But is she crying because of the ulcer, or because of genuine hunger, or both.  I guess it doesn't matter, I've just started giving her a snack every time she asks regardless of wether it was five minutes ago or not.  She is absolutely skinny, so its not hurting her at this point, and for now it cuts down the desperation.

We have continued to have gorgeous weather.  And are loving every minute of the sun.  The water in the river is still NASTY cold, but that doesn't slow Zeria down.  The rest of the kids are much less enthusiastic about it all, but still like digging in the dirt, and building with the river rock.  Its so nice to get some vitamin d. 

Prayers as we go for Rainee's blood work are appreciated.  And that it would take one stick would be also very nice!

My in-laws have come and gone.  It was a mostly good weekend.  Yvonne started getting a sore throat about an hour and a half before she arrived here, so she was dragging a bit.  And Rainee's health issues continued to increase...along with Kaylins.  So that drug Rob and I down, but I guess you can't have everything.

So health stuff.  I haven't blogged about what is going on, cause I was well quite frankly in extreme denial and a bit of shock.  It started about two months ago for Rainee and it was a very slow hard to put a finger on it.  Rainee is extremely easy going.  Takes no very well, and NEVER cries.  One day she just started sobbing.  And she sobbed for almost an hour.  We rocked her, asked her if anything hurt, if she needed anything.  And the tears just went on and on.  Eventually we got her to drink some water, and it just switched off.

We weren't sure what had gone on, and we moved on.  This scenario began repeating itself.  Once a week.  Once every four or five days.  And slowly increasing.  It wasn't because we had ever told her no about something.  Although once or twice that was a small component of it.  It was so bizarre, and life is busy enough that we just weren't able to really evaluate what was going on.  I set an appointment for a healthy check-up. (a month a way) and started paying a wee bit better attention.  And things continued to slide down-wards.  Now it was about once every-other day or so.  And I figured out about last Monday that if we gave her something to eat when she asked for it, it mellowed them.  And then I figured out if we gave her tums that sorta helped.  And then she started telling me her stomach hurt.  Pain for Rainee is so constant, that she has a hard time evaluating it.  So we began giving her some of Rob's otc tummy stuff at the first mention of pain, and mostly were dealing with it. 

We had Rainee's healthy check-up and Dr Weller heard me say about her wanting to eat, and her tummy hurting and said she probably has an ulcer.  He looked at her last endoscopy and remembered it mentioned that there were signs in her stomache of a food allergy, and suggested we begin removing foods from her diet and experimenting.   I had wanted blood-work to check her thyroid, but was so distracted by the ulcer I forgot to ask.  I'm out of practice dealing with doctors. LOL.  So he is working out the paperwork for her referal to the GI clinic.  The normal alternative for a ulcer would be to give her prevacid.  She's been on it since she was one.  He's not at all comfy adding more meds until he knows what we're really dealing with.

Okay, so Thursday-through today.  We continued to work on the basis that it was an ulcer, and began watching what she was eating.  We are solving some mysteries, but nothing is jumping out overnight.  The problem?  We've had two LONG crying jags when she hasn't eaten anything in quite a long while.  I mean long.  Forty-five minutes to an hour and a half.  Not screaming.  Just crying softly in between giving herself asthma.  We forced food on her and malox on her.  But she just cried until we could side-track her with math.  Yes I said math.  I've done more math in the last two days then I'd probably done in three weeks before that...maybe longer.  She finished two math work-books that I bought at Walmart, and I finally broke out her first grade math workbook and we worked on that.  Each time I allowed her to do math, she eventually calmed down.

This child is SO not mine.  *snicker*

So is it just tummy related?  I have no idea.  Is it exhausting definitely.  Is it scarey umm yeah.  And stressful thanks to it being Rainee just outstanding amounts of stress.

For those of you who haven't been here since the beginning of Rainee...Rainee has a multitude of health issues that have kept us jumping...praying, and stressing since she was born and helicoptered to childrens.   Apnea, Birth defects in her lungs, trachea, and heart, Obstructive lung disease, Reflux, Gross motor delays that kept her from walking until she was 2.  The list goes on.    So this just stirs up all the fears, and yeah.  its not a lot of fun.

In regards to Kaylin.  She got her blood checked.  And her thyroid is the WORST its ever been.  Its worse then mines ever been and mine has been very very bad.  So her energy is NONE existent.  And she spent a lot of the weekend staring blankly.  The good news is we up her dose, and eventually she'll get some of that energy back.  She just had her blood checked in March, and at that point her thyroid was high...and now its super duper low.  So strange. 

And in other fronts.  Our washing machine is broken AGAIN.  Its only two months OLD.  *GROWLS*  And the door on our two year old baking stove just fell off.  Again.  And we had to have the DSL guy in to repair our dsl. 

Its been a fuuuuuun week.    Rob and I have done a lot of deep breathing let me tell you. 

In between times the weather was absolutely amazing this weekend.  And I even got into the river up to my waist.  The first time this season.  Its not quite as nice today, but still not bad, and I am so greatful for the bit of summer we got.  Especially while the in-laws were here. 

I'm here its just been an insanely busy week. I've had to drive to Port Angeles every day this week, and today is NOT an exception to that rule. 

Monday was Rainee's talent show, Tuesday and Wednesday baton, and today is two healthy check-ups for Rainee and Kaylin.  I tried very hard to get those on a tuesday or a wednesday, but the next available date on a tuesday or wednesday was the end of July.    And we really want Rainee seen.

Baton has a "plan"  and the kids will be able to twirl until the middle of August.  This makes the break much more paleatable and a lot less shocking.  After that a break will be taken and a search for a coach made.  We shall see how that goes. 

I'm scooting out of here pronto, but I wanted to let everyone know I'm still alive...just busy.

On top of my very busy week my in-laws are driving in tonight for there annual visit.  Wasn't thinking about that when I planned the doctors visits.  So gotta get the house company ready.  hahahahahahahahaha

Rainee all dressed up for her performance.

It *had* been a quiet week.  Just doing, going, being.

This morning...well things got rather exasperating quickly.

First the back-story.

Wednesday night I had to stay a bit late after baton for a meeting.  It was excrutiatingly boring, and I was a bit irritated that we even had it.  It was all about when the parades were, looking ahead to the September recital, yada yada yada.

This morning Rob headed in for my dad's hearing.  No new there..except we might have news next week.  That killed Robs sleep, as he'd worked all night the night before.  And put us all off schedule a bit.

We got up trying to figure out how to function with the weirder schedule, and started getting in a bit of a groove about 9:15.  I picked Jeremiah up and placed him on my computer desk to help him with his pants.  I placed him strategically so he could knock a very full glass of water all over the computer.  I spent the next 30 minutes finding all the creative places the water went.  It went a long ways--including all over me.

I was just contemplating getting out of my very wet nasty clothing when Zeria came in the house crying.

Her horse had kicked her in the lip, the leg, and the arm.  The arm was the one that concerned me.  She didn't want to bend her fingers, and a bruise was immediately evident.  I sent Jamari to grab an ice pack out of the fridge while I sent Zeria to get comfy on the recliner, and me out of my very wet clothes. 

Jamari comes and knocks on my bedroom door to inform me that the ice packs aren't frozen.  I send Kaylin to go out to the garage to the big freezer and get frozen peas and go check as to why the ice packs aren't frozen.

There's juice dripping on the floor as I approach the scene.  I open the door and realize that everything that was in the little freezer is now soggy.  My fridge is dead.  My fridge that is just barely two years old...if that.  Definitely past the waranty...but just barely.

Zeria is still screaming in the background. 

I finish adjusting my clothing, send a kiddo to grab a laundry basket and see what I can rescue from the freezer.

And keep checking on zeria.  The ice helps some.  We put the tv on that distracts her some more. 

Rob calls to tell me what little he knows about my dad.  

I call my mom to tell her.   And she informs me my sister's boyfriend was arrested at my moms house last night.

Yeah its a goooooooooooooood day.

Rob comes home.  He doesn't ask how my day went, he heads to the dripping stuff on the floor, that I got side-tracked from.  Gee I wonder why?  I inform him that Zeria "probably" broke her arm, and the fridge is dead. 

He looks at it, and we decide to go to the ER.  I still haven't gotten the dripping stuff all cleaned up.  For crying out loud!

Zeria and I head 35 minutes one way to the ER.  After a quick in and out and x-rays, and some heavy duty ibuprofen she's all better, and no broken arm.

Zeria and I decide to eat lunch in Forks as its 2 and we're starving.  We call Rob and tell him what's up.  Have a nice relaxing lunch, and start driving home.  Zeria falls asleep.  The cell phone rings.  "What am I doing for dinner, and how do I get Rainee stop crying?"

"Just give her a snack--she's hungry."  I hang up I'm all of five minutes from home after all.

I pull in the driveway.  Rainee's sobbing hysterically.  I head to the kitchen to hand her the snack.  And realize that everybody has played outside all afternoon and the dripping stuff is STILL dripping.  I just barely resist the urge to scream bloody murder at my husband.    I very quietly ask him to clean up while I hold Jeremiah who is now crying from a small boo-boo. 

I sit down at the computer.  Its 4:15 in the afternoon by now.  Rob says, "Oh Donnis called you better call her back."  (this is the baton coach).  I assume its more details about costumes, or some such thing.

And my kids little world comes crashing down.  She's moving.  In a month.  They've had their house on the market supposedly to buy property out of town.  But her and her husband decided this morning their moving to North Carolina.  Baton is over.  There will be no recital.  yada yada yada.

My kids have been working on routines since NOVEMBER without a chance to perform them.  They've done parades, but not there individual duets and solo's that they've poured their heart and soul into.  My kids LOVE baton.  Its hard to explain how perfect it is especially for my black children who love love love to dance, and move. 

I managed to be polite and get off the phone and just go into the bedroom and sob.  I know how there going to react.  And I was right they just all bawled.  

I emailed Donnis about an hour later and asked if there was any way we could pull off some kind of quick less formal recital before she leaves.  She has agreed that we will do something.

I just can't believe how irresponsible, and poor the decision is to the kids she claims to love.  Its just astounding to me that she had a meeting LAST night planning up until the end of September.  She spent $750 of the teams money--some of which we still haven't earned to buy new uniforms TWO weeks ago.  And now its just done and over.

Just.  really stunned.

And back to square one as to what to do for a extra curricular activity for my children.  My very heartbroken children. 

So I was able to push everything aside, and keep busy this evening.  Crawled into bed very late, and it all came back to me.  We will survive, and I know God has a fantastic plan around the corner.  I just can't see it.  I'm telling myself this...and drifting off towards sleepiness when..our very new cat finally leaves the bedroom and four dogs start a dog fight that ends outside my bedroom door with the cat corner and four dogs barking hysterically at 12:45 in the morning.

I'm thinking...its really really time for this day to get better.  Or end one of the two!!!!!!!!

1500 feet above here it is snowing.

SNOWING.

On June 9th.

Its 8:48 at night...and it looks like its 11 pm outside. 

And pouring hard.

Rob's bridge he built for the summer is floating down the river--the only thing keeping it from the ocean is he tied it off to a alder tree.

Its just evil nasty yucky out there.

The only good thing about it is it didn't rain during Rob's half-marathon yesterday.

I think I'm gonna go build an ark.

Well the rain came back.  We had NO puddles on our property for about 2 whole days.  It was nice while it lasted.  I told someone I'm done complainin' about the rain, but I maintain my right to complain about the puddles.

She laughed at me.  LOL

The kids are needless to say driving me up the wall as it was just too soggy to wiggle when they got home from baton.  I would like to put them each on a seperate treadmill for awhile.

Or drug them so they look like this...

Yeah he's asleep.  He fell asleep playing with his lizard.  Rob snagged the picture, and then rescued the lizard.  LOL  That was taken after a long hard day of playing with his friend Felix.

I gotta say the lizard is a fantastic pet.  Its clean, it doesn't stink, and better yet it lives in a cage, so it doesn't poop, or chew up garbage.  I like reptile pets. 

Baton went well, except two girls failed to show, or call the coach and tell them why.  She doesn't handle that well, and got a tich grumpy.  Not that I can blame her.  She volunteers her time, and the condition of the volunteering is 100% commitment.  You can miss for family vacation, or sickness, but you don't just not show.  Its RUDE.

Rainee passed her Friday audition for the elementary school talent show.  She's doing this for a little girl in her squad.  So she will have her first practice tomorrow during Kaylin and Jamari's baton time.  Jer also has a eye appointment so all in all tomorrow's gonna be a wee bit crazy. 

Rob pulled two doubles yesterday and today and is getting tired.  We missed him a lot.  Today he managed to sneak out and join us for lunch.  The kids were glad as they hadn't seen him since Sunday night.  Zeria made the lunch and it was quite nummy. 

Other then that life has continued to have no major dramas.  I could get used to this...