April 16th was the 3rd and 4th grades musical programs. Both classes were cute and we were able to see their art hanging in the hallway around the school before the program.
Forever running behind on things! The girls participated in a Taekwondo tournament in Kansas City April 19th. It was a day of lots of waiting for each group to have a ring assigned. It was also a day of nerves for most of the girls as they are just not feeling comfortable with their forms. They all did fantastic on their forms and sparring. I never had a doubt, but they had many. I hope that if we go to more of these competitions that they will start to lose those inferior feelings and start to have fun with their sport. The nice thing about the tournament being in Kansas City was we could drive over in the morning and be home in our own beds that night.
Next up was Kendalan's 9th birthday! Daddy delivered cupcakes and chocolate milk to school for a snack that day. Then she was wanting a special nail art kit. That evening we took her to eat at her choice which was Olive Garden. We told her that we would have to order her present and would get it soon. What she didn't know was that we were planning on surprising four of the girls! But back to that in a little bit.
April 26th was the PTO Carnival at the Overbrook School. I was signed up to help out on Mrs. Colvin's game. We bought each of the girls a $10 punch card and they started finding games to play. The first successful game was the cake walk. Tessa won right away and picked a cake. Then Jordis won and picked a chocolate cake. They played again and Tessa picked some cookies. Soon Kendalan won some cookies too. It was time to move on to another game. (BTW, I have no photos of this as I didn't even think of taking my camera because I knew I was going to be busy.) So we went to the pop ring toss. Jordis immediately won a 2 liter bottle and a can. So Dad spend quite a bit of his time hauling all the winnings over to our vehicle. The girls were having fun running around with their friends and playing the games which were all one punch which equaled $.25. Many of the games had hoaxy toys to choose from. Kendalan chose a Chinese finger lock. Of course, she got her fingers stuck in it and I had to help her get them off!! She decided to put that back for a strand of green beads. Tessa won a blow up plastic microphone on one game of break the plate. RaeAnne won a goofy tall hat that was made of felt, was tall, yellow and black stripes like a bumble bee and had peace signs around the brim. She loves it! I was supposed to work at the dart game, but it turned into the Kings Toss which was a throne complete with a toilet seat and lid. The object of the game was to throw a roll of toilet paper and have it go in the "potty". I worked at this game for 30 minutes and basically retrieved the toilet paper from inside the toilet. If they made at least one roll in the toilet they could choose a gift from the gift bucket.
After that the girls decided to win some more pop and we took home 4 2 liter bottles and half a dozen cans of soda. We also won some more cookies at the cake walk. And I entered the raffle to win a chair. I was pleasantly surprised to have won the chair I really liked too! It looks so nice in our kitchen!
The next week was a run of doctor's visits and tests for me. I had my first Mammogram since the cancer was found and YIPPEE! It was negative! I will have to go back in 6 months to have another one. Then I saw my primary physician whom I had not seen for over a year. He wants to check my cholesterol and blood sugars. They have been running a little on the high side. And the next day I was back at his office to have his ARNP do my pap smear. Unfortunately Triple Negative Cancer goes hand in hand with elevated odds of ovarian and cervical cancer. Yea! That came back normal too! So in six months I will have to repeat that too. Now if I could just get the neuropathy pain under control I would be doing very well. But the foot and hand pain are still around and making their pain known. I went to Dr. Swanson who is a neurologist and he started me on a new med that he hopes will help. He said that it could be a very slow process to find the right meds and doses of those meds to make my pain go away. And we might not be able to find the right meds and/or doses. I hope they can find something as I am so tired of living on pain medications. And the worst part is that they really don't do anything for me anymore. So basically I take the pain medication and sometimes it helps and sometimes it is like I took a placebo. My husband is tired of my coming home after grocery shopping or walking around the mall with the girls for a few hours and then I am crying, rubbing my feet and tell him that I want an ax so I can cut my feet off. It feels like my only alternative to get rid of the pain. Oh how I hope they will be able to find a combination of meds that will work!!
Friday May 2nd was the 8th grade graduation party! It just can't be that my baby is old enough to graduate from 8th grade!! The party was from 7 to 9pm at the school gym. They used the decorations from the Junior/Senior Prom which makes it a lot cheaper for the 8th grade! It was Hollywood and it came out so cute. All the 8th graders were given a shirt with their names on it.
Saturday was the surprise party! The girls are always saying that they want to have a birthday party. We usually just celebrate with the family. But I came up with a great idea. Dad and I invited a friend for each of the youngest four girls. It was a secret even to the invited guests. For Kendalan we invited Caroline, Tessa was Haven, Jordis was Alison and ZoraLin was JaeLynn. RaeAnne was at a friends house from 1 to 9 pm for a Cinco de Mayo/graduation party. Anyway I loaded up our girls Saturday morning and told them that I had to run some errands. I needed to drop some Thirty-One products off for a lady. So I drive to Paint Therapy Uncorked and told the girls they could come in with me. They were looking around kind of lost. Then all of a sudden Caroline arrived, then Haven, then Ali and JaeLynn. The girls were kind of catching on at that time!! It turned out to be a blast and they can not wait to go back sometime! I have some real Picasso's on my hands. We had a Minion cake and used one of the birthday candles from China and it actually worked this time and in fact played over and over and over many times! Zia Joy came too, but she arrived a little late as she had broken her arm the day before! Fortunately it was her left arm and she was still able to paint! I know that I am going to have to make this up to RaeAnne sometime as she is our budding artist! I already have a plan for that too!
So here we are to May 9th...8th Grade Graduation! My baby!! I won the battle of the wills and she did wear her dress and she looked very pretty. We do need to work on the way she walks in a dress, but I will pick my battles. The principal, Mr. Flax, did a very nice speech about the class and I was almost ready for tissue a time or two. Rae didn't run but she boogied pretty quickly across the stage. Fortunately they had taken photos before the ceremony of them receiving their diplomas so we can get a good copy of her doing that. She was moving so fast across the stage that I got two blurs of photos :( A freshman next year...it just can't be!! And she will be able to start working on her learner permit! That was also her last day of school. The last day for the rest of the girls is the 15th at 1:30PM. Summer is very close!!
