Sunday, March 30, 2008

10 Random Facts

My dear friend Emily posted this (and I didn't say it's bad etiquette not to comment, I said I read somewhere that blog etiquette states you should always comment when you read a post:-) and I took her up and thought I'd join the fun so here's goes nothin':

1) I was born in West Germany, which of course is now all one country. My birthplace was Nuremberg. My father was in the military so I lived there all of 6 weeks before being cleared to fly after being around a month overdue (sorry mom:-).

2) On the note of my birth, because I was born in Germany is why my name is spelled R-E-N-A-Y and not Renee...I was named after my father, as Renay is the feminine form of Ronald (or so I remember being told by my parents-watch one of them actually read this post and comment on it that I'm wrong, oh well-whatever to elicit a comment). The staff said that RENAY is how you spell Renay-phonetic, eh?

3) I've been hit by a semi. Ok, so- that's sounds dramatic, but trust me, it was. I was driving down good ole 231 to help a teacher during the summer of 92 before my senior year and WHAM! A semi hit me in my newly painted Chevy Caviler with a full tank of gas.

I was not properly restrained (aka I wasn't wearing my seat belt) and was thrown across the vehicle and my head hit the windshield and then I was swung back into the drivers seat and my knee hit the steering wheel and was dislocated. This after already having scope surgery to tighten an already easy to dislocate knee. I needed surgery to correct all the damage. I later won a whole $3K in litigation against the idiot driver who totalled my car and practically maimed me;-)

4) I am addicted to Diet Pepsi, as I recently confessed on my other blog (an non-public blog that you can request access to), I would install a fountain soda machine in my home if 1) it weren't weird, and 2) it wasn't so expensive.

5) I love webkinz which are super cute "beanie baby" like stuffed animals with a code for internet access to play games and take care of them like they are virtual pets. My older boys have these and they are just a fun way to bond with them:-)

6) I have a son from my first marriage named TJ

7) I graduated 11th in my high school class, and no there weren't 12 people in my class, their were 130ish

8) I went to Purdue University and fell in "love" with a basketball player. He didn't know I existed but I stalked him and made signs to cheer him on at his games and even had another Athlete that was in my nursing classes with me try to hook us up. It obviously didn't pan out but it's probably for the better as He was like a foot and a half taller than me and he now makes millions playing professional ball-and I wouldn't want millions as life would just be too easy:-)

9) I like country music but we now have an awesome Christian station available here called KLOVE and I now prefer it to my country station. My playlist has some of my favs:-) Hopefully it doesn't annoy you too much or keep you from checking my blog:-)

10) I once went on a 17 state, 7 day road trip across the nation with Tim in a rental car that offered us unlimited mileage-we believe they discontinued that program after we turned in the car with over 5K miles on it;-) We visited fun places like Mt. Rushmore, The Grand Canyon, Vegas, the Rockies at sunrise, and the Alamo:-)

I wish it were more random facts but I must follow the rules so I'll stop at 10:-)

Now that you now 10 random facts about me your instructions are as follows: list 10 random facts about you on your blog and leave a comment here saying you did so or leave your 10 random facts in a comment here if you don't have a blog. Ok, peeps-don't let me down! You can do it!

Friday, March 28, 2008

What's this for?

Hey everyone! I figured out what this big ole thing is for...


See what I can do with it?


It feels funny!


Hi there!





Oh, my big ole noggin'!!!



Here's another new fav...I'm a book worm. So what if I like to look at them, throw them, wear them on my head, etc? They are my books and mommy and daddy are just happy that I play with books at all!




PS My doctor called mommy today and told her that my thyroid and other stuff are all fine so I'm good to go until I turn 2! Isn't God good? He's the bestest!

Also, mommy wanted me to assure everyone that this blog will continue with our frequent (and sometimes not so frequent) updates for as long as we have things to update, which, in this house seems like there's no concerns of stuff to share ending any time soon-I mean a skunk, seriously??? Can you believe it?

Mommy's weight loss blog is a "personal girl stuff" blog and if you want to read her crazy thoughts, she just needs your email address (the one you use for your google ID or it won't work) to get you started into her crazy mind. Have a fun on year head weekend!

Thursday, March 27, 2008

I'm doing it!

I am tired of the me that I am, so I am going to become the me that God wants me to be! If you would like to join me on this crazy journey I'm embarking upon, please request access to my new blog Valiant Journey...

I've joined weight watchers online and am turning a new leaf! I even called my doctor and asked for my most recent weight and cholesterol stats and WOW-WEE am I pathetic. My new journey blog is VERY open and VERY me...whereas this blog I think carefully about what I'm saying and posting and put things out there for the world to see. That's why I'll have to invite you to come into my secret place...

I'm not offended if this is not an area of my life (or your life) you want to explore further but if you do want to come along I'll be posting tips, struggles, successes, etc and again-it's me (probably too much of me). Oh and it will definitely include my views on how the Lord is right here with me on this journey:-) Ok, enough of this for now:-)

Wednesday, March 26, 2008

A smelly update

Ok, here it is-this is a true 2-fer (aka 2 for 1)...I am going to blow your socks off with the mother of ALL unbelievable posts but first, here's how the appt went:

All started off well-after working until 1:30 in the morning (oh, did I mention this is the extended version...?) I came home to joyfully prepare 75 ooey gooey rice krispy treats sprinkled with dots confetti candies for Jake's snack at preschool on the theme of "polka dots" day. Then, I finally hit the pillow around 3 amish.

At about 9:45 I woke up to the sound of tapping on my window- first thought, is Owen still breathing?, 2nd thought, what's that tapping noise?...in my sleepy stooper I managed to figure out that the tapping was freezing rain/sleet/what have you and yes Owen was still breathing and sleeping like a precious Angel. I said a little Thank you prayer and laid back down for a few more minutes of dozing and finally joined the awake world at 10:15, got Owen up and got ready and out the door to pick-up Jacob from preschool. Oops, forgot Owen's growth chart, back home I go and then to get Jake.

The snack was a hit. Now off to Chick-fil-A where we had lunch and met Amy and Alex. Apparently, I order high maintenance-like, but I like to think of myself as liking it the way I like it (think When Harry met Sally diner scene;-). I digress.

So, on my way to Indy a projected route of about 60 miles mostly interstate. I give myself 1 1/2 hours "just in case". It was SOOOO WINDY!!!! I held my hands at 1 and 5 o clock most of the way because of the wind pushing the van and it was so loud to drive in! Owen cried for the 1st 20 minutes since I wouldn't give him a drink of my soda (thank you Grama Becca for the new addiction) and then his cry turned into singing Ahhhh, Ahhhhh, Ahhhh and so on for about 10 more minutes before he fell asleep. We arrived timely and found a parking spot but as I was trying to get Owen out of the van the vehicle next to me pulls out so I decide to move over a bit since we had to park too close to the other car next to me. As I pull back in, I notice the stroller (which I had already gotten out of the van and set up) had fallen over. As I went to pick it up-oops, I had ran over it, who knew? So I backed out a few inches-nope, not enough-a tire was still on my purse. A few inches more and some trendy tread marks later, I have my purse free at last! Ok, a kick or two to the stroller wheels and it's as good as new. Now into the wind tunnel to get inside the office building. Ah, the 3rd floor-great, better make a potty trip since I drank a 40 ounce soda (without sharing) on the way up. Hmmm...bummer, no handicap stalls, but a nice sign referring me back to the first floor-nah, I'll just go with the door open but did Owen appreciate it? No, he still cried and he even could see me the whole time (maybe that's why he cried). The things we do for our kids.

Into the office-I'm there 45 minutes early as we came 15 minutes early for paper work-which consisted of a signature, I don't know about you, but my signature takes about 1 second. There was a holy terror running around the waiting room (not mine) so I was ecstatic when they called Owen's name shortly after we sat down.

Once in the office, the nurse measured Owen and then when she went to weigh him I questioned taking his clothes off but she said it wasn't necessary, which I thought odd for a growth MD, but ok. So he was weighed in kg so I asked what that was in pounds and she said oh, 8 kg is around 16 pounds. Ahem, "around" kay.

The doctor actually saw us shortly after we were put in an exam room which to me is a miracle of modern medicine. Dr. Riggs is the son of my own childhood pediatrician. He seemed nice and patient with Owen who was being beastly after his mere 20 minute nap. He (the md) seemed a bit confused as to why we were there. That always ticks me off when doctors act baffled.

On a more sappy note of seriousness, Dr Riggs actually was a breath of fresh air in some respects. He point blank told me that his job was to help Owen achieve an average adult height (if possible) but that Owen would NOT likely ever be a kid who was average in size. He went on to say that he had inappropriate growth as a child and really struggled with that his whole life and didn't catch up until he stopped growing at the age of 23. He offered to talk about human growth hormone with me now even though it's not something to "truly" consider until at least Owen's 2nd birthday and even then he must meet criteria to use it.

Finally hearing someone say "Owen will not catch-up" for some reason helped me. I think I was tired of hearing how he will surprise us all and tower over us someday and such. I am at peace knowing Owen will just be little and we don't know why.

The doctor ordered tests and we should have the results later this week (but the doctor doesn't think they will be abnormal). Assuming they are negative, we'll return around Owen's 2nd birthday.

We headed home and I picked up Jacob and took the boys to the lab to get Owen's blood drawn. 45 minutes later we were done with that fiasco where Owen essentially cried and fussed for no reason (other than being a tired crabby baby) from the moment we walked in-and it didn't even get us drawn any sooner!

Fast-forward to us getting home from a nice kids night at the ole Texas Roadhouse-TJ brought a friend home-the principal's son, in fact- so we planned on being on prim and proper (he, he)...but when we pulled up in our garage, Tim said, uh oh-looks like our friend is back.

Ok, rewind a moment-a week ago or so Tim was leaving for work and he ran back in the house and said there was a rat in the garage. Yea, whatever Russ... I asked him what in the WORLD he was talking about and he said, when he opened the door he saw a ginormous rat run away from the trash bag that we left at our back door (which the creature had apparently gnawed on all night). Ok, so as I thought on this mystery rat, I notice some poo near the garage door and it is, well frankly, a big poo. Much bigger than mouse droppings. Seriously, like cat poo (soory for the poo visual). So, on Easter I asked my dad (a non-poo expert) what he thought it could be from-he said no rat could make a poo that big. Maybe a raccoon- what??? We live in a subdivision not a backwoods wilderness! We couldn't possibly have a stinkin' raccoon living in our garage.

Ok, fast forward. We get out of the van and Tim declares (at 7pm at night) we are cleaning out the garage and finding out what is leaving poo and nosing thru our trash.

Rut, ro- (in my best Scooby voice) this means moving out a ton of junk into the driveway to get to the back corner where I am just sure we are going to find some varmint and it's spawn. NEVER in my wildest imagination could I have conjured up what we found...

In the back corner of our garage, as Tim and I were moving the junk out comes a SKUNK!!! Tim says "it's a skunk" and immediately says "get the kids inside!!!" (visions of the Griswalds fleeing from the squirrel on Christmas vacation flash before me) and then Tim reminds me, poor Owen is still in the car seat in the van, so I whisk him out of the van and inside the house- now mind you, I'm sure this is the last sleep-over for the principal's kid. As I'm running Owen in and pushing the kids in the door Tim yells shut the van door!!! (apparently he thought Pepe' Le Pu was going to steal the van!?!).

I run in to call-uh, who the heck do you call??? 9-1-1...apparently not a life threatening emergency. Sheriff dept...apparently animal control is off duty...wildlife something or other no stinkin' answer. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, eh um, I mean garage, Tim has the critter cornered and we are all praying he doesn't spray. I actually should say "she" doesn't spray since I really was guessing it was a momma and there were going to be skunk babies nestled in the corner.

Ok, so finally some 13 year oldish sounding gal tries to tell me (via phone) that we need to be humane (HUMANE!!! ARE YOU SERIOUS???) and try to keep it from coming back-blah, blah, blah. I try to convey to her this thing isn't leaving-it LIVES in our garage. So, she takes our number and "will get back with us". Uh, Thanks.

All the while I've been searching for our camera (and praying we don't get sprayed-scenes of the Brady's bathing in tomato juice kept flashing through my mind) and I finally found it. I cowardly got in the van as Tim somehow had gotten Pepe' to head toward the door and under our lawnmower. In the pix you can see him attempting to push the lawnmower out of our garage. I had done a quick Internet search and found that they can spray up to 15 feet so we were VERY nervous to say the least. Oh, and did I mention the principals kid and TJ were left inside in charge??? Nice.



Hooray, the skunk decides to waddle out of the lawnmower and out the door...only to come right back in the other door-CRAP! Now what???-it's hiding under some shelving...

Tim in his genius quick thinking barricades most of the garage with a large board from who knows where (apparently God) and I think to have him close the doors he came out of and get the main door all but about 1 foot closed. I cowardly retreat back into the van and hold the camera with one hand and garage door opener with the other. Seriously, by the grace of God, Tim was able to coerce that stinkin' skunk out and I pushed the button and the door closed and we managed to avoid being sprayed. We searched the rest of the garage and found no sign of babies so I was apparently wrong in my theory. We carefully assessed the outside for signs of Pepe' before re-opening the garage to get all our junk back inside.

Can you even believe it???

Crazy! We have now had a bird in our furnace (which we freed-uh Humanely), 2 sets of bunnies be born in our yard and now a skunk to make it's home in our garage-you'd think we live on a farm-but we live 10 feet away from our neighbors on a slab on a 4000 square foot lot...crazy!

Thursday, March 20, 2008

Poor baby!

I forgot to post this picture of Owen from the other day: this is how my poor baby woke up-one eye all matted shut-so sad:-(



Then instead of a happy 1st day of Spring enjoying the nicer sunny (but still pretty cold) weather, my poor baby gets his 1st ever outdoor boo-boo and it was a doozey!



Trust me, it looks WAY worse than the picture shows and it sounded even worse than he looks. The poor little guy was just toddling around the driveway and lost his balance and WHAMOO! His little head smacked the pavement and we (Tim and I) felt like we could feel the vibration of the conk! I could've cried for him! But he cried enough for all of us and has two scratches on his forehead (it started as a million tiny red dots and is now very pink and slightly bruised) and one scratch on his little nose.



On a lighter note, here's the brilliant boy (post head-injury) riding his zebra for all he's worth shaking his head and squinting his little cute eyes...the cutest part is how every now and then he will open them a little to see if we are still watching him-and we of course always are because he is just so darn cute!!!



Lastly, here we are still post head-injury: Owen is learning to sign since he isn't saying words (for those naysayers, no learning to sign DOES NOT DELAY speech, it enhances it!) and he of course can do bye-bye and knows "all-done" though he rarely uses it (he just chucks his unwanted food or sippy cup to the way-side, much to my dismay). He has also learned Thank you and we thought after about 4 months of effort we were getting nowhere but here he is signing his newest sign "more" and he learned it in just one day! My baby Einstein!!!



A couple more things: Lots of my family will be in town this weekend for Easter so if you think of us, please pray for their safe travels and that we all get along and enjoy each other (when all together nder one roof there are 18 of us strong-7 kids 9 years to 16 months and 11 "adults"!!!)

Also Owen's evaluation with the Endocrinologist is coming up Tuesday. TJ will be at school and then head to a friend's house and Jake will go to his fav bud Alex's house (thanks Amy) so me and Owen can do our thing:-) I'm very anxious for it as it could tell us lots about Owen or the usual NOTHING new:-)

I'm sure I will post pictures from Easter before the appointment but in the meantime, I pray you all have a blessed Easter!

PS The neighbor kid told TJ that the sheriff reported the bone was human so I told TJ to have him march his little hiney over to our house and tell me more-but he was just messin' with us and apparently they are saying it was just a deer bone. I don't think we'll ever REALLY know:-) Sorry to disappoint!

Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Random thoughts...

Update: no word on the bone

Update to cornflake auction at end...

Anyone else experience this…

~Always think you feel your cell phone vibrating in your pocket even when it’s not in your pocket

~Find yourself raising your voice (shouting) or dramatizing your speech when talking to an automated teller…please just call the USPS package tracking line and see what you think-it’s enough to drive a sane person crazy so for me, it’s a short putt. I seriously talk to her saying “Cuuusssstttoooommmmmmeeerrrrrrr SSSSeeeerrrrvvviiiiiccceee" all dramatic and slow and she then says, I didn’t quite understand you, did you say track package and I exclaim NNNNNOOOOO and she says I’m sorry did you say yes or no? NOOOOO ok, track package-I didn’t want it tracked. I’m sorry could you repeat and so on and so forth and seriously what moron dreamed up such annoying inventions????

Have you ever…

Woke up and see that it’s 7 and think you are running late when it’s really 7pm (Tim did that tonight and it was really funny to me). In all fairness I’ve done it at least twice in my life-once as a teen and once as a young adult.

~Watched The Biggest Loser and couldn't help yourself from munching chips and craving chocolate (aka porking out on fists full of chocolate chips)???

Anyone hear about the Ebay auction for a corn flake that looked like the state of Illinois? It was up to almost a quarter mill around 3:30pm today and then it disappeared-NO, not ended, but is gone-it was listing number 110233337338 and my inquiring mind really wants to know what happened to it??? I’m coining it the great Illinois corn flake cover up-Tim says maybe someone poured milk over it-ha!
But then I found it again 150227330878 but only at $1.25 and not ending for 10 days whereas before it had only around a day left--- so weird…

Ok so my inquiring mind has found the new, new auction 110235071660 and it is cited as having been removed due to violatin ebays selling of opened food policy...so now it's back up as a coupon redeemable for the actual corn flake...here's what's funny-assuming this is true, they lost $200K and ebay lost the fee that would have been paid on that-which seems crazy-but we are speaking about people who put one peice of breakfast cereal up for auction...see that's me problem, we had donuts and they only resembled Rosie O' Donell (he, he-that was so unlike me:-).

Monday, March 17, 2008

Palm trees and bone detectives

Our boys are so funny.

Here's what happened on the way home from church today.

Jacob brought a palm branch into the van that he was given as a part of the lesson they learned today. He waved it around and told us about saying Hosanna, etc.

TJ asked if he could see it. A couple minutes later, TJ proclaimed that he knew how old the palm tree was that this branch came from. Tim bit and said how old? TJ answers with a confident 29 years old. I of course, thinking he's full of complete 8 year olds make up things and can't possibly know what he's talking about, say how do you know that?-he says it because every year a palm tree lives it gets a knew leaf on the branches, so this one has 29. I show my complete disbelief by blurting out how he doesn't know what he's talking about etc (not a recommended response in hind sight) and TJ says he knows because he saw it on a show (gotta be true then). I say, well, I think you are wrong. Jacob (4 years old) chimes in, and says no, TJ is right-he knows a lot about Palm trees (oh, I guess now that Jacob confirmed it, it mustbe true). Tim and I crack up-then I say, TJ-do you honestly think that palm branch is 29 years old? and without hesitation the kid says, no-I didn't say the branch is 29 year old, I said the tree it came from is.

Hmmm...he shut me up:-) Tim cracked up further!

***Editor's note: Tim read this and said I was inaccurate on one detail-TJ said he learned of Palm tree aging via the net-oops-who would've thunk????

The bone story:

So, on Thursday, before I left for the trip to the Hearts at Home conference (which by the way is soooo awesome and I recommend highly!!!) TJ is again telling us about playing outside as it's been pretty nice a couple of days here. Anyway, he tells us about this neighbor kid house he was at and how they found a bone. I was not super engaged with the story but hearing he found a BONE perked me up a bit...uh, what kinda bone, I inquire? Like a chicken bone???

Nope, it's about 10 inches long and they think it's from a leg or arm . Well, it's like 9pm at night and now TJ i all stressed about this bone. He wants to go into the neighbors yard (it was dug up from their sand box)and retrieve it so I can assess what kind of bone it is (being that I closely resemble an archaeologist???) since I'm a nurse. Yea...not an orthopedic nurse. Anyway, I tell him in hopes to make him let this go for the night that on Friday when he got home from school, he could go and get it and bring it home and I would look at it when I got back (again, not the best parental advice, likely). So I get home Saturday and I laid down with him for a few minutes and Tim came to join our conversation and asked if he had told me the bone story yet. Uh, no.

So, apparently, there's another kid who's mom is studying to become a nurse which obviously qualified her to assess the bone. She looked at it Friday afternoon and decided it was a leg bone due to apparent ligaments being visible (mind you I didn't see this bone) and she CALLED THE SHERIFF!!! So, they come out and our kids tell this story. The neighbor who's home it's from isn't home. The sheriff tells the boys (8 and 9 years old) that maybe the dad is a deer hunter and the "SAW" marks on the bone where from it being processed BUT just to be safe, they shouldn't play there for a few days until the department could assure that the bone "ISN'T HUMAN!!!".

Yea...uh, ok. So, this cop takes the bone in a bag that says OUR LAST NAME on it back to the department. Comforting. And worst part, if I'd seen the silly thing, I would have taken a picture of it to make this post way more cool!!!

Today, we've not heard anything of this mystery (freaky) bone analysis. Bu m CSI kid comes to me and says he's found another bone in OUR yard. So, I tell him to show me as I was really wondering if he's warped with his Hardy Boy novel reading. He brings this freaky flat bone with more saw marks on it-spooky. It was small though and frankly, ignorance is bliss and I'm not calling the sheriff again to have more bones taken in with our name on the evidence bag.

So, if you hear about any news flash about two adolescent kids from IN aiding the police in a murder case bust, it might be my Little Sherlock that they are talking about (I hope not-gross!).

PS If anyone wants to confirm my "he's full of it" regarding the palm branch story, please feel free:-)

Thursday, March 13, 2008

Busy boy!

I've been up to a lot and mom is going out of town for conference, so I thought I'd let everyone know what I've been up to...

Here I am -a busy boy blogging...

See what I've done-it's a handy touch screen!

Yea for me!!!

Now here I am escaping from what my parents think is a fail proof trap to keep me corralled...what amateurs!

I mean come on! Pillows-seriously, give a baby some credit-I'll just climb over them....

Ok ,so maybe I need a bit of help here-how on earth did I get my noggin thru but this lil body of mine won't fit-drats!

Ugh...foiled again! I don't see me getting around this one! What can I get into next?

Ah, yes! I think I'll accessorize. This scarf will do nicely.

It matches my puppy jammies nicely, don't you think?

I'm totally vogue here!

Strike a pose?

Do you think GQ will book me?

I'm so fashionable! What's next?

Ahhhhh, yes-the new fangled exersaucer playing.

What do you mean this isn't how it's entended for use?

No, you must be mistaken-this can't be yet another barrier my parents have set-up to keep me corralled?

Ughhhh! I give up! I'm not moving from this spot until someone gets me a lawyer!

Well, maybe I better go to bed now-I've got a big day coming up while mommy is away at a "learning how to be a better mommy conference"-I wonder why it's only one day???

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

My List

So over at one of my fav blogs to read, Confessions of a CF Husband one of their readers (this is how I think it got started) posted a list of things she loves about being a mom, more specifically the things she is excited about Nate's wife Tricia (who he calls Gwyneth's mom-come on follow me here:-) being able to love about being a mom very soon...anyway, if you've followed the blog, you know what I mean, if you haven't, you are missing out:-)

I have had a lot of instances lately where being a mom wasn't very fun but through the sovereignty (I think that's a word) of God, I have been able to look on the positive side of the situation...many of the blogs I follow such as Tricia, Candi, Amy, Claire, Boothe, Beth, etc (and sadly the list goes on and on) all of whom simply wish they could have a baby in their arms who wouldn't stop fussing or who would wake them at 3am because of a fever, cough or whatever...perspective.


I am trying very hard to take the moments that frustrate me and turn them into moments that I'm blessed enough to be in the midst of.







So, here's my list of things I pray Tricia can be in the midst of very soon too...some are sweet moments, some are mommy moments-but all are precious moments I am blessed to experience.




1) Having your snotty nose, stinky diaper baby looking up at you, fussing while you are trying to blog.




2) Said baby putting their precious head on your shoulder after you've picked them up to cuddle and to feel their sweet head on your shoulder touching your face, and feel their congested breathing against your chest.





3) Hearing the precious sounds of your new name (ma-ma) being called from their crib or other room.




4) Hearing your husband call you by your new name-Ma-ma.




5) Wiping a snotty nose for the gazzillionth time in an hour and half since your precious little one has been up.





6) cooking a gourmet meal only to hear "I wanted hot dogs and mac-n-cheese"




7) Anticipating the days when they call you to ask you how to boil water or ask you for a favor.




8) Having a sippy cup whack you in the back of the head while driving down the road





9) Being at Walmart and having to leave your groceries and drag out your tantrum laden toddler kicking and screaming as if you are a kid-napper.




10) Naptime and bedtime;-) Enough said...

...no seriously watching them sleep and hearing them breathe-or seeing their little hiney's in the air as they are all curled up with their little cheek against the mattress and drool stained sheets:-)


and I couldn't stop at 10-

because HUGS, sloppy wet, open mouth kisses, boo-boo kisses, security searching during storms, cooking together, midnight at the ER, the inability to complete the smallest task due to interruptions, the smell of their little head after bathtime, the smell of their neck after repetitive spit-up, endless searching for binkies, wishing for a moment of silence and wishing they would always be little and knowing neither will happen, piles of their stained laundry, first steps, waves bye-bye, and so many other wonderful mommy moments just wouldn't fit.

Give your wee-ones a tight hug and send up prayers for those who WAIT for these moments to become theirs to cherish.

Please consider making your own list in my comments section or posting one on your blog and leaving me a comment letting me know you did and then let Nate know so he can read them to Tricia:-) I look forward to your lists!

Monday, March 10, 2008

The gift that keeps on giving-mind me askin' ya how much that set you back?

Ok, so I bet you've all been sick wondering what I got for our 10 year anniversary???

Well, aile no more friends...except in jealousy maybe...




Exhibit A-old earrings worn gratefully for 10 years



Exhibit B-new earrings from the best Jeweler on earth~ Avenue Jewelers!
Thanks Jason for helping my hubby get my "Husband of the Year" award!


Comparison photo:

Disclaimer: the new earrings are much larger and more beautiful than they appear! The old earrings my hubby referred to as gumball machine earrings-the new ones he's yet to coin a phrase for, I'm guessing they are the "hope to be paid for by our 25th Anniversary earrings" though;-) Thank you baby-you're the best!

What did I get him you ask? You'll have to ask him:-)



So, I know you've frantically checked back hourly today to find out how Owen's evaluation went...

Well, it went-not so well. First of all, my little Angel was more of a demon than anything. You know it's bad when they ask you questions like is he usually this emotional? Does he always show his opinions in this way? Etc, etc. What way? You mean fussing and throwing toys isn't proper 1 year old behavior? Who knew?

So, you also know it's bad when they end by saying, so, since you asked for this evaluation, are you opposed to some more services being added. Uh, no, I say. Ok, how often are you available-uh, you want to move in or what???

I guess that means he qualified for speech therapy and apparently then some:) Way to go baby, mommy has your $5 waiting for ya!

Seriously though, it actually made me feel divided. I was sad that they saw so many areas that qualified him for their services but glad that I'm not crazy and expecting too much of him. Ahhh...to be continued;-)