Preschool Halloween

This was Halloween II for us (part III tonight). I was surprised that there were only 3 princesses! The other costumes included a tiger, lion, mini mouse, 2-Tinkerbell's, dog, zoo keeper, race car driver, transformer. Teacher Lesa was a skunk. I was so glad that her preschool did a Halloween party because so many schools don't and it's a holiday meant for kids.  

 I had to get a picture of Abi playing with her friend Nova on the teeter totter. This is what they do everyday at preschool.

 

Love is......

Love is my husband doing ALL the getting up last night, seriously love you!

Love is sticky buns, homemade waffles, curry pumpkin soup, wine, and friends.

Love is spending hours of your day pumping just so your baby has the best food ever, love ya sis!

Love is taking care of the ones that love you.

Love is family.

Silly little pumpkins

Abi decided that she wanted a scary pumpkin and Daddy would have a silly pumpkin.

 This picture makes me laugh because it is a direct reflection of what goes on in our house on a daily basis.  

 Abi wanted me to take a picture of her with a grouchy face, she is the dramatic one.

Ben in his favorite place, the oven drawer. I took this with my old camera because it was easier to grab, I think I'm turning into a picture snob because it looks so grainy to me.

A day in the life......

Abigail is finally starting to really like preschool, yay! She is happy to go and says "mom, you can go now" when I drop her off and has a smile when I pick her up. I'm so glad she is comfortable there. I'm also extremely happy to report that all her business is done on the potty and not even a pull-up at night. She is making me a very happy mom! Now we just need to get back into swim lessons.

Benjamin is toddling around and bumping his head on everything. He has a permanent bruise in the middle of his forehead, as soon as it heals he bumps it again (at least his hair usually covers it). I guess it's a small price to pay for having a large brain. He is also teething up a storm which is keeping us up at night and giving him diarrhea, which is giving him a really sore bum. Recap: bruised head, ouchy teeth, and a sore bum-POOR GUY!

The chickens have stopped laying, boo, sad day :( We think it's a combination of cold weather and less sun so Brad put a light in their coop-lets hope it works.

Sammy cat-same as always: hides under the bed, begs for attention, harasses the dog.

Maggie dog-well, she's a good dog but lets just say she kind of has a thing for Ben. We've caught her a few times (over several months) dry humping the air next to Ben as he is playing. This deeply disturbs me and makes me laugh at the same time. Silly dog, first of all you are a girl and second-KNOCK IT OFF!

Brad is training for a half marathon in December and is up to running ~9 miles! I'm so thankful to have such a great husband that is so good with kids and takes good care of them when I'm away helping my mom. We have a lot of friends that are good dad's so there's some tough competition but I still think I have the best dad and husband around.

I have an appointment to have an echo cardiogram on my heart this week. I'm a little nervous just because I haven't had my heart checked out in about 7 or 8 years and I've had two kids since then. I'm sure it's probably fine, my sister on the other hand will need heart surgery soon. They said she can't have another baby until she gets her aneurysm fixed. This is the only time in my life where I think my lack of activity (being lazy) may be a good thing. My mom's and sister's heart are worse for ware due to marathons and extreme working out (and the bad value we were born with). I'll get my results next week, then I'll probably need to think about getting the kid's hearts checked too. Although I'm not planning on having any more babies it would be kind of sad to be told I can't because of my heart. It is a genetic mystery why this heart value problem has been passed down in my family (my great grandma, mom, sister, me, my niece), usually it is just a birth defect that happens every so often and has no genetic link.

My mom will probably get sent home from the hospital this weekend, which is both good and bad. She will be more comfortable (and have way better food) but she'll need someone with all the time to help her with everything. I'm hoping my dad is up for the task and wishing I lived closer :( Her progress is very slow but she is making progress. She is being really strong so I tell myself I can be strong too. No more teary eyes, just love, strength, and recovery.

“ Love has nothing to do with what you are expecting to get, it’s what you are expected to give – which is everything. ” — Vittorio Alfieri

Corn maze/Pumpkin patch

Muddy, muddy, muddy -that's what you'd expect after so many days of rain, right? Last year Abi loved the corn maze, this year not so much. She did not like the mud and cried when we came across a mud puddle so Brad or I had to carry her part of the time. Ben was a little grouchy too, but he took a nap the second part of the maze in the back pack and both kids rallied for the pumpkin patch. I was hoping to get a cute family photo, not so much the kids were not in the mood :( but it was nice to get outside and be in the fresh air for a couple hours.

My mommy

Well, it sounds like my mom will have 7-10 more days in rehabilitation at the hospital and then she can hopefully become an outpatient. They are hopefully going to let her leave this Sunday for a little while to go home, but she has to go back after a few hours. If only she wasn't so dizzy (and could see) everything would be soooo much easier. She fell out of her wheel chair today, which makes fall #3 since surgery. She has fallen out of bed twice (only one of those times was her fault for trying to get up by herself) and out of the wheel chair once. They now have alarms on everything so if she moves someone comes in to check on her. Her heart rhythm seems to have gotten better with drugs but her blood pressure is still kind of high. She seems surprisingly OK with everything that has happened (coping well) and is being her tough self which makes us all feel a little better. She is doing really good in her psychical and occupational therapy but still can't perform very many tasks on her own (still needs help going to the bathroom, changing, ect.). Still praying for a small miracle that some of her eyesight will come back, it would be such a shame for her to never see her adorable grand babes again. Sometimes miracles happen....... It seems so odd to be going on with everyday life like nothing happened, but soon enough our lives will be changed too.

Sure does feel this way sometimes.....

Pooh on the potty!!!!!!!!!!!

Exciting news, Abi is finally going #2 on the potty! It was starting to get a little embarrassing having a 3 year old that would only go #2 in a diaper, although she's been peeing in the potty for 6 six months. We have been telling her forever that we would go to the Hello Kitty store at the mall and she can pick out anything when she started going #2 on the potty. So now I guess we'll have to go, sounds expensive!

Preschool Pumpkin Patch

Story time at the pumpkin patch

 Time to pick a pumpkin and not in the mood to be photographed

 Snack time

Group picture-almost impossible

 Abi had a great time (and so did Ben), she was upset when it was time to go.

And then there was 3?!?!?!?

NOT REALLY! But occasionally I do find myself wondering what if we had one more baby. Most of the time the sane part of my brain is telling myself that is absolutely crazy and there is no way you would survive, I am exhausted and completely spent everyday with two kiddos. The other non-rational part of my brain is telling myself I would LOVE to have one more baby. I think babies are an addiction like crack or potato chips, you can't have just one and once you start you don't want to stop. Ben is almost not a baby anymore and it is the best thing ever to have a baby around. If only I had a husband that didn't love kids too. Don't worry, no plans for a third and the odds are we won't have another one but I guess we're not totally ready to rule it out completely.

Monday

Life isn't always what you think it should be. My son is learning how to walk and so is my mom. My kids look to me for everything, getting dressed, bathed, fed, going potty, and right now my mom needs help with all those things too. Doesn't seem fair. She is getting stronger and relearning her motor skills and how to walk. No improvement on her vision and her heart has a funny rhythm that they are hoping to fix with drugs but may have to do procedure to shock her heart back into rhythm. The bad thing about the procedure is that there is a risk of stroke which is the last thing we need. Everything is so up in the air, how long is she going to be in the hospital rehabilitation unit? How are they going to fix her heart rhythm? Will she fully recover from the stroke? Will her vision improve? How long will it take? What's going to happen when she can go home? So many questions. Today someone said to me, "Oh, she's not as bad as I thought" (referring to my mom) and it left me thinking easy for you to say, how can it be worse? But I need to remember things can always be worse and that I'm grateful for what we DO have and what IS good. Somehow we'll get through this and be stronger for it, although it may not feel that way right now. In the meantime I'm trying to enjoy every moment of Ben's silly grin as he toddles around and babbles and Abi being the funny, opinionated, sweet girl that she is. They are starting to actually play together nicely and it is the gosh darn cutest thing I've ever seen. I can tell they are best friends in the making. I love the way their eyes light up when they are excited about something, like when Abi tells me about preschool or when Ben steals a toy from Abi and runs away laughing. They remind me that life is good, even if it's not what you think it should be.  

That's what friends are for

Thanks everyone for the calls and support. It has meant a lot to feel the love from my friends near and far, it really does help to know that someone cares. I hope I can be as good of a friend and return the favor.

My mom, sister, and I and the grand babies Abi, Evie, and Ben (last Mother's Day)

Happy kiddos

Sweet, happy kiddos make everything better.

Today

The MRI of my mom's brain showed no conclusive evidence of a stroke (which can happen) but because of her symptoms there is no other cause they can come up with so we are still calling it a stroke. They are moving her to the rehabilitation floor of the hospital today for up to 10 days to get her strength, balance, coordination, and of course get her walking again. After that she can go see a ophthalmic neurologist to get her eyes figured out. I have so many mixed emotions about everything that has happened this past week. Sometimes I tell myself everything is going to be fine and my mom will get better, other times I just cry and wonder how the hell are my parents going to survive when my dad can't hear and my mom can't see. She got the surgery done to fix her heart so she could live and enjoy life again but it's been given to her and taken away all at the same time. The doctor said her aneurysm was so bad she probably wouldn't have lived much longer without surgery, so I'm thankful she's alive and sad she may never see her grand babies again. The glass is half empty and half full. I'm so thankful to still have my mom, although she does drive me crazy sometimes but she's my mom and I love her. Last spring I took my mom with me to a children's birthday party over at my friend Sue's house. My mom was being how she is at parties and I was looking down at the ground shaking my head and my friend Sue shrugged her shoulders and said to me "At least you have a mom" which was significant coming from a friend that lost her mom way too soon. I wanted to say "But my mom is kind of crazy" I didn't of course but it did make me think sometimes it's easy to pick out the flaws in people, harder sometimes to see the good, and sometimes the good is covered up weakness. My mom brought me into this world and made the person I am today: anally clean, hard working, caring, appreciative, good driver, red meat lover (the important stuff). She taught me how to love deeply and have compassion. I hope somehow I can give something back to her, even if she doesn't get her sight back, I hope I can make her see that it was worth it to be alive.

The good and the bad

The good news is that my mom's heart is working perfectly and she is in no pain. No pain meds but Tylenol for the past day and a half which is impressive since open heart surgery was just 3.5 days ago. The bad news is that the doctors are pretty sure she suffered a stoke during surgery. We are hoping today they can do an MRI to confirm the stroke but they can't do an MRI until they get her pacing wires out and they can't take the pacing wires out until her blood thickens up a little from all the drugs they have given her. Her brain has cleared and she is back to normal but she still can't see very well which is why we assume she had a stroke. When I look at her she looks blind, her eyes don't move they just stare straight ahead unfocused and her left eyelid droops a little lower. She can see a little but is not able to move her eyes at all and can see best when one eye is closed, like her eyes are working against each other rather than together. It breaks my heart that my mom may never be able to drive, read a book, or look me in the eye again. I try to keep it together in front of her but at least she can't see me when a tear does spill out. Hopefully today will bring more answers, improvement, and recovery. I know nothing is impossible and recovery from a stroke is possible, we are just hoping for the best and trying to stay positive.

Update

Going down to see my mom today. I can't wait to get on the road and go straight to the hospital. I can't help but be worried. She has been acting really goofy since she woke up and has to have someone with her all hours of the day because she won't stop pulling on her tubes and lines. They are not sure if it's the medication making her act so weird which may take a few days to wear off or it's possible she had a stroke. There are moments where it seems like she knows what's going on but then she forgets where she is and says weird things about the cats. She got moved out of the ICU which is good but we just have to wait and see if her brain starts clearing up.

My mom

My mom's open heart surgery went well, no complications and everything went as expected. She started waking up last night but was still really out of it. Today she's not feeling well, nausea and pain but they are hoping to get her up out of bed today and HOPEFULLY out of the ICU. I'm looking forward to visiting her tomorrow and I'll try to update my blog later this week. Thanks everyone for sending your thoughts and prayer our way.

Gabby

Got to love that little crooked smile :)

Ben's 1st b-day celebration

Ben had a great first b-day. He loved his cake and got lots of presents! Brad had to take a picture of Ben's cake in progress because he thought the brown frosting looked like, well use your imagination.

I was thanking my lucky stars that the cougs won because everyone was happy and ready to celebrate.

 When we sang happy birthday he looked a little bewildered but he cheered right up when we put the cake in front of him.

 He actually did a really good job digging into his cake, we had to take it away from him so he wouldn't eat it all.

 Abi and Gilly being cowgirls.

 We had to strip him down after the cake so we had cute naked Ben the rest of the night.

 New fuzzy hat

 Lots of toys!

 New books too!

 He also got some new stuffed friends and lots of really, really cute clothes (there just wasn't a good way to get a picture of his new cute outfits).

Thanks everyone for the wonderful gifts and celebrating Ben with us!!!!!! He's our little piece of heaven and we love him to pieces.