Grandparents Visit

Last week was a lot of fun and very productive for our family. John's Parents flew in last Wednesday and stayed until Sunday. The time flew way too fast for all of us...well at least John, the kids and I. The girls were thrilled to have Grandma & Grandpa at our house and would wake up every morning and ask where Grandma or Grandpa were and then spent the 1st 10 minutes of the day showing John and I that they were here.

Everyone was all tuckered out!

John and his dad did a LOT of work on the house. It rained the first day they were here but after that the weather was actually quite cooperative and almost warm at times. John and his Dad finished the siding on the back of the house-that was a huge task in and of itself, they got some more lights and outlet covers up inside and they cleaned and organized my basement. It looks so pretty and not nearly as scary as it has over the last couple of months. I may even dare go down there by myself again. :) Maybe...
z

I was able to spend a lot of good time with John's Mom who is an absolute sweetheart. She's was a sport following the girls around, dancing with them and was even able to do McKenna's hair a time or two. I was able to get out and do a little antiquing and a little shopping at IKEA where I did lose her for a while-it's a pretty big store. On the way home we saw the most beautiful rainbow, which we thought was just a half, but as we approached the freeway we found it to be a FULL rainbow. Almost crashed trying to get a good look at it, so didn't even attempt to get a picture. I know I enjoyed the adult girl time alone without the kids.

Saturday we all got out to the Park and had a little fun. Grandpa is a whiz with the camera and got a lot of good shots of us all.

Not so happy to be leaving

We were sad to see them leave, we don't get to see them nearly enough!

Fall is in the Air

Today is Veteran's Day and I just realized my Dad is working...don't Bankers get the day off? Sadly enough to the rest of the us for the most part it's business as usual.

Yesterday the girls were cracking me up and driving me crazy all at the same time. I have to write about the funny stuff before I forget it all.

McKenna has learned a new word. I know it must have come from school, because it's not a word I've heard since I was in school, elementary or Jr High. I wish I could remember the exact context it was used but my Mommy brain is getting the best of me. I just remember McKenna asking a question and when I answered she said, "oh, cool." Cool? Really? it's been used several times over the last couple of days and it cracks me up everytime I hear it.

Yesterday I had the computer on and Tyler walked up and said, "my turn Mommy," as she reached for the mouse. She doesn't really know what to do with it or how to make it work other than she's seen us all use it. I thought it was funnyand asked her, "who are you?" (meaning that you would know to use a computer) and she promptly replied with, "I'm Nenna (McKenna)." That seemed about right...

I bought McKenna a SuperGirl costume the otherday since they were closing them out. She's mainly a princess and "dolls'"(aka barbie) fan so she surprised me when we got home and she put it on and did a "superhero" pose declaring herself, "Superhero McKenna." Later on we were up feeding the goats and I asked her to show me how she flew, thinking she'd run and watch her cape fly behind her. Instead she took a few jumps and then sighed sadly with a disappointed, "ohhh." Sometimes it's all you can do to not laugh and just beam...with pride.

For some reason, and I'm not complaining but this year we didn't get a lot of leaves in our yard. The wind must have been blowing a different direction? Yesterday I decided to rake up the few leaves and the many mushrooms that are trying to take over the yard. The girls helped giving me a few fun autumn shots, too bad the leaves are brown and dried up and not the vibrant colors they were a few weeks ago. Did anyone else notice how pretty the leaves were this year?

Proof the sun really was out

Good Lil Workers!

Photography & Pigtails

I think I mentioned this before, but I'm taking an online digital photography class. I'm a little behind as we are having some technical difficulties logging on but Leslie has kept me up on the homework and so here are some of the pictures I've taken.

Action-Leaves in the Wind

Political/Freedom Pictures

Tyler got her 1st set of Pigtails today. It's such a happy day for me, sadly I still remember the first time we got McKenna in pigtails. I'm such a girlie girls Mom.

Tyler Oct '08

McKenna Feb '06

John's Surgery

To everyone who knows or doesn't know by now, yes I did have a surgery today. At my follow up appointment on Friday the x-ray showed a non union fracture. The options are to cut my thumb off at the nail or try to repair it. I'm not ready to part with the thumb just yet so I opted surgery. Seeing as Melanie is going to pop pretty soon I wanted to "git r dun". Monday was open so it was fast. Basically he took a small core of bone from my radius and grafted it to the tip of my thumb and put a couple of pins in to hold it in place. ORIF of the distal phalanx for all you medical people. I will have the pins removed in about 4-6 weeks. This way I can start to get my joint more mobile on my thumb as it's been stiff for about 6 weeks already. I'm feeling pretty good and everything seem to go well. My only worry at this point is getting sensation back at the tip but that remains to be seen. The moral of the story is be smarter than me in the shop or if you can't pay someone to do your job. At this point I could've hired someone to do a lot more work for what I've spent on this incident. Thanks to everyone and your thoughtfulness. I look forward to thumb wrestling each one of you.

John

Trick-0r-Treat

For as long as I can remember I have loved Halloween...in it's simplest and most traditional of ways. I love the pumpkins-the picking and most of all the carving. I love the costumes and the trick-or-treating...or in more modern term, "Trunk-o-Treat".

This year I lived vicariously through Tyler and McKenna dressing them up as princesses. McKenna was thrilled by the idea but I know Tyler didn't care. I was very pleased with the outcome and thought they were every bit as cute as I'd hoped. (Said like a true Mom don't you think?) What's funny about McKenna is she was dressed by 8:30 this morning and acted the role of a true princess: Soft-spoken, kind, and even potty trained. (Didn't have an accident all day.) There were a couple of non-princess like behavior but who wants to remember those? Tyler on the other hand put her costume on for about 10 minutes this morning and then didn't want anything to do with it until I shoved it on her right before the festivities began at the church. I think it grew on her as she didn't want to get out of it at the end of the night.

Ok so maybe she doesn't look thrilled, but this is her the camera is in my face look/pose.

Trick or Trunk w/cookies for those who didn't get candy.

...and even some who did

Not even Dad could escape the fun of playing Dress up and practicing for Halloween!

Actually he designed all of McKenna's outfits this night.

So much fun!

A-OK

It's been a little over a week since I've seen my Dr. I did have an ultrasound last Thursday but we kind of skipped seeing the Dr. Anyway today I had another ultrasound and then chatted with my Dr. The good news is that my fluid increased to a level 14 (10 or above is optimal) and so I was given the clear all and the "A-Ok" to get off my lazy bum. I was so excited I went out and bought me a Shark Steam Cleaner for my hard floors. Here's to being able to clean instead of watching the dust and dirt settle...at least this week.

The Ultrasound Tech gave me a little souvenir, here is the latest and pry last profile picture of Lil John. It was a little hard for me to distinguish, so good luck!

Nesting Takes a Stand

I'm mentally done with this bedrestedness-Ok, not that I've really spent all that time laying down but last night I'd finally had it. Can't take the mess anymore. The piles of paper, mail and books on the island and table, the messy floor, the bathroom...do I dare even go there? So last night I started cleaning-with the worst of it all, not the basement although I hope to clean that up someday soon, but the bathroom. It's a small room, I don't move around much so I think it qualifies for taking it easy.

The weather the past couple of days has been beautiful the sun being out and it's actually warm-if I was a really good mom we'd actually get outside to enjoy it before the sun is starting to set. In an effort to clean out the carport a little, I brought in a couple of empty boxes that contained chairs and made a couple of tunnels for the girls. They had fun going through them and then we decided to decorate them. Good thing we played in them first, after decorating they will no longer stay up by themselves.

Last but certainly not least, McKenna's teacher Ms Robinson came over for a quick parent-teacher conference today. It was fabulous to hear that McKenna is doing so well. She will sit for the full 15 minute circle time, she's engaging with her classmates, whom are all boys. Not so much the rowdy boys, but she's really taken to the quiet boys, especially Owen. Ms Robinson did say they are working on just hi-5's and short, "1,2,3 stop" hugs. Something we are also working on at home with her hugging Tyler. McKenna is such a girl. She also said that we need to re-evaluate her goals as she is doing so well they need to set them a little higher. After last Spring's evaluation and my frustration it's a breath of fresh air to hear that she's grown up so much. They said she even uses the potty at school...for M&M's but still any progress is still progress. Keep it up McKenna!

Macro Monday

I have a few friends who are very good photographers and they always post a Macro Monday of beautiful and awesome photos they've taken. I am by no means a photographer, but it's something that I hope one day I can do well. I've signed up for an online class that starts Nov 1st and I'm very excited for it. It's pretty basic but is going to teach me to use my standard digital camera so that I can take the best possible pictures.

In my excitement, and with the beautiful weather & the autumn leaves I decided to play around with the macro feature of my camera and so in the spirit of Macro Monday here are the results.

House Update

John's been really great with the girls over the last week, (more so than usual )taking over each evening as he gets home from work. This morning he took McKenna to her 1st primary practice for our program in a couple of weeks. He said she was great walked right in, found her seat and plopped right down...although the seat kind of folded up on her she's such a light weight. After she got home I was watching her and she suddenly seems to have grown up a little bit more. John surprised me with a couple of rust colored Mums for just outside our door. They are beautiful and perfect for fall, it was such a wonderful surprise!

John's also been working so hard on the house trying to get things done and in order before Jr comes. This evening Mike Fernandez came over and finished putting the hard wood down in the entry ways.

front entry

Carport Entry

John also built the "boxes" which will be the drawers and cupboards for my island and placed our old table top on it as a temp countertop. Hopefully there will be new countertops by the end of the month.

Things are coming along so nicely and I'm feeling better all the time about getting things done before this little boy comes. Can you tell I'm nesting? I do have a hard time calling him by a name until he is born, but he reminds me quite frequently with strong kicks that he is doing well. Sometimes I think he might have a similar temperment to McKenna. When I was pregnant with Tyler she would kick in the evenings but it was more like she was dancing and having a party. When the kid kicks it feels like he's trying to break free, but that could be flashbacks from reading "Breaking Dawn."

Drama Update

This afternoon John and I made the much anticipated trip to the Dr's office to see how things were going. I have to admit I didn't sleep much last night and the morning seemed to drag on and on. I've had a lot of anxiety over the situation with this little boy and if he should arrive early.

Much to John's surprise we were able to get right in for our ultrasound and the tech made no bones about getting the measurements needed to find out the fluid levels. Much to our relief things have improved, my fluid levels went from a 7.8 up to a 9, 10 is ideal but we'll take a 9. It's always been a lucky number for me. Anyway it felt like a huge weight had been lifted off our shoulders and we went back to the Lobby to wait out turn to talk to the on-call Dr. 10 minutes later we found out that our Dr was running extremely late and knowing the results of the ultrasound and talking with the receptionist-who spoke quickly with the dr-we were given permission to leave. (Traffic at 4 in the afternoon is horrendous as it is.) I have an appointment with my Dr next week as well as another ultrasound to make sure that things are still well-in the meantime I am to continue Drinking and taking it easy and staying with the not so strict bedrest.

I can't end without telling Leslie thank you for watching the girls. It was one of the few times I have returned home and found smiles and laughter instead of tears of anger for my absence. Leaves my heart feeling happy!