Arbor Day

Mama and the boys

Anyone seen my sheep?

Adventures with SpiderMan

Just another Tuesday...

Momo stopped by this afternoon for a quick visit.  Family in town.  Novel, no?

Laptop or Recliner? You Decide.

Alternative Caption: I'm beat. Glad they finally got a chair my size.

Toe Typing!

I'll show you all the raisins in my mouth if you don't make me move. Deal? Deal!?!

Life Lately

Why I Need to Run

The M&M's just left after a few days of helping out.  They claim they weren't too handy, but after keeping the freezer stocked with Bluebell, I've got no complaints.

Couch potato to 5k has been percolating in my brain recently.  I think I'm going to heal up for a while longer, then go for it.  Anyone out there tried it before?  I really am not a runner, so I suppose at the end (high hopes for finishing, here) I'll tell you that if I can do it, anyone can. 

Equal Parts Delight, Repulsion, and Fascination

We're talking worms, here people. 

The repulsion is mostly on my part.

Jon has been gardening/landscaping up a storm.  I've done a less than stellar job documenting all his projects with before and after pictures, but I will tell you that it has involved lots of digging and worm hunting by a certain little guy. 

We've got a cutie little garden consisting of lettuce, spinach, beets, and carrots.  I'm hoping my calling it a cutie little garden does not down play the manly efforts that have gone into actual food growing in our yard.  We also now have a rock border surrounding two different flower beds (complete with flowers!), a weeded yard (hand-weeded, folks), and variety of new welcoming plants on our front steps.

Meanwhile, S-Man has been absorbed in the task of finding and corralling his little friends.  I have to bite my lip when it seems the crawlers know that death is imminent and somehow escaped S-Man's watch to his complete bafflement.  Last night I heard my favorite line yet, "Uh oh..... two worms now."

  

Holy Exploding Diapers, Batman!

I am better.  S-Man is recovering from another ruptured ear drum, although you would never know it.  It's Lil'O that is a mess.  You know those blogs that you read where the mom is always dishelved, kids are puking, and poop is who knows where?  And then you laugh and laugh, because you can totally relate.  Sorry to say, it turns out I'm not one of those people who can blog about 10 loads of laundry and raging fevers in a fun, up-beat, comical way.  Bummer. 

Good thing I've got excellent help around here. 

A-Okay!

All is well. 

Surprisingly, once out of surgery it was my calves that were super sore.  I had these tight velcro-y-bands wrapped around them when I woke up, and I'm thinking they must have something to do with my low(ish) blood pressure.  It felt like I had just run a 5k or finally finished P90X.  Has anyone else experienced this phenomena?  Quite unexpected, I tell you.

Here's the last conversation I had with my surgeon.
"What's the recovery going to be like?"
"There is no recovery.  Alright, you ready?"

Turns out that wasn't baloney.  There has been little to no pain.  I keep getting nervous about impending pain, but nope.  Good news, huh? 

7 months home!

Alrighty, folks.  Tomorrow we celebrate 7 months home as a family.  Tomorrow I'm also having a lump removed from my breast.  Super festive, right?

It's not cancerous, so that's the good news.  I'd appreciate some prayers for a super speedy recovery, because I'm thinking it won't be too much fun to tote kids around when I'm sore.

That's it for today! 

The End is in Sight

The Ol-ister and I just got back from a helmet appointment.  We stayed over night with some good buddies in Fort Worth that we hadn't seen in a while.

Do you want the good news or the bad news first?

Let's start with the bad.
No head growth.  We are pretty much at the end of our helmet wearing days.  We will have one more appointment in May to take some final measurements, a 3D image, and do the after pictures.  I knew it was coming, but it was still so disappointing.  His head shape has improved, but it is still so far from where we wanted to end. 

On to the good.
We are almost done wearing that blasted helmet!  Seriously, it is really starting to stink, which I can only assume will get worse during the dog days of summer.

Dad and S-Man stayed home and it sounds like they had a manly man weekend.  It was the first time I ever talked to Super Man on the phone, and it was one of my favorite parts of the trip.  If you've never had that privilege, give him a call some time.  He's a talkative little ham.

We also stayed with Ryan and Susan, and it was super fun to see them and hang out.  Next time we head to Dallas, they will be a family of three!  Can't wait to meet baby Beck!   

one of the joys of my life

Seeing how this sweet child fell asleep the other night makes me happy for so many reasons.   

I think we are trapped in a whirlwind.  Or maybe this is what people are talking about when they start asking where the time went.  Between house guests, the hubs traveling for work, Dallas helmet adjustments, surgery for the boys, upcoming surgery for myself, and some other things that are fleeing my sleep-deprived brain, we haven't had a free weekend in who knows how long.  My guess is around 8 weeks.  This may be the new normal. 

We just watched Moneyball.  I give it two thumbs up.  Questions:  Do all baseball teams now run their organizations based on statistics presented in the movie?  If not, why?  If so, doesn't that negate the idea of beating a team with deep pockets if everyone is doing it?  Once upon a time, my wise older brother told me that I just didn't understand baseball and I should keep my mouth shut after I made some flippant comment about how easy the game was.  No strategy.  Just hit the ball and run.  Sadly, we were probably even at a game when I said such things, trying to find a comfortable position for a nap after my book had been confiscated.  Now, it seems as if he may have been right.

Here's some other big, blog worthy news... the M&M's are moving to our very own town!  They sold their house in Oklahoma before it was even listed.  In like, 2 days.  When I heard this, I told them to get on their hands and knees and thank the good Lord above.  Hurry on down, I say.  We are looking for cheap (free!) babysitters, because as you may or may not remember, we still haven't seen the 2nd half of the Hunger Games.

And I'll give once last shout out.... Happy birthday grrrrrandpa!

Easter 2012

After Jessie and Kristen left, unka Josh from Cah-wa-wado came for the weekend. 

I will apologize now to any future guests we have. 

#1. My kids are spoiled.  The first thing S-Man did when Josh got here was try to unzip his bag asking, "toys? toys?"

#2. If you are a light sleeper, the proximity of the guest bedroom to the boys' room will make sleeping in an impossibility.  I think Josh decided that he would bring his tent next time and set it up in the back yard. 

#3. My boys are squirrely.  Way squirrely sometimes.  Just take a look at these pictures. The photo shoot was over when Josh got kicked in the nose. 

Despite the two little jelly beans, we still had a great time with Josh.  Come back soon and bring more jerky!

Year in a Weekend Recap

Once upon a time, I watched the bachelorette with two good buddies who may or may not still watch the bachelorette.  Lucky me, I got to spend the weekend with those very buddies.  I'll try to record some highlights for posterity's sake.  (And for a friend who has no memory.  I won't name names.) 

Here we are, in our Valentine's Day best.  Mama, Kitchen, and Jessie, according to a certain 3-year-old. He came a long way considering he started the weekend by calling these lovely ladies Kitchen and Other Kitchen.  I think his best line of the weekend was when Jessie got up and he said, "Look.... This one awake."

During our time together we managed to squeeze in a communal birthday party, Easter, Groundhog Day, 4th of July, Christmas, first day of school, Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Super Bowl, New Year's, Valentine's Day, Halloween, and Saint Patty's day.  Whew.  No wonder both our boys have been found crashed out in the living room in the days that followed.

One of my favorite parts of the weekend included opening Christmas presents and then playing Hedbanz, Kristen's gift for Jon.

The gist of the game includes sticking an unseen card to your forehead, then asking yes/no questions to try and guess what you are.  Lots of "Have I been there?  Do I like me?  Do you like me?  Am I fun?" type of questions.  

One of my other favorite parts of the weekend was lunch at On the Border.  It was good to just sit and catch up, and I realized that although I have known these buds for a least 10 years, there were still new things I learned about each of them.  Now I feel old saying that I have known my college buds for at least 10 years.  Sheesh.  Didn't we just graduate?

I feel blessed to still have these women in my life and look forward to more weekend rendezvous in the future. 

Just watch out for that jellyfish.  She'll attack hula girls.

Love this Hat, Love these People

Potato Glasses

Jessie and Kitchen

Sadly, Year in a Weekend has come and gone.  I'm having a hard time organizing my thoughts and pictures into a post without it becoming a book, so I'm just going to put up some of my favorite pictures for now.