Out on the Town

Friday night, I got a much needed break from the usual. I got to go to Austin to celebrate my college roomie's 30th Bday. We had quite the night out on the town. Here is the bday girl, the old fart. If you knew her at HU, you would not believe how hot she looks now. A girl can say that about another girl, right? Our old khaki-wearing, chem lab living Darla was showing off her amazing legs and having a blast. I got onto her for not meeting me earlier (before the sun went down) because I needed to "shoot" her. She looked AMAZING. She was definitely not within Harding's dress code ;-) Somehow I managed to get this fab candid even though it was taken in some lounge/restaurant/bar place. I'm not sure the technical name for the establishment, but it was really dark in there.



Happy Birthday to an amazing woman, mommy, and friend.

And to all of the other mommies out there, I hope that you get to take a night off every so often. I have obviously been away from my kids overnight, and Dee and I have gone away together, but I have never left the kids overnight for just me to go do something purely frivolous. It was divine!!!

An Interesting Conversation

I know I don't normally post this often, but I am trying to keep myself awake right now. I just took a Vicodin, and I am home w/ Ty who is pigging out on a hamburger, fries, and nilla wafers. The reason for the Vicodin is the lovely kidney stone that I was diagnosed with this afternoon. What a fun day! I am seriously about to fall asleep, so I am standing up and typing. Dee should be back with Emily soon. He took her to rent some movies in case I need some "babysitting" tomorrow.

So here's the conversation I had with Emily today. She was riding around on Ty's red ride-on car. She had a toy cell phone and a green maraca in the trunk of the car. The cell phone made sense to me, but I asked her why she needed this as I held up the maraca. Her reply was "Put that back, Mommy, there's blood in there."

*Insert mild panic attack by me wondering what kind of warped child I have raised*

Me: Why is there blood in there?

Emily: It's princess blood

Me: Where did you get it? (hoping for a non-violent answer)

Emily: (said very matter-of-factly) From Target--I got the princess blood at Target

I left it at that. She played with the princess blood all morning.

Then she proceeded to fill our entry way with pillows, blankets, books, and pajamas. I asked her why she was getting all of this stuff out of her room.

Emily: I am getting ready for my friends to spend the night with me.

Me: Oh, really. When are they going to be here?

Emily: In a few minutes. They are on the road right now.

On the road? Where did she learn that?

Me: Who is coming?

Emily: Kylie, Macey (both her cousins), Makenna (church friend), Emma, Izabella (daycare friends), Kelsey (baby at church), Kel-sell-ee (no idea), and Landry (baby at church)

She welcomed each and every friend to her home. Then she played with them for about 30 minutes. It was really cute. So any of those girls' mommies who may be reading this, your girls had a great time in our entryway this morning. Even the babies. Just thought you'd want to know ;-)

So this is Emily Monday night with all of her loot from Chuck E Cheese. She had over 300 tickets that her Daddy won for her. Well, let me give credit where credit is due--she probably won 15 of them herself. I thought she'd go for the magic wand or lipstick pen with pad of paper compact. But she wanted the Fun Dip. Nasty. I never liked it. It took about 10 minutes for me and the prize lady to convince her that she can have the Fun Dip AND lots of other stuff, too. The Fun Dip only cost about 40 tickets. The prize lady finally laid a bunch of girly prizes out and said pick what else you want until she had reached her limit. She got a ponytail holder, 2 rings, fake ear rings, and a bracelet. She wanted to wear all of it and eat her Fun Dip. I made her eat it outside.





And this is Emily's pedicure. When we were in Allen, my SILs and MIL and I took the 3 youngest girl cousins to get pedicures. The mommies got full spa pedicures including hot stones. The little girls got their toe nails painted. Emily and I got flowers on our big toes, so we could "match." She is very proud of her toes.



I am seriously about to drop. I think I hear my hubby pulling up. Yay! It seems that every post lately includes some type of health problem. I don't know what the deal is. We are normally a healthy family. Here's hoping that things get back to normal really soon!

Milestones

We're back! I just needed to pat myself on the back for being gone for 10 days with my kiddos. We all survived and had a wonderful time. After getting a chest xray and a good report from Ty's doctor, we headed off to Arkansas. By we, I mean Emily, Ty, and me. By ourselves. In the car. From Temple, TX to Searcy, AR.

I normally try not to write fragments, but I wanted you to understand the drama in the above statement.

We stayed there for 7 days visiting with my 2 sisters and 1 brother, their spouses, and most importantly, my niece and nephew. And Grammy was there visiting as well! On our way home, we stopped in Allen at Dee's sister's house. Dee met up with us at that point, and we enjoyed being with his side of the family over the 4th weekend.

Did I mention I got to meet, hold, and squeeze my scrumptious new baby niece for the first time?

One major milestone that was met were my adorable children visiting the Harding campus. It was actually Emily's 2nd time on campus, but the 1st time, it was too cold for us to go out and explore. She was also 9 months old then. Emily and Ty did something very important while on campus. And no, I do not mean that they declared a major (although Emily did say that she was going to go to college to learn how to be a princess). They got to play on the "front lawn" and swing in the Harding swings. Em called them the "little white swings." Ty simply enjoyed the wide open spaces as well as the vast array of sticks and leaves that were perfect toys. I never realized until last week that my children are deprived of such joys being that we live in a relatively new subdivision where the trees are too young to drop sticks in the grass!

I should also mention that one afternoon we took Carter to McDonald's for the first time. This just so happened to be the McDonald's where I worked my senior year. Ah, the memories... He also took a bunch of steps to none other than his good ole Aunt Melissa! At that moment, it was the most he had taken in a row, but I am sure he has surpassed that by now.

So, like I said, we saw many milestones while we were in Searcy-Land. Wanna see some pics?

Here is the future princess-ology student enjoying the "little white swing."


And don't let stick boy fool you; he enjoyed swinging as well.


So this is my favorite picture in the world right now. LOVE him!


Grammy and baby Claira are enjoying some swing time, too!


It was not easy to take a picture of Grammy with a baby and 3 wiggly ones.


This was Emily's first ride in a golf cart. Her Mama's never even ridden in a golf cart. I am surprised that this phone isn't permanently fused to my bro's ear. He is the director of Uplift at Harding, so he has been eating, breathing, and sleeping Uplift for the past few weeks.


I couldn't decide which picture I liked best, so here are 2 of Ty and Carter on the swing.




The boys are playing in the toddler area of McDonald's. I should mention that my sister and I like to torture the boys by dressing them similarly. They were supposed to be born about 5 days apart, but it ended up being more like 5 weeks since Ty was early and Carter was late. They matched at least 3 times besides the similar clothes they are wearing here. They're going to kill us when they're older :-)


This is Carter staring at all of the big kids playing on the slides. Isn't he adorable?


There is so much more I could say about our trip. There are many more amazing photos. And I haven't even talked about our time with Dee's family yet. I wonder if I will be able to get caught up on everything before we leave for our cruise...

By the way, Ty does still have pneumonia. He is much better, and the chest xray showed a 40% reduction in the amount of "gunk" in his right lung. And that was in just one week. He no longer as any restrictions on activities, so my life is easier now that we can go swimming, go to the park, etc. We don't have to go back until after the cruise unless his symptoms worsen.

That's finally all, folks. Thanks for reading!

Things are better for Ty, worse for me...

Ty is doing better; the doctor said there is an improvement, but he is still struggling to breathe. So we are continuing the breathing treatments/wrestling matches while Ty finishes his antibiotics and steroids. Thanks so much for all of the prayers. I know that they are working because today (after getting a good night's sleep for the first time all week), he has had a great day. We go back to the doc on Thursday.

On the other hand, I have been staying far, far away from him since I seem to have a stomach virus. I won't go into any more details because I don't want to gross anyone out.

Dee is such a super-hero husband at times like this--he made pancakes this morning, took the kids grocery shopping (he has never taken both by himself before), fed them lunch, got them down for really long naps, and cleaned the den, dining room, and kitchen. And he's managed to force me to drink Gatorade in the middle of all of this!

Needless to say, my trip to Arkansas to visit my siblings is now postponed. I was supposed to leave today. Hopefully, we will get to go at the end of next week. I'm going to go back to bed now, but I just wanted to update in case anyone was wondering how little man is doing.

One Great Week + One Awful Week = Lapse in Blogging

I have been needing to update so badly, but I have had a crazy few weeks since school let out. Let me start by saying how wonderful last week was...

We take our kids out of daycare during the summer, but we had to pay until 6/15, so we kept using daycare even though school was out. This was a huge benefit to me since Dee had to go to a football clinic at the end of the week. I was able to be home ALL BY MYSELF and clean, organize, watch TV, just do whatever I wanted! Surprisingly, I spent little time on the computer, and I also spent no time napping. I just got my house back into shape, and I spent some time finding activities and games to keep us occupied this summer. I even made Emily some folders, one for each day of the week, and every day, we open that day's folder and do the activity or game or project I have printed off.

Emily has also been having swimming lessons with the coach of our high school swim team. She has been teaching kids to swim for ages, and she also happens to have a grandaughter Emily's age. She wanted to work with her grandchild but needed a pool, so I told her she could use our subdivision pool if she gives my kids lessons too--this is a really nice barter. First, she does the 2 girls together, and then I watch them in the baby pool while she does a 15 minute lesson with Ty. He screams through his lesson, but I am amazed--he can hold his breath in the water, and if you put him under, he knows how to reach for the side, pull himself up, and hold on. Emily is swimming like a little fish and is also trained to swim to the side, hold on, and she can walk down the side while holding on and go to the stairs. What they are learning could be lifesaving one day. I am thrilled with their progress!

So now for the awful part. Ty is sick AGAIN. On Sunday, he woke up wheezing and struggling to breathe, so we took him to the doctor. He hasn't been diagnosed with asthma, but when he gets a respiratory infection, it has a tendency to cause his bronchioles to be inflamed. The doctor discovered that he had an ear infection and prescribed antibiotics plus breathing treatments. After we got home, he continued to get worse, not better. He started running a fever, and it was hanging out right around 101.9. By Tuesday, the fever was gone, but his breathing was getting no better. He had also developed a cough. On Wednesday, his breathing was worse than it had been all week, so I took him back to the doctor, they did a chest x-ray, and sure enough, my little boy has been diagnosed with pneumonia! In June!

He is now taking pediatric prednisone in addition to the antibiotic and breathing treatments. He is also back on a bottle because when he had the fever, it was the only way we could get him to take fluids. It's weird because I've been rocking him to sleep (another bad habit we will have to break when he gets better) while giving him a bottle, and I've never done that before since I always nursed him at bedtime. Who would think that I would give my kid a bedtime bottle for the first time at 14 months? He is extremely high maintenance when he is sick (like a typical guy), so I have been babying him too much lately. But it's either that or listen to him whine. Emily has been such a trooper because we've been stuck inside, and I haven't been able to spend as much time with her as I would like.

I don't know if it's my imagination, but after 2 doses of the steroid, he seems to be doing much better now. In fact, he is actually entertaining himself right now. That's why I'm able to blog. Don't get me wrong, I love to cuddle my kids and make them feel better when they are sick, but Ty literally cries if I put him down or look at something other than him for 2 seconds. It had been rather exhausting, and it was not the way I wanted to spend our first week at home together. It doesn't help that he has 4 molars and 4 eye teeth coming in right now. He also has major diaper rash since the antibiotic has caused terrible diarrhea. I can't use wipes or even a wet cloth because he screams in pain. I have to put him in the tub and rinse him with warm water every time he poops which is 1-2 times an hour. Surely this little guy is due for a break!

We would appreciate any prayers on Ty's behalf. He goes back to the doctor on Friday to check his progress, and we will decide what to do from there. I hope there will be nothing to decide and that he will be recovering nicely.

I haven't taken any pics recently, but I have photoshopped a few. Here are 2 of my creations. The first one is Emily in her Halloween costume (Cinderella dress); she loves to wear it around the house. The 2nd one is Ty looking at me through a gazeebo.





If you read the whole thing, I thank you. I'll try not to be so long-winded next time!

Wow--Number 5!

Today, Dee and I are celebrating 5 years of marriage. It's been a crazy (but good) 5 years. We have moved twice and had 2 children. Dee got a job coaching at the high school level, and I finally earned a head coaching position. Then I gave up coaching a year later. We've watched our parents go through a heart surgery, a head injury, and an autoimmune disorder. I suffered an ectopic pregnancy. Dee has been dealing with diabetes and sarcoidosis. All I can say is WOW. I am so glad that he is by my side every step of the way. Here's to another 5 years, and then another, and another, and...you get my drift :-)

These are some of my favorite wedding pictures. Keep in mind that we had film (gasp), not digital at our wedding. Five years ago, many photographers were not quite ready to make the leap to digital (for weddings anyway). These are scans I did a long time ago before I had a good scanner, so the quality is not the best. One thing that I am going to do this summer is have my negatives (our photographer gave them to us) scanned; then I will have high-quality digital images of my wedding photos.

These two kiddos have definitely changed a lot! And my little niece in the Cute Cousins post below attended the wedding in her Mommy's womb. I can't believe how fast little ones get big!


I have to say that our wedding day was absolutely gorgeous. I was taking a huge risk by having an outdoor wedding in June in Texas. How we ended up with no rain and with a lovely, 80 degree day, I will never know. Well, I do know how...I prayed a lot for great weather!



This is us on our Honeymoon. Since we had the whole summer off, we took a "road trip" to Florida. That way, we didn't have to return on a certain day; we could stay until we wanted or our money ran out :-) This is us at Disney World Animal Kingdom. It was our first time to visit WDW. Now we can't wait to take the kids.


Well, that's all for now. I hope you enjoyed my little trip down memory lane!

Cute Cousins

It has been a busy week! I have been trying to wind everything down for the year, so I have had no spare time to show you these two precious girls. Our niece (Kasey's DD) spent Memorial Day with us, so I took advantage of that to practice some more with my new lens. It was nice (and actually easier) to photograph someone else's child for a change. We got to pick up our new computers (all of KISD got new MacBooks), so I've been trying to transfer and back up all of my stuff. I am finally getting around to posting these. I hope you enjoy!






p.s. I don't think I've posted on the blog to brag on myself. We got our TAKS scores back a few weeks ago, and ALL of my juniors passed. I know you may be thinking "Melissa, you teach Pre-Cal and Calculus--they should all pass." I would reply to you that I have many students who are in my class but don't necessarily belong there. For example, Mommy and Daddy think little Johnny is a genius and belongs in all of the hard classes even though Johnny can't solve x + 8 = 10. It was not a guarantee that they would all pass.

And regarding those who DO belong in my class--67% of my juniors got commended. I had one girl get all 60 questions correct, 2 miss only 1 question, and 4 miss only 2 questions!

Now if only my AP kids do so well on their AP exam...