Friday, May 25, 2012

I am almost finished with my first week as a stay-at-home-mom and I am loving it.  And I'm a mostly-stay-at-home-mom who still works on Fridays and whenever I can sneak in a few hours every day at home to keep up.  It hit me about a month ago that next school year is my last year with Ella before kindergarten.  I can't even believe I'm saying that.  This is it for Ella and me.  After this year, everything changes.  I'm dreading it completely.  I wish I could say I'm looking forward to the changes and seeing her learn and grow and enter society, but I hate it.  Around the same time that I started worrying about not having enough time with her, Ella started becoming unhappy at school and Sadie started crying again every morning when I would drop her off.  I was realizing that they weren't happy at school and I wasn't satisfied with only being with them two days a week.  I started wondering if I'd be able to do it.  Would I be able to scale back my hours and still get everything done?  I wouldn't have been able to pull the girls out of preschool while they were happy there.  I've never been one of those moms who thinks I'm super qualified and better at raising kids than the teachers at LHA.  I feel like they are much more qualified (and patient) than me!  But the girls got unhappy for some reason, so we took the plunge.  After talking it through with a few people and getting some suggestions, the girls last day of preschool was last Friday.  It was sad to pick up their pillows, blankets, and everything.  Walking out of that door was hard for me.  This place had taken such good care of my babies for two and a half years.  Wonderful memories and friendships since before Ella could even talk.  I was so grateful for their care and attention to my children.  Needless to say, this week was quite an adjustment.  Monday and Tuesday were terrible.  Wednesday and Thursday were wonderful.  Today, I miss them while I'm at work, but I like being here and having conversations and basically being part of the world again.  But I'm looking forward to Monday again.  I think it's going to work out just fine.  I also think that Monday and Tuesday were a little more difficult because we were starting our second week with Daddy being out of town.  I was a little worn out and they really miss him.  Thank goodness he gets to fly home for the weekend.  It's going to be so great to spend the time with him, even if it is only for a few days.  Bring on this next chapter of life.  So far, so good.


Happy Birthday Sadiebug!

Monday, May 21, 2012



Two. Two years old. I absolutely cannot believe she is already TWO. Time has absolutely flown by. We had so much fun celebrating Sadie's birthday on Saturday. We had a cookies & milk birthday party and we had a moonwalk...this is huge. We actually have a yard for a moonwalk. It was great. The kids had so much fun playing and Sadie felt so loved. The only downside is that Josh has been out of town and he wasn't here for the party. We missed him so much. But, I took lots of videos and sent them to him so he would know what we were up to. Here are some fun pictures from the party. I tried to get pictures of all the kids that were there, but you know how kids are...Nonetheless, thank you to everyone who came and made Sadie's day extra special. 

She got a bike from Mimi.  It's a balance bike and it might be the cutest thing ever.  She squealed when she saw it.

Here is a picture of Sadie's birthday cake - it was a strawberry milk cheesecake.  Too bad no one got to eat any of it.  I dropped it face down on the ground as I was carrying it out side.  womp, womp, womp.  It figures I would do something like that though.  :)







We went to Billys and had spinkle donuts Sunday morning on her actual birthday. 
My mom is the best.  There was no way I could've gotten everything done without her help.  Since Josh was out of town, I was in a little over my head and she was awesome.

Heather came over early to help us get everything together.

Alley is so sweet.  She cleaned up my room and made my bed while I was still getting everything ready.  So after I had finally gotten everything cleaned up that night, I went to my room to go to bed and it was so clean and awesome.  What a sweetheart!



Soccer

Saturday, May 5, 2012

Soccer sign ups were today.  I've only been waiting about, um, 10 years for this.  I can't believe I'm going to get to watch my Ella play soccer :)  I'm not going to mention the fact that she isn't super excited about it.  She said she doesn't want to get sweaty.  Whose kid is this?!  I told her we'd try it out for one season and if she doesn't like it, we won't sign up again.  I may have to wait for Sadie to be my soccer player.  Ella is muuuuch more excited about gymnastics and ballet.  Which is ok with me too.

Friday, May 4, 2012

So, Ella has been having some strange stomach issues for the past year. She would randomly throw up a couple of times a week and she quit eating all of her favorite foods. We went to the emergency room last August because she was having severe pain and passing some blood. The doctors at the local hospital did a CT scan, but didn't seen anything abnormal. Well, it was the worst experience ever. The people who happened to be working that night either don't have kids or were just trying to see how bad they could torture us. Ella had to drink some barium and the guy who was going to do the scan brought it into the room in a measuring-type cup, handed it to Ella and said "here, drink this. it tastes awful, but you have to drink it." And then leaves. I almost followed him out the door and slapped his face. I mean, can't we at least get a princess cup or an umbrella or something?! So after bribing, encouraging, singing, dancing, drugging, and eventually threatening we were able to get her to drink some of it. It seemed like the trip to the emergency room was worse than the pain in her stomach. So fast forward a few months and we got to see a specialist at Texas Childrens. After talking to me for a while, we decided to just wait it out and see if she had anymore symptoms. Well, she did. So a month ago, we took Ella to have a colonoscopy. I was so worried about how she would do. The prep for a colonoscopy is awful anyway. She doesn't like juice or soda. All she drinks is water. Well, she did great. It was hard for her, but we were able to do all the prep with unsweetened iced tea. Although, she was WIRED at night after drinking a gallon of tea during the day :) I fasted with her because I felt so sorry for her after her second day, which hard her confined to a liquid diet. She even told me the liked chicken broth and asked that I make it again for her one day. She must have been hungry!!!! She did wonderful during her test. She was nervous about the IV and threw up once she heard they were going to have to give her one, but we had a fantastic nurse who did an amazing job with her. The first nurse blew out her vein the first try and then he came in and saved the day. We went back to the procedure room with her and the anesthesiologist put something in her IV and within about three seconds she was out! She looked so peaceful sleeping there. But the GI doctor told us that everything looked wonderful. We were looking for polyps and he didn't see anything, which was a huge relief to me. I am so grateful that she's ok. She still complains of random stomach aches, but we haven't seen anymore blood since a few days before the procedure. The doctor said to think of it as a "nosebleed" but for your colon. Still doesn't seem normal to me, but I am also not a doctor and I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt that he is smarter than google! I'm so thankful for doctors and modern medicine. I was wreck thinking about all of the different possibilities and scary scenarios. We did a lot of praying for my sweet girl. Ella and Sadie are so precious to me and give me such joy.

Ella's daddy is her superhero. He takes such good care of her and is so protective. I love him so much. He's definitely the strong one.


After she got her spirits back, she and I went to get pedicures. It was her first real pedicure. She was so cute. She leaned over when they were scrubbing her feet and whispered to me "they are doing all the mommy stuff this time!"