Hop, Hop!

We celebrated Easter with our neighbors, the Nigro family, and Rayna made an AWESOME Easter brunch!  The kids got their Easter baskets before we went over to their house and then they did the egg hunt in their back yard.  Since it was Amelia’s first Easter where she could walk and be a part of the fun, I went all out and found the biggest stuffed bunny I could find.  Amelia loves animals – both stuffed and real – but she especially loves stuffed bunnies and bears!

According to my mom, I'm a ruthless prankster but it's not my fault she gives such good reactions.  So, when April 1^st comes around, I usually have a few tricks up my sleeve.  This year I got up really early, took Mike’s car and drove it far enough down the street where he wouldn’t be able to see it from our driveway.  Funny enough, about an hour after he got up, he suggested we drive his car instead of mine to the nursery garden.  He walked in the house and said, “My car is gone, somebody stole my car!!” I could only keep a straight face for about a minute, but it gave us both quite a laugh. 

I had been planning Noah’s April’s Fools prank for about a month; I saw a website that showed all these foods that looked like one thing but were actually made of something completely different.  I was going to do a piece of pie that was actually meatloaf with beet mashed potatoes but decided I’d be a nice mommy.  I made a “grilled cheese” but instead of bread and cheese, I used pound cake and orange frosting.  When Noah figured out what it was, he was very excited . . . I guess the joke was really on me, since I gave him a TON of sugar for his lunch!

 

 

I Love Yard Work!

I should have taken a "before" picture!

Or rather, I love working in the yard!  We’ve been busy sprucing up our back yard the last few weeks, and it has been rewarding to see it all come together.  It wasn’t terrible to start with, but there was a lot of room for improvement.  We dug out all the flowerbeds where weeds had taken over before we moved in, and our biggest project was planting a garden.  The preparation of the soil for our garden could never have been done without our neighbors, Jerry and Mitch.  They spent a lot of time and manpower helping us mulch, as well as deliver and shovel horse manure, and finally till the soil.  In total, we planted zucchini, squash, eggplant, cucumber, tomatoes, cantaloupe, watermelon, along with four different kinds of peppers and five different herbs.  I’m crossing my fingers that at least some of them produce.  The temperature here has been perfect for being outside; I’m trying to soak up as much of this weather as I can before it heats up.

Nancy, Mike’s mom, came out for a visit this past weekend.  She’s always such a pleasure to be around, and her being here was especially great since it allowed Mike and I to plant all the veggies while she watched the kids.  It also happened that this past weekend Noah had his first baseball game of the season.  To be honest, I think the coaches and the parents weren’t too sure how well the game was going to go, based on the boys’ practices – but they surprised us all and did incredibly well.  They won 6 to 0, and Noah hit his first triple and scored a total of three points for his team . . . needless to say, he was quite excited!  

Sharing a seat on our new patio furniture.

Amelia LOVES to play doctor!

Girls Weekend

I went to a girls’ weekend with the women on my mom’s side, which we try and have at least every two years.  This one was a request from my Grandma Dorothy for her 75^th birthday, which was last July 19^th (this happens to be my mom’s birthday, as well).  Considering it’s March, it shows how difficult it is to coordinate everyone’s schedules.  I almost didn’t make it . . . between Amelia getting pink eye the day before I was to leave and Mike’s flight home being cancelled the afternoon of my flight.  However, my awesome neighbor, Rayna, watched the kids until Mike got home on a later flight, and I was able to make my plane.  I was so happy I got to go, since we had such a fun time!  

I’ll be honest; most of our weekend was dedicated to playing cards, which included staying up until 3am on our final night together.  I know that sounds crazy, but you’ve got to understand how much we all love to play cards and how much we have fun doing it together.  In addition to playing cards, we had a lot of delicious food!  I would say “delicious meals” but most of our favorites definitely do belong in the “desserts” category.

After being a “grown-up” for a little while now, I realized how amazing EACH of the women in my family are.  It was so inspiring to be around such fun, positive and intelligent women.  I believe my Grandma Dorothy deserves a lot of credit for that.  She is such an inspiration, and I look up to her very much.  She not only raised wonderful daughters (and two sons) but helped teach them to be wonderful mothers!  I think anyone in my family would agree that she has always lived by the saying, “if you don’t have something nice to say, don’t say anything at all.”  This saying has definitely been passed down through our family and is something I say to my kids and to myself.

Best in Show!

I realized I never gave an update after the Pinewood Derby.  I think partially because it was a bit of a rough day, especially for Mike and Noah.  Unfortunately, on all four races Noah’s car came in last, not just a little bit last . . . but a lot last!  We didn’t know what was going on; because of the rules, we weren’t allowed to look at the car.  Well, after the race when we got the car back, the tape on the underside (which was holding the extra weight in) was connected to one of the tires.  So, every time the tire rotated, the resistance from the tape slowed it down.  It was really hard for Noah to lose every race, but even harder for Mike since he felt responsible for adjusting the tape to add more weight at the weigh-in the night before the race.  We left after the last race because Amelia was worn out and Noah was definitely ready to go.  However, the next week at our den meeting, one of the other leaders informed me that Noah’s car was voted “Best in Show” by all the other Boy Scouts and that he had won a trophy.  Noah was SO excited – he has wanted a trophy of his own for years, so it really turned the Pinewood Derby into a positive experience!  We owe a big thank you to Grandpa Ray for helping Noah design it; he has a gift for making cars!

Ray built this 1932 Hot Rod that Mike and I got to drive away in after our wedding reception.

We spent our weekend doing “Honey Do” projects, the largest of which was refinishing the kids’ play structure.  It took most all of Sunday, but we got it done.  Amelia was under the weather most the weekend, which resulted in her taking a four-and-a-half-hour nap, making it possible to finish the project so quickly!  I also started planting in one of my flower beds; it was so fun to spruce up the back yard.  I’m definitely motivated to finish the rest of the planting.

Before.

After.

Heroes

This one is for my Grandma Dorothy!

It’s hard to believe that my dad will be leaving in a month for his fourth deployment in ten years and my brother, Jared, for his second.  They left Utah in January for training; it happened to be that they were sent to Ft. Hood, TX, which is about three hours south of where we live.  My mom, sister-in-law Amie, nephew Kai and niece Aria recently flew to DFW when the guys had a four-day pass.  It was great to have so much of my family in one place (although, we sure missed Jason, Emilie, Parker and Preston, who were in the middle of moving).  Jared and I figured that it had been about 14 months since we had last seen each other and a year before that, so it was very special to get to spend time with him.  My parents stayed with us, while Jared, Amie and the kids stayed closer to Dallas so they could explore a little.  We still got to spend a lot of quality time with each other and kids REALLY enjoyed each others’ company.   Amelia was pretty much in LOVE with Aria.  Even days after they left, Amelia would walk around the house saying, “Where Aria at?”  Noah and Kai are such great playmates, and Noah is especially thrilled  that Kai is now into Legos.

My dad is a lover of surfing and snowboarding.  Therefore, for his birthday, I reserved he and I a session at a nearby place that has an indoor wave rider.  Being confident in our skills, I skipped right past the boogie boarding warm-up phase straight to the surfing, sure that I would quickly master it.  Well, that was NOT the case!  In all fairness, the bottom of my bathing was a bit loose-fitting; I was petrified the article of clothing would come off when I fell, and the audience of 15 or so would see.  My dad, on the other hand, did really well!  All in all, we had a good time, although I’m still recovering from whiplash.

We had a great day at the Dallas Zoo and a lot of just letting the kids play at our house.  My mom and I played about 100 hands of gin rummy, and I’m pretty sure I came out on top!  It was hard to say goodbye, but even harder to see them have to say goodbye.  They will get a chance to see each other once more before they leave for Afghanistan; it was so humbling to see the sacrifices they make – not only for our country but for their family.  My dad and brother are two of the most honorable and courageous men I know, and I am so proud to call them family.  

Noah, Kai and Aria on a camel ride.

Amelia's first time on a carousel!

I also want to say how great I think my sister-in-law Amie is, she is so strong and one of the most AMAZING moms and such a supportive wife!  And, of course, my mom . . . she’s a veteran herself, so to speak, being that this will be her fourth time to send her husband away to protect our country.  I am so happy that she’s so close to Amie, Kai and Aria and that she has an amazing support base of friends in Utah.  I’m planning to go to Utah this summer for a month or so to spend time with all of them and to escape the heat of Texas.

Success

Amelia’s surgery was a breeze!  One of my biggest worries was that should wouldn’t be able to eat the morning of her surgery, but that didn’t end up being an issue since we had to get to the hospital at 6:20am.  Amelia doesn’t usually eat breakfast until around 8am, she did ask for water a few times . . . however, there was so much to look at and explore while we waited to be called back that she was never upset when we didn’t give it to her.

Once we were called back, they gave her “silly juice” that would make it easier for the nurse to take her from us when the time came.  The nurse described the effect of the silly juice as if Amelia went to Happy Hour with us… and happy she was!  She gave us about a hundred kisses, kept lifting up her shirt and would say “Hiiiiiiiiii” to whomever passed by.  The only hard part was after the seven-minute surgery, when they let us go back and see her in recovery, she was really upset and disoriented.  She rarely cries, so it was hard for me to see her so upse.  However, the crying only lasted for about five minutes, and I was able to rock her in my arms.

I can truly say that since her surgery she has been a much happier little girl.  She’s always been a happy child, but I feel like I have the Amelia back that I had six months ago.  I can’t imagine how good it feels to have all that pressure gone from her ears and to finally be able to hear and not have it sound like she’s under water.

Beware: Infected Household!

It was been an interesting few weeks and there have been a few ups and downs.  Amelia was so happy to get her cast off!  I think she thought that she was just going to have that thing stuck on her leg forever; however, as soon as they sawed it off, she wanted down to try and walk around.  She walks a bit like Frankenstein, but every day she’s improving.  

The rough part of the last two weeks is that Noah caught some nasty flu virus and passed it on to both Amelia and me.  This in and of itself wouldn’t have been so bad if Amelia hadn’t gotten her fifth ear infection in five months.  Yesterday morning she woke up with a really high fever and was pulling on her ear.  I took her to her pediatrician and, sure enough, it was another infection.  They said that it was time to go to an ENT specialist and discuss the possibility of putting tubes in her ears.  When I was leaving the doctor’s office, I got a phone call from Noah’s school nurse saying that he was in a lot of pain and that it looked like HE had an ear infection!  So, I left straight from the doctor’s office to get Noah and then right back to have his ears looked at; he, too, was diagnosed with an ear infection (his first ever).  I knew he was in a lot of pain, because he’s usually not one to complain . . . but he couldn’t stop crying since it hurt so badly.  They prescribed antibiotics, so I headed to our usual pharmacy to fill them.  Upon arriving, I discovered (after waiting in line for 20 minutes with two crying kids) that my prescription card had expired.  So I went home, found the new card, and headed back to an even LONGER line at the pharmacy to find out that they had no record of us under the new plan!  After about two hours of waiting and calling, we FINALLY got the medicine and, boy, did my two kids need it!

I have gotten a lot of feedback from friends and family about how great tubes worked for their kids, so I was okay with hearing the ENT specialist say that Amelia needed tubes.  I didn’t realize it was considered a surgical procedure and she would need to be put under general anesthesia.  Thankfully, the surgery is scheduled for a week from Friday, so Mike will be able to come with us.  They said that right now she has mild hearing loss but that it should improve once the fluid in her ears is cleared.  I was very pleasantly surprised to find out that the surgery, anesthesia and hospital stay are all 100% covered by the insurance we get through McKinsey & Co -- what a drastic change to the insurance we had while Mike was in graduate school!

I haven’t really been worried about her hearing, since every day she is saying more and more words.  One of my favorites scenes:  she has learned how to open the pantry door and will get one of her bowls, a box of cereal and then come up to me and say “Mommy, give more cereal, peezz!”  Another big step she made is that she has started feeding herself!  It really came out of the blue . . . one day she just grabbed the spoon and said “ME!”

On another note, my brother Jason, his wife Emilie and their adorable two little boys (Parker and Preston) stopped by our house for lunch on their way home from Houston.  It was great to see them, even if it was only for a little bit.   I think it is wonderful that all the cousins are so close in age!

A few other pictures from the last two weeks:

They love to play hide-and-seek!

Amelia crawled into the dryer while I facing the other way folding clothes...uh-oh!

We celebrated Mike's Birthday on January 17th.