The Formidable Fours?

L celebrated her fourth birthday this weekend in style. On Friday she awoke to crepe paper hanging from her bedroom door and the ceiling in the kitchen. At preschool they sang to her and enjoyed some cookies with juice.

In the afternoon we invited over some of her friends for a Lego birthday party. We played games, decorated cookies, and ate pizza and cake. She received some pretty cool presents from her friends and had a really good time.

L wanted her Lego cake to be rainbow in the inside,
so this is what I made. Next time I will have to add more
dye to make the colors more vibrant.

L with all her friends eating pizza.

Blowing out her candles.
The Lego's are kind of lopsided, but it still
turned out kind of cute.

All the kids building stuff with the Lego's.
Below are the gifts she got from her friends.

Today Daddy made her eggs and toast for breakfast, as per her request. Then we played with her huge set of Lego's we gave her for her birthday. Daddy made an awesome castle zoo but Larkin destroyed it in seconds, as is her personality. She really enjoys tearing things apart.

We watched the movie Rio and then went out to Road House for her birthday dinner. They sang and gave her an ice cream sundae. We came home where she opened the rest of her gifts from bahmah, auntie, and us.

K wanted to buy her a gift so Daddy took her to the store
where she picked out this neat covered wagon cowboy set
and paid for it out of her own money jar. So sweet.

The tumultuous threes have reined in our house over the last year. L has become more and more willful, pushing way past boundaries and fighting for control. It's been hard since both of us are stubborn and fight to get what we want. She is a formidable foe:) I am hoping that this year things will improve, not just on her end but mine as well.
She has gotten better at walking away from me when she is mad and coming back when she is more calm. This has been a grand improvement. She is such a loving and sweet little girl more often than not and I catch glimpses at times of the woman she will become. She is a great helper and always interested in trying new things. Her speech has come a long way in this year and she can already write her name and all of her capital letters. She loves to count, sing songs, and play with her toys.
Her favorite toys right now are Strawberry Shortcake, My Little Ponies, and Lego's. She enjoys being read to by anyone, especially her sister. She also loves being outside. She is always wanting to go play at the park, even in the rain.
She has grown so much this year, (moving up three sizes!) and now wears the same size as her 6 year old sister. They look and act so much alike. At times they play so nicely together which is a big improvement. It's nice to hear them playing and laughing together, sometimes for as long as 30-45 minutes at a time before the fighting begins again. I hope that one day they will learn to manage their anger and get along better. I always wanted a sister, I can only hope one day they will be friends as well as sisters. I look forward to seeing how she grows and changes in the coming year. Happy Birthday, sweet girl!

The $23,000 Surgery...and then some

A week before Christmas I had my gall bladder removed. I had been having pain below my shoulder blade and under my rib cage on and off for about a year. Around August I started having pain when I ate certain foods and by Thanksgiving I had pain when I exercised or sat for long. I went to the doctor who did an ultra-sound and found several gall stones.

Ten days before Christmas I met with the surgeon who said my gall bladder needed to come out. I could either do it a week before Christmas or two days before. I opted for a week before hoping I would be in good shape for the holiday season. I spent the following week getting everything done before my surgery. I wrapped gifts, made and mailed Christmas cards, baked 12 loaves of dill bread and delivered them to our friends, cleaned the house from top to bottom, did the laundry, bought food for the family and my post-operation, and packed bags for myself and our girls who went to bahmah's for a few days during the surgery.

The surgery was scheduled for 1pm on a Friday, not my ideal choice but what I had to do. We arrived at the hospital at 11am for check-in and blood work. I had to do it at the hospital instead of the out-patient clinic because our family has a history of bad reactions to anesthesia. My grandmother died on the operating table at 35 due to anesthesia and my mom's heart stopped beating the first time she had anesthesia. Every since then she always has a hard time waking up and throws up for hours after.

The surgery went well and the doctor told M I had a large healthy liver. He also said my fascia was very strong and didn't look at all like he would expect for someone diagnosed with Marfan's. I was supposed to be awake 30 minutes later but it took over two hours for me to wake up from the anesthesia and when I did I was VERY nauseous. We finally were able to leave the hospital about 9pm.

The surgery was done laparoscopically. They went in through my belly button and made three other incisions on my belly. I was in a lot of pain and had a hard time moving after the surgery so I took the pain meds they gave me for a few days. My aunt picked up our girls from bahmah on day two after my surgery and brought them down. She stayed with us for five days which was an amazing help. She played with the girls, made crafts with them, fed me and entertained me when I was up for it. M was a great help too, except for when he was making me laugh, which was very painful!

By the time a week went by, I was feeling good enough to go to Bahmah's for Christmas. We had a wonderful time visiting and I got to spend most of it on the couch putting puzzles together. My mom-in-law made a wonderful dinner Christmas Eve and my sis-in-law made a tasty dinner on Christmas Day. We all got lots of great gifts and the boys helped Bahmah move the wood stove from her old shop into her new wood-working shop. Ignore the face my hubby is making in this picture. It's the only one that had everyone all together in it.
The day after Christmas we headed to my aunts house to have Christmas with them. We had a wonderful time and got great gifts. I don't have a picture of all of us together so here is a picture of what M made for my cousin. It was so cool. I bet you wish you had one, right?
Then we came home to celebrate our own Christmas. The girls loved their gifts from Santa Claus and from us. I will have to post a video of K with her gift from Santa, it's very cute.

K made these for us at school. One is a camping list for M and one is a
grocery list for me. She made the animals for M to use as target
practice with his gun. Both the girls made me these pretty bracelets.

L got new bedding for her big girl bed (a post to come)
and a lamp which she has been begging for.

K got the Magic Tree House series, which she loves, and some games.

I recently went in for my post-op appointment with the doctor who said all looks good. He took off my steri-strips and the incisions look really good. I am guessing in a couple more weeks you won't even know I had surgery. He told me I only have 6 more weeks of a low-fat diet and no lifting over 15 pounds or exercising. Eating low-fat has been hard and annoying. All tasty food has fat in it and I get none, so sad. But I did get back a couple of the gall stones that were removed.
These were the small ones he took out; I had much larger ones. He said I should be proud. I received the hospital bill this past week and it was a doozie! Makes me glad we have medical insurance, though we still will have to pay 30% of it. I haven't even gotten the bill for the surgeon yet; I'm sure it won't be cheap. I definitely don't like how much they charge for medical procedures but it beats Obama-care. I'd still be on the waiting list if we had that kind of system.

So that's what we have been up to for the past month. Now I am counting down the days until I can start enjoying food again. I'll let you know when the big day arrives:)

Gingerbread Houses

Before we had kids we had all the time in the world. With that time we were able to create this master piece one year during Christmas. It took us about two weeks to do, working several hours each night. M and I had a lot of fun doing it and thought it would be fun to make a lighthouse one year. However, I was 6 months pregnant when we made this house and we have not had the time to make another in the past 7 years.

M put a hole in the bottom of the board and wired up a light
so our stained glass windows would shine at night.

Our snowman family.

Which brings us to this little beauty. M and I helped the girls to create this house last night. We all had a lot of fun and the girls ate WAY too much candy but it turned out pretty cute. M and I still have dreams of making a lighthouse one day, but it will probably have to wait until our girls are much older and can help out in a different way. Until then, it's fun to make things like this with them.

Do You Believe?

Auntie and I took the girls on a magical journey aboard the Polar Express to see Santa and his elves at his workshop. On our way to the station the girls watched the movie Polar Express so it would be fresh in their minds. When we arrived at the train station we didn't have to wait long before the conductor checked our tickets and loaded us into our car.

We sat in the Upper Dome so we could see everything and we received a special mug we got to keep. Once the train got going, everyone received hot chocolate and a ginger cookie. The ride was very pretty twisting through trees and over rivers. At one point we had to stop because there were caribou on the tracks. We ended up taking a switch-back to get to our destination.

Here is the conductor punching the girls tickets.

We finally made it to Santa's workshop; I was on the wrong side of the train so I didn't get any pictures. We saw Santa's elves and the train stopped so they could come aboard along with Santa.
K was very concerned that there was no snow at the North Pole. She kept asking where it was and if we were really at the North Pole. I told her to talk to Santa about it but she decided to ask the elf instead. The elf told her it was a little warm that day but it would snow by Christmas. That girl is too smart for her own good sometimes. I have a feeling she won't be a believer for much longer.

Here is K telling Santa she wants a T-rex toy that can
open it's mouth and walk around by pushing buttons on it's back.

L told Santa she wanted a Strawberry Shortcake Toy.
I was impressed that girls were so open and comfortable with
Santa. That has never happened before.

Santa gave each child a special bell.
The girls love their bells and rang them most of the day.

Here is the tramp who joined us on the train.
He was quite funny. He talked very fast and slurred his words.

All of us on our magical journey.
It was a lot of fun and the girls were well behaved.

When we got off the train we got a photo with all the elves and another one with Santa. It was so much fun. I definitely recommend doing this with your young kids. Don't wait until they are too old, they may spend more time questioning it then experiencing it:)

A Sad Sight

I went downstairs this morning to make the girls breakfast and this is the sight that greeted me. It was much worse than this picture looks; there was glass strewn more than five feet out from the tree. In my distraught state, I didn't think to take a picture until after we had picked up most of the glass and fallen ornaments. Even my acrylic snowman broke. The only things that survived were the stuffed ornaments, the plastic candy canes, and the metal ornaments.
Here is a picture of my favorite glass nativity ornament shattered into many pieces along with some glass from the hand blown ornaments I got our family the year before last.

What's left of the hand blown ornaments that were destroyed beyond repair. One for each of us that I bought the year before last. We had hung them up high on the tree so curious hands wouldn't break them, which only insured their shattered fate when the tree fell and they took the hardest impact.

I know it's just a tree but every year we pick out special ornaments for our girls that signify something they really like or an accomplishment for that year and give it to the them. My parents do this too. So to see them broken is very upsetting for me, they are ones I can't replace. Luckily the ornaments from my parents were able to be repaired by my husband as were most of my snowmen.

To end this post on a happy note, here are some pictures of the girls decorating our tree last night. I never did get a picture of the completed tree. Guess we will have to try again tonight after the glue dries.

K and L in their new jammies.

L putting on one of her ornaments.

K carefully hanging one of her ornaments.

Almost done with the tree.

L trying to put on the angel.

K tried to put on the angel too, but it was tricky.

Giving Thanks

We got double the dinner this year. We started off at Bahmah's house on Monday night where we were greeted with a very tasty dinner. I forgot to bring in the camera so I missed the layout:( But it was wonderful. After dinner we indulged in some Italian Cream Cake and pumpkin pie. Oh, so yummy.
On Wednesday I went to my aunt's house to help create our Thanksgiving feast. M and the girls met us there Thanksgiving morning and we ate about 1pm. I ate entirely too much food but it was equally delicious!
Here are some pictures of the family and the tasty spread. Sorry for the blurriness. I still haven't gotten the hang of our new camera.

The sideboard had deviled eggs, rolls, and fruit salad.
We also set Tommy Turkey there that the girls made.

On the main table we had turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, green bean casserole, cranberry sauce, tex mex corn, jellied cranberry sauce, and candied yams (which aren't really yams at all).
What we call yams are really sweet potatoes. Yams grow in Africa and grow to be 7 feet long and weigh 150 pounds. They have a dark brown bark-like skin and are grainy on the inside. Sweet potatoes range from white to yellow and orange skinned and are potato-like inside. Did you learn something new?

Pictures of my wonderful family. We had a great time stuffing ourselves
and talking about all the things we are thankful for.

After dinner the menfolk cleaned dishes while the womenfolk
packed up the leftovers. Then we enjoyed some pumpkin and apple pie.

My aunt sent us home with lots of leftovers but they only lasted a day. Anyone else ready to do Thanksgiving again? I sure do love those tasty dishes!

Breaking Dawn with the Girls

So Thursday night was the Breaking Dawn Part 1 opening night at the box office. I joined 16 of my friends for a pre-Breaking Dawn party. One of our sweetest friends even flew in for a 16 hour layover on her way home from Nashville to surprise us and join the festivities. We were so excited to see her. We had a taco bar and ice cream bar for dinner while enjoying each others company before heading over to the theater.
We stood in line outside in the pouring rain for about 45 minutes before the line moved enough forward that we could stand inside. Luckily some of us brought huge umbrellas that kept all of us dry. Once inside we stood in the hallway for another hour and a half before being seated in the third row from the front of the theater. It was so close but we were happy to finally be sitting down. We visited and got snacks while waiting the final hour before the movie started.
This was by far the best movie in the series. They did a great job and the actors have improved immensely. I didn't find myself laughing or poking fun at any of the movie this time. It left me wanting more but we have to wait a full year before the final movie is released.
All of us moms drug out of the theater and arrived home by 3:30 am. Friday was a very hard day. I was planning on going back to bed after getting the kids off to school but by then I was no longer tired. Running all day on barely four hours of sleep was hard but I made it. K had a practice at church this morning for our Primary Program and all the moms that went still look exhausted but we all agree it was totally worth it and so much fun. Gotta love Girls Night Out!

Here is a picture of some of us girls.

Here's our whole group. I love these girls!

End of Another Season

Wednesday was K's soccer party at Putter's where they kids received their trophies. Her coach, McKenzie, said K was the Princess of Strategy when it came to defense. She got out there and blocked the other team from making goals.

Saturday was our final game of the season. Thank goodness! It has been a very long season this time around and the last few games have been chilly to sit through. It was 47 degrees and raining on Saturday. Bahmah came to see the game which pleased K greatly.

K made a great block at the end of the

game when the other team tried to score.

Here is a picture of Coach McKenzie, Coach Garrett
and the team. It was a HUGE team this season.

Now that soccer is over the girls are taking swim lessons. It should get us through the winter before starting up the spring session of soccer once again. At least we will be inside and warm:)