Escape to Dallas

Since Miss L was doing so great

My Parents told us to go ahead and leave.

So we did.

Since we weren't actually planning on going.

Not a whole lot was, well, planned.

We checked out these fountains.

In this little area,

There were something like

173!

It was pretty.

And because it was freezing,

we were the only ones there.

We also went to the Book Depository.

Where Lee Harvey Oswald

Shot JFK.

It was pretty fascinating

to learn about the event and aftermath

and quite the experience to be

surrounded by that many conspiracy theorists.

So interesting

and entertaining all in one.

Two guesses where I am...

could they make it more obvious!?!?

Side note: No one else was walking on the grass

near this sign.

They were taking pics from the sidewalk.

I got a few dirty looks

and felt like I desecrated holy land.

But my pictures are cooler

because I am in them

and not just some stupid sign.

The rest of the trip was us being lazy.

We slept in

walked around town,

ate delicious food,

enjoyed the hot tub,

saw the sights.

and pretty much relished

having nothing to do

and no one yelling at us.

Thanks mom and dad

and sorry that my kids

didn't sleep for you.

Tubes

We had a slight change in plans.

It is December 8th,

We are supposed to be leaving for a weekend away

Instead,

we are in the waiting room,

waiting to be taken into Pre-op.

Our amazing friend, and ENT, Rob

has been keeping track of Miss L's

frequent and lengthy

ear infections.

She's had 3 infections

in 3 months,

and fluid in her ears

the entire time.

So, we qualified for tubes!

He snuck us into his schedule

and we had surgery 3 days later.

No idea what's coming

but patiently waiting

Isn't this the cutest little gown

you've ever seen?

I think everything is cuter

in miniature form.

Give me that camera!

I'm coming!

Surgery went great.

The Miss woke herself up out of anesthesia

while walking to the recovery room

Seriously, who does that?

They watched her for a little while,

made sure she could keep food down,

and we were home by nap time.

I cannot thank Rob enough.

Because now,

my deaf baby can hear.

She's is even happier than before.

And I get the joys of seeing

and cleaning

ear infection junk

that now just seeps out her ears

Yummy!

Waiting

In the beginning....

of December :)

Our Grandma and Grandpa came for a visit.

To give the mom and dad a break

for a couple of days!

Aren't they the best?

This is us eagerly awaiting their arrival.

Because how come two small children

wouldn't normally wait on an exercise bike?

Oh yeah, our feet can't touch the pedals.

S-t-r-e-t-c-h

Working the glutes.

Feel the burn

Moving on up, to the north

You might have heard.

You might not

We are moving!

To the Twin Cities,

in Minnesota.

The Man accepted a job

with the Big G

General Mills.

He starts in a couple of weeks.

He will go and start,

the kids and I will join him,

when the house finally sells.

We might be apart awhile. :)

So if you are around,

and are bored,

or want to buy a house

feel free to come and see us.

While we last.

November

Welcome to November!

It's pre-Thanksgiving

and the ridiculous pie weight.

It's pre-Christmas

and I still have money.

It's also potentially the worst month,

and I just might sound like a whiner. :)

We started off great,

we got out Miss L's walker

and while she didn't go to town,

her brother helped her out.

Miss L's best friend Miss C

notice the toys they are chewing on

Notice the toys now.

They are already great at sharing

The difference between the men

and the women

in this family

This makes me happy

Two and half years later and he still fits

The Man went out of town

so to help survive

I introduced the Little Guy

to finger paint,

Apparently it's a hit

Now is where I should explain about our hard month.

It's amazing that I only photograph the good stuff.

For the last few weeks

Mr G has had increased leg pain

to the point of not being able to walk.

Sometimes it is accompanied by a fever.

This particular day

The Man was still out of town,

the fever spiked to 103,

the kid couldn't walk

and I couldn't take it anymore.

so, my friend Cari took Miss L

and G and I headed to the ER.

After 6 hours,

an IV,

and lots of tests

we walked away having caught croup

and knowing nothing.

Annoying

(this is the IV hand, sad)

This photo is for The Man.

This is the next day.

G was taking it easy

and chose to watch Sunday football.

Bummer.

This is now Monday,

and another day in the ER.

Since he now has croup,

he coughed so much he threw up.

After throwing up he could not breathe,

his lips turned blue

and we rushed back to the ER.

They gave him steroids,

a breathing treatment,

and some antibiotics.

He also had to eat a popsicle

to make sure he could keep food down.

The drugs helped.

The leg pain went away,

the fevers stopped

and the croup died down.

Just in time for the baby and I

to get sinus infections.

Aghh!

What a big helper I have!

It's great that he wants to be around

his sister

More playing.

I cannot tell you how nice it is to have a mini

babysitter.

A little someone who will play with

and entertain the baby.

When I have to get things done.

Thanksgiving feast at school.

His class got to be the indians.

But everyone got to eat the yummy food.

Double Pack hats.

Go Pack! Go Pack! Go Pack!

As a follow up to the ER visits

we went and met with an

orthopedic surgeon.

Naturally,

the ER medications stopped the leg pain.

So it was a total waste of time.

But he still got to rock the sexy

Paper Shorts!

Somewhere in the middle of this madness,

We got the news that my sweet grandma passed away.

We have been expecting this

and we know that she is much happier with grandpa.

Miss L and I were able to go to her funeral.

First, we flew to Arizona on Thanksgiving

and spent a couple days with family.

Then we drove to Cali with Beth and her family.

This is the Miss watching her cousin K play soccer.

I don't know if she actually watched soccer,

because all the mom's were too busy playing with her. :)

This is the drive to Cali.

The Miss wouldn't sleep

because I was sitting next to her.

But she was happy as long as she had food.

I got half way through eating an apple

and she swiped it when I wasn't paying attention.

Isn't she sweet?

Might be one of my favorite photos of her

The flight home.

Ever after 5 days of no sleep

She'll still give ya smiles

Remodel

Since it was months ago,

you finally get to know,

we remodeled!

The kitchen was claustrophobic,

stuck in the 80's,

and the fluorescent lights sang you a song whenever they were on.

One night (back in April)

the Man had enough and took a hammer to it.

After tearing everything out,

(including the walls and floors),

using 6 months of our lives

(including 6 weeks without a functioning kitchen)

and spending gobs of money

(hello sad gingerbread house. hehe)

We have a happy, open kitchen.

Before continuing,

you must promise

that you will ignore

The leftover Christmas dinner,

the leftover Christmas goodies

and the drying Christmas dishes

that are in the shots of my new kitchen.

It still looks fantastic.

Here's the before

And the after

(you can't see the can lights,

but let's just say they don't sing to me)

From the other angle

Look how open that is

Again, a link that leads to nothing

I wish blogger would stop that

Finally, The hole on the left was a complete wall

The wall on the right stuck further out another couple of feet.

Tight and shut off.

Now it's airy and I can see what my kids are doing

while I am in the kitchen.

ps - please notice the floors.

They might be my favorite part.

Dark colored hard wood

go great with the new paint.

What a happy room.

Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday to my Man!

I know you turn 30 today,

but the celebrating will commence another day.

Didn't want anyone else to get presents,

you should get a day to be selfish,

like everyone else.

Love you!

Merry Christmas 2011

I had caught up to October,

then the world's worst November happened,

and now here we are at Christmas.

I will stay at this computer,

all night if necessary.

until I catch you up

to all the happenings that occured

Since October.

So check in

over the next few days.

It's gonna be awesome!

This is the symbol of what has been my life.

No, not simple and boring.

After remodeling,

it might be a sign of my economic times!

HAHAHA

But really,

it symbolizes how much I had to simplify this year,

or simply say no to,

in order to survive.

The Man,

with a large smile,

after receiving his iPhone 4s.

Since he couldn't decide what phone to get

Santa chose for him.

Way to go Santa.

Merry Christmas!

Me, loving Christmas morning,

though I am not sure how my eyes are open.

Don't worry, a new Michael Kors wallet bugged my eyes out.

Apparently Santa thought the wallet I bought,

when I was 17,

wasn't adult enough.

Don't worry, I am all growed up now.

Merry Christmas!

Big D checking out his new camera.

Now he can document Taiwan,

all the humid weather, short people and nasty food.

Have fun!

Merry Christmas

ps - not sure why this is posting as a link

Don't click on it,

it goes no where.

Our Big Boy

Santa brought him his first bike.

He rode it up and down the halls today.

Glad we are moving to the frozen tundra

so he can't use it for 6 months.

Merry Christmas!
Miss L

slept in, she's awesome

now she's eating while opening presents.

She loved everything that made noise,

lit up

or could be chewed on. Yum!

Don't you love those cheeks?!?!

Merry Christmas!

Today was fantastic.

We woke up too early.

Opened our stockings and our big Santa present

We then had to get ready and go to church.

After church we had nap time

Finally around noon we started opening presents.

We opened presents,

played with them,

stopped to eat a snack,

opened more presents,

stopped to make and eat dinner,

took a bath,

and opened more presents.

It's not like we had tons of presents,

but it was fun going slow,

enjoying

and playing with the stuff we did get.

It was great to simply be together as a family

There are still a few presents under the tree

we will get to them tomorrow.

Hope Christmas was awesome for you too.

Merry Christmas!

October, we're almost there!

October has come and gone

I am finally writing about it

I am only 9 days late

Getting better

Warning: This post is soooooo

very stinking long

Apparently I take more pictures

when I actually have my camera.

Go figure

We started the month

seriously, October 1st

by having nap time

like this

I went to check on the baby

and found the Little Man

and Miss L

just talking to each other.

If we're not sleeping

at least we're bonding

It got cold in OK this month

Little Miss also got cold

I went to see what hats I had

and this is the only one that fits her

Good thing I think it's freaking adorable

on her

Our friends B and L came all the way from AZ to visit us

I did not get a single picture of them

Son of a gun!

I did take this picture

L and I went to Hancock's

and took G with us

He spent almost the entire time

in this chair

watching cars drive by.

He is ready to be an old man

who sits and waits for his wife to finish shopping

I read that Halloween is the most photographed holiday

I believe it

With a week worth of festivities

how can it not be?

We began our adventure

at a local pumpkin patch

with our friends the C's

where G promptly informed me

that he had to go potty.

Good job telling me!

Bad job telling me

when we were far away from a potty.

This is one of the few reasons I am jealous of boys

(and Nana, this shot is for you.)

Once we were relieved,

we decided to take the hay ride

to the corn maze

No, that is not grass

That is the corn maze

So pathetic

(in their defense,

the weather

was not conducive

for growing anything,

but weeds)

And that's what we got. :)

If you were able to find your way out of the corn maze,

and it was a close one,

you found this giant slide.

The kids LOVED it.

After getting their fill of sliding

we hoped back on the hay ride to go back

This is G with one of his dearest friends P

When you leave the pumpkin patch

you get to take a pumpkin home with you

It was a little creepy

because all of the pumpkins were almost identically the same

(except for the ones growing mold,

those were special)

Apparently, the only way Miss J could decide

was to test them out

by sitting on them.

An interesting method

that must have worked

She was very pleased with her choice.

The day after the pumpkin patch

we went to Storybook Forest (SF)

again with our friends, the C's

For those who do not know what SF is,

you're missing out

It is basically this trail through a state park forest

every 10 feet, or so,

a little display from a story is set up.

They have Rapunzel, Snow White, The Sword in the Stone,

The Three Little Pigs, Hanzel and Gretel,

The Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe, etc

At each stop they hand out candy

(which is the important part)

This year, it was a very warm day

so we saved GMan's real costume for later

and he pulled out his Tigger costume

from his dress up stuff

After you make it through the forest

They have games set up, and a hay ride to go on

the kids played all the games

won lots of prizes

then played with them

while waiting for the hay ride

This is not the greatest photo

I took it

with my phone

on a bouncing trailer

(ps - the sticker is G's that he put there,

I was obliging)

The next day,

when we were all tired

and already hopped up on sugar

We attended our play group Halloween party.

The kids got to decorate their own cookies,

make ghosts out of suckers

and a bunch of other stuff

The only thing G wanted to do

was play with the balloons that someone blew up

Perfect.

The day after that

G had a Halloween program at school.

He was so adorable

and did great singing his songs.

There was, of course,

more cookies and candy.

Good golly,

is Halloween over yet?

NOPE

Two days later

(yes we got a one day reprieve)

was our ward trunk or treat

G had a blast doing the cupcake walk.

He didn't care that he won

he just kept doing the walk.

Pretty sure he won like 5

He only ate the frosting of 2.

The actually trick or treating is what he wanted

He was a natural

(but what kid isn't?)

They started late

so I hurried the kids around the parking lot

and made it back to our car

only to discover a line there.

What in the world?

The man had packed our kid basketball hoop

and was making everyone shoot for their treat.

Wish I had my camera to take a picture.

Totally creative

Totally awesome

Totally took way too long.

We had fun but our kids were wiped out.

We got another break on Sunday.

Love that day of rest!

and then Halloween punched us right in the face.

It has become a tradition that we go eat dinner

at our friends the C's

(are you seeing a pattern?)

then the kids go trick or treating together

(Their neighborhood is more festive than ours)

This is out little dinosaur,

the triceratops.

What an intimidating reptile

Our sweet little cupcake

I think this costume fit her demeanor

PERFECTLY

Dad is making her crack up

makes my heart melt

After a weeks worth of celebrating

I am sick of Halloween.

I wonder

do people feel like this

after Hanukkah?

now that it's over,

Happy Halloween!