Katelyn's Birthday

Dallin, Grant and I went to Katelyn's school bearing cupcakes. We ate lunch with her and stayed for centers.

After school we ventured to the Library, checked out some movies and books. and played with the puzzles of course.

after the Library we went to the playground and had a great time playing tag, and climbing all over the choo choo train playground. This park is built right next to an actual train junction and so we got to see a few real trains in action.

after the playground we met Daddy for dinner at the hospital. 

Ice cream is by far the most favorite part.

Happy Birthday Katelyn, we love you!

wow it's been a while....

  I keep meaning to update our blog, and I keep not doing it for one reason or another, my best blogging time is late at night while Cameron is on call and I'm waiting until I can't keep my eyes open anymore just so that I can sleep better, otherwise I lay awake in bed wondering if the hospital will be attacked by mad men, or dangerously poisonous man eating pigeons...


So although it's 11pm,  here I am...

I'll start with Cameron, He is experiencing his first year of residency at it's fullest this month, He is working the trauma unit and just incase you are considering envying his schedule I'll tell you his days go as follows

every day he works from 5am to 5pm. every 4 days he goes in at 5am and works through the night getting no rest, returning home at noon the next day completely exhausted, he sleeps as much as he can because the next day he goes in again at 5am and is given the dreaded pager which puts him at the beck and call of the entire trauma staff... ok I could be exaggerating here, I'm not sure what exactly the pager entails, but I know it's dreaded. Then he has a "normal" day before he is back on call again. This repeats itself over and over again, weekends, holidays you name it. He does get an average of 1 day a week off which has been nice. We are excited for this month to be over... to say the least. Otherwise he is doing fine; he is happy and cheerful if not a bit tired.

Katelyn started preschool and LOVES it. She has an amazing teacher and a fun class so I am coming to grips with it. On multiple occasions she has woken up several times during the night coming into our room and asking if it's time to get ready for school yet. I have recently put a clock in her room and insisted that she not wake up until the first number says 6, because my alarm is set for 6:40am and now she wakes up at 6 every morning bouncing into my room insisting that it's time to get ready for school. I have yet to use my alarm.

She has decided that she is big and wanting to look responsible she wore this dress I made her 6 months ago, in 6 months she has never wore it except when I insisted she try it on soon after it was finished, she declared it too uncomfortable and hasn't looked at it until I asked her to pick out an outfit the night before her first day of school. And now 4 weeks into school she has wore it once a week.... funny girl. The boys and I had lunch with her this week and she was thrilled to show us some of her friends and classmates. She started riding the bus 2 days ago it picks her up and drops her off right in front of our house. She is as excited about riding the bus as she was about school starting, I miss the extra time we use to spend together, and find myself looking at the clock waiting for her to come home. She is growing way too fast.

Dallin also misses Katelyn, last week he and Katelyn decided that they were best friends, they’ve always been close but this was a new level. Throughout their time together you could hear them calling to each other, “Dallin come play over here with me because you’re my best friend. Or Katelyn you can have my cookie because you’re my best friend, it was really quite sweet and only lasted a week, but it was a good week.

Dallin started his own preschool this week, I got together with a few moms and organized a co-op preschool where we rotate teaching every week. There are 4 of us and the kids meet at one of our houses on Thursdays and we have a great time going over the basics, I taught yesterday, which was our first meeting and it went well, the kids are ready and eager to learn plus they don’t seem to mind having fun together.

Grant is a funny kid, he loves to cuddle and give me big kisses exclaining loudly “I wve YOU momma.” He ends every sentence with momma,

“watch Elmo’s world momma?”

"fruit snack mamma?"

“I wan dink momma”

He is very sweet but he also has a menacing side that thrills in tormenting Dallin. They generally play very well together but every once in a while Grant gets that look in his eye and he snatches and runs away with whatever treasure Dallin was holding in his hand.

He loves to sing, and will sing along with any song he is familiar with. He also loves dogs and will point out every dog that passes his way.

We are still working on the potty training, it’s coming along, he holds it until I put him on the potty and then he goes, the problem arises when I fail to put him on the potty, he doesn’t seem to mind making a mess on the floor. I have decided to give up numerous times only to change my mind again, just today I could see him making connections so maybe it will click soon. Meanwhile we have stopped buying diapers and our supply is running low

Can you believe hos curly my hair is?  yeah I'm suprised every time I look in the mirror.  you would think that by now I would be use to it.  In case you are wondering curly hair is easier then strightish hair, as long as you let it do what it wants to do, I tried strightening it once... it was a desaster!

I have been busy being a taxi around town, Thankfully it doesn’t take more then 10 minutes to get from one side of our small Texas town to the other, unfortunately Katelyn’s school is 10 minutes away, hence my recent resignation to the bus system. up until this week I usually drove Katelyn to school at 7:30am with everyone dressed and fed then carted Dallin and Grant to the gym by 8am for a workout. Then we would either, Grocery shop, go to playgroup, story time at the library, preschool or music makers depending on the day of the week. And then it was home for lunch and naps only to be rudely awaken and carted back to Katelyn’s school to pick her up and either play at a park or return home to make dinner.

I measured my curly hair last night and was shocked to find that it was 5 inches, 5 whole inches, that seems like a lot, not enough to pull into a ponytail but still… it’s getting there. It’s still not the same color or even close to the same texture before chemo, but hey it’s hair and it’s great to have hair. This is just about what my hair looks like every night, I get tired of not touching my hair and start running my fingers through it. It just gets bigger and bigger. I can see you're jelous and that you are also wondering why I wait until bedtime to play with my hair....  I'll let you go ahead and keep wondering.

Katelyn got to spend the morning at her friend Anna's house. on the drive home after I picked her up we had this conversation

me: did you have so much fun playing with Anna

Katelyn: Yes mommy I love Anna (long pause) mommy, I want to be in Anna's family, I don't want to be in our family anymore, I just want to be in Anna's family.

Me: but that would make me so sad if you weren't in our family anymore.

Katelyn: oh... I'm just teasing.... well, not really......... well.... hum.... Maybe Anna can be in our family?

Katelyn's new adventure

Katelyn is starting Preschool on Monday, and truthfully I'm kind of emotional about it. I always imagined I would be excited for her to embark on this adventure but it makes me sad to think I won't get to hang out with her all day. we have a lot of fun together especially at nap time when we have one on one quiet time together. and now she will be in school every day from 7:45am-2:45pm,

I am heart broken and have kind of started planning when I'm going to pull her out. that's terrible, I know, but I got her sign up and registered before I realized it was all day by the time I realized Preschool was all day she had already gotten a cute little note from her teacher and now there's no turning back.

she is beyond excited, we met her teacher yesterday, Miss McDaniel's, she is young a cute and has been teaching for 3 years, Katelyn already loves her. and she already has her backpack packed and sitting by the front door so we don't forget it. Katelyn is going to Love school but we are sure going to miss her.

Dallin's philosophy on bugs

a little beetle/cockroach type bug landed on Cameron as he was reading the kids a story in their bed, Cameron killed it, Dallin wondered what all the commotion was about and Cameron said,

"it was just a bug, trying to tickle me"

Then Dallin stated matter of fact,

"but bugs don't tickle us, they bite us. that's why they don't have babies"

if only that were true...

Tidbits

I wanted to post something but we haven't had much excitement around here, unless you count potty training Grant. Yeah I know, give the kid a break, he's not even 2 yet. Really he's doing pretty good. He only has accidents multiple times a day... maybe we should work on taking away his pacifier first? Seriously though he is doing fine, He wakes up dry most mornings so I'll offer him a treat if he sits on the potty, he always has to clarify, "ruit nacks" He wants to be sure he is getting a whole bag of fruit snacks if he is going to spend his valuable time sitting on the potty.

Dallin thinks he deserves fruit snacks every time he goes potty too. we've told him that if he goes potty at the same time as Grant then he can have fruit snacks too. so we often find him encouraging Grant to drink more water so he can go pee pee on the potty. Dallin's pretty good at getting what he wants. (isn't that a funny pictures? he wanted to make some crazy faces and this was one of them.)

Katelyn doesn't care about fruit snacks or going potty, all she wants to do is swing. (not one of her best hair days)

Mammogram X3

Another mammogram, Thankfully not too many women my age have to deal with getting a mammogram. Actually, truthfully of the cancer screening options, Mammograms are probably my favorite, you don't have to be poked or cut open, you don't even have to be injected or drink anything radio active. Really, it could be worse.

after I checked in I sat in the first waiting room and sent Cameron a text telling him that I was in the same building as him, of course before he could actually get to where I was they called me and escorted me to the "women only" waiting room. Where I watched the room fill, and empty again, then fill with a whole new set of patients and then empty again, after watching this cycle three times, I pulled aside a nurse and after determining that I was here for "diagnostic" and not a "screening" she let me know I was next on the list.

my name was called and the technician took x-rays from 2 different angles and then asked me to go back to the waiting room while the radiologist looked at the film to see if we needed to take any more. So back I went, and soon she came again, this time with a look of concern that immediately tied a knot in my stomach. she explained that there we 2 spots the radiologist was concerned about and we needed more pictures, so she took 2 more and this time had me wait in the room while the radiologist looked over the film in another room, she returned and told me she needed to take more pictures. She did and sent me back to the waiting room. By this point I'm a little freaked out so I call Cameron to let him know what's going on, He's pretty calm about it, which makes me feel a little better until a new technician calls me and takes me to a new room that's fully lit, which can only mean one thing, consult.

The Radiologist comes in and starts talking to me, I remember meeting him when we came out looking for housing and I met all the people that Cameron would be working with, nice guy. I totally don't remember anything he said except that everything looked fine, they just wanted to be sure because the first films had a few concerning spots but they were nothing... Thank Goodness.

I meet the Oncologist next week, when it will be continued.

It hasn't taken long to get back to the waiting room of yet another doctor's office. New but strangely familiar, the only difference is these doctors don't make me wear a wrist band or seem to be concerned with finding out my medical history, weird, don't you think?



my first visit was to the Ob-GYN. The nurse practitioner came in very cheerful. We chit-chat a little and she starts talking about how she loves my curly hair and asked if it has always been that curly. so I then go into the long explanation about going through treatments for breast cancer and the chemo making my hair grow in curly. It was only at this point that she did a history and physical on me. She immediately got me lined up with the oncology department and signed up for CT scans and Mammograms and it starts... again.

Home

much of my efforts these days has gone into creating a home where our family can be safe, comfortable, spiritually uplifted, and inspired.

so here it is, some before and after shots. It is still a work in progress, I haven't dedicated myself to any drapes, and we've been hesitant to hang pictures on the wall but I know if I wait to post this until my house is just the way I want it, it probably won't be posted until we were getting ready to sell the house, because that's the way it is.

The Kitchen

before-

after- the technique we used to paint the blue is called "Rag Rolling" I found a pamphlet about it as I was searching for paint color and decided to try it, they make it look much easier then it actually is.

we bit the bullet and bought new furniture with this move, we've always gotten our furniture at garage sales or good will and then we sell it or donate it when we move, this move was no different. We looked for furniture for a good few weeks but we didn't find anything that wasn't either too expensive or ugly, and I wanted something nice to go in our nice house. this table has a leaf that folds up into it to sit 8 comfortably. It was $600 it came with 4 chairs and we bought 4 more for $200, because we wanted to be able to invite people over, plus we hope to have a big family some day, so why not?

I LOVE having all this cabinet space, I love how open the kitchen is too.

The Living Room
before- messy, I know. but hey that's life.

we didn't have furniture for the first few weeks so when ever people came over we would pull in our camping chair from outside and pull out our folding chairs, it totally reminded me of being a newly wed. also you'll notice in the kitchen is a little tiny kids table, we ate most of our meals with all 5 of us gathered around that little table.

After- ok so we didn't do much to the living room besides adding furniture, but isn't it cute?

I love having these nice soft couches, I know you think I'm crazy to have such a light color with 3 kids but it cleans easily.

Some previous owner decided to paint the fireplace poop brown, it use to be the color of brick on the outside of our house, I think the brick would have looked better but it doesn't really bother me, but don't mention it to Cameron it makes him grumpy just thinking about it.

The Kids Room

Before

After- we love the colors, it makes the room more fun don't you think?

Katelyn and Dallin sleep on the same bed so we didn't see any sense in putting up both of the twin beds, it allows more space to play too. I'm sure you are wondering where we keep the toys, they have a good size walk in closet that fit their toys nicely.

making up for three flights of stairs....

There are a lot of thing I have missed about Tampa, hefting one or two small children up 3 flights of stairs, and then going back for the third who suddenly became limp after realized that she was the only one not being carried isn't one of them. but I have missed having those extra calories burn off doing this everyday activity. My children, ever concerned about my well being and not wanting me to waste away, or worse do the exact opposite among other things they insist on going for a "walk" everyday. I'm usually the only one actually walking, the children are all riding bikes. we found these bikes a various garage sales, Katelyn's princess bike for $15 Dallin's for $2, and Grants for $1. I love garage sales!

where did we go wrong?

not a day goes by when I don't hear frantic screams of "Grant made a mess, mommy come quick!" Today was much like every other day. I let the kids paint with watercolors and sure enough before long" Mommy, Grant made a mess!" Grant had indeed make a mess, He managed to spill the black water used to clean their brushes all over the table. no big deal. It cleans up easy enough. as I wiped up the mess Dallin turns to me and says "mommy, what did we do wrong with Grant?" I thought it was funny that I would be having this conversation about a one and a half year old.

Loving life

I realize that it's been a while. but we are doing well and loving life. here's a little update.

(our computer is having a hard time downloading our pictures and somehow it has deleted all of the good pictures we have taken since being here so this is as good as it gets)

I'll start with the newest member of our family... our van, yes we do still own a van and it has been running for 3 consecutive days, a record. it's a very long story but it has been to the shop and back 3 times, 3 different shops and only towed there twice... yeah we have developed a personal relationship with the tow truck driver, unfortunately they don't offer frequent towing discounts. tomorrow it will have been in our family for three weeks... we'll let you know how long it stays...

Cameron has started residency off pretty easy in vascular surgery, He is at the hospital from 5am to 5pm but he doesn't do much during the day so he gets a lot of time to study for his next board exam. he has also developed an addiction to craigslist as he searches for yard equipment and a bike.

I am forever busy getting our house in order, I've also started making bows again. so fun. I love having a yard and pretending that I know what I'm doing as I mangle every plant we own in the name of "pruning." I've already been to see a doctor and am all lined up for CT scans and mammograms, Everything looks good so far but I'll keep y'all updated on that. my hair is getting longer and is crazy curly, we are talking out of control curly, it's about 3 and a half to 4 inches now... I wish I had a picture.... I'll have to work on that.

Katelyn is a great big sister, she loves to hold Grant's hand when we go on walks and she plays so nicely with Dallin... that is as long as Dallin is willing to do whatever she says, and for the most part he is. Her favorite thing to do is to play outside on the swings, that is to say, to have us push her on the swing. so we spend a lot of time outside, despite the 105 degree weather. Katelyn is missing all of her friends, she tells me daily that she wants to move back to Tampa. We all miss you guys in Florida.

Dallin enjoys doing whatever Katelyn is doing, she and he love to play babies together, they take their dolls and hang out in Grant's closet which usually becomes their house, spaceship or bus depending on their mood. He has developed a "baby" voice where he talks very quietly and blurs his words together. We don't really understand anything he says while he is using this voice but that seems to be okay because he doesn't really expect us to. He loves to ride bikes, we found him a two wheeler with training wheels and he LOVES it. we go on a lot of walks so he can ride it up and down the sidewalk. it's fun.

Grant is growing way too fast. He copies everything the kids do, especially if they come to tell me something, he will run up to me and mimics their voice inflections,and then run away, it's really cute. He is learning about using the potty... kind of, he can hold it really well and he goes when we put him on the potty but he has no problem whatsoever making a mess anywhere else in the house so usually a few times a day, I'll take off his diaper and let him sit on the potty, then the diaper goes back on. he thinks he is so big, and he is. He is very content to play by himself or he enjoys playing with the other kids too, unfortunately they have designated Grant as the monster or bad guy and spend most of their playtime running away from him or capturing him. He's a good sport about it for a little while but it gets old quickly. he is a happy little guy. He loves dogs. and will seek out all dogs in the area. Our street is a popular street for people to go walking on so their are lots of dogs waling past our house everyday and Grant can't get enough of it. He is a cute kid.

to the shop and back again... hopefully...

This Post was going to be dedicated to the joys of owning a van, a real actual van with 7 seats, power windows,CD player, rear air (not to be confused with flatulence... sorry I couldn't help myself).
Cameron found a "great Deal" in Austin on a Kia Sodona 2005, It cost almost half as much as what we could find at the other places we looked so on Saturday we went for it. Cameron test drove it and it seemed to be running well. so we bought it. The kids were thrilled, I mean THRILLED they were more excited about this van then they were about moving into a house with a garage... and believe me that was exciting!
about half way home the dreaded check engine light came on... and it starts...
we'll take it in on Monday we thought, We being ME and the three kids of course as Cameron would be spending the say at the hospital going through orientation.
The kids begged us to dive it to church the next day, so despite our better judgement we did, What's 3 extra miles on a check engine light going to do anyways... 2 and a 4th miles later the engine died and we rolled to a stop, Cameron tried to restart the car to no avail so he got out in his white shirt and tie and started pushing the van with his entire family in 105 degree heat... I know what you're thinking, "Why didn't you get out and help?" and I would have but someone had to steer and we didn't trust Katelyn to get it where we needed to go. plus I was wearing heels. Thankfully our plight attracted attention and before lone we had two other guys huffing and puffing behind the car as I steered it to the nearest parking lot which also happened to be a Cadillac dealership. Which happened to be closed Sundays.

Katelyn went into super panic mode and was sure we were going to be stranded in our green van forever. the boys slept peacefully in the back... gotta love 1 o'clock church.... after 40 minutes of making phone calls and trying to figure out what to do we decided to walk the rest of the way to church. and get a ride home with someone there and then take care of the van when the dealership opened in the morning. It promised to be a long, hot tiresome walk but fortunately before we even got passed the dealership someone stopped and offered us a ride, what a blessing!

to make a long story shorter, it's Monday now the car has been towed to a mechanic, who it turns out has never worked on a Kia Sodona before but fortunately he can plug the van into a nifty little machine that will diagnose the problem so we know what's wrong with it, but before we get it fixed we are waiting to hear back from the guys we bought the van from to see if they want to fix it themselves, they are of course "out" and will call me when they "get back" I'm sure they have a "you bought it, you fix it" policy but we will see. so I'm just here sitting by the phone waiting for their phone call so I can tell the guys at the shop to go ahead... or not.

whose house is this anyway?

we signed the papers to close on our house today at 9am and as we drove over to do a walk through with Cherri our realtor we noticed a huge moving truck sitting in the driveway and the seller came out to greet us all in a fluster wondering if we were flexible on the moving in time, We said we could work with him how much time did he need? He thought he could be done about 5:30pm, Then Cherri asked if we could do a quick walk through, he went inside to check with his wife and came back asking if we could come back in an hour because his family was still sleeping.Still sleeping? at 10am when the house was suppose to be ready to move in at 9am? We didn't say that of course, we just agreed and came back at 11:30am.

The house was a mess, they are most of the way moved out but there are still things in each room needing to be packed and then the house has to be cleaned, he had some relatives there to help with the move but they were all standing around staring at us as we walked through OUR house. anyways to say the least it's been frustrating, we thought we could move in this morning after closing and we had the missionaries lined up to help us unload the truck at lunch time and now I don't think they will even be out of there until late tonight, and they need to have the placed cleaned and the carpets will be wet until morning so we will be staying another night in a hotel. I think it will all work out fine in the end, it's just frustrating.

I wish they would have called to let us know they were running behind. It would have been nice to know before we got all of our help lined up. anyways that's what's happening in our life, it was a good drive, the kids were good, we invested in a portable DVD player and the kids were captivated, except Grant who wanted to be the driver and was very put out each time we bucked him into his car seat.
we are all ready to be settled, I'm pretty sure my kids think we are going to live in a new hotel every night for the rest of our lives, this is our 4th one in 4 days. they love it.