Where did the tornado come from?!

Our. House. Is. A. Mess.

Not that it was ever spotless to begin with but now with me leaving in a few short weeks we are going through closets and boxes to try and get stuff together for a rummage. Matt had a huge Rubbermaid container filled with random cords and computer crap. We finally pulled it out today and went through it. 95% was thrown out and what was left were a few power cords, internet cables, and some fishing line. I have been staring at that bin for YEARS so I'm thrilled that it's gone now. I can use the bin for clothes now!

I'm also trying to get stuff together to bring with me for the kids. Toys, books, any winter-ish clothes that I have. Not sure how long I will be at my parents house or how cold it will get in the later months but I'm going to be sure I have something just in case.

And of course the day that I figure I better get a few things done while the kids sleep is when Sarah decides to take a long nap! She has been doing horrible with them lately (I'm sure being uncomfy in a new brace) and would usually last about 45 minutes. She is a stinker....

Hopefully we can get this house picked up and things sold so that we don't move junk with us to ND. We are sick of shoving it in closets. I need minimal clutter or else the house just seems too overwhelming these days.

Off to do some more dishes. I wanted to get a little bit in while I could today. Tomorrow will most likely be another day of getting things sorted.

I leave you with an advertisement funny. We were driving home from the NEX one afternoon and Matt started to chuckle. He told me to look at the sign. And this is what we saw:

Those are some pretty cheap bums!!! ;-)

This is what the full sign says:

Hope they place it differently next time...

Chair for Sarah

I was doing some research on how to entertain kids in braces and casts for hip dysplasia. I came across a lady that makes them for people. I have no clue how much she charges and what shipping huge pieces of wood would cost so I'm not even going to contact her and ask. I figure my Dad can help me make something since it seems like I'll be coming home to Sioux Falls sooner rather than later! :)

Anyways, here is a picture of one of the chairs she made. I'm sure my Dad could figure out the insides of it better than I can. It looks like it would be REALLY nice for Sarah considering she isn't a fan of being on her back to begin with let alone with a brace on now.

Here is it:

ETA - here is a picture where you can see the inside where the kiddo would sit. More foamy stuff I think??


Isn't that neat?! A nice area for Sarah to play and eventually eat from since she can't fit in a regular high chair with the brace on.
Well that is my little blurb for the night. I'm waiting on Matt to get home so that we can go brave the store and get groceries....

Weekend Recap

We had a 4-day weekend with Matt this past weekend. It was very much needed but sort of ended in a bust.

Friday we went and picked up Sarah's bow holder. Matt said I could have made it better myself but I have always told him that I like supporting other WAHM's (work at home mom). I'm sure I could have made something just as nice but I bought the bows from this lady so I figured I could buy a bow holder, too! You can click the picture to make it bigger.


The lady's house was right by Walmart so we stopped there to walk around a bit. I got stopped by an older couple and they asked me about the sling that Sarah was in. The lady said she watches their granddaugther during the day and would like something to be able to carry her around in. It was nice to get noticed for it! I like carrying her in it and she falls asleep in it, too.

We went to Ruby Tuesday's for lunch since we haven't eaten out in a while. It was a fun time since we put Sarah in a highchair and Christian in his own. I got to eat and drink with BOTH of my hands! :)

Sarah also started to get her second tooth through the surface. She was a snotty, coughing, fussy mess all weekend. She still has a bit of a cough left but she is fine otherwise. She is a punk, though. We have to black out her window. She has been getting up at 5am for almost 3 weeks now. I'm so exhausted. I try to get her back to sleep but she won't have anything to do with it. I was so tired Saturday that the littlest things were making me want to cry. And one thing sent me over the edge...

Saturday I started to to feel pretty crappy. Sore throat, just tired, and my nose was getting a bit stuffy. By Sunday afternoon I had a full head cold. I still have it and there are no signs of letting up. The weekend was getting worse and worse.

Christian was pretty whiny on Saturday. I made him an early lunch since both him and Sarah were up before 5:30. I made him some veggies and cut up a hotdog. And here comes the edge. It came in the form of a plastic fence piece in his farm playset. I was bringing him his plate when I stepped on the fence, it slid across the linoleum, and I try to find something to brace myself on. Nothing was around and the plate of peas, carrots, corn, and hotdog slices went flying...ALL OVER. I sat on the floor and bawled. With my cold, Sarah teething, Christian becoming very whiny, and lack of sleep, I was just over it. I needed a nap.

Sunday we spent the day at home. I was pooped.

Monday we did some running around because we needed to get Christian out of the house. It has been so humid out the last few weeks that playing outside just becomes miserable after about 5 minutes. We opted for air conditioned stores. We went to the NEX and I bought some pillow cases to make some dresses and then to Ben Franklin to get some ribbon for the dresses. I'll be working on those whenever I catch up a bit on sleep.

So this weekend was very tiring for me. I'm pooped and need some more sleep. Something that is very hard to get when my kids are up before 5:30 am and Sarah doesn't want to nap in her brace. Boo.

Update on the orders: Looks like I can come home any time after they are done. So it could be a matter of weeks!

Testing

Testing

For your viewing pleasure....

Sitting like a big girl in the high chair while out to eat. :) She did so well in it!

Sitting up on her own for the first time. *sigh* Bittersweet since I knew she would be having her consult soon after this...

And the brace that she hates... :(



Getting his first real haircut with an actual clippers rather than me hacking at his head with a scissors in the tub! hahaha

Counsult Meeting Update

Sarah's consult came out the best it could have today. I was so scared that we were going to get in there and be told that she had to be put in a cast from her armpits to her knees. We walked out of there with a foam abductor brace, an ultrasound for later this week, and a see you in a few months. HOORAY!!!

There were a lot of big words thrown around today during the consult. All of which I knew and could understand while he was walking us through her x-rays (thanks Nursing school!!), but non of which I can remember after our long morning and my hour long nap to repeat here to all of you! HA!

So I will leave you with what I can remember in layman's terms. Her acetabulum, the socket part of the hip, is not fully 'encased' around the ball of the leg joint. See picture below; Part B.

Types of misalignments of femur head to socket in hip dysplasia. A: Normal. B: Dysplasia. C: Subluxation. D: Luxation

She is just above the average percentage-wise for her age for how shallow the acetabulum should be. If I'm remembering right it was something about a '28% angle this-or-that' and she was at 32%. So basically she will be in his foam abductor brace until that acetabulum 'grows' more and the hip is no longer 'dislocated'. Are you still following me?

Since Sarah is not hugely mobile she is to be in the brace 24/7. She didn't sit right in the carseat with it so we are nixing it for rides (OK'd by the Doctor) to places and of course she will take it off for baths. It will be interesting to see how she does with it for sleeping at night. I think it is almost a blessing in disguise because I currently nurse her to sleep and would love for her to get to sleep on her own!

An ultrasound is hopefully going to happen later this week. The Dr. wants to see a better picture of the acetabulum since the x-ray doesn't give that. That will give us a better picture of how long she might need to stay in the brace. He told us to expect 3-4 months of her in the brace. As long as it isn't a 20-pound spica cast I'll take it!!! :-)

I'll have to get a picture of her in the brace later this afternoon and post it with our weekend update. Hope I was able to make a clear picture of her hip situation. It turned out great and this is what I was praying for! We aren't sure where this puts us for the kids and me coming home home earlier than Matt but he is getting that straightened out this week at work. Everything we do travel-wise has to be OK'd by the military.

All for now, I'm going to pick up the house a bit!

Sea of Plastic

I have a cabinet right next to the fridge of all the plastic bags we have accumulated here. Most are used for garbage bags around the house. But they are all shoved tightly into the little door. Today I hear Christian rip every last one of them out and proceed to find him running back and forth through them. Accident waiting to happen? Yes. He has fallen 3 times in the time it took me to type this up.


Mid fall

Beanie Cuteness

I bought some beanie hats online for Sarah from a gal on Etsy. Go check out her stuff at ZoeLynnDesigns.

Issues with the website

I'm still having issues getting everything working. I'm still not able to resize pictures correctly (not that I have a million to add...) so it's taking forever to figure out how to get it right. I get so frustrated and I don't have a lot of time to dink around with it. So I'll just post a few pictures of the kidlets on here and then add what I can when I figure the darn resizing out!

Ready for the swine flu

Being cute

Awww!

Sibling love. Don't mind Christian's unmatched pj's and the crazy mess behind them. Like I have stated before I don't usually clean until AFTER nap time. :)

Wow, was that place busy!

I went to the commissary today. 'Nuff said. But I won't stop there...I'll tell you all about it!

It was either go today or not have milk and other essential items for about 1.5 weeks! Before going I was only worried about it being the Saturday after payday. It can be kinda busy those weekends so I try to go during the week or on the off weekend of payday. Matt hitched a ride to work today (he is working from 6am-7pm and starts 8am-8pm tomorrow) so I had the car. He told me to go today or forever hold my peas. Get it? Peas? Since I had to go to the grocery store? hahaha Stay with me, people! :-)

Anways, when I pulled around the corner...OY! I completely forgot that the case lot sale was this weekend. The way they set it up takes about 5 of the parking lanes away so then you either have to go through every other aisle waiting for someone to leave or park in another lot that makes you walk ALL the way across the main one. I opted to wait for a spot and found a decent one. I was thinking I better go in and get some pop but then when I saw how the tent itself was set up I decided not to. It was literally an assembly line. In one end, train of people, out the other. I just wanted to get in, get some pop and T.P., pay, and leave. But that wasn't going to happen...maybe I'll go back later.

I go inside hoping there was a fun cart for Christian. Instead of the regular ones where he sits up top and is backwards they have the neat ones that you can sit in with a steering wheel and you face forward. My prayers were answered and they had a blue one!!!!! But then they were smashed when I saw that neither side of the car had a steering wheel; just the bolts sticking out of the dash. I still used it of course and plopped him in with my purse and grocery list. Sarah tucked safely next to my chest in her wrap.

Now a challenge: How will I get this massive cart (which I might add is a foot and then some longer than the regular carts) through all these aisles with all these other people?! Most patrons were nice enough to see that I had the large cart plus two small children and kindly moved out of the way if need be. But others were completely oblivious to anyone else in the store and I had to wait behind them to get my apples or just completely backtrack and go around the potatoes to get my bananas! Blood pressure - rising.

I didn't have many things on my list but I did have a few MUSTS. Milk - check!; eggs - check!; goldfish - check!; bread - check!; fruit - check! Then for some non-essentials but things I really wanted. Chocolate chip morsels - check!; butterscotch morsels - check!; oreos - check!; chips - check!. Of course I got other items but I don't need to go and list them ALL. And then I managed to forget a few things because there were so many people that I either refused to go down a certain aisle or I missed them all together because people were in the way - like honey and syrup.

But I got my cart full and Christian was ready to leave. I had to make it through the checkout line alive before we could leave for the safety of home. Christian played coy with a little girl in line and got semi-scared of a bald and tattooed man next to us. Sarah is still doing well...hasn't made a peep.

It's finally my turn and I unload my stuff onto the belt. Coupons always go first so the checkers can put them aside and make sure you have the correct items to go with. All is well until we get to the eggs. I have size X-large and the check I have is only good for Medium or Large. Drats. But the bagger girl is nice enough to go get them for me instead of having to haul myself back to get the correct one. The checker continues with everything else. Rings me up and I pay but then he notices that he didn't scan my coupon and he forgot to ring up my graham crackers! Well I'm not leaving without the graham crackers. Christian loves them. He says that he can give me cash for the coupon he didn't scan. Awesome. I tell him I'll just take the cash he gives me and pay for the crackers. Awesome. But then I notice that the coupon is only good for $1.79. I know the crackers cost more than that and I didn't know how much cash/change I had on me. I start digging and think I might have to leave them behind and be sad. But have no fear, the cash back from the coupon somehow totaled $2.59!! Don't ask me how...I don't work there! So I was able to pay for the $2.10 crackers. Awesome!

Phew. I made it out of the building alive. Just a matter of getting back to my car and not getting run over by the dozens of cars looking for spots in the 4 leftover lanes that aren't currently being taken up by a huge tent!!

So what will the kid and I have for lunch?

"What's that you say, Christian?"
"You want a 6-piece nugget meal with fries?"
"And you think Mommy should have a Whopper Jr. and a Hershey Pie?"

Genius, my boy, pure genius!

~

Tummies are full, kids are sleeping, Hershey pie is devoured, blog post written.

Crazy 8's

I was browsing random blogs and found this...

Here are the rules of the game:
-Mention the person that tagged you.
-Complete the following lists of 8's.
-Tag 8 of your wonderful bloggy friends.
-Go tell them you tagged them!


Eight Things I'm Looking Forward To:
1) Moving to North Dakota!!!!
2) Growing old with Matt.
3.) Matt being done with the crazy exercise at work the next few weeks.
4.) The consult with the Pediatric Surgeon. I really want to know what the next step is with Sarah.
5.) Watching my kids grow up. They make my heart warm and fuzzy.
6.) Being closer to family. We miss them.
7.) McDondald's for supper!
8.) Moving to North Dakota!!!!

Eight Things I Did Yesterday:
1.) Sarah woke me up.
2.) I actually got a shower.
3.) Fed the kiddos breakfast.
4.) Krisanda came over and her daughter Madison played with Christian.
5.) Picked up the house a TINY bit.
6.) Waited for Matt to get home so I could make pancakes and eggs for supper. Yum!
7.) Spent almost two hours trying to get Sarah to sleep. :(
8.) Watched TV

Eight Things I Wish I Could Do:
1.) Have lunch with my Mommy.
2.) Be able to speed up time and make it September.
3.) Take Sarah's dysplasia away. :(
4.) Be rich!
5.) Eat whatever I wanted and not have to worry about gaining weight.
6.) Force-feed Christian his lunch so that I don't have to keep telling him he needs to eat or else he can't get down from the chair. He's being a stinker about it today.
7.) Fly!
8.) Make a ton of cookies. I'm craving oatmeal scotchies.

Eight Shows I watch:
1.) LOST
2.) Survivor
3.) Table for 12
4.) The Biggest Loser
5.) American Idol
6.) Price is Right
7.) I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant (seriously, some of these ladies are in complete denial!!!!)
8.) Heroes


Val, Krisanda, Shana, Amanda, and 4 other people who read this!!! haha

Another speech session down...

Christian had a session this morning. He is doing much better with asking 'please' and mimicking words. That makes me happy to see. I asked Alyson if she thought Christian was far behind or just a little. She said he was mildly delayed. That also makes me happy! She said to work on his phrases. If he sees a bus we need to say 'big bus', etc. We just have to try and get him to use more than one word at a time.

It's sort of fun to watch him play with somebody else. He really likes to play with her toys she brings. A big duffel bag full of books and games. He did puzzles today and lots of finding and naming objects. I'm glad we got him some new books last weekend because I think that is helping A LOT!

His new favorite words are Firetruck and Yellow. Firetruck comes out 'bire-buh' and yellow is 'yeyow'. It's cute but when we try to get him to name other colors they are all the same. And he is so proud to say yellow. He practically screams it! haha

No other news than that. Matt's 12-hour shifts are from 8am-8pm. So that means no help for me!!! :( He starts them Saturday I think. Hopefully the next few weeks go by fast! Pray they do, please.

Tata for now..

Consult is scheduled

Sarah's consult with the Pediatric Surgeon is set for May 26th at 10am. I had to call them today since it had been a week and no word on their part. When I got through to the right department the lady on the phone was searching for about two minutes for Sarah's name or something. She asked for it again and then said 'What is this for?'. GAH!! Seriously Tripler...get it together. A referral was put in last week for what she needs! Anyways, it is set. Matt is going to try and get off work that day to come with.

We have lots of questions. Not only about the diagnosis itself but about the possibility of us holding off with whatever needs to be done so that I might be able to take the kiddos back to South Dakota and get it done there. I'll have more information regarding ALL of this once we have the meeting. Just glad it is scheduled.

~

In other news, Christian is a stinker. He says 'No' back to me all the time. I'm trying different 'punishments' to see what works to make him realize that he cannot say No to me and that whatever Mommy says is what goes. No but's about it. Thank goodness I worked on the timeout at the wall a while ago or else I would be even more frustrated with him!!

Sarah is getting the second bottom tooth. You can see a TINY part of a peak. Hopefully it comes in all the way soon and doesn't take weeks. She drools enough the way it is! She also can roll over to her tummy (only rolling to the right) but doesn't do it often. She would rather get mad and whine for me to come pick her up.

Matt is working A LOT. They have a few exercises coming up and he will have to be on 12-hour shifts. Never fun. He told me last night that he thanks me for being a great and wonderful wife. He said he was doing it then because he knows the next few weeks are going to be very busy for him and very frustrating and hectic for me. I'll almost be a 'single' Mom while he is doing all this stuff for work. He'll just come home to eat and sleep and then leave again.

All for now, nothing exciting has been going on here. Just trying to make the days go by so that we are closer to MOVING! :)

Say a prayer for Kayleigh's Mommy and Daddy

Please say a prayer for this family. I can't imagine one iota of what they feel in their hearts. Please to go Kayleigh's Story.

Update on Sarah's Xray

I got a call back from Sarah's Pediatrician yesterday. The xrays showed that she has mild bilateral dysplasia of her hips. That basically means that they are dislocated slightly. Other than that, I know nothing more. A referral was put in with the Pediatric Orthopedic Surgeon up at Tripler so I will be expecting a call next week to get that consult scheduled. During that meeting I will get MUCH more information. I'm already writing down a ton of questions that I'll be asking.

And I was a worried Mommy and went to Google to search what this could mean for us and Sarah. BAD IDEA!! I see tons of little babies in casts up to their armpits and then I start to cry. But I'm over it and know that whatever happens, happens and it needs to be done to help her.

So, after this meeting with the surgeon I will have more answers for myself and for YOU!

Website Woes & Full Moon Fun

I'm trying to get some pictures added to the website but I'm having a HORRIBLE time with resizing. I had to download a different program (I'm going to try and find the old once since I'm having all these issues) and when I resize the pictures they end up being really tiny and I don't know why. I'm making them all the same dimensions as I was before...yadda, yadda...

Just wanted to let you know that I am working on the pictures and videos. I have lots of cute ones that I want to get up since I know you all wait patiently for them.

~

And was it a full moon last night? Because BOTH kids went berserk and didn't want to go to bed. Sarah is usually really good about it and wants me to hurry up and get her to bed. But it was many tries in the crib, many rockings in the chair, many nursing munches...nothing was doing it. I finally just let her cry in the crib for 10 minutes to hopefully wear her out but that didn't even work! So I came downstairs with her and she watched me dink on the computer for 10 minutes before she finally went to bed - an hour and a half later than usual.

And don't get me started on Christian.... haha

Whirlwind Weekend!

That's what the last few days felt like even though we really didn't do all that much!!

Friday - Matt worked all day. The kids and I waited for him to get home so we could order the new X-treme cheese pizza from Papa Johns. The commercial made it look SOOOO good. We also love cheese so it had to be done. And am I glad we did. That pizza was in our Top 3. Yummo!

Saturday - We went to the craft fair on Hickam. We went a couple months ago when they had it and I was super excited to go again to try and find stuff for the kids' rooms (more for when we move and I can decorate their rooms with a theme). But I was a bit disappointed with it. There weren't nearly as many booths as there were a couple months ago. Some new ones - but not many. BUT the lady that I bought the bows from for Sarah was there so I bought more!

These are her old ones I got at the first fair:

These are all the new ones. Bigger and better!!!! haha I made sure to get a red/green one for Christmas since I doubt her hair will be much longer...poor girl...


I also talked to the lady about a custom bow holder that she is making to match the decor in Sarah's room. When I get it from her I will take a picture and share. I'm excited to see it!

I didn't have much luck for Christian's room though so I'll have to check other places out. I'm thinking his room will be a planes and automobile theme. He yells at the buses and planes so I figure he would like them in his room, too! Sarah's theme is ballerina bears. I got THIS bear for her room. Isn't it cute? Can't wait to get started on it all when we move.

So moving on...

Sunday - We went to the commissary to get food...yawn...nothing fun about that! Then we came home and had some lunch then took the kids back to the pool. Sarah is a water baby. It took Christian well over a year of trying to ocean water to let us know he hated it. Then when we finally got the pool in our neighborhood he loved it. So thank goodness BOTH kids like the water. Sarah even kicked and swatted the water this time. Got a few giggles, too! I'll have to check into Mommy and Me classes at Grand Forks. We are going to try and go every weekend now. Plus, Matt and I need a tan so we can have proof that we lived in Hawaii. We are PASTY folks. And poor Christian looks like a ghost. So we need some sun. :)

Monday(today) - Sarah had her 6-month well baby visit this morning. She did well. She will get all her shots the 12th since there was one that she couldn't get until then so I opted to do them all at once and not tick her off one more time than needed! Here are her stats:

Weight: 16 lbs 11 oz (50% - little above average)
Height: 26.77 in (85%)
Head circ: 44.3 cm (95%)

She is a tall one with a big noggin! Both her and Christian have had larger heads at their visits. More room for smarts. ;-)

The only thing that is borderline with Sarah is her ability to hold her weight. She doesn't want to do it all that much. I'll stand her on my legs and she will put weight on her feet but she would rather sit or stretch out. So, I'll have to keep working on getting her to use the legs and get some strength going.

During the physical, though, the Ped felt a few clicks going on in her left hip. When she said that it reminded me that during a feeding yesterday I could hear a few in her hip as well. She was moving that leg all around and I thought I heard something and sure enough it was Sarah's legs. So I told the Ped that and she said that I could go up and get her an x-ray of the hip to be sure nothing was wrong. She said it might be why Sarah doeskin want to stand up much. But better safe than sorry so we are checking the hip out. If she isn't working on the standing and supporting her weight I can call in a referral to HKISS (where Christian also gets his speech therapy through) and get a physical therapy appointment to see if Sarah might need something. Lets hope not!

It could just be that I tend to make sure Sarah is up and out of the way of Christian. He likes to be a bit rough sometimes and he is a runner. So I just try to make it safe for both of them and not set myself up for an accident of Christian falling on top of her or something. Anyways, I'll have to put her in the saucer a bit more to see if she can work out those legs a bit more and then we can work on her sitting up. She wants absolutely NOTHING to do with that right now!

Sarah did well during her x-rays though. I just made a few clicks and coos at her and she held still long enough to get two pictures. :) I should have a full report by Wednesday and hopefully might have a call tomorrow with the results. If not, I'll call and have them by the end of the week.

So, today was a busy day. Lots of running around before noon and I'm pooped! But no naps for me...I have dishes and laundry to do. Tomorrow I have a friend coming over so we can talk about Cloth Diapers. It's going to be fun! :)

All for now. Bye!

OMGOSH - I almost forgot! Sarah rolled from back to tummy this weekend!! :) I'm uploading the vids so I'll post them on the website once I get all the programs back up and running (remember the laptop died? so now we have to re-install all the website stuff again). So I'll let you know when I get those up for you!