Go read Robin's Blog.

For those of you (all 2 of you) who don't know, my sister-in-law had surgery today. They thought she had a huge cyst on her right ovary. Turns out her ovary is fine. She actually had a ruptured appendix that had walled itself off from the rest of her body. My brother says it only happens in 1 out of 252,000 patients. Go read her blog for more details.

Yeehaw! A Rootin' Tootin' Good Time!

Hiya, all you cowpokes out there! This here's a Western Wendy tellin' you 'bout our recent trip to the wonderful, high-falutin', country-come-to-town Washington County Fair!

Ok. That's enough of that.

It was this Thursday night. Alpha wanted to do something "together". I was itching to go to the fair at some point, and after 4 days of a new school year, we were all beat! So I called Jim about 4:00 and he agreed. We arrived at the fair in time for supper. The girls got hot dogs and Jim and I got BBQ ribeye sandwiches. Mmmmmm!

Actually, for our first trick, we went to see the cows. We were asked to go see the cows. My girls VOLUNTARILY walked through the cow pens! They loved it! We saw some goats, too. Our last event of the evening was watching part of the junior livestock auction. These kids showed their animals that they had raised and companies would bid on them. We got to hear a live auctioneer and everything! I read in the paper that the kids get to keep the animals and all the money raised goes to their local 4-H club. At bedtime that night, both girls told me they want to have an animal to raise. Yes, a FARM animal. Beta wants to be a vet now. I can't get these girls to pick up a single thing in their rooms without yelling and they want to go work on a farm!

In between eating and watching cows, we rode rides! Alpha is almost getting too big for the kiddie rides. *sniff* She's also quit wanting to ride some of them. She (here's this word again) VOLUNTARILY wanted to go through a Haunted House! I could not believe she wanted to, but she did. She was very brave walking up to it, but paused at the door and peeked around. Jim and I nearly fell to the ground laughing when she was out of sight. I thought she'd get lost in there and need one of us (Jim) to go get her. No. She was out in about 30 seconds. Smiling and as brave as ever! She assured us it wasn't that scary at all. We reasoned that since this one only took 4 tickets, it must have been the 5 ticket one that was the scariest.

All in all it was a wonderful time! The weather was beautiful. It was a good thing we went Thursday night, too, because it rained nearly all day today. Luck was with us!

Here's some pictures:

This lovely family let us pet their cow.








Beta's first ride pick of the night. The very scary Merry Go Round! (Seriously, 2 years ago at the state fair, Beta screamed and cried on it the entire time.)







You can't have a good time without a little Sponge Bob.








And we certainly can't be outdone by our big sister!








Ta da! Alpha's first haunted house! I still cannot believe that she asked to go in there all on her own. No kids teasing her or begging her. Just up and decided to do it. I do not know where she gets her fearlessness from. It must be Jim. It is CERTAINLY not me.

The first day....old pros

Today was Alpha's first day of school. For the third time. We are old pros at it now. We didn't even think about taking pictures!

This morning, Beta asked if Alpha could walk her in to school next year on her first day of kindergarten. I chuckled and said, no, I would probably walk her in. This upset both girls. I suggested we talk about this one year from today. Then, Alpha asked if she could walk Beta in the 2nd day of school. I told her she could probably walk her in the 2nd and every subsequent day thereafter.

Glad we got that settled in time.

End of Summer Bash!

Since today was the last Saturday of summer vacation, Jim and I decided we should do something special.

So we went to the lake.

There is a lake that is, quite literally, down the street from our house. We drove out to it one time, but we didn't see all of it. Thanks to the internet, we found it had a swimming and picnic area.

Hmmmm, do we want to swim or not?








Are you kidding? Of course we want to swim!








And jump! And soar!








Alpha doing her Phelps-like yell.








Here we are having our picnic. I threw together 4 sandwiches along with the box of Cheez-it party mix and Oreos I bought this morning. (don't go to the grocery store hungry.....)






Beta's big thing was for us to play "womens beach volleyball".








Here are mini-Misty May-Treanor and mini-Kerri Walsh beginning their first match.








We had to adjust to a regulation-size volley ball midway through the first set.








And finally, let's not forget that we are kids at heart. We all love a good tire swing!







Once we got the girls in bed, they were both asleep within 5 minutes. That hardly ever happens. Mission accomplished!

Week of Olympics

Here are my favorite Olympic moments from this week:

1. Nastia Liukin's beam performance in the all-around. Absolutely perfect!

2. The men's gymnastics team final where the USA won the bronze medal.

3. Watching Michael Phelps' mother during his 7th race. She couldn't believe he won the medal and nearly fainted into her chair. Bless the poor woman's heart! I can't imagine how unbelievably proud she is of him. But that video of her will be played and replayed so much......

Now, here are my least favorite moments:

1. Watching the women's gymnastics team fall and step out of bounds. I know they're nervous, and I don't blame them a bit. But it's painful to watch.

2. Hearing "Blah blah Michael Phelps blah blah blah blah Michael Phelps" over and over again.

3. That AcneFree commercial that keeps playing over and over and tries to mimic Jessica Simpson. They must have paid a pretty penny for that much prime time ad space, and their commercial isn't filmed well and pretty much stinks.

Olympic Dreams

Well, it's official. We have a Phelps Phan in the house. Alpha is, I believe, in love with Michael Phelps. We watched some of his races last night. So we had to stay up (too late) to watch him win his 10th career gold medal tonight. We saw a brief spot on what his typical day is like at home.

Eat. Swim. Sleep.

Alpha is impressed that he washes his big breakfast down with 3 chocolate chip pancakes. LOL!

Ever since that little feature, all day she's been saying "Michael Phelps is the best swimmer around!" "I like Michael Phelps!" "When is Michael Phelps coming on?" "Aw, this is WOMEN'S swimming!"

God help us all.

Repair List

So, according to Dave Ramsey, what do you do when you have your debt paid off (except the house), and 3-6 months expenses in an emergency fund? What was that? Retirement?

WRONG!!!!

You fix what is broken around your house!

We have had so many things break around here in the past few months. It's unreal. And frustrating.

Broken
air compressor in Honda
xbox
drawer in bathroom
fan in TV room
pond is green
Jim's iphone is missing
The F# key below middle C on my piano came off it's base.

Fixed
air compressor (yike$)
fan (for free! yes!)
pond is kind of better
drawer (in progress)

I'm glad that's over.

We had Alpha's surgery for her ankyloglossia done today. I'm not sure who it was more traumatic for, her or me.

We arrived at the place about 30 minutes early. Alpha read a Family Fun magazine while we waited. (The only others were People, Seventeen, and Car & Driver.)

We get back to the room, and Alpha is just fine while they are slapping monitors on her. She seems relaxed and not nervous at all. Eventually, they called in a male nurse to get her IV started.

Yep.

An IV.

On my baby.

Oh the horror!

Anyway, the nurse sprayed something on her arm that was supposed to get cold and numb the area. When it started getting cold, she started crying. He then tried to jab the needle into her arm.

Big mistake.

Alpha nearly shot out of the chair, grabbed the guy's hand, and tried to pull the thing out. Meanwhile, me and another nurse are grabbing her hands to keep them away while she cries. Unbelievably, I held myself together. It was the same type of situation as when Beta had to go to the hospital for that asthma attack last year. I had to be strong. I had to hold myself together. If I didn't, I knew my daughter would lose it.

Luckily they grabbed some nitrous oxide (laughing gas) and put it on her. Why they didn't do this the first time, I don't know. Come on, people! She's 7!!! Once they had the gas on her, they tried again and she didn't even flinch.

They then escorted me out and said they'd come get me when they were done.

Wow.

I've undergone plenty of procedures in my life as a patient. But never any as a mother.

This was hard.

I didn't cry, thank goodness. I had tears in my eyes but I didn't break down. Jim was waiting for me. He had wanted to come along and I reluctantly agreed. Boy, was that ever a good thing! He helped me hold it together while we waited. Later, he helped carry Alpha to the car and then into the house. His presence was such a blessing! I love him more than words can say sometimes.

We had trouble waking her up from the anesthesia. We finally got her awake and she started crying again. Who can blame her? Jim went to the pharmacy for medicine while I took Alpha home.

Her recovery has been remarkable! Upon returning home, she immediately requested a popsicle, since she had been told she could have all the popsicles and pudding she wanted. It hurt to eat it so we put it back. Not 2 hours later, she asked for it again. She opened it and immediately licked the entire length of it from the bottom to the top. I was like "what are you doing???? Be careful!!!" This made her cry again. *sigh*

She never went back to sleep once we got home. The tylenol with codeine must have made her hyper b/c it sure didn't knock her out. She sat zombified in front of the TV all afternoon with no nap.

As for her mouth, it must be ok. Here is what she's had to eat:

4 yogurt cups
2 or 3 pudding cups (lost count)
an entire pint of yarnell's strawberry ice cream
2 or 3 generous helpings of mashed potatoes
4 or 5 popsicles.

I think that's more than she'd eat on a normal day! While we were watching the Opening Ceremony of the Olympics, she got up and got another yogurt. I told her that was her last one and asked if she was really that hungry. (She'd had the huge mounds of mashed potataoes for supper.) She said "I gotta find out if I win!" The stupid yogurt carton had a contest to win $20,000 and she kept eating them to open the lids and see if she'd "won".

*sigh* *again*

She's asleep now. I gave her a lot of advil like the doctor suggested. She cried some at bedtime, but I don't know if it's because everything really hurt or if she was just remembering the events of the day. Probably both.

Hopefully the recovery will be quick. Everyone I've mentioned it to says it will be.

And I hope I don't have to take either of my girls for any traumatic medical procedures for a long, long, long time!

Update: A clarification. When I said "sigh", I didn't mean it like "oh geez here she goes again!" I meant it as in "my poor baby! I'm doing all I can to help her but I know I can't make the hurt go away." I feel so sorry for her. I know it will all heal in time, but the first couple of days will be rough.

Happy "Holly" Day!

I'm happy! I got to speak with Holly tonight. An actual, face to face, er, ear to ear, telephone conversation. I don't know how long it's been since we actually spoke to one another. We've exchanged a few emails, but our main form of communication has been the comments on one another's blogs! Haha! How funny is that?

Our topics? Well, now that's secret. But they ranged from childbirth to kids to husbands to World of Warcraft. What else would two working moms talk about?

Anyway, good talking to you Holly! Too bad we couldn't have stayed up later and watched A&E's Biography together. (like we used to do at Hendrix!) Maybe one of these days we can go on a girls weekend or something. Until then, see ya in the comments!

Tales of a reaquainted couple.

KID -FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!

That's how we spent our weekend. We have been very blessed the past two weeks with Grandmothers offering to keep our kids for awhile. Two weeks ago, they stayed with my mom from Sunday through Saturday. This past week, they stayed with Jim's mom from Thursday until this afternoon.

So what do two married adults do when they are suddenly faced with no kids in the house?

Oh, get your minds out of the gutter!

Let's see....Friday night we went to see The Dark Knight, the latest Batman flick. While I loved Batman Begins, I HATED The Dark Knight. Heath Ledger was magnificent as The Joker, but the character was played a little too much like a serial killer rather than a funny prankster. There were a lot of situations that involved timed bombs. After the 1995 Oklahoma bombing, I do not find these amusing or fun to watch. In fact, they terrify me.

Afterwards, we shared a small chocolate milkshake from Sonic to make me feel better. :)

Saturday was chore day! I bought groceries while Jim mowed. Yee haw. Saturday afternoon, though, we both sat here and played World of Warcraft together. Fun! Then we went to Lowe's to buy home repair items. (That lovely pond we built is green......yuck!)

For supper, we had some sirloin filets by Sam's Choice. Grilled by Jim, the grillmaster. They were absolutely delicious! They were only $10 for 4 in a box. You all should try them. We also used Jim's mandoline to make our own french fries! I even fried them myself. (I used Salma's oven mitts as armor. Mark will understand. :)

We finished off with fresh strawberries from Walmart that actually tasted good. (long story)

Today we are headed to church and then to meet the girls half-way. They are probably going to be wiped out!

This week, the girls have dentist appointments tomorrow morning. Maybe this time Beta will be better behaved. She's been to the dentist twice in her life, and both times have been marked by clinched teeth and screaming. Pediatric dentistry is not for the faint of heart, I tell ya.

Friday, Alpha will have her surgery to correct her ankyloglossia. Or tongue-tie. More on that later.

Have a good week everyone!

FUNNY!!!!!

You all MUST go read this site! It shows cakes that are decorated, well, "creatively". And yes, I meant to use those quotation marks.