Happy Birthday Luke!

Lukie-Lou-McGoo! Happy birthday buddy!! To say that you have been looking forward to this birthday is an understatement. You have been making the list of who you want to invite to your party since May!


Luke, you continue to completely exasperate us in one breath and then you will have us rolling on the floor in the next breath. Honestly, you are something else. You are smart, charismatic, funny, spacey, loyal and all around in love with life. Your excitement over small things is contagious and when you get excited about something – it’s like you bubble over with joy. You’re not crazy about kisses, but love hugs. Caleb is still your favorite person in the whole wide world and you definitely have a sweet spot for your baby sisters.

In honor of your 6th birthday, here are 6 things I LOVE about YOU:

1. I love your eyes and how they are a window to your soul. They always tell a story of how you are feeling and what you are thinking. I look in them and melt.
2. I love your cheeks. They used to be so chubby but as you are getting older, they are slimming down. I still have to fight the urge to bite them!
3. I love how you talk with your entire body when you are excited.
4. I love that after you disobey, you are so sincerely sorry. And you almost always apologize without me asking you.
5. I love how you make a friend everywhere you go. People love you and you really love people.
6. I love that you are so artistic and imaginative.

Oh, Luke, how I love you.

My prayer for you, Luke, is that as you grow up you never lose your excitement for life and your love of your family. I pray that you seek God first in all that you do and that you live your life, purposely, to glorify Him. And lastly, Luke, I pray that you always know you are loved by your family and by your Heavenly Father. Happy Birthday Luke!

A happy first day of school!

My boys had their first day of school on Monday.  I officially have a Kindergartner and Second grader!!  AHHHH!  Somehow that makes me feel so old!

Luke was so excited about starting Kinder.  SO excited.  There were absolutely NO tears, no hesitation or even nervousness on his part.  Just excitement.  It helps that he went there last year for Pre-K and we really didn't make it a huge deal, you know building it up and talking about it a lot.  We did talk about it, but tried to find the balance of making it exciting without making it nerve-wracking.  It also helps that he is sitting next to one of his best buddies. 

Well, let me correct that, he was sitting next to one of his best buddies.  Apparently, that lasted 2 days before they talked too much and had to be separated.  All good things must come to an end.

I think the thing that he was most excited about on Monday morning was wearing his uniform.  Last year in PK he didn't wear a uniform, so he has seen Caleb wearing his now for 2 years.  I caught him looking at himself in the mirror several times - pretty proud of how he looked in his uniform!

Caleb was pretty excited too.  This is his third year at his school and he loves it there.  He, too, was super thrilled that a lot of the kids who were in his class last year are also in his class this year.  Including his best friend!  Oh, and the girl that he has had a crush on for a couple of years.  But we won't talk about that!

The new school year is so bittersweet for me.  I really am happy for them and feel so blessed that they go to school where they get to learn about Jesus everyday from teachers who really love and have a relationship with Him.  I love their school and their friends and that I get to be involved as room mama, but there is still sadness that they go somewhere without me everyday and have fun. 

See..these are faces of boys who know they are going to go and have fun.  And I really am happy for them.

The time has finally come!

It's official!
We no longer have babies on the house.
The other thing that we don't have in the house, for the first time in 8 years, is a crib!!
Check 'em out!

And here is their bunk bed!  As you can see, the top AND ladder are missing.  And they may be missing for a l-o-n-g time.  Or at least until they can control themselves and obey.  Yeah, a l-o-n-g time.  But then again, maybe it won't be so long because the bedding for the top is super cute.

Here they are laying in their bed for the first time!  They look so big in it!  It is a full size because I wanted to make sure that they had plenty of room, but they still sleep right next to one another and like it that way.

And here are my BIG girls.  I can't believe how old they look here.  Gosh they are delicious!!

The girls have been pretty good about staying in their beds.  Okay, maybe not pretty good, but at least they are sneaky enough to not get caught!  Not a good statement to be made about such cute little girlies!

Fatter, Dumber and Crazier

(I know dumber isn't a word and I really don't like the way it looks written out, but it does describe my current state!)


Fatter:
I am so blessed with the greatest friends.  Really.  I cherish them, value them and love them and tell people all the time that I have the most amazing friends.  They are all also beautiful.  Really.  I seriously don't have an ugly friend.  Now that I think about it, that's kinda weird.  Anyway, I'm digressing - They are all beautiful, smart, Godly, wives, mothers and friends.  So what does that have to do with the title of this?  Thanks for asking me and keeping me on task.  They also are amazing cooks.  They watch cooking shows, love PWC and always bring amazing dishes to potlucks.  And they also have been bringing over meals for us.  Good meals.  With desserts. Yummy desserts.  Very yummy desserts. 
So, here I am stuck in bed, bored, unable to exercise and really unable to do anything outside of my oh-so-exciting hourly walks to the other side of the house.  And on these very exciting walks, I walk past the kitchen.  And remember that there is yummy food brought by perfect, beautiful friends (who are all also thin and able to exercise -WITCHES!).  And so I indulge.  Therefore may possibly be undoing all the hard work that I, along with the help of my plastic surgeon, have done to this body.  I may see lipo in my future.  And maybe a Brazilian butt lift.  I can see how the plastic surgery thing could become addictive!

Dumber:
With all this extra time on my hands and Vicodin in my system, I have been watching a lot of television.  A LOT.  Yesterday I watched 4 hours of Bridezilla.  And was decidedly dumber for doing so.  I have, however, found a show that made me laugh so hard, I had to turn the channel and take another Vicodin because my stomach hurt so bad from all the laughing.  Have y'all seen Flipping Out?  Dude, this guy is...crazy!!
Which brings me to my next point...

Crazier:
I'm not really a sit around kinda girl.  I think that this is the longest that I have been in the house without anywhere to go or anything to do since...  Yeah, I'm going to be crazier than I was before.  Frightening.  And speaking of frightening, since I can't watch anything that makes me laugh (because laughing SERIOUSLY hurts) I'm stuck watching murder, mystery shows.  And thought to myself last night:  "What if being home and together so much, J finally can't take anymore of my insanity (and my begging him to wash my hair every day!!) and kills me while I'm sleeping?  Then blames it on an overdose of Vicodin!"  See...crazier!!

THE surgery

Well, I did it.  After years of talking about it, researching it, dreaming about it, thinking about it and most importantly praying about it, I finally went through with it.  Abdominoplasty.  Also known as a tummy tuck!

I've never had surgery before.  I've never been 'under" anesthesia.  Outside of having babies, I've never been in the hospital. 

I'm the girl that doesn't go to the doctor, doesn't take anything heavier than motrin (and that's how J can tell I'm really in pain and not just being a drama queen!) and hates to be sick.  I'm the girl that when I go to fill out paper work at the doctors office, I fly right through it because I have no medical issues to discuss.  And let's not forget that I am the same girl that went through not 1, but 2 ECVs because I was so petrified of the idea of a C-section.  And let me tell you, THAT was painful.  Very, very painful.

So when I told J that I really wanted to do this, he knew I was serious.  So we prayed about it and things just kinda fell in place.

J happened to have a huge chunk of time off (totally unexpected) and the surgeon that I wanted (whom was booked through to September) happen to get a cancellation, so yeah it all happened kinda fast.

And that was probably a good thing.

The week leading up to the surgery I kept super busy getting things organized for the time that I would OOC (out of commission) so that I wouldn't have much time to over think things.  There was a lot to get organized with school starting, finding people to sub my classes and just the general running of the Mad house with the 4 monkeys that live here.

When I woke up Wednesday morning - surgery day - I was pretty nervous.  J and I didn't say much on the ride to the hospital or while we were there.  I had done all my pre-admission stuff the day before and signed, like, 5,000 papers - 4,999 of which had the word death in bold letters.  As they were prepping me for surgery I made him pray with me a couple of times.I was so nervous that I was crying when my surgeon came in to talk to me.  Yep, I was a total mess.

UNTIL, my anesthesia kicked in.  That was about 8:45am.  I didn't wake up until 4:45pm.  Apparently I am a lightweight.

I woke up sore, but not terribly in pain.  I had an overnight stay at the surgery center and I am so glad I did.  I was the only one there, had my own nurse and best part yet - had a pain pump that I could control.  Seriously, if I got treated that well after childbirth, perhaps I would have had more children!

Yeah, so now I'm home and all things considering, I feel really good.  I have drains that J empties out for me and he said they look great and when I go in on Tuesday for my first post-op visit, my Dr. will probably take them out.  When I walk, it is a little hunched over, but each day even that has gotten better.  I really am surprised at how great I feel 3 days after surgery.  Yay!  Thank you Jesus!!

Everyone here is doing really great too.  J is holding down the fort, the kids are happy and playing, and our great friends are bringing us meals!

I have peeked at my stomach and think it looks WAY better that I imagined it would!  So far, so good!!