Harper's Ears Update

Today we took Harper in to have her second set of ear tubes put in and her adenoids removed to hopefully alleviate her issues with her chronic ear infections.

The whole procedure from check in to discharge went amazingly well.  Not a single tear from Harper... and maybe just a couple from mama. 

Her first set of tubes went in when she was just 11 months old and lasted just over a year.  They worked wonders when they were in place, so we are praying these last long enough to get her through the next couple of years until she is clear of ear infections. 

We went to the same hospital as we did 20 months ago, but the experience this time was so much smoother!  Probably due to the wonderful nurses who let us stay with her constantly (other than the actual operation) and Harper being older and able to understand a bit more about what was going on.

I got to suit up again and go in with her to the operating room while they put her to sleep.  This time I was able to hold her in my lap and snuggle her until she was asleep, which made a huge difference!  I gave her a quick kiss, cried a few tears, then joined Taylor in the waiting room. 

The whole procedure was done in about 40 minutes and then they called us back to be with her.  She was still asleep and looked so peaceful.  As she woke up, she was confused and groggy, but us being right there eased her transition smoothly and we were discharged in about 30 minutes. 

Harper didn't want to go right home... she was perfectly content walking around the hospital and checking out everybody else recovering. 

We came right home and promptly snuggled up on the couch and begin our marathon of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse.  It's only been a few hours and she already seems almost back to her sweet self. 

Thanks to God and all our sweet friends and family for their prayers today!

Blogging as Therapy

I was laying in bed last night with my normal one million thoughts flowing through my head and I thought, I need an outlet for this.  I miss writing.  I miss blogging.  I miss being able to go back and read posts that captured moments in my life I want to remember and want my kids, grandkids, etc to be able to remember too.

So, I am going to give this blogging another shot.  I am going to try to stay somewhat current.  We shall see how well that works!  :)

Where are we now?

The girls are 6 1/2 and 2 1/2.  Our life is crazy chaos most days and while we love it most days, we definitely have our moments too!

Lia is in 1st grade.  We moved her from her charter school to a local neighborhood school this year and she is thriving, both academically and socially.  I am so happy for her little heart!  However, we enrolled her in a school which is not our neighborhood home school and now I am plagued with the decision of keeping her there, or moving her again to our home school so she can ride the bus and go to school with her neighborhood friends.  Ugh, it's a decision that is driving me crazy.  I am praying like crazy and hoping a decision will come to me!  It's not as if her school is far, but it does require I drop her off and pick her up and getting everyone out of the house, in the car, buckled in car seats, without tear.... you get my drift.  It makes for several unpleasant mornings for everyone..

Harper is still in Moms' Day Out 1 day a week. She loves going to "school" and playing with her friends and teachers each week.  She will start preschool 2 days a week in August.

I finally pursued my dream of being a hairdresser!  I finished school last November and started working right away as an apprentice at a salon near our home.  After 5 months there I have decided to move on and am going to work at the salon owned by the owners of the cosmetology school I went to.  I am so excited to have the chance to continue my education and continue to increase my confidence doing hair.  It is much more of a challenge than I ever imagined.  Praying that gets easier too. Ha!

Taylor's business is booming.  He is doing great and staying busy but is still home with us a lot.  He's so good at this balancing thing... maybe he can teach me a few tricks.

Our dog, Theo, just turned 2 and he definitely has found his person in Lia.  She is his favorite!

Ok- I gotta get the girls ready and Lia off to school.  Hopefully I'll have more to post soon!

Couple of pictures below of us in December last year... I need to do a photo dump to my computer of our recent pics!

XO
Kelly

Holiday break

I took a couple extra days off around Christmas and New Years this year so that I could have a couple long weekends to hang out with Taylor and Lia.

That's just what we did... Just hung out at home playing with new toys, watching movies and having fun!

Just wanted to share some pics of Lia out driving her new Jeep. Man she is crazy in that thing! It goes 5 mph too so you really have to jog along beside her to prevent her from running in to any cars on the side of the street.









It has been bitter cold but Taylor and Lia bundled up one day to sled out in the backyard. She loved it!!









And what is a trip to the grocery store without riding the horsey?




Fun times together!! Looking forward to many more in the year ahead!



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Happy New Year!

This year we decided that going out and staying up late and getting up early the next day with a 3 year old just didn't sound appealing. Are we getting old???!?

Instead of heading out on the town we headed over to my bestie's house for dinner and some time just hanging out and letting the girls play.


Kia made some awesome homemade green chili and we made some delicious nachos to go with! It was Delish!!!

I love spending NYE with Kia and her hubby JR! We have been able to spend a couple New Years together now and always have a great time! It's great to end the year and begin a great new year with such amazing friends!


The girls had so much fun playing with each other and got along great! Lia was sure happy to see how many Minnie Mouse dolls Ada and Evi had!


Such a little hoarder!

All three girls have matching jammies from American Girl so of course we had to dress them in them for a photo op!





Kia also got two sweet kitties for Christmas and I took plenty of opportunity to snuggle up with them! This is me and Jewels... Isn't she a sweetie!?








The girls even had a little story time with Kia. So sweet!





It was a super fun night! The only sad part was heading home around 9 for the girls and Lia's bedtime. She was not a happy camper and didn't want to leave. As soon as we got home though and got her in bed she was asleep within minutes and slept until 8 am! One tired little girl!

It was a great, relaxing New Years with some of my favorite people in the world! While I only lasted until 10 pm (midnight eastern time though so I think that counts for something) I had an awesome NYE and cannot wait until next year!

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Merry Christmas!!

This Christmas was a merry one indeed!  We had such a great time celebrating my favorite holiday with all of our family and friends!

With Christmas falling on a Tuesday this year, it was a nice long weekend away from work and time to just enjoy those around us and soak up the spirit of the season.

Rather than rotating all around to our different families, we decided to start some traditions this year to make it a little easier and stress free on everyone!  Christmas Eve we will celebrate with dinner at my in-laws, then Christmas morning we will open our gifts at home, just me, Taylor and Lia, followed by heading over to my Dad's for brunch.  After brunch, we will head to my Mom's for dinner.  It is a full 36 hours but so much fun with all our family. 

Lia was extra excited this year for Santa and to celebrate Christmas.... her joy of the season made it all that much more enjoyable for us.

On Friday, December 14th, Lia's preschool class had their annual Christmas program at Grandview Highschool where they all got on stage to sing.  She was so excited and had been practicing her songs for months and knew them all by heart.  I was so excited to see her perform them all in front of everyone.  As her class filed out onto stage, everyone lined up on bleachers and then I heard it... the unmistakable sound of my child crying.  She did not want to perform.  I ended up going up on stage to hold her and stood in for the entire performance.  Somehow, I was not surprised though... maybe next year. 

Christmas Eve was a blast!  We went over to my in-laws where Taylor's brother Morgan and his girlfriend Lynn and her parents joined us.  We had an amazing prime rib for dinner... I swear my mother in law makes the best prime rib... followed by opening presents.  Lia was more than ready and certainly tried to open more than her share of gifts.  It was so much fun watching her enjoy the moment though.  Unfortunately we did not get any pictures.  One of the highlights of the night was when Santa (Taylor) called Lia on their home phone... Lia was hysterical.  "Hello? Santa? Santa Claus?  Where are you? Are you flying? Yes, I've been a good girl."  She was too cute!

After we got home, we quickly put out some gingies (ginger snap cookies that Taylor's grandma Nan makes) and milk for Santa along with some grapes for his reindeer.  Reindeer like grapes, right???  We were all out of carrots. 

After getting Lia down to sleep, Santa got to work.  Luckily, he got to work the night before too so everything was already put together and all we had to do was set it out.  This was a great thing as I was exhausted by the time we got home and put her to bed!

This year's big Santa gift was Lia's pink and purple Jeep... just like Mama's white one.  She also asked for some Barbies, a new Belle nightgown and white cheese balls, new candy and that is it.  Santa also found some more princess nightgowns and a scooter and a Minnie's bowtique toy set to round things out. 

The first thing she said when she walked downstairs Christmas morning was "my jeep, a pink jeep!"  She was so excited!!  And a bit overwhelmed!  She was also almost more excited by a full stocking!  That was a highlight of the morning for me watching her pull everything out of her stocking.

Santa ate all but part of one cookie and boy was she upset he didn't finish his cookies!  Next year they will all be gone!

Here are some Christmas morning pics. Fortunately, we had a White Christmas here.  It snowed all night on Christmas Eve and made for a perfect Christmas morning.  Unfortunately, it was too snowy to take the Jeep out for a test drive, so our living room had to suffice.  Look out!

After we finished playing we got dressed and headed over to my Dad's for Christmas brunch... once again, we didn't take hardly any pictures but had a wonderful morning.  My brother and his girlfriend Alyssa joined us and my Dad, Shellie and Carlie.  We decided to dive right into opening presents and had a blast again.  Taylor and I were surprised with a new Nikon camera that will allow us to take some amazing pictures going forward.  I feel so fortunate and blessed.  I have been wanting a high quality camera since Lia was born and am beyond excited to get lots of use out of it.  It even has a setting on it to take pictures of your sleeping babies' faces... how great is that!?!  Everyone had a great time and then we enjoyed a delicious brunch.  Lia even ate the eggs!  She was a ham as usual and at one point asked the whole table to "laugh everybody!" at a joke she made. 

After brunch and some play time we headed over to my Mom and Dave's for Christmas dinner.   Since it was early afternoon, we started with presents.  Lia now knows how to read her name and had a fun time picking out all her presents from under the tree.

The picture above is me putting on my new Tom Ford lipstick which was to die for and somehow that night disappeared... I am so sad about that!  Guess I'm just not meant to have fancy lipstick!

Lia got a set of princess barbies and a new barbie box that unzips into a little house of sorts to set all the Barbies up on... at one point while we were cooking dinner, this is what we looked over to find.

She even zipped herself in in.  This girl cracks me up!

Alyssa's daughter, Olivia, was able to join us in time for dinner.  These girls love each other and I love listening to their conversations.  So cute what goes on in little one's heads.

Lia also got a baby carrier for her Bitty Baby and decided to put it on along with a backpack and all sorts of other gear.  If you look closely, you can see her Brownie baby's legs hanging out of it.

Oh man, those skittles are giving her crazy eyes!

After dinner we sat around talking and playing and I enjoyed playing with my new camera.

"what are you looking at?"  Not the most flattering facial expression there! 

We headed home around 9 and made it no further than 3 blocks before Lia was passed out in the backseat.  It was one busy day and night and she was pooped.

We are so blessed and are looking forward to a great 2013 ahead!!  Happy holidays to all with Love!

Stitches!!!

This last Wednesday 12/12/12 was a doozy!

Around 10:30 that morning I got a call at work from Lia's preschool. I dread phone calls from them during the day as it is never good news!!

Sure enough they called to say that Lia was climbing up a pole on the playground and lost her footing, fell and hit her face on the 2x4 support beam and had a cut on her chin that needed medical attention.

I hung up and ran out of work to pick her up. Luckily I only work across the street so I was there right away. Her chin wasn't so much cut as it was split wide open! I will spare you the gross photos! I headed back to pick up my friend Janna so she could drive us to the ER while I held the cloth on her chin.

Taylor met us the Children's hospital ER shortly after we got there. Lia was being very brave but she was so scared. It was heart breaking!


Apparently they no longer need to numb them up with shots but use this lidocaine gel applied with a cotton ball and put on with a bandaid that takes about 30 minutes to work and then they come in, wash out the wound and stitch it up.

Stitches on a 3 year olds chin is one of the hardest, most traumatic and sad things to witness; especially when it's your baby!! Taylor and I had to help the two nurses helping the Dr to secure her arms, legs and head. It took the Dr a while but she did a great job and 7 stitches later she got my baby girls chin all sewed up.

At one point while we were holding her down and lia was squirming and upset and then said "I am stuck." Cracked us all up!

Then she said the light was too bright and wanted sunglasses. Ask and you shall receive my love!



All done! The line is so clean and tight I think it will heal really nice!!






She only has to have them in 5 days so she will get them out Monday. She is ready to be done having "whiskers". Such a brave girl!!

Even through all the trauma she didn't lose her happy spirit. Here she was the next night with a bunch of headbands on just being her sweet, silly self.


Love her so much!!

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