Bling! and a gross picture of stitches so don't scroll down past the first story if you don't want to see it.

For Christmas we granted Erin permission to get her ears pierced.  

Mixed feelings about it.

She LOVES having earrings and can't wait to switch them out next month.  

Man she's so big.

ALSO: 

(warning: gross picture of stitches below)

I'm recovering from surgery.  

I had a tumor in my saliva gland removed and the reports came back

 that it was benign and should not reoccur.  Yippee! 

I might have some side effects but the most important one that might have happened didn't.  Phew!!

The facial nerve goes right through the spit gland so they had to be really careful not to damage that nerve.  And they didn't.  And I'm so glad.

My sister Cally came down to help out which was so nice.  

But I wish I wasn't drugged and sore so we could have had more fun.

I think I might have to fake another need and have both sisters required to come help but the chance of infection would be high so I would have to recover in some comfy resort hotel with both girls in attendance.  And room service.  And spa service.  

And JD should probably come for the heavy lifting.  Oooo.

Yes, I think so.

*

Toothless

She lost these two teeth on a Sunday morning pretty much within 10 minutes of each other.  

It was quite a Hilarious thing.

The very next SUNDAY morning...  

Now she has the one dangling tooth in the middle of her smile.

But being quite unprotected by it's neighboring chickletts...

The lone tooth was knocked out completely by accident by a best friend's elbow at school.

The tooth went flying and though the whole class spent valuable instruction time searching for the little nugget, (don't bother asking that class how to subtract - they spent the initial lesson looking for a tooth!)

they were unsuccessful.  She came home toothless with nothing for the fairy.  

My toothless wonder.

*

round and round

Erin loves the Carousel horses.  

And usually that is where she and I end up when we go to Six Flags with the family.  

We're not big fans of roller coasters.  

We rode the carousel three times...in a row!  

The last time she wanted to find the tallest highest horse she could see.  She had been a little disappointed in the first two she chose.  Wimpy trotters, I guess. 

She found a "georgous" black beauty that I had to lift her up pretty high to get on. 

She LOVED it.  

Until it started slowing down and her horse ended up as high as it possibly could be when the ride stopped.  

It didn't help that I sat on the other horse snapping pictures and chuckling.

I told her to hold on while I got down.  When I got off my horse I started checking the pictures on my camera and slowly walking toward the exit.  

Not very nice, I know.  And I debated doing it.  

But I did it and she hollered at me something fierce.  

I was only a few steps away, of course.  Just a couple steps.  

I went back and helped her down.  She just shook her head at me.

She still loves me.  My little companion.

Phew!

step it up!

At our school festival they had a hair painting booth.

I served my 1/2 hour assignment and really shook things up a bit.

Normally you pick a color and get it sprayed on your head.

Super easy and not that exciting, but the kids like it.

I figured that anything worth doing is worth doing well.

I should go the distance.

The extra mile.

So I got creative.

We had stripes, grids and polka dots.

WAAAAAY more fun.

I'm tellin you,

I can paint some hair.

BTW- Brian and Carter are on their way home from the EEG.  The Dr. only kept them one night.  Carter had NO seizures and there was no abnormal brain activity found by the 24 wires attatched to his head.  That means the medicine is working and we just have to check in with the neurologist every 6 months.  After 2 years we will start to take him off the medicine and hope everything worked itself out.  
Good news.  

ON WITH THE SHOW!

I finally got over to my camera bag and got the cable cord things out to get pictures off my various apparati.  So hang on to your pants!  I am photo laden and ready to share!


First I need to show you some pictures from our enlightening time in the hospital with Carter last month.  


He doesn't look so chipper here!  He had a hard time getting used to that thing in his nose.  It went up his nose and down his throat into his stomach.  Every time he swallowed it kind of pulled a bit and that drove him nutters.  He might even say that was the worst part of the whole sleep study/pH probe ordeal.  Even given after a few hours of just nose wire his whole head looked like he'd been treated for some disastrous head wound! 

I wondered how he would EVER be able to get to sleep like this.  But he also had wires stuck to his legs and two more wires over his face measuring air output from his mouth and his nose.  What a mess.
He fell asleep right away though.  Then the show began with all the seizures.  Crazy night.


We have been increasing his medication slowly and I think we have finally got a dosage that has stopped the seizures.  So he is sleeping all night and some.  I cannot get him up very easily.  I have to literally swing his legs over the edge of the bed and stand him up. 


Yea for and stink eye to medication.





As I was getting all the pictures off my phone I found a bunch of this:

That is my hand after the removal of my little hand bump.  Norma got me home and to the couch and had to leave to pick up her son from school.  I was still a little drugged.  I took a lot of pictures of this hand.  I don't remember doing that. 


*

one recovery and the hopes of one recovery

My hand is feeling better.
Still a little stiff and looking grody still, all green from healing bruises and my fingers have a strange band of bruisy color across the middle knuckles and finger joints as well.  I have tape over the incision and you can see the string ends of the stitches an inch long taped down from either side of the scar.  So needless to say I was a BIG hit in my Sunbeam class today.

I couldn't teach last Sunday because of the meds and my hand was still pained, so the little kidlets colored me a get well card.  Today they asked about my boo boo and it came quite in handy calming a weepy boy who wanted his momma.

"Hey!  If you stay I'll let you look at my scar."

Worked like a charm.  It still has a little dried blood under the tape.  Gross.  Also, you can see the marker marks they drew on there to know where to cut and stitch.  I told them that NEXT week the tape will be off and they can actually see where they cut it open.  Oooooo.
I have a very fun Sunbeam class of 4 boys and two girls.  All very rambunctious and Crazy, but adorable and I love them.
One little boy got up during Singing time walked right in front of me stood there for a second and then carefully started pulling my curls straight and watching them spring back.  Gosh.  It was so cute.

Anyway.

Let me tell you something else.  My Carter has been waking up every hour all night long since who knows when.  We started treating him for 'reflux' in September because he would have these weird things happen where he couldn't breath and he'd grab his tummy....I don't know.  Our best guess was reflux.  And I knew he woke up a few times a night even way back then.
I found out it was very often when Brian went out of town and Carter was freaked out about something and couldn't stay in bed so I relented for the first time ever and let him stay in my room.  I was so tired.  It was 1:30 am!  He promptly fell asleep and then proceeded to wake up with these seizure like reflux things every hour!  He didn't remember anything although he'd talk to me a bit when he could breath again.  So I had him stay in my room for the next 2 nights and wrote down every time he woke up with these episodes.  EVERY HOUR!  Seriously.  How can a kid endure not getting a good nights sleep.  I know by that third night I was a weepy basket case.
So.  His endoscopy and biopsies came back with no evidence of reflux.  On Thursday we have an overnight hospital stay and he is having a different test done to better measure stomach acid and occurances of reflux through the night.   We also have a sleep study set up to look into something other than reflux, but we can't get that in until May.  What is going on with this poor kiddo, I don't know.

Next week, or in a few days, depending on how on the ball I am, I'll post a picture of where they cut my hand open.  Then I'll be investing in lots of Vitamin E and duct tape.

Just kidding on the duct tape.

I'm going to go eat a cookie.  I love cookies.

Have a good week!

golden boy

tomorrow carter and i are off to b'ham for an endoscopy.  poor guy has been plagued with horrid reflux since the summer and we can't seem to get it under control.
it's a simple procedure, but i'm still a bit nervous.  i'm sure it will be fine and we'll figure out what to do for him.

i've been reading this book.
boy are my kids in for a surprise!

i'm watching this movie this weekend because it's been a few years and it's time again.

i just learned that 'control p' will post your unfinished post and not paste your just copied link into the appropriate box.  oops.  

wish us luck tomorrow.  i'm not going to like letting them take him from me.  but it'll be good to get him back.

i sure love this kid.

we went to the zoo

Kacie wanted to be carried so badly.  She was completely content with this if that's all she could get.  Just calmly hanging there.  It really was one of the funniest things I've seen.

And below is my poser.  

I had to take a picture of her on every bronze statue and wooden cutout we came across.

She LOVES to pose for pictures.

Gotta love the zoo.

'twas the day before Halloween and all through the woods...something stirred.

Nash's is a story where as the other's are pretty self explanatory.
K.  So he has just escaped from prison and is a little crazy.  He didn't want to be caught right away so he donned a Dr.'s scrubs (that's another story...it took a while) so that he wouldn't be so conspicuous.  He narrated what he was doing the whole time I was taking his pictures.  He is my story teller and that's the truth.  Some of is pictures came out really creepy.

And here's the whole gang!

We had a great trip, but check out her hair!

Madeline got a new haircut.  She has been talking about it and researching it for a few months and I was hesitant.  We did some pre-counseling to prepare for an "I hate it" outcome and got a few conditions in place about upkeep of self kind of things and went for it.

She LOVES it. 

She's a brave girl.  

And that is her first pink t-shirt since she was 5!

She even wore a skirt to school today.  With purple tights.

She is morphing.

I want to update about my trip, but I am not a lover of editing pictures.  I love editED pictures, but I don't like taking the time.  I am not a photographer by nature.  Cropping, rotating, playing with the colors and stuff... just don't know what looks good.  However!  My sister does.  So maybe I will link to her post (when she gets it up) if she includes enough pictures of me, of course.  

I do have the "Joey's dreams come true" picture montage that she (sister) does not possess, yet.  Those pictures are good as is.  Maybe I'll go that route.

It was, as always, a great time. 

 Healthy kids.  Lots of crowds.  Sunny days.

And Butterbeer.

Oh, Butterbeer.

Hhhuuuuuuh!

*

my big little girl

Six years old!  

She is awesome.

Brian told her something magical would happen while she was asleep when he tucked her in the night before her birthday.  She was so excited when she said "Really?  What?"
"You will go to sleep a cranky five year old and wake up a cheerful six year old!"

One day down.  So far so good.

I love watching her learn new things and be led in the excitement of that.  She LOVES being the youngest and no doubt gets her way more often than not.  But, we all seem to be okay with that for the most part.  Well, most of us.  Most of the time.

One things for sure.  We do all love love love watching her be happy and she appeals to each of our particular sense of humors entertaining us like nothing else.

Even Carter sighed the other day as she rushed off to set up a game of Othello for them to play,
"I sure love her."
I asked him why and he said "She's just so small, like a little punching bag."

?

Suffice it to say, she is our Dear Heart.

Her hair always seems to be a bit of a mess, but that only adds to her charm.  

In other news...

Meet the new Branch President.

We're all growing up a little, eh?

Aaaaaaaak!

*

already?

Happy Birthday, Nash!

Way to be 11.

golly.

There is something about 11.

11!

he wants a dog.

*

Sheesh. It's quiet here.

My kids want a dog. 

Me too, some days.

How awesome is that?!!!

Live long and prosper.