Thursday, July 31, 2008

School Supply Shopping

Ethan's uniform shirts came in this week. He starts school on Aug. 18th and he is excited. He looks so handsome in his uniform. He even has to wear a belt.



Here he is at Target picking out his school supplies. All labeled and ready for school to start.
We went to an open house and met the Kindergarten teachers and I was able to request the teacher that I really liked. It will be a big change for the whole family, but we are excited about it.

Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Hospital Stay

I am sitting in Derek's room trying to pass some time. He is awake and doing well this morning, but is thankful for pain medicine. His voice is weak from the air tube that was down his throat, but thankfully it is not sore. The doctor said it will be a good week before he can return to work and anther week for him to really feel great. He is not supposed to lift anything over 10-15 lbs for 6 weeks. This will be the biggest challenge I believe as Aubrey is over that limit. She loves for Derek to pick her up and hold her. We will just have to teach her to climb into his lap instead. Derek's parents arrived last night to help out. We can take turn with the kids and keep them out of Derek's way so he can relax for the next few days. This will be difficult for the kids because they are used to it being play time when Derek is home. I think a lot of movies will be watched. Here are some pictures that I took yesterday.Derek waiting in his emergency room all day. He has some pain medicine so he has a smile on his face.
This is my very uncomfortable green chair that I spent 10 hours in yesterday. There was not any possible way to sleep in this thing - so I finished a book instead.
Ethan came to see Daddy before surgery.
Balloons that Ethan brought him.
My new chair that reclines in the hospital room. So much better! The facilities here are actually very nice.

A shot of Derek with his first ever IV.

Surgery is Over

Derek is out of surgery and all went well. Will post more tomorrow after I get some much needed sleep.

Derek Update

We are still waiting for his surgery!!! The surgeon is wonderful though so he is worth the wait. Hopefully, he will go in soon.

Always Something Exciting

I have just arrived back at home from being at the hospital since 3:00 this morning. Derek will be having his appendix taken out sometime this morning. Denise (our pastor's wife) came over and stayed at our house while we headed to the emergency room. Derek is doing fine and awaiting a time for his surgery. It should be sometime this morning. I came home for a quick shower and a break from my terribly uncomfortable green plastic chair that I have become good friends with. Fortunately, I just got a few books from the library so I am stocked on reading material for our hospital stay. Please pray for Derek today and his surgeon Dr. Bower. Dr. Bower goes to our church and is a great guy so we are blessed that he will be in good hands. This is Derek's first surgery. He had his first IV this morning. Yes, I will take pictures! I will let you know when he is out of surgery.

Monday, July 28, 2008

Resort Fun

A family at our church is able to get us passes to a resort close by to go and use the facilities. We took advantage of it on Friday and had a lot of fun playing as a family.
Ethan enjoyed jumping through the waterfall this time.


I even joined in on the fun.
Aubrey loves to jump into the pool over and over again.


Spending time together doing something fun as a family is probably when I am the happiest. I just love having a good time together and making memories.

Derek and I are going to go on a date tonight and see the new Batman movie. Ms. Anne is kind enough to watch the kids for us. She even offered to take them out to dinner so that I did not have to make anything for them. She is such a blessing to us! I never mentioned how wonderful Derek was the two weeks while I was consumed with VBS. He made meals and helped with the kids and put up with my crankiness from lack of sleep. The last day of VBS while I stayed late at the church making sure everything was cleaned up he cleaned the whole house and even did the laundry! When I came home Ethan told me that "Daddy was trying to be like Mommy today and do all the things that you do." Derek was very helpful and I love him deeply and truly appreciate him and all the time he invests in our family.

Thursday, July 24, 2008

Cuts and Bruises

Today we went to the indoor playground for playgroup. We were there for over an hour and the kids were having a great time. Aubrey is now able to climb everything on her own and not really need my help. I found out great news from my friend Rochelle that Ethan did not have to have the Land's End shorts and pants as his uniform for the Charter school, but any khaki ones that are plain were fine. There happened to be a consignment store a few stores down, so I asked the other moms if they would mind if I ran down for a second to see if they had any shorts that would work. Long story short, I can back about 10 minutes later to see Rochelle and the owner of the place hovering over Ethan whose chin was bleeding. Great time for me to choose to leave. I rushed over to him to find out that a boy (not with our group) pushed him really hard into a toy and it cut his chin up. While were were putting a bandaid and an ice pack on Ethan, Aubrey decided she wanted to get into the action. She was playing on a Little Tykes slide thing and decided to climb up the side instead of the steps and flew right over the top. I did not witness this either. I saw her lying on her stomach crying so hard that she was shaking. I hoped over the little gate and grabbed her and tried to calm her down. I am really winning the Mother Of The Year Award at this moment. Both kids are injured and I have to ask for a second ice pack. Aubrey would not have anything to do with it as her cheek was bruising already. I did get her to stop crying by buying her a bag of chips from the snack machine. At this moment I decided it was time to leave. What are the odds that both kids would get hurt so close to each other. We have been many times and have never had any injuries. Oh well, the life of two small kids. Here are some pictures of my injured kids.Her shinner does look worse in person, but I guess it is good that is looks better in picture.

Ethan's cut. He had to hit the toy really hard because there were not any sharp edges on it at all. At McDonald's afterwards he really wanted to go check it out in the mirror.
I was trying to get a picture of Aubrey's cheek and you can't really see it in this picture, but thought I would leave it because this picture captures so much of her personality. My sweet trouble maker!
Of course we had to go back to the Target again today to look for shorts for Ethan for school and we found these really cool markers. Derek and I were just talking last night how we can never keep our sliding glass door clean from the kids fingerprints. These markers write on glass. How fun is that! The kids had a blast with them and Daddy did not seem to mind. At least it is prettier than fingerprints. I think this will be a new favorite thing to do.

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Life Just Got A Little Better

Our Super Target opened today in Palm Coast!!!! This was a very exciting day for many people. I must tell you that the store has been ready since March, but they were waiting for other stores to finish before opening. The long awaited day finally arrived. Here are the kids sharing a double chocolate frappuccino as we shopped. It was neat to see and hear others shoppers as happy as I was to have the Target open. One lady commented on how nice it was to have smooth buggies and wide aisles. Our Walmart is horrible, so this is a very welcome change. We will be visiting Target weekly for our shopping now. Yippee!

My Baby Is Growing Up

Aubrey has just started to let me do her hair. She will actually sit still and let me braid it so she can be like a princess. I have really been enjoying trying out new things with her hair. It does not always stay in the best, but we are working on that. Here she is with her first real braids.

I have to put them together so that they do not stick out the side of her head for now.
This is what her hair looks like after being in braids all day!
This morning Aubrey was washing her baby while I was taking a shower. I put her in the tub to do it as I have previously learned that she likes to get water everywhere.

She is washing the baby with a pretend bar of soap that came with the tub. You can pump it and squirt water and it have buttons to push to make noise. It is really cute and now that we have discovered the bathtub trick I think I will be willing to let her play with it more often.

Bruster Turns 1

Bruster turned 1 last Thursday, but we forgot with VBS going on. Sunday night we had a little party for him. We made him a dog cake and he really liked it. The kids were very excited about helping me make it. The bib says birthday girl, but we did not think he would mind.
We used yogurt for the icing - it was quick and easy.

Do you think the kids are having fun?
The birthday boy enjoying his special treat. We did not let him eat very much.