Splash!

On Saturday we all got together for my friend's son's second birthday party. They rented a giant inflatable water slide and everyone got in on the action. I think the adults made just as many trips on it as the kids (if not more). We all had a blast.

Sunday was Mother's Day and it was pretty quiet here. Ben worked on my car for a little while during the day and we had a nice dinner. On Monday evening I drove back to San Antonio with Natalie. She had a CT scan Tuesday morning because I was concerned about a little fluid build up she had. Dr. M said everything looked great and that her CT scan showed "dramatic improvement" over the CT scan from last month. He showed me the two scans and I was able to see the difference, too.

Yesterday Natalie had her last PT session with her PT therapist and she was impressed with Natalie's progress. She said she thought that at the rate Natalie is improving, she won't need PT anymore by the end of the summer. That's great news, and we'll have to have her checked out once we get up to Washington.

This weekend Ben and I have to get our stuff together for the summer. On Monday I'm taking the girls down to San Antonio and picking up Lissa at the airport. Natalie has a few appointments on Tuesday again and hopefully we'll be able to get on the road Tuesday afternoon to head to Albuquerque. Ben will stay at the house to oversee the packing and loading of all of our stuff.

The lady who put an offer on our house officially rejected our counter offer/withdrew her offer. So the house is still on the market for now. We're hoping to sell it, but we're going to put it on the rental market as of June 15th. Maybe another year of paying the mortgage and waiting for the housing market to stabilize will work out for us.

I'm getting really excited to head to Albuquerque next week, it's going to be a fun summer!

Lauren's Birthday Extravaganza Week

Let me start where I left off. Natalie was released from the hospital the day after her surgery and we came home the next day (Saturday). Sunday was Lauren's birthday, but we didn't want to have a bunch of people come to the house in case there was a showing, and we couldn't have anything outside because there was really windy, bad weather. We decided just to do something small at home.

We woke up and had chocolate chip pancakes with whipped cream and sprinkles.

(Which Lauren helped to prepare:)

Then she opened presents from Mommy and Daddy and from Natalie. Then it was time to shower and get dressed in her special birthday dress that Ema sent.

We were off for a birthday girl lunch at Chili's. She got 'snack n cheese' and chocolate milk and then a scoop of vanilla ice cream and the waiters sang a happy birthday song. We thought she'd love it, but she hid against Ben the whole time. After that, we went to the mall to walk around and came home. She was so worn out that she fell asleep on the couch a bit before 7. We hadn't even had dinner or cake yet!

The next day when Ben got home from work we did her birthday song and cake. She picked out a pink cake with white frosting and helped me make it. She even helped put the sprinkles on the sides of the cake. She's going to be quite a baker.

Tuesday we got the house ready to go and headed down to San Antonio. We had dinner and picked up Grandma Lissa at the airport. The next morning we got up and ready and went to the Rainforest Cafe on the Riverwalk for lunch. Lauren liked the butterflies, but did not like the snake when we walked in, or the monkey hanging over our table.

She had to jump in someone's lap when he started making noise, and when the lightning storm came through the rainforest.

After lunch we were off to the San Antonio Botanical Garden.

One of her recent favorite things to do is pick flowers, so we thought this would be a place she'd really enjoy. And she did. Natalie liked it, too. She got to be walked around and there were lots of things for her to look at.

Someday when she's bigger, maybe Daddy can do this with Natalie, too. Lauren sure enjoyed it!

We didn't spend too long at the Botanical Garden. Just long enough to walk through everything. The weather was perfect, not too hot and not cold.

She still couldn't leave without picking at least one flower, though. :)

We went back to the house and had cake and presents. This was the cake she picked out and it was hers to dig into.

The next day we were off to the San Antonio Zoo. .

Parents magazine just named it as one of the top 10 zoos in the country, and specifically good for kids under 5. I think Lauren agrees.

She got to feed and brush the goats at the petting zoo.

Then it was time for a hot dog before she hit the beach.

She loves that beach. She could spend all day there. Who cares that the water was icy cold? Not her.

The next day was Sea World. She got to watch the dolphins. She kept yelling, "Come here dolphin so I can pet you!"

But they weren't listening.

She rode her first water ride, the "Texas Splashdown" which has two good drops and lots of water. She loved it. She was good in the 45 minute line to get on the ride. She got to watch Shamu's show and the Sea Lion show, see penguins and the Clydesdale horses and see more flowers.

It was an exhausting week, but lots of fun. Lissa flew back on Saturday, and we drove home after dropping her off at the airport. On Sunday we went to a friend's house to do an Easter egg hunt and have brunch.

Day Before Surgery

Natalie's next surgery is tomorrow morning.  I have to have her at the hospital at 5:30 am.  I came down here Monday night with Natalie while Ben and Lauren stayed at the house to get it finished for showings.  On Tuesday I met with the Neurosurgeon for our pre-op appointment, then I filled out the pre-admit paperwork and then went to pre-anesthesia to fill out more paperwork.  Before I could see the anesthesiologist, it was time to go to Natalie's  ophthalmology appointment.  That took almost two hours, and by the time we finished, everything was closing for the day.  We went back this morning to finish at pre-anesthesia and then have blood drawn at the lab.  Or not.  They stuck her three times at the lab and couldn't get a vein, so they sent us up to the PICU to see if they could get her.  She was stuck a total of SIX times before they got the blood she needed.  She was really not happy, and I felt quite sick by the time it was over.  I did see the same nurse she had last time, and she was very excited to find out Natalie would be there with her this weekend.

The eye doctor thinks Natalie is far-sighted and has a stigmatism.  She also has one eye that looks like it may be starting to be a lazy-eye.  He wants to see her again in April after he has a chance to look at her MRIs and CT scans and he'll see if she has any changes from this visit.  She may get glasses to see if seeing better will help strengthen her eye muscles.

Ben and Lauren are on their way down to San Antonio right now.  Ben has been working his butt off to get the house ready for showings since we'll be gone all weekend.  We had our first showing today at 4:30 and Ben said he used every last minute to finish up and get packed.  I guess he was pulling away just as the realtor showed up to the house.  I'm very much looking forward to any feedback we get.  While we're gone, the realtor is going to go in and set up the 360 degree virtual tour of the house to post to her website.  

The Road to San Anton

It takes us about three hours to drive from our house to Victor's house.  It's only about 170 miles, but we take a highway that goes through at least three towns with stop signs and lights, so it makes it take a while longer.  Once we leave our house, it takes us about half an hour to get to the 281.  Then we spend about two hours driving on a road that looks like this for most of the way:

Pretty boring, huh?  Usually Ben drives, I look out the window, talk to him, cater to Lauren, and play DJ, Natalie sleeps, and Lauren rides like this:

She's got her headphones on (or "heliphones" as she likes to call them (don't know why)) and she's watching one of her movies.  She's got a pretty good ride back there and does well.  Being potty trained makes the car rides a bit trickier.  She tells us when she needs to pee, but she doesn't always give us a whole lot of notice.  Thankfully we've made it to a bathroom every time so far.

I don't know if it's from holding it in, or just not knowing how to clean herself up real well yet, but I'm pretty sure she has a UTI or bladder infection.  We got down here Sunday night and she was fine.  Last night she kept going to use the potty.  She'd go every five minutes.  I thought she was just being annoying and playing some sort of game.  Then this morning she kept saying her skin hurt.  We put lotion on her thinking maybe she was dry and itchy.  Then she started acting like she didn't feel well and fell asleep on Ben's lap.  Then this afternoon I took her to go pee and she started crying.  I knew what it was then.  We came back to Victor's house and decided Ben should take her to the ER.  We're too far from home to get to her pediatrician's office and we don't want her to have to wait any longer.  I just hope they don't have too long of a wait there and she can get started on some antibiotics and get feeling better.

I took Natalie in for her CT scan this morning.  Once she got in there it took less than two minutes to do the scan.  It was really easy.  Tomorrow morning we go back so the neurosurgeon can go over the results of the scan and see how's she's doing since the surgery.  I also went and got my massage today.  I got a lavender aromatherapy bath and then an hour long massage.  It was really really relaxing and just great.

Now I'm sitting here at Victor's house with Natalie waiting to hear from Ben.  And trying not to turn into a big knotted stressed muscle again.

The shortest month

... and we have seven different appointments for Natalie.  Four trips to San Antonio.  

Natalie and I are in San Antonio tonight.  She has an appointment tomorrow morning at 8:30.  It's called a Multi-Disciplinary Clinic and we're meeting with a Physical Therapist and an Occupational Therapist and possibly a Speech Therapist.  I'm not sure what we're going to be able to do for her since she's only 2 months old, but I guess I'll find out in the morning.

Ben and Lauren stayed at home since this is a short trip.  She's going to go to work with him tomorrow which I think is pretty cute.  She'll like that.  And she has dance class tomorrow.  Hopefully I'll be back way before then, but just in case, we wanted her to be able to go since she missed it already once this month and will probably miss it next week.

I spent a lot of time yesterday moving my music from my hard drive to our external drive.  I went through about 8,000 songs and combined them with what Ben already had on it.  It freed up about 7 GB of space on my hard drive, which is great because I have that much more room for pictures.

Back and Forth and Back and Forth

I'm sitting at Victor's house in San Antonio.  We drove down yesterday because Natalie had an appointment this morning.  Ben wanted to help out around Victor's house to repay him for letting us stay here all the time, so last night he power washed the deck and today he stained it.  It ended up taking longer than he expected, so we're going to stay the night again and go home in the morning.  We'll be home Friday, Saturday and Sunday, and then next Monday we come back down here again.  She has an appointment at 7:30 am on Tuesday.  Then we go home again until the next week when we come back on Sunday and stay Monday and Tuesday.  And then we have another appointment the second week of March.

Did I mention the back and forth is starting to wear on me?  I think its getting to Lauren, too.  She had a rough day today.  She is out of her normal routine in a house not set up for kids, and since we were expecting a short trip, we didn't pack a lot of stuff for her to do.  She has her videos but that's about it.  Combine that with her resistance to a nap, and she was toast by 4 pm.

I think I need to start making a list of recipes I want to try.  I see so many good ones, but then there are nights I can't think of anything to make.  If I had a list, I bet I could make most of them before the year was over.  I've been trying to take more pictures, too.  I got a bunch of the girls yesterday and I think they're pretty good.  I will have to upload them when we get home so I can see them bigger and then I'll post some and email some.  I didn't bring my camera cord (again, I was expecting this to be a shorter trip).

Forgot to tell you sooner...

Lauren is totally completely potty trained! She hasn't worn a diaper (even to bed) in about two and a half weeks. It's great. She's so awesome. The playroom turned out great for her, she loves it and spends a lot of time in there just playing by herself. I'll walk by and hear her playing- my goodness, she has such an imagination. I was watching a video the other day of her from last January and I can't believe how much she's changed. Her hair alone is a huge difference. She looks more like a kid now than a baby or a toddler. And she's not even 3!

Natalie has been doing pretty well. I can tell she's still a bit irritated by the shunt. I would imagine it takes some time to get used to that thing being under her skin on her head. She does pretty well just taking tylenol. She's having a horrible time with gas, though, and she gets so upset she'll puke from the crying. I'm trying to keep giving her mylicon because I can't figure out what I'm eating that's doing it. I thought maybe it was onions or chocolate, but I went without those and it didn't make a difference. So I just don't know.

I got Natalie's CT scan scheduled this morning. She's going to go in for her CT scan on the 23rd and then we meet with neurosurgery for her follow up on the 24th. So we'll head back down to San Antonio on Sunday and come home Tuesday afternoon. Driving back and forth is really starting to wear on me. All of this is starting to wear on me. I'm keeping my spirits up as much as I can, but yesterday I started to feel like I had a head cold, and somehow that just amplified every other down feeling I was having. I want to know we're done with this for at least a month so I can make plans for people to come out here, or so that we can go do something that isn't centered around medical care.

Shunt Placement Surgery

The surgery went great!

Ben and I had Natalie at the hospital at 5:30 this morning.  We had a lot of waiting around to do while things got lined up, but they took her at 7:30 back to be sedated.  Ben and I kept ourselves occupied in the waiting room and they came and got us right around 9 and said everything went smoothly.  We got to go to the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit right away to see her.  She was still a little bit sedated, but seemed comfortable.  

She has about an inch and a half long C shaped scar about 2 inches behind her ear, and a half inch or so little scar on her belly right below her rib cage.  The shunt is so small, there's barely a bump on her head.  She looks really great.  They shaved almost the whole right side of her head.  She still looks beautiful, though.  The nurses all like to come coo over her.

The neurosurgeon came back this afternoon and looked over her, and he said everything looks great.  I just talked to the nurse at the PICU and she said Natalie ate well tonight and is sleeping soundly.

Lauren got to come to the hospital to visit with Natalie and she was charming everyone.  She had a long conversation with the doctor about dragon tales and dress up and her new shoes.  Lissa crocheted an adorable pink hat for Natalie today.  I think we may ask her to make a lot of little hats for Natalie until her hair grows in.

So.... she's supposed to be released tomorrow morning.  She's scheduled to have a CT scan and an x-ray at 5 am tomorrow and then the neurosurgeon will have to sign off to release her.  

I'm sitting here tonight feeling really relieved that this surgery is over.  And I'm very happily surprised with how little her shunt stands out.  This is one big step that is over and done with and in a few months we'll bring her back for the surgery on her tethered spinal cord and to remove the two tumors.  But we'll handle that when we get to it.  Right now I'm just looking forward to bringing her home and going about our day to day lives for a while.

The Big Day

Tomorrow morning is Natalie's shunt placement surgery.  Ben and I have to have her at the hospital at 5:30 am.  She should be in surgery by 7 and the neurosurgeon said it should take about an hour.  I expect everything should go pretty well, there will be three anesthesiologists in the room, and there's going to be a general pediatric surgeon assisting the neurosurgeon tomorrow.  

Ben picked Lissa up from the airport today and she and Natalie and I went shopping at Kohl's while Ben and Lauren went to the park.  We went to Red Robin for dinner tonight and now we're just spending some time relaxing before heading to bed.  

Natalie will spend at least 24 hours in the PICU after her surgery, and as long as she does ok, she should be released on Friday.  Lissa flies back to Albuquerque on Saturday.  I'm hoping we'll be able to go back home on Saturday or Sunday.  Natalie has an appointment for the special baby clinic next Thursday.  They'll have all the different therapists meet with Natalie to do some assessment of her and help us make sure we're doing everything we can to keep her on track.

Heading back to San Antonio

We had a nice 4 day weekend. On Saturday we hosted a little BBQ at our house. Ben smoked a brisket and I made hashbrown casserole. We had our friends Mark and Megan, Katrina and her girls, Mandy and her son and Brandi over. Mandy brought a really delicious salad and Brandi brought sugar cookies. The brisket turned out great, Ben always does such a good job with that.

We've been using the Wii a lot lately. I get on and do Wii Fit every other day or so, and Ben and I have been having Dr. Mario battles most nights. He's been getting better, but I'm still the champ. Oh! And we upgraded to HD TV last week. DirecTV came and installed the new HD DVR receiver on Monday and we also wired up the playroom with satellite for Lauren.

Natalie's MRI is coming up on Thursday. We just got a call today that she has to go in on Wednesday at 1:30 so we can fill out some paperwork for the anesthesiologist. We were going to drive down tomorrow night, but I guess we'll drive down tomorrow morning instead. Friday morning we'll head back home unless she gets done early enough on Thursday.

I have some packing to do for San Antonio so I better get started.

Baby Shower, San Antonio

Things have been going well since Ben got home.

We all got our flu shots to prepare for visiting the NICU after Natalie's surgery. Saturday was my baby shower. My friends Katrina and Katherine hosted it for me. Katrina had the most delicious and cute cake made, and my friend Amy made a gorgeous diaper cake that everyone talked about.

Then on Sunday we loaded up our cars and headed down to San Antonio. The drive takes just less than three hours. We got there and had dinner then went to Victor's house where we were staying. Monday morning we went to the hospital for my 11 am appointment. Things haven't changed that dramatically, she's a little bit bigger, the swelling increased a little bit, but nothing is happening too fast and the doctor said I could come home for two more weeks and I didn't have to stay down in San Antonio until then.

My next appointment is on December 2nd, so we'll load up again and head back down on December 1st. Ben worked Wednesday, Thursday and Friday of this week and he'll have to work this coming week Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. On Thanksgiving we're going to my friend Katrina's house. We've done Thanksgiving with them the last two years and it's been a good day. The rest of next weekend will be spent getting things here at the house ready for Natalie's return and getting our things together for San Antonio again. We'll be down there for about a month depending on when she decides to make her debut and how long it takes her to recover from the surgery.

I am a little worried about Christmas this year, I feel like there's a good chance we'll kind of miss it all together. I want to keep things as normal as I can for Lauren, but we probably won't be home yet, and I guess anything other than home isn't really normal. She's been doing so great with Ben, though. She just adores him and she's really glad he's home.

Ben has been working on the cars a lot since he's been back, I think he missed the grease and frustration. He's out putting cruise control in his car right now. I read the book "Twilight" this week and today I'm going to go see the movie with my friends Katrina and Mandy. Then I'll have the next three books in the series to read. Hopefully I'll do it a bit slower, though, and that can help pass the time down in San Antonio.

San Antonio and Austin

Last Thursday I picked Lissa up in Austin and we drove to San Antonio. Ben went to high school with Victor, and Victor owns a house in San Antonio that we arranged to stay at. We spent the night on Thursday and bright and early Friday I went to the Air Force hospital down there. My appointment was at 9 am and it would have taken me about 3 hours to get there if I had to drive from my house, but it only takes 20 minutes from his place.

I got there at about 8:30 and found the OB clinic. I had an ultrasound at 9 am. Mostly this was just so they could get the latest pictures of the baby and to see if anything had changed since my last ultrasound. The ultrasound tech did the initial ultrasound, then the Maternal Fetal Physician came in and did the ultrasound, then he brought in the other two Maternal Fetal Physicians and they all went over the images. Then I went down to another building and had my fetal MRI. I've never had an MRI before. It was fine, but laying on my back for that long did make me a little bit woozy. I didn't realize it was going to be so loud, even with earplugs, it was loud. I can see how people could freak out in there. After the MRI, I went back upstairs to meet with the doctor from the OB clinic again and with a doctor from the NICU. But, I got up there right before 12, so everyone was going to lunch. I went ahead and grabbed lunch in the hospital cafeteria and headed back upstairs again. Once I got up there, I met with the doctor from the OB clinic and the NICU, and they let me have Ben call in. We put him on speaker phone and we all talked for about an hour and a half and had most of our questions answered. It was really good that they did that, so far everything that Ben had heard had been through me, and this time it was straight from the doctors. Once we finished there, I went to another floor to speak with the neurosurgeon. That was about half an hour or so. He went over the procedure with me and the risks and possible complications and answered all my questions. By the time I got out of there, it was almost 4. I had been planning on being done by 1 and heading up to Austin. Instead, I spent about 7 1/2 hours at the hospital. Oh well.

So the MRI didn't really tell us anything new. The swelling in her ventricles has increased. There's no genetic reason for it, and as far as they can tell she didn't have a stroke that caused it. It's just one of those random things. When they measured her ventricles, they measured really swollen. I guess anything up to 1.1 is considered mild, 1.1-1.5 is considered moderate, and anything over 1.5 is considered severe. We're measuring at 3.0. So that's really a lot of swelling, but they are able to see cerebral cortex tissue surrounding the ventricles, so that is really good news. That means the brain tissue is there, even if it's being a bit squished right now. The other thing that concerned them was that my amniotic fluid levels are measuring high. That means I'm at risk for preterm labor. I don't think I'm going to go into labor soon. They want me to go this Friday to get another ultrasound at the hospital here to check the fluid levels again, and then on the 17th go back down to San Antonio so they can check on me. Since I'll have the baby down there, they want me to stay in San Antonio as of November 17th until I have the baby. Thankfully our friend said we could live at his house during that time, he'll be in Iraq anyway and has no problem with us staying there. That's a huge load off. And Ben is being sent home sometime between November 10th and 20th. They are working out the details now. We're waiting anxiously for the exact date, but it is soon anyway.

We left San Antonio just in time for rush hour traffic and hit Austin just in time for crazy Halloween going out traffic. It took 2 hours to go 80 miles. We got home at 9:30 and missed trick or treating. Lauren is too young to really be upset about it, but I did feel bad anyway.

The next morning we got up early and dropped Lissa off at the airport in Austin. I had a fun weekend planned. I met up with 8 girls from around the country that I know from an online celebrity gossip site. Some of them I've been talking to for over 2 years, and 2 of them I have met before. We met for brunch on Saturday and went to a place called South Congress Cafe, then dinner that night at the Iron Cactus. Sunday morning we had brunch at Chez Zee. Most of our meeting was organized around eating, and all the food was really really good. Lauren was an angel and charmed everyone and I had a lot of fun. It was good to have something to distract me over the weekend and it really helped me to just go do something fun. We came back Sunday evening and have gotten back to our normal routine.

Last night we stayed up late to watch the election results and listen to the speeches. Actually, Lauren fell asleep right as CNN projected Obama's win. I heard of celebrations in the street in quite a few cities, but my neighborhood stayed pretty quiet. I guess Texas wasn't into celebrating an Obama victory.

Lauren has been doing really well with potty training lately. Today she made it through lunch out with a friend and then a shopping trip to WalMart without an accident. I think we'll keep her in diapers overnight for now, but I feel like she has the daytime figured out pretty well.

Feeding the Ducks

This is Lauren totally excited and running to go feed the ducks.


Actually, she mostly just threw bread in the water. I think the ducks were overfed and not at all interested in the three bags of stale bread we brought.

But, she had fun anyway, and it was a good chance to get some pictures of her, and of Katrina and her girls.

We headed to the Central Texas College campus which has a nice pond with a fountain and a bridge, along with a big park area. There were birds and flowers and fish and turtles and the overfed ducks.

It was a good day, even as hot as it was, and we had fun.

Afterwards we headed to Katrina's house to eat dinner and carve pumpkins. I'll have to get the pictures from her. I carved a Cinderella pumpkin for Lauren and a cat pumpkin for mine. They're pretty cute. Hopefully they make it to Halloween.

I got a call this morning to confirm my appointments down in San Antonio. Along with the ultrasound and MRI, I'm meeting with a pediatric neurosurgeon and cardiologist. It will be a lot to do, but at least I'm doing it all in one morning.

Ben heads back to Baghdad on Tuesday to join the rest of his troop. The unit has less than 100 days left over there. We are still waiting to hear the date he'll be coming home. It will depend on what the doctors say this Friday when I meet with them.

MRI

I got a call today from the scheduling lady in San Antonio. I have a level 2 ultrasound scheduled for October 31st at 9 am, and a fetal MRI scheduled for 10:45 am. They're going to try to get the pediatric neurosurgeon to come see me in between.

I think Lissa is flying in on the 30th and we'll drive to San Antonio to stay at our friend, Victor's house. Then in the morning I'll be able to go to my appointment without getting up at 4 in the morning.

Our realtor came to look at our house yesterday and I'm going to meet with her tomorrow to go over some stuff. I guess we'll put the house on the market in January to try to have it sold by May when we're ready to leave.

I guess that's it for now.

Pumpkins!

Today we went to a Christmas Tree Farm up in Temple. They had a pumpkin patch and we took the kids. We went with our friends Brandi, Katrina and her daughters, Mandy and her son, and Katherine and her son. There was a pumpkin stand, a haystack to play in, a pumpking painting area, a gift shop and a hay ride.


Lauren also found the tetherball games and liked to push the ball around. Last night she had a bit of a fever and felt better with some tylenol, but she was still a little down at the pumpkin patch. I don't think she had fully recovered and there was so much to do and see while she was there. But she had a good time. After the pumpkin patch we went to our friend, Mandy's house for dinner. She made pumpkin lasagna which was pretty good. I had never had that before.

On Saturday we went to Salado's Christmas in October which was put on in a big tent by the civic center. There wasn't much to it, but we did go in a few shops and stop and get ice cream, which I think was the highlight of it all.

I don't have any new news about the baby right now. I'm waiting to hear from the hospital in San Antonio about when my appointment will be. As soon as I know anything I will let everyone know. I'm also still waiting to hear about when Ben will come home. It should be by the end of this month, but I have not heard anything at all from the command yet. There is also a rumor that we will be getting orders by Friday. Of course, we've been hearing that for a while.

About the only other exciting thing around here that I have to report is that our Cracker Barrel is opening a week from tomorrow. I am actually looking forward to going for breakfast. And Ben's birthday is two weeks from today. Hopefully he'll be home for that. If you are looking for an idea for his birthday, he has only asked for Amazon.com gift certificates.

April was quite a month!

Hello!

I know it's been a while since I've added a post. We had a very busy month. Let me start at the beginning. Lissa, Sarah and Evan came in at the start of the month to help welcome Ben home for his leave. He got in on Friday evening and we pulled up to the house to see the three of them with Lauren and handmade signs welcoming him back. He had a very long trip home, with lots of stops and frustration. It took him a few days to get rested up and back to every day life, but I think he really enjoyed his trip. That first night, Lauren started getting sick. She threw up, and continued again in the morning, so we ended up cancelling her birthday party the next day. It was a little sad that we didn't get everyone together, but I think it was the right call. She still opened presents, but she spent most of the day conked out on the couch and being very tiny. I can hardly believe she's a big two year old now. She likes to sing "the itsy bitsy spider" and other songs with hand motions. She's singing the alphabet and counting to 10 in English and Spanish.

Once she was feeling better, we did take a trip down to San Antonio. We spent two nights and had a good day at the San Antonio Zoo. We spent a lot of time at home and running around doing things for the house, and of course, Ben took time to take care of the cars.

Ben went back to Iraq last week and he's settled back in. He says it's been really hot there (100 degrees +) and they've been having dust storms that prevent them from flying. He should be taking his PC checkride soon, so he's been studying for that as much as he can.

Lauren had her two year checkup on Monday, she's doing well. She's still below the 5th percentile for height and weight, but she's hitting every developmental milestone, so her pediatrician isn't concerned. We did start her on allergy medicine, though. She's taking Zyrtec right now and hopefully that will help clear her up. She always has a runny nose. She got her first dose last night and she slept better and hasn't been coughing as much.

Our front yard is full of flowers, we have roses blooming all over the place. My hibiscus bushes are getting tall, I hope they'll start blooming soon. I planted jasmine in the back yard. I'm not sure yet how well it's going to do, but I'm giving it some time to surprise me. I think maybe it just isn't getting enough sun. I bought some metal Texas stars and put them up on the inside of the fence in the back yard. I just like the way it looks.

This weekend I think I get to go to dinner and a movie with my friends for my birthday. It's nice to have someone else do the planning and get a sitter for a night out. I'm looking forward to it. Next weekend Lauren and I are invited to a Luau theme birthday party for our friend's one year old, Ethan.

Well, I hope I didn't forget anything... I should be able to do more updates more frequently again now that things have slowed down here again. :)

More things on my Christmas List

Picture Panel screen/room divider
Two of these curtains - 84" long
One or two of these curtains, also 84" long
A table for my entryway like this one
an inexpensive but good scanner

a 12" Moxy UglyDoll (any of the UglyDolls will do)

Mandy Moore's "Wild Hope"
Kelly Clarkson's "Breakaway"

Plain White T's "Every Second Counts" (re-released with extra tracks in 2007)

Feist "The Reminder"

Faith Hill's "The Hits"

Dixie Chicks "Taking the Long Way"

Gift certificates to Kohl's, Target, Hobby Lobby, Amazon.com, or WalMart




This picture is of Lauren from when we went to the Squadron Christmas party the first weekend of December.

This weekend, we went to visit Charity in San Antonio. We had a good trip. Unfortunately, Lauren also took a spill and hit her lip on the edge of a door. It cut her bottom lip just to her left of the middle and bled. She was crying, but shortly after was playing again like nothing had happened. I think it scared her more than anything. She has a little bump now and something like a scab over it. Hopefully it will heal nicely. She's also started saying "Stop it" whenever she doesn't like something that is or isn't happening. If I don't want to go outside with her she tells me "Topit!", and if we're in the car too long, "Topit!". It's cute, but also a little annoying. :)

I've gotten to talk to Ben either on the phone or by email nearly every day. He's doing well. He was flying nights for a while, he'll go back to days for a week and then back to nights again. They are supposed to get the internet in their rooms up and running soon.