Upcoming surgery

I had mentioned earlier that I would give more details on my upcoming surgery, so here goes. Over the last year, I have been having some health problems that have continued to get worse and are really taking their toll physically. Without going into too many details (for the sake of my male readers in particular), this Thursday I will be having laparoscopic surgery to look for signs of endometriosis (and if they find any, they'll remove what they can). So I probably won't be blogging very much next weekend...my Percocet and me will be spending some quality time together in la-la land. :)

Sweet baby girl...

...who's growing up so fast! During the lead-up to my kids' birthdays, I always feel especially sentimental and wistful at just how fast they are growing up. Wednesday night Abigail and I stayed home from church because I wasn't feeling well; I let her fall asleep in my bed but I just had to get up to capture this picture of her sleeping so sweetly. I enjoy these moments every chance I get!

Saturday stuff

Today while Bruce and David went to the store to pick up some last-minute birthday stuff for Abigail, she and I enjoyed some girl time. We colored princess pictures, played dollhouse, snuggled, painted her fingernails, and watched Anne of Green Gables. I've also sewed a birthday surprise (sorry, no pictures 'til after Monday because she notices everything on the blog these days!) and made birthday cupcakes for her to share at children's church tomorrow... ...I've also done a bunch of laundry and now I'm off to finish folding and ironing.

The kids are outside; David is working on his ever-morphing "project" and Abigail is riding her bike.Bruce and Molly are taking a nap -- er, watching college basketball. :) All in all, a nice Saturday!

Cats!

I realized that I never posted any of the five million or so pictures that I took of my mom's kitten while we were down there last month. Here are my favorites!

Bling was being a peaceful companion while I folded laundry, but then, here comes trouble... I love how it looks like Bling is saying "OUCH!" in this one... He waits very patiently while Nyki gets rid of some wild energy... Then Nyki settles into some (mostly) friendly grooming... And then they both enjoy a good snuggle! Nyki thinks the bottled-water case is a great place to wait for prey... Nyki "helping" us sew -- hiding in the bag and waiting for the perfect moment to buzz us...

I'm molting, I'm molting...

(Okay, well, not me actually, but I couldn't resist the play on the famous phrase from the Wizard of Oz!)

Our biggest praying mantis has molted again and this time we got to watch the latter part of the molting process! It was so fascinating (have I mentioned yet how fascinating this whole project has been and continues to be?!)! I'm a little concerned because he hasn't been able to detach the old exoskeleton from the end of his back leg, but we're just going to keep watching it and see what happens. He's eating fine and seems to be getting around fine, and I would assume that eventually the thing will have to rot and fall off! The good news is that he is big enough to actually see in the pictures now! Here he is during the final part of his molt, still hanging from his old exoskeleton on the underside of the branch (hopefully Blogger will let you click on the picture so that you can see an enlarged version):

"Purple Angel Sleeves" smocked dress giveaway

...from a site that I have been following lately, Spend Freely. It is a blog by a friend of a friend and I have gotten some helpful info from it. I had been planning to post about her blog here anyway, so I'll combine the two -- entering the giveaway and letting you know about her blog! Spend Freely is where I learned about signing up for the Betty Crocker mailing list and thus receiving the Warm Delights Minis treat I blogged about yesterday. I've also now joined the Eight O'Clock Bean rewards program -- it's our favorite coffee brand, I've bought it for years, but now I get points (which add up for free stuff) for every bag that I buy, too. There's lots of other interesting info on the blog, too, so you may want to check it out if you're anything like me -- I'm always looking for ways to save money, but I do NOT have time to check out every sale and comb through every flyer. Okay, enough of the recommendation. Would you like to win this dress? I would. :) Enter here.

The Modern Pirate Frock GIVEAWAY!!!!

Another lovely dress being given away by grosgrain...

Loooooooooooong day...but a good one

Note: You may (or may not) notice that we are all wearing orange today. This particular "holiday" always brings out the rebellious streak in me. I am neither Irish nor Catholic, therefore I think it's dumb for me to wear green and I refuse to do so. Instead, I wear orange (the traditional color of the Protestants). And that's about as outwardly rebellious as this girl gets. :) By the by, don't even mention pinching me, or your comment may magically disappear!

Today was a very long day (as you may have picked up on already). Following is a pictorial chronicle of our day. We started school at 6:30 a.m. and then left the house at 9:45...and between reading in the car/drs offices, listening to audio books, music lessons, and the library, we managed to squeeze in our entire (although rather unusual) day of school, too -- hurrah!

First to my doctor's office for a pre-op (more on that in another post)... Next to have David's HA inspected by the lovely and quite fantastic RaDora... Across campus to have the mold done for Abigail's new leg brace... A couple of unphotographed stops to pick up sewing supplies and printer ink, and then on to piano lessons... A stop at the library... An unphoto'd stop at Kroger where we waited a hundred years or so for our prescriptions, and then -- finally -- home, around 7:30 tonight. The kids are winding down with library books and soup-from-a-can (yes, even we "healthy eaters" eat from a can on occasion, and especially on a day like today!)... And once I get them to bed, I am going to indulge in cream of mushroom soup, fresh bread, and then this... (Is this the perfect day to come home and find this in my mailbox or what?!) And then I'm off to bed -- specifically, my preheated king-sized Select Comfort bed -- and this tired, aching body is really looking forward to it!

Big East Championship game tonight...

***Let's go, Orange!!!***

Go hometown team!

In case you haven't heard the big news,

Syracuse beat UConn in their sixth overtime during last night's Big East tournament quarterfinal. GO SU!

"3/4 complete" celebration

Today we completed 3/4 of our school year!

We celebrated by making cookies, frosting them, and sprinkling them on 3/4 of the top. Well, that was the goal, anyway. Some of the sprinkles didn't show the distinction very well, and Abigail didn't like that idea and instead obsessively sprinkled the entire top of her cookies. Oh well, we celebrated -- and that was the main point! Here are the kids (pardon our bedraggled appearance -- it's pre-bath as well as post-long day, sandbox-time, and frosting sampling!), and also some of our "3/4 cookies".

Five years ago today...

...Abigail tried to make her dramatic entrance, on the day that I hit 33 weeks of pregnancy. What a wild ride that was! I went on bedrest in the hospital for one week (see picture below) and then bedrest at home for a few more days while we waited for a more opportune time to celebrate Abigail's birthday...which ended up being twelve days after labor started. She was a spitfire right from the get-go!!!

Abigail in motion

Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing

Enjoying our "spring preview"

We hit 80 degrees today...it was so lovely! It sure makes it hard to come inside and get any housework done, though. :) We know it won't last...we'll be cooling back down by the end of the week...but that first really warm stretch of spring is very intoxicating! Abigail and I played together for a while, climbing trees, swinging, riding bike/scooter (don't worry, I was only a spectator/spotter in all those activities!). David was playing with his friends a couple of houses over, which he thoroughly enjoys -- but it leaves Abigail feeling a little bereft without her constant companion...hence me as the playtime buddy. While we played, I took a few pictures of Abigail. As we've said before, we recognize that these are all "simple" activities for most kids, but with Abigail, it's different. It's so amazing to see her use her left arm/leg/hand and to see her whole-body strength and coordination improve.

She's very steady on the swing now; left hand does a great job holding on without trouble.

She's even learning how to pump her legs!She's also learned how to spin around and then ride while the chain untwists (I used to love it as a kid; now even the thought of it makes me feel queasy!!!). I love how her ponytail flies in the pictures!

Bike tricks

Last year while we were in Florida, my cousin Alicia taught David how to ride without training wheels, and he has thoroughly enjoyed riding his "big boy bike" ever since. In the past few weeks, though, both his skill and confidence levels have taken a big jump, and he has spent hours working on new tricks. Watching David has been a flashback for me...my brother Jared used to ride his bike almost constantly and was forever doing tricks. (Childhood memory: I tried Jared's home-built ramp/jump one time, but I quickly discovered that I had neither the strength nor the coordination to pursue the sport. This realization came to me as I lay on the ground, bike sprawled nearby, gasping to re-start the breath that had been soundly knocked out of me when I landed. Umph. That was the end of my BMX career.)

Going over his self-made rampPopping a wheelie (it's in the beginning stages!)Riding with one handRiding with no handsCatching himself from a fall...no guts, no glory!Abigail needed some pictures taken of her, too, of course. Recently, while discussing gift ideas for Abigail's upcoming birthday, Bruce had asked if I thought she needed a new bike. I answered no...she loves her tricycle, and we put away her two-wheeled bike last fall because she wasn't ready for the coordination and balance of it and therefore she didn't like to ride it. Well...what do I know? She tried her bicycle yesterday; she did great with it and she loved it! But as you can see, it's rather small for our long-legged filly. Change of plans!

Spring has sprung!

We spent most of yesterday afternoon outside, enjoying the gorgeous weather. This cardinal sat in one of our oak trees and warbled away for quite a while. I think he must have been singing for a mate, because it was a showier and prettier song than usual. We can't help him with that, but nonetheless, we enjoyed the serenade!

Praying mantis update

We are down to two praying mantises after the natural processes of the weak, small ones dying off during food competition and after two incidents of major body trauma (Abigail felt possessed to turn their habitat upside down once and David inadvertently knocked it over a few days later). However, the two we have seem to be doing great. The bigger one just went through his first visible molt and it was so neat! He is now about an inch long and starting to turn the green color of an adult mantis ( he is sitting on the upper branch in the picture below). We didn't actually get to see him shed his old exoskeleton, but in the morning, we found it lying on the floor. Not sure how well you can see it in the picture, but it's in the bottom right corner just above the branch; it looks like a ghost figure of a praying mantis. Below is the smaller mantis on the hunt. You can see the fruit fly just ahead of the mantis (the dark thing on the left is a piece of leaf).

David quirks

After my recent post about Abigail's quirks, I thought I'd follow up with one about David, too! David is our social butterfly. Bruce and I could walk into a room of a hundred people and gladly sit on our own in the corner and not talk to anyone. David, however, is the polar opposite in that regard. He is my dad reincarnated in this aspect...my dad has never met a stranger, so to speak, and David is the same way. (My grandma tells me that my great-grandpa was the same way, too, so maybe David got both families' genes!) The meter-reader or the UPS driver are considered welcome company in David's book. Here he is "helping" the Allgood guy, who was here to check our termite traps. David followed him around, asked him a million questions, and told him all sorts of things I'm sure he wanted to know. Today our neighbor across the way was washing down his gooseneck-trailer and David was drawn like a magnet. "Mr. Bob" said it was okay, and David spent at least an hour over there, chatting away and standing with his best "Grandpa Minota supervising" pose.In other David-news, the insatiable thirst to read has finally kicked in for him. David reads A LOT these days, book after book after book. We got a dozen or so books from the library on Tuesday and he had read through all of them by Wednesday morning. Lately he's been starting his day with breakfast and a stack of books...happiness is!