A Milestone

Today my little boy has become a little man.

He lost his first tooth.

He is more than excited about it and

how rich he's gonna be when the tooth fairy comes.

(I don't know what he has said to her but I'm pretty sure he's not getting as much as he thinks he is)

So here is to many more loose teeth hanging by a thread and moving

around your mouth in an unnatural fashion as I try to convince you to let me

pull it with no success and then have it magically fall out at school one day.

One down.........19 more to go.

What else but School??

A few things about this photo:

1. Jared is an awkward picture taker

2. The shadows are making Mady's ponytail look huge.

3. You can see the really ugly color of my front entry in the background

(why have I not painted it yet??)

4. The bag lady to the right looks like she's pooping out a bag.

and

5. I hate to break it to ya but even with their awkward smiles and gigantic ponytails, my kids are cuter than all of yours.

Thoughts

So I was looking through pictures and I came across some old ones of Lorelle.

Now, I know that I blog about her a lot.

Children change your life, there is no doubt about that.

When you are young, you always think about when you will get married, have kids and always in your mind they are perfect.

You never think about the "what if's"

I remember the moment the doctor came over to me after she was born like it was yesterday.

I remember the way he walked towards me, his face and his words.

I will never forget it.

I remember how I felt, my thoughts and the most vivid was the sinking in my heart.

I held her. I cried. James cried.

And we loved her.

It was probably the most bittersweet moment in my life.

Here was this brand new baby, laying in my arms, perfect, straight from God.

But not "perfect"

We were told the cysts would go away on their own so I didn't really concern myself with it.

When I look back now, I realized how much I convinced myself I was ok about the whole thing.

I thought I was fine and it was no big deal but looking back, I was a mess.

James tells me that that was the one time in our marriage where he felt like he didn't know who I was. I was angry, I was sad, I was frustrated, I felt alone.

After 4 months, they were still there. I knew then that she needed me. My other kids needed me. My husband needed me so I decided it was time to do something about them. I went to the doctor to discuss why they weren't going away.

He decided to send her for an MRI so that they could get a better look at it and see where the fluid was coming from.

I don't remember where James was or why he wasn't able to make it but I had my dad come cuz I couldn't go alone. I was still a mess even though I pretended I wasn't.

Just as she went in and I came back from laying her on the table, the MRI tech intern walked in to sit in on the MRI and it turned out to be my best friend from elementary to high school.

Talk about tender mercies. She sat outside and talked with me the whole time. Just what I needed.

Anyway, after finding out what she had and going to the useless specialist in Lethbridge, I knew the Children's Hospital was where we needed to go.

What an amazing place.

They did so much for her and cared for her like she was their only patient.

If only we had adult hospitals like that.

It's amazing she went from this....

(4 months)

to this

(2 years)

to this....

To now this.

What a beautiful, special little girl.

It's been an emotional couple years.

Even though it was and is really hard, the things I learned and will learn are totally worth it.

She's a special spirit, I've been saying it from the beginning.

I think it takes a special spirit to inhabit these earthly bodies that are not "perfect"

and go through the trials that come with it.

I'm grateful that she is healthy. That she is happy.

Now that her cheek is gone, it's amazing to me to look back and see her before. I never noticed it, she was who she was. But now that it is gone.....it was big.

The first picture barely looks like her.

As of right now she is doing awesome.

She was truly blessed and given many miracles in the last 2 1/2 years, especially when she had surgery.

I don't know what the future holds for her and her cheek.

I now have an understanding. A sort of bond to other mothers who go through similar, some harder, trials with their children.

Not that I will totally understand what others moms feel since our trials are different but I feel that my experience was to help me be prepared to help and understand others.

Even though she cries......A LOT,

I really just love her

My Eyes, My Eyes!!

So this is the color I painted the front entry.

It actually doesn't look that bad in the bottom pictures.

The top picture is the closest to what it looks like but not totally.

It's way more horrid in real life.

It's like someone's really bad spray on tan.

I was gonna give myself a week or so to see if I started to like it.

It's been 2 days and I want to rip my eyes out every time I walk in there.

It's not staying.

It used to be the same color as the hallway if you look through the doorway

in the pic below.

It was a light beige with a pink undertone.

Not much better but I way rather have pink than orange skin.

When the sun sets, it shines right into the front entry and the color is even worse.

I waited to get a picture but of course it is cloudy and raining so too bad.

I need to paint it before I gouge out my eyeballs.

And yes that is Amy eating breakfast on the floor.

Lots

This summer has been so crazy busy.

Always somewhere to go or something to do.

A few weeks ago, we headed to Oregon for my grandpa's 95th

birthday bash/reunion.

It was awesome.

7 days on the beach in a really nice condo,

hanging with my brothers and sisters,

seeing awesome cousins, catching up and spending time at the place I spent my

childhood summers at.

While we were there, my sister took some pics of my kids.

Here's one of each

(Amy's is closer to the bottom)

I love the ocean.

Marin, Mike and Blake and Jared and I went whale watching. We were sitting up front and were getting drenched. Jared wanted to go inside the boat and that was a huge mistake.

The minute we did, I got sick and he got sick.

Needless to say we shared a bucket and lost our breakfast at the same time.

We got to see a whale though which was really cool.

here you can see how wet we are.

Here is a pic of the reunion.

I lost my camera and only got a few.

Then I found it, hidden in the back of the diaper bag while we were driving home.

It rained this day so we took our pics at the church.

The handsome man in the chair is my grandpa.

The lady to my right is his little sister,

my great aunt.

Here's Amy's picture.

She had her first birthday on the 28th and the good mom that I am

didn't take any pictures. I guess thats what happens to the 4th child.

Mady had her 4th birthday on the 25th.

I've decided I don't like this 3 day apart birthday thing.

Anyway, she wanted burgers and french fries and pink cupcakes

so thats what we did.

This is what she wanted for her birthday.

So I took her on a mommy/daughter date and got them done.

She sat on my lap and let them do it.

They did both at the same time.

She jumped when they went in and then cried.

oh and the little princess phone hanging on her pants, she got that too.

Lorelle wants hers pierced too.

She cried when Mady came back.

Thats about it for now. We didn't do much for Amy. I still haven't bought her her present.

It's a little weird and wonderful that she is 1 and I am not pregnant.

It'll be nice to move on to the next stage.

I know I still have a few more years yet but it's nice to get a glimpse.

Bathrooms and a Dishwasher

One day, I was taking a shower.

(yes, one day. I do shower everyday, for the most part)

When I was done, I turned it off only it would not go off all the way. I called James in and after a few minutes, he finally got it to stop.

Then we heard dripping, on carpet, downstairs.

It was dripping water through the ceiling by the stairs.

Great.

After some investigation, we realized we need to gut the bathroom and fix the rotting wood behind and underneath as the shower was leaking behind the wall.

Great.

So we stopped using our ensuite and started using the main bathroom shower.

It has been about a year.

Just as we had the money and were gonna get the bathroom done this spring,

our main bathroom upstairs (that we had been using) started leaking under the sink.

Then a few days later the toilet wouldn't flush but overflowed all over the place, down the heating vent, into the ducts and came out the roof in Jared's room.

Then we found cracked tile and grout around the shower.

With that, we knew water was getting behind there.

So alas, there went our money, to that bathroom first.

This is the ensuite. It still looks like this. :(

Here is the before of the main bathroom. I hated this bathroom. It was old, gross, and no matter how much I cleaned it, it always smelled like pee.

So can I say I was sad to have to rip it to pieces?

no.

was I sad to see the heaps of money disappear?

yes.

In the midst of all the leaking and bathroom ripping and money spending,

our dishwasher started leaking too, really bad.

Why not?

It wanted to join in the fun.

So after 4 of the longest days of my life without a dishwasher,

(seriously, I don't know how people do it. Washing dishes is really annoying)

I made James buy me one. I don't have a before picture.

It was white and looked like a dishwasher.

It gave me an excuse though to get the black appliances that I want.

One at a time of course.

Anyway, I love the way it looks but I kind of hate it.

It doesn't wash the best unless you rinse the dishes really really good.

I might as well just hand wash them.

Anyway, back to my bathroom story.

They started ripping out the shower and the drywall was falling apart in their hands.

It was wet and moldy and frankly was stinky.

No wonder that bathroom stunk all the time.

It took about a month but yesterday it was officially finished.

Here's the after pictures.

I loved the mirror when I bought it and thought it would go well with the little tiles with the squares on the side but I'm kinda not loving it in the bathroom.

It looks fine and I will keep it for a while until I find one I really love and decide to change it.

Right now, I have no money left to buy a mirror.

It feel and most importantly smells fresh and clean.

Jared seems to agree.

Now when people come over and have to use the bathroom, I won't be embarrassed

that they had to use the nastiest bathroom on the planet.

Next year is the ensuite.

Here's crossing our fingers that nothing else leaks so we can get that done.

Holy Moly!

The last few months have been so crazy busy!!

Yesterday, James' little sister got married and that was the last thing on our calender so hopefully, things will die down for a bit.

Just a few things today though.

Jared had his birthday and is very excited with the fact that he is 6.

So much that he informed me that now he's 6, he can do whatever he wants.

Long story short, he now knows he can't.

He had a superhero party and all the boys dressed up.

I had games and stuff for them but they just wanted to play superhero's all day so I let them.

It was fun and easy.

I thought the cake turned out awesome.

Now to the thing I'm sure all of you have been waiting for.

The update pictures on Lorelle after surgery.

She has been doing amazing. We went to the doctor on Tuesday and he said she looks great.

We don't have to go back for 6 months, which is a relief.

She still has blood buildup but its not affecting anything and it's normal.

We just give it time.

The pictures aren't the best.

Our camera isn't working so we took them on the iPad.

Oh and I don't believe in washing her face.

It's totally overrated.

This is before anything. I look at these pictures now and can't believe her cheek used to look like that. I never noticed it but now that it's almost not there, it's weird.

The day before her surgery.

This is what she looks like now.

You can see the ripples in her cheek.

That is the blood build up.

If you look close, you can see her scar. Its faint and red.

Look hard.

That is the update for now.

When things start to die down and maybe, hopefully, stop breaking down or leaking in my house, I will have time to sit. Let me tell you, all the house stuff is a whole long blog in itself.

Don't get me started!