Better Today

Pain is about 50% better today! Keeping up on my pain meds helps. I have come to the conclusion that kidneys are the most painful part of the body. So glad I didn't have to get a stent put in!!!

Rob, Kylie and Beth are at Kylie's soccer game right now. Megan is downstairs singing to herself while she mops the kitchen floor with her "invention" (which consists of hot water and pine scented cleaner). Jack is happily playing on the computer and Eva is playing peek-a-boo with me using the bedroom door. I think I'll be able to hit the trunk or treat tonight and sit in the back of the car to hand out candy so Rob can take the kids around. That is my only goal for today :)

Update

I'm home. The kidney stone came out on it's own sometime within 12 hours before the surgery. We didn't figure that out though until the dr started the procedure. He didn't find it where the x-ray showed it, so he checked all the way up into the kidney. Because the stone came out on it's own, he didn't put a stent in. The whole thing took 17 minutes.

My procedure was scheduled for 1:15pm. We dropped the kids off at 11am and were at the hospital by noon. They took us back to my room shortly after and I was ready to go in by 12:30pm. The nurse finished checking everything and told us that the dr might be running a little bit behind, but to check with the nurses if he hadn't come to get me by 1:45pm. He hadn't shown up by then, but we figured he must have gotten tied up in another surgery or something, so we didn't bother complaining about it. At about 2:30pm a nurse came in and put in my IV. The dr finally came in to talk to us about an hour later, over two hours after I was scheduled for. They took me back and I woke up in recovery about an hour and a half later in pretty much the worse pain I've ever been in. The nurse gave me morphine through the IV and I couldn't even tell when it hit. All I wanted at that point was to go home. By then it was after 5pm (we had expected to be home around 4pm). There was no point in complaining though, so I just asked what I needed to be able to do to go home. The nurse in the recovery room, who was amazing by the way, told me that she had already called for the other nurse to pick me up and take me back to my room so I could get ready to leave. 45 minutes later the other nurse still hadn't shown up. The recovery nurse brought me some crackers, juice and a vicodin as she didn't want me to have to wait any longer for the other nurse to show up. 30 minutes later the other nurse was still MIA, so the recovery nurse said "if Mohammed won't come to the mountain, we'll take the mountain to Mohammed" and took me back to my room on her own. She then stuck around and took out my IV so I could leave. At that point, the other nurse decided to show up. She told me I could have another pain pill, which I obviously really needed, but she said I'd have to wait another 30 mins if I took it. I opted to leave instead. We finally left the hospital at about 6:15pm - over 6 hours after we got there, for a 17 minute procedure. I was not impressed - except for the recovery nurse, who was wonderful :)

I texted Betsy telling her we were finally on our way home and apologizing for taking so long. She replied not to worry, that she had fed the kids and that Eva was doing amazingly well and that everything was fine. I texted Jo-Jo as she was bringing dinner over and was already waiting at our house. She asked what she could do to help and if the kids needed to be picked up and if it would help if she drove down to get us. I had been crying when we got in the car - both from the pain and from frustration about things taking so long and feeling like I was inconveniencing so many people. Rob's concert was that night too and at this point it looked like he was going to miss it completely. I felt so badly about that, but he really didn't care if he needed to miss it to take care of me. I felt like I walked out of the hospital about as low as I could get, but between Rob, Jo-Jo and Betsy, everything was taken care of and no one was upset. They were absolutely perfect and made my afternoon/evening so much better!

We got home and Jo-Jo sent Rob off to his concert (which he got to only 10 mins late), then ran over and picked up the kids. She had dinner all ready, pasta and chicken with alfredo sauce, salad, homemade rolls and homemade cinnamon rolls for dessert. The kids came home happy and fed and well taken care of. Jo-Jo took care of everyone, then spent the next hour talking to me (and the kids). Allison showed up at that point and stayed until Rob got home just before midnight. The kids got ready for bed and then I let them make beds on the living room floor and watch a movie. Jack and Beth fell asleep watching the movie and Eva fell asleep on my lap. Allison and I talked. Between talking to Allison and Jo-Jo, getting wonderful texts from Betsy about how much fun they had with the kids, and seeing Ashley's facebook updates about playing with Eva, and Rob taking such good care of me, my day did a complete 180 from the time I had left the hospital. I seriously don't know what I would do without you guys! You made my day/night so much easier and I will love you forever! :)

I'm still in some serious pain. I'm on two vicodin every 4 hours and 800mg of IBUProfen every 6 hours and it still feels like the worst cramps I've ever had. Hopefully it will be better tomorrow. Or soon. I am so incredibly blessed though to have friends that help me through things like this!

Final Plans for Surgery

I know our parents will be thinking of us and this gets emailed to both sets of parents and everyone else I need to update, so posting here is easier than emailing everyone :)

My procedure is scheduled for 1:15pm tomorrow at a hospital in Arlington (I've never been to that one, except to do my pre-op tests for this surgery). Rob took the day off work and will be going with me. The three older girls are going to school and my friend Betsy is taking Jack and Eva (it turns out that children under 7 aren't allowed to come with us, so if we take Eva, Rob can't be with me either before or after the surgery). Betsy's picking the girls up from school (she lives one street over from us and we usually walk home together anyway). Her daughter, Ashley, is our babysitter and is home from school for the next little while as she broke her back, so Ashley will be there too :) Even though she can't run around, she can cuddle up with Eva and talk to Jack :) Jack is thrilled that he gets to spend the day at Miss Betsy's house!

Anyway, the procedure's supposed to take about an hour, then I'm assuming it will be another hour or two before I'm allowed to leave as they're using general anesthesia and I'll need a bit to come out of it. Jo-Jo's bringing over dinner and hanging out with us for a couple of hours tomorrow evening, then Allison will be here as she's driving up from Houston. Another friend (Meredith - one of the friends that walked the girls home when I was on bedrest last year) is bringing dinner over on Sunday.

The lady from our church who takes care of making sure people are taken care of when things like surgeries happen talked to me today asking what we needed. I told her we were all taken care of :) We are so incredibly lucky to have the friends we have! You guys are all amazing and I love you!!!

I'll have Rob update this as soon as he can if I'm still out of things :) It's supposed to be a pretty simple procedure, so we're not horribly worried. I'm more worried about leaving Eva for that long, but I know Betsy and Ashley love her and will take amazing care of all my babies :)

Megan's First Sewing Lesson

We haven't gotten many sewing lessons in. I need to work on that! We did manage to get one lesson in though and Megan and I made pajama pants for her. We didn't use a pattern (I don't use patterns), so the waist is a bit low, but I think they're great for our first project together! Megan really wanted lace added, so we found some in my box of fabric. She reminds me so much of myself; I always wanted things like lace added :) Here she is modeling them ~



You can also sort of see her manicure. I spotted manicure stickers at the grocery store a few weeks ago and gave the girls manicures and pedicures, complete with jewels :)

Pumpkin Patch Pictures

We made it to two pumpkin patches this year. The first was at the farm we buy our goat's milk and meat from. We hit this one on Saturday on the way home from Kylie's soccer game. Eva and Rob fell asleep in the car on the way there (Rob wasn't feeling quite up to par that weekend - he was fighting off a cold), so they stayed in the car with the windows down and slept. Fortunately, it was a gorgeous day and wasn't too hot.

The older four kids and I picked out pumpkins - four small ones for the kids to paint and one huge one to carve with Rob. We also picked up a tiny one for Eva as when we came home a few weeks ago with tiny pumpkins for each of the older kids, Eva was quite upset that she didn't get one as well.

After picking out our pumpkins, the five of us went on a hayride. We got to see the adult goats, the baby goats, the horses, and the pigs.


Every Monday we drive past the big pumpkin patch on our way to Beth's ballet class. The kids excitedly watched as it slowly got set up through September and were thrilled when it finally opened. We hadn't been able to visit it yet though. Realizing that Halloween is next Monday, we checked our schedule and Monday evening was the only possible time we could fit it in. Rob left work a bit early, picked up pizzas, and met up with us. We ate dinner in the car and headed off to the pumpkin patch.

It rained the night before, so we thought it was going to be pretty muddy, so the kids wore their rainboots. It turned out to be completely dry, but not nearly as dusty as usual :) We explored the teepee . . .


Made our way through the hay maze . . .




And joined up with some friends from church on the hayride . . .


We took lots of pictures with the various characters that inhabit the pumpkin patch.

Jack became a ghost . . .



Meg a flower . . .


And Beth stood on her tiptoes to be a purple flower . . .

All four of the older kids posed with the Toy Story bunch . . .


Then we took a break and got snocones. Only in Texas would snocones be appropriate at a pumpkin patch! Megan and Kylie picked pink bubblegum, Beth chose root beer, Jack wanted banana and Eva, Rob and I split a pina colada flavored snocone. Up to this point, Eva had been sound asleep, happily cuddled against me in our wrap. She woke up for the snocones though!

We had to take Jack's picture on the red tractor. He loves that tractor! (Of course, he loves every tractor :) )


As this was Eva's first visit to the pumpkin patch (last year I was on bedrest, so Brittney and Rob took the kids), we had to take her picture in the "my first pumpkin patch" pot. Eva loved it!


Even though we didn't get a great "nice" photo of all five, we still took a funny picture . . .


Our little pumpkin on her own . . .


We wrapped up our visit by playing on the wooden vehicles . . .


I caught a photo of Rob and Eva hanging out waiting for the other kids to finish up :)


As we were leaving, Beth spotted Dora, Boots and Diego and HAD to take a picture with them . . .


It was a wonderful family night and we were so glad we worked it into our schedule this year! We missed the TX State Fair due to kidney stones, but that's ok :) We'll hit it next year.

My surgery is still on for this Friday. I've been overwhelmed by the support of our friends through this! We've had four people offer to bring dinner over on Friday night and one of our friends is bringing dinner on Sunday (Saturday night is our church's trunk-or-treat and chili cook-off - don't know if I'll make it to that, but I'll try to at least make it to the trunk-or-treat). Rob has concert tickets for Friday night. One of his favorite bands had a concert in Dallas last month that got rained out and rescheduled for this Friday. When we found out when I was going in for my procedure, he immediately responded by saying he'd just see this band the next time they come, but I wanted to get him there if I could. Jo-Jo and Allison came to the rescue :) Jo-Jo is bringing us dinner on Friday and will hang out with the kids and I for a couple of hours until Allison gets here. She's coming up for the weekend anyway and was happy to offer to stay with us that night :) We are so incredibly lucky to have the wonderful friends we have! I don't know what I'd do without you guys :)

We also have another friend (Betsy) who's taking the kids for the day so Rob can be with me, although we're bringing Eva with us. She's currently going through a stage where she is not interested in being with anyone other than Rob or I. Ever. She is very vocal about her displeasure if anyone else tries to hold her, to the point that she practically turns purple because she's screaming so loudly. My procedure is supposed to be very simple and is only supposed to take an hour, (although I have to be there an hour early and I'm sure I'll be in recovery for a while as they're using general anesthesia), so Eva can hang out with Rob.

I'm trying not to be nervous about everything, but of course I am a bit. I'm mostly nervous about the stent hurting as I found a bazillion horror stories about them on the Internet (definitely a mixed blessing to have that much information readily available!), but either way, it will be over in three weeks! I certainly didn't expect this issue to last for nine weeks and we are very glad to see the light at the end of the tunnel!

One last photo for tonight - Eva happily entertained herself for quite a while tonight before going to bed. She collected a pile of random stuff and made her self a bit of a nest on the floor next to me. One of her favorite things was an almost empty roll of toilet paper which she happily shredded. I think she's part hamster :) She also learned to open and close drawers tonight and spent several minutes opening and closing a drawer to my nightstand. It made us laugh, so we caught a minute or two of that on video, but I haven't uploaded it to the computer yet.

A Couple Other Videos

I realize that most of these videos will not be horribly interesting to most people. I'm posting them primarily for grandparents and other relatives who like watching little things that the kids do whether they are incredibly exciting or not :)

Eva eating an eraser ~
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1acODFAKwU

Kylie singing to herself in the bathroom (I missed a good 5 mins of loud singing before I started taping) ~
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GaUxJXVIW5c

Eva sliding down the slide. Narrated by Sportscaster Megan and featuring the vocal stylings of Kylie ~ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sELsCMSQBek

A few minutes of an evening in the backyard ~ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UaYW7vwJJ5Q

Vidoes of Kylie Playing Soccer

I found a surefire way to insure that whatever team Kylie's team is playing against doesn't score - bring my video camera to a game and try to get a video of Kylie. When the video camera is on, the ball is magically repelled from her side of the field :) I'll try again at her next game. I got a few short videos of her, but I missed the few times the ball got close enough for her to stop a goal. The final score was 0-0. Kylie is in the lime green shirt. Her team is in the dark pink shirts.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bo036iiPkrE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-gBiTUdUWg

Eva's Walking!

She's been taking a few steps at a time for a while now. Last night she walked across the playroom to me and tonight we caught her walking on video :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3e8FlF5cesw

The End's in Sight

So apparently calling your doctor's to have your records transferred to another doctor prompts them to actually do something to help you. I called late yesterday afternoon and the nurse that I had been trying to touch base with for several days without success has called me four times today! To be completely fair, I don't think it's all the doctor's fault. While reading up on kidney stone procedures today, I discovered that if the stones aren't causing any pain, usually the approach is to wait and see if they come out on their own. More proactive approaches are only used when their is pain involved. I don't like complaining and I don't like bugging people. In this case, that is not necessarily a good thing.

Anyway, short story long . . . my doctor is removing the stone and placing a stent this coming Friday. Not looking forward to the stent, but looking forward to having this end!

My Favorite Moments From the Past Week

On Monday Jack announced that he will no longer answer to Jack, Jacky or John. He must now be referred to as "Captain Amerdica". He will also answer to Buzz Lightyear and "Cap".

On Tuesday, a friend shared a quote ~ Mother - [muhth-er] - noun - One person who does the work of twenty. For free. (See also: masochist and saint)

Another quote on Tuesday made me laugh ~ "Insanity does NOT run in my family. It strolls through, takes it's time, and gets to know everyone personally."

When I got home Tuesday night from book club, Rob was still up. He greeted me with "Honey, if I ever become a zombie, will you promise to kill me? I'll do the same for you :)" followed by a detailed plan of how we could use furniture to clog the stairwell of our home (after moving all the food upstairs of course) and live upstairs, using our escape ladder (that we keep in case of fire) to get water from the neighbor's pool to flush the toilets with, if a zombie invasion ever took place. I'm thinking I should limit the number of episodes of "The Walking Dead" that Rob is allowed to watch per night ;) . . .

Tuesday was rounded off with a momentous event - foir the first time in over 14 years of marriage, I corrected ROB on a historical fact and I was right!!! While discussing the origins of Dracula, the book my book club read this month, we started talking about Vlad the Impaler (the character of Dracula is based on his grandson). Rob stated that Vlad's insane approach to dealing with his enemies was sparked by his desire to prevent the Ottomans from taking his country over. Rob said that the Ottomans and the Bulgarians had been fighting during that time. I corrected him and said the Ottomans were actually fighting the Bulgars :)

Wednesday Eva managed to find about 5 pencils. We do our best to keep all the pencils up high as they can be dangerous to her. She LOVES pencil erasers though. I swear she can sniff them out. She's like a truffle-sniffing pig; if there's a pencil less than 3 ft off the floor within about 500 yds of her, she'll find it. Once she finds it, she happily sits down and eats the eraser off of it. I think Eva's diet at this point is about 30% breastmilk, 30% table foods, and 40% pencil erasers.

Thursday I was fired from Jack's superhero game. He told me I kept "messing it up". Fortunately my bout of un-involvement was short lived. Due to a shortage of possible superheros, I was reinstated a few minutes later. I think my superpower is the ability to change diapers with one hand :)

This Week's Update

Sorry I haven't updated this in over a week. I kept waiting to hear the test results and it took the doctor's office several days to return my calls, then the nurse and I played phone tag for another day. The IVP x-ray confirmed that the stone is still there; however the doctor has decided to put me back on the medication he originally had me on.

Honestly, I'm beyond frustrated at this point. I was told at my first appointment with this doctor that if the stone didn't come out within 2-3 weeks, it wasn't going to come out on it's own. This Sunday it will be 5 weeks, but I feel like the doctor has just decided to wait until it turns into an emergency situation. I get the impression that he doesn't know much about what he's doing. I finally got frustrated enough that I called another urologist yesterday afternoon and got an appointment for Monday. I'm having all my records transferred over so hopefully he won't have to have all the tests redone. In the meantime, I'll go back on the meds and wait till Monday.

Anyway . . .

In the meantime, we've been keeping busy. I'm two weeks into my current quarter. This quarter I'm taking Couple and Marital Counseling. My professor is one that taught my group during the residency and taught my class last quarter. I really like him and am excited to be taking another class from him!

Rob and I are actually trying to decide what to do with my schooling. After Eva's birth, we decided to stretch my classes out as far as we could so that Eva was older when I did my 9 month internship. I added the two certificates to my program and planned to do all the classes before starting the internship. Following that route, my internship is 3-4 years away. This week another approach occurred to us. After this quarter, I have only 5 classes left (to get my degree, not the certificates) before I can start my internship. If I tried to push my way through them as quickly as possible rather than stretching them out, I could double up for a few quarters and start my internship next fall. I'd graduate in about 18 months, as opposed to 4-5 years from now. I'd have to figure out child care for Eva, but if I can get weekend hours for my internship, I could try and swing things so I was only working a day or two during the week. I believe that I could go back after graduating and earn the certificates if I felt they would be helpful, or I could just not worry about getting the certificates as I primarily added them to stretch my classes out longer. I think I'd have a better idea after finishing my internship of how or if they would be helpful to me. Anyway, that's something we're thinking about!

Halloween is coming up quickly! This year the theme for our costumes is the game "Angry Birds". For those of you not familiar with it, green pigs steal eggs to eat from a bird's nest. The birds get mad at the pigs for stealing the eggs and attack the pigs' houses by loading themselves into slingshots and shooting themselves across the screen. To play the game, you aim and fire the slingshots. The pigs' houses look sort of like castles made of children's blocks and when you hit them with the birds, you knock the houses down and kill the pigs. Each bird has special abilities based on it's color. Black birds are bombs, yellow birds are super fast, blue birds split into three birds, etc.

We let the kids decide which birds they wanted to be. Megan picked the bomb bird, Kylie wants to be the red one, Beth choose the blue bird, and Jack will be the yellow bird. Rob and I are dressing as the pigs and Eva will be an egg. I've been working on the costumes this week. 5 are done! I only have Kylie and Eva's left to finish up. I took pictures of Megan and Jack's costume with my cell phone ~

I sewed the outlines of the costumes, then used fabric glue to attach the various parts of the face and fabric paint as necessary. I didn't realize the fabric glue would show up, but oh well :) I think they still turned out fantastic! Rob and my costumes are simpler - I just painted pig faces on green shirts. Rob's shirt is below ~

Next Test

I'm having an IVP x-ray done next Tuesday morning to see if there's a blockage preventing my kidney stone from passing. An IVP x-ray involves fasting, then having ink injected intravenously in order to highlight certain areas.

I Quit

If anyone needs me, I'll be in Aruba.

Eva has not slept more than two hours at a time for the last few days. She has also discovered a hidden talent - the ability to scream for an hour straight without taking a break. It's quite impressive to hear so much noise coming out of something so small! She is not sick, so we're hoping it's a tooth coming in or something temporary that will resolve itself before I have to buy myself a straightjacket :) The combination of screaming and lack of sleep is catching up with me. It's been a long day.

And the cherry on the craptastic sundae of my day is a call from my doctor telling me that my kidney stone has not in fact come out on it's own as I thought it had. It has moved, so he said just to continue the prescription he put me on . . . which ran out a week and a half ago as it's been almost a month since this whole thing started. Upon reminding him of that, he then decided I get to have yet another test to figure out what's going on and what we should do next. Of course, that will require another appointment, and of course that appointment needs to be made by a different nurse who will have to call me back tomorrow. Despite having my CT scan done last Monday morning, he waited until 4:45pm on Thursday night to call me back with this news.

I felt horrible Saturday night and all day Sunday and we thought, judging by the symptoms, that the kidney stone was coming out. As I felt better on Monday, we assumed our hypothesis had been correct. If that was not a kidney stone coming out, I don't want to know what it will feel like when it actually does come out! Anyway, I'll schedule this new procedure and then apparently we'll figure out where to go from there. My dad had a saying he often quoted to us when we were younger ~ "why be difficult when with a little effort you can be impossible". Apparently I have taken this to heart. This Sunday will be 4 weeks since this whole thing started.

On a lighter note, Rob and I had to smile this evening listening to Kylie sing to herself at the top of her lungs while in the bathroom :)

And Eva is starting to walk! She has taken up to 4 steps on her own at a time!

As she walked out of school the other day, Megan had a moth land on her arm. Absolutely thrilled, she carefully walked home so as not to upset the moth. It rode all the way home with us! I snapped a picture before I had her gently shoo it off so we could go inside.

Eva rode in the car part of the kid cart while shopping at Kroger today for the first time. She loved it!


Moments that made me laugh tonight ~

Kylie and Eva ended up in a tug of war over a pencil. Eva won. She was stronger and louder.

Megan asked for "citrus fruit" as a bedtime snack, then informed me she planned on memorizing the song she is working on by "Veterinarian's Day" (rather than Veteran's Day).

Jack brought his sword (one of those sticks used to adjust the blinds) and shield (the lid of a circular plastic container) with him when we went shopping, just in case there were any bad guys in the car . . . He also informed me that he and Simon are the protectors of our house.

A Couple of Moments from Tonight

On the way to ballet this afternoon, Jack sung me a song he made up about Captain America. Apparently Captain America is the strongest of all the superheros in Jack's mind. The song consisted of lots of comparisons, such as "And him can fly like Superman, and him is strong like the green guy (the Hulk)". He also spotted the book we've been reading for me. When complemented on his detecting skills, he offhandedly replied "It's just cause I've got two eye-bogs (eye-balls)".

While walking back to the car tonight after soccer practice/playground time, I spotted a large toad in the middle of the parking lot. I called the rest of the family over to see it. The kids cautiously approached it until Beth got a bit too close for Mr. Toad's comfort and Mr. Toad suddenly jumped a few feet. Beth and Jack screamed and Rob and I and a passing older gentleman laughed. We gently nudged the toad until he hopped up on the sidewalk instead of sitting in the middle of the parking lot.

We got home and had promised the kids strawberry-apricot smoothies for dessert. We discovered that the frozen strawberries we had planned to use were so fused together than it was virtually impossible to separate them without the use of an ice pick or jackhammer, so we had to thaw all of them. We ended up with a lot of leftover strawberries, so while Rob gave the kids quick showers, I turned the rest of the strawberries into jam :) Jam is so much easier to make than I thought it would be! I should have started making it years ago!

A Few Pictures

After we put the older four kids to bed, if Eva hasn't fallen asleep yet, she gets to spend some time with Rob and I. One of her favorite things to do is to get to the edge of the bed and attempt to reach things on the floor or bedside table. I'm not quite sure she understands the concept of balancing her body weight as she frequently tips herself over the edge. We always catch her, but find it easier to just hang onto her foot rather than to continually test our reflexes by lunging across the bed to stop her from toppling off head first.


As demonstrated in the video I posted, Eva's latest coup is climbing up the big slide in our play room. It's about 6 ft long and the top is about 4 feet off the ground. We've moved our futon over so it's folded up next to the slide so if (when) she falls off, it will cushion her fall. The other side of the slide has the ottoman and several large pillows. Eva is thrilled with her accomplishment and crows every time she makes it up. She has yet to figure out how to go back down though, so she stands on top of the slide squawking until I come rescue her. In the photo below, you can see all seven of her teeth - four on the top and three on the bottom. It's been a while since she's cut a tooth, but judging by the excessive amount of drool she's started to produce recently, we're betting another one or more are on their way in!

Waving to Mommy with Beth, who wanted in on the photo taking action ~

The start of school eliminated a large percentage of our family time, so we've been figuring out ways to work it back into our schedule. I get to spend Monday afternoon with all the kiddos except Beth, who is in her ballet class. As her ballet class is about 25 mins away, I sit in the car with the kids and we read. We are currently reading "Dealing with Dragons", which Megan and Kylie are loving! We've also started having the whole family go to Kylie's soccer practices twice a week. Rob and I walk while the kids play on the playground. Jack has requested that we start bringing bikes, so we'll be adding that in for those that want it. It's cooled down to the point that we can stand to be outside, so Rob has started doing nightly walks with the kids. I haven't been going as I haven't been up to it, but I look forward to joining them soon! The kids love it and take turns pushing Eva in the stroller. We've also started doing family movie nights on Friday nights and are trying to show the kids classic movies such as Lord of the Rings and Star Wars. They've only watched the first of the LotR trilogy, but they loved it as they were familiar with many of the characters after reading "The Hobbit" with Rob. As a family we are currently reading "The Egg and I", a book both Rob and I love.

We also try to work in the occasional special moment with either individual children or multiple children. After getting the kids out the bath the other night, Rob turned on an episode of Sponge Bob for them and they all cuddled up together to watch it ~


My kidney stones are not being very cooperative and are staying right where they were. I have two days left of my medication, but at this point we're betting that I'll have to have them surgically removed. Oh, well. Worse things have happened :) On the plus side, my PDI night is this Wednesday, so I'll be able to make it to that before having surgery! I'm sort of used to the pain at this point. It will be nice not to have to worry about it though! My next class starts in a week, but I'll figure it out. If I can pull off an A in a class where I'm in and out of the hospital three times in two weeks, on medication for 7 of the 10 weeks, and deliver a baby in the middle of the quarter, I think I can deal with this :)

Eva Climbs the Slide

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pES7flmF9Kw