Some pictures to join my brain dump from last post

These photos are not in chronological order, but I don't like messing with the pictures on here too much because it is a pain in the neck.

This is where Roger spent his Thanksgiving day. Poor thing. You can tell he was a bit drugged up though, huh?

Christopher went swimming, too. I was too chicken to go in the water so my Uncle John took him in. He was in heaven.

Colin in the pool in Florida. He had a blast!

Colin was the ring-bearer...he was so cute! He walked down the aisle with his hands in his pockets looking all GQ!Christopher hanging with Aunt Alicia before we left to go downstairs to the wedding. Mr. Smiles.

This is Roger and I before the wedding...yep, we're hot!

Yes, I still live...

...although I am not sure how I have survived the last 4 weeks somedays. It has been a terribly busy and stressful time at our house so blogging has taken a backseat. Not that bloggable stuff hasn't happened--it definitely has. It unfortunately has happened over and over and over again, while in the meantime not giving me any time to really get it all down. I will do it in list form so that I can get it out. I will not go into too much detail, but hopefully this will get me back on my blogging track. I hate that everyone is missing out on our family's lives. So here it is...4 weeks in a nutshell:

1. We attended my cousin John's wedding in Longboat Key, FL the weekend before Thanksgiving and had a wonderful time. We stayed the week of Thanksgiving in Holiday, FL at the newlywed couple's house while they were on their honeymoon. My other cousin Robert and his fiance Kayla live 2 doors down from the house and we got the pleasure of hanging out with them a lot. We took over their house in the morning because John and Mary didn't have a coffee pot! Poor things...and let's just say that they got more than a taste of what it was like to have children in the house!! We had a great time with them. My Aunt Nancy lives about 15 minutes away from their so we were lucky enough to get to spend some time with her and Bill, as well as Grandma and Uncle John and Toni (who were all in town for the wedding and Thanksgiving, too!). Robert and John's youngest brother, Stephen, was in town for the wedding on leave from the Army for the occasion. It was great to see him--we are all SO proud!

While in Holiday, we were also very blessed that Roger's Aunt Doris lived literally about 2 blocks away from John and Robert! This allowed us the great pleasure of spending some time with Doris and I finally got to meet Roger's cousins, Spike, Tony, and Michael. I had heard a lot about these guys, but had never met them before. What a great group of people! We had such a good time and even got some adult time together with Tony and his girlfriend while Robert and Kayla took the boys for a few hours. We spent Thanksgiving dinner with them as well. Which leads me to number 2.

2. "Hey Roger, do you want to play flag football tomorrow morning? I know some guys who are getting together." "Sure, sounds great." This conversation has come to haunt me. Roger did play flag football with Robert, and did well from what I understand. Unfortunately, I was not able to see him do well because on my way to the game with the boys (so that they could watch their daddy play football) I received this phone call. "I need you to bring me some ice. I hurt my knee." I said ok, and stopped at Starbucks to get coffee and a bag of ice while my brain was screaming "Oh, crap." Little did I know.

We spent the day in the ER getting X-rays. Happy Thanksgiving. Roger had broken his tibial plateau (look it up, it's too much to explain on here) with displacement and fragments. Oh, lovely. Surgery here we come. We spent the evening at Doris' house for Thanksgiving with Roger staying in one place because he couldn't move. He was miserable, but trying to have a good time with his cousins that he hadn't seen in a while. When we got home, we had to prepare for the 10 hour return drive to SC so that we could try to plan for his surgery. It was a super long day and I won't go into details, but we were so glad to get home!

3. ER visit number 2. Roger was losing feeling in his foot so we decided to get to the hospital and see if we could get it better taken care of and possibly get in with an orthopedic surgeon. Of course no one was going to operate on the holiday weekend, so we got a prescription to call the office Monday. Thanks for nothing. He had been broken for 5 days by the time we got to the doctor's office. They scheduled the surgery for Wednesday, he came home Thursday evening. No weight bearing for up to 12 weeks. Crutches and a wheel chair. Pain, pain, pain. The first day home was terrifying. My strong husband was struggling so much and it hurt me deeply to see it. Thank God my mother in law was here! She stayed through till the next Thursday morning and was a God sent Angel!

4. I have discovered that when my life is out of control, that I obsessively clean my kitchen. I can't control Roger's pain, his recovery, or the stress that comes with that. I am stressed about the kids, it was Christmas, the dog is dying (more on that later, too), and the only one who can do anything is me. When my life feels crazy, I clean the kitchen. I never had the desire to clean the kitchen like I do now. But, I guess it's always clean, right? Now, if I don't keel over from the fumes of this obsessive cleaning, we will be in business.

5. Justice and I have made several trips to the vet in the last couple of weeks. Each visit was sad and anticipatory of saying goodbye to him for the last time. He is still here, but we are on our last treatment option and we know that it's temporary. He made it through the holidays and we are just sort of waiting now. Please pray for us that the goodbye is painless for him (and us). It's hard on all of us.

6. Last, but not least, I have a 4.5 year old and a 1.5 year old who both miss their daddy and for at least the first week seemed mad at Mommy because of it. They are adjusting to Daddy's boo-boo now, so we are getting better. We made it through Christmas (pictures to come, I promise) even though there were no Christmas cards this year. They will be super late, but will get there, so bear with me. They are growing like weeds and are both so funny. Colin is coming into his own and starting to enjoy learning to read. Nothing major yet, but it is so awesome to see his wheels turning. Christopher is at that hilarious age where the things he says are so funny either because he is repeating something that he has heard or just jibber jabbering to himself. His latest is if you ask him a question that he doesn't know that answer to, he replies "Ohhhh. Nutning." (Oh, nothing). He is always ready with a grin for you and you can't help but smile back. These boys, while driving me insane have the uncanny ability to keep me sane. It's the oddest thing. I love them so much and this has brought me to tears more than once in recent weeks!

So that is it in a nutshell. I am sure there is more to tell and I will try to be better about sharing, but for now just know that I am doing my best here and sometimes it will make it into the blogosphere and sometimes it won't.

Oh yeah...HAPPY NEW YEAR! I hope that everyone has a very successful and fulfilling 2010!

Halloween

Our Halloween was fun but became overrun with me getting sick and pouring down rain while trick or treating. The funniest thing about it is that Colin will not take off his costume. He loves being Spiderman! Christopher was Superman and had already had enough after like 2 houses so he spent most of his time in his stroller, covered by the umbrella! Anyway, here are the pictures of the cutest superheroes ever!

Going green

Nope, not environmentally. That's not the green I'm talking about at all. I am talking about Colin and his frequency of green cards. He has been doing AWESOME at school and is 5 cards away from earning his special treat. For his treat he has chosen to go to a movie with the family...all 4 of us. My sweet boy loves his family! So I just wanted everyone to know how well Colin is doing at school. I am super proud!

It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood

The wind is blowing ever so gently and the leaves are turning colors. I see bright oranges, reds, and yellows everywhere that I look. The breeze is cool and comforting, whether it is coming in through the windows or I am outside enjoying it with my boys. It is a time of chili and beef stew for dinner, and coffee on all day with mint creamer in it (not that the coffee thing is new, but the creamer is). Football is on the TV all day and Roger and I each pull out our NFL jerseys to wear in support of our favorite players--AJ Hawk (Packers) for him, and Peyton Manning (Indianapolis) for me. Oddly enough, neither of them play for the two teams that we mostly claim as our own. Weird. Anyway, fall is the best time of year for all of these reasons, today being one that reminds me.

Colin is forever asking me to play cars with him and today is no different. I generally do not enjoy playing cars because it requires me to get into a character and it is my least favorite thing to do. I prefer just to push them around and race them. Since today is so gorgeous outside, I had the bright idea to take his cars outside and race them down our driveway because it has a downward slope towards the garage. That way we played cars and got out into the beautiful weather all at the same time! It was a total blast! He tired of cars after about 25 minutes and then Christopher came out to join us after waking up from his nap and eating some lunch. He was content to sit on my lap in the driveway and watch as Colin ran all over the yard, tagging the curve sign, the tree, the lamppost, the bush, the fence and whatever else I told him to. Colin ran super fast and Christopher's smile spoke volumes.

When we headed inside, Colin's nurturing side came out in full force, almost bringing tears to my eyes. He grabbed Christopher's hand to help him in through the garage, navigating him around the car tire, the trash bags that are waiting to go out to the trash can, and up the step. His gentle words were so kind and loving. I thought it was over and then I asked Christopher if he wanted me to take his jacket off. Immediately and without even thinking about it, Colin jumped up and walked over to where Christopher was standing. He unzipped his jacket, helped him pull the sleeves off, and put the jacket up on the table for me. It's these times that remind me of why I became a mom. The absolute bursting of my heart when I see them do something so kind and utterly innocent makes every tantrum, every frustration, every scolding worth it because I know that he is becoming a loving, caring, responsible person. I am so proud to be his mom! Even though I don't have pictures for this post, the ones that are in my head will never leave.

Grandma Sue rocks!

After writing my previous post, I realized that I did have something pretty un-boring to talk about!

My awesome mother-in-law, Sue, came and hung out with us on Columbus Day weekend and it was anything but boring. Relaxed, yes. Boring, no.

Sue is everything that I could have put together on my own in a perfect 2nd mom. She loves me as her own, is silly, funny, calming--well, motherly. I love her very much and feel extremely blessed to have been accepted so fully into her family.

While she was here, we did a number of things. Saturday we spent the day at the Greenville Children's Museum, which was really quite awesome. It has been under construction since we moved down here, and it finally opened this year. Never have I seen so much hands-on opportunity for the kids. Both of them had plenty that they could do and they enjoyed it very much. I think we will be heading back there in the future for sure!

Sunday we had chili and watched some football. Sue is NOT a Redskins fan and made sure to let me know how she felt about them! It was quite funny to hear her--sweet Grandma Sue--cheering whenever something went wrong for them (which as any of you football fans know has been more often than not this season, but that is a whole other post). Then, horror of all horrors, she cheered for the Cowboys! Ah jeez, as if Roger being a Cowboys fan wasn't bad enough, I was stuck in my living room with two of them! I love being able to tease each other and know it is all fun. After the football "fun" was done, Roger and I were able to get some time together and went to a movie. We saw "Couples Retreat" and it was absolutely hilarious. It was really nice knowing that the kids were having some fun with their grandma and were being spoiled appropriately while we were gone. Sue is wonderful about playing cars, superheroes, trains, and whatever else Colin wants to do--over and over and over again. She is much better at it than me, and Colin eats it up. They had a great time and Roger and I appreciated the chance to be adults only for a couple of hours.

Also while Sue was here, we bought a puzzle to complete. I love puzzles and usually don't have them sitting on the kitchen table to work on because that doesn't make much sense since that is where we eat. Sue and I bond over puzzling. The last couple of times she has come to visit, we have worked on puzzles. We talk about a lot while focusing on where those blasted pieces go. We get serious, we get silly, we laugh. It's truly a great time for me. I hope she enjoys it, too!

So there you have it, my un-boring weekend with Grandma Sue, topped off with a trip to Target so that Sue could buy each of the boys a toy. Colin wanted a Transformer, and Christopher ended up with a K'nex Police Elmo. Overall, everyone got what they wanted--except maybe more time for Sue to stay. Colin didn't want to say goodbye and was very sad when he left for school on Tuesday knowing that Sue wouldn't be here when we got home. Thanks for a great weekend, Sue! Can't wait for our next one!

I will post pictures soon...I have to get them from the camera. One thing at a time!

Blog free lifestyle

I have been reading up on my friends' blogs and have come to a conclusion or two.

One, I live a very boring life. Yes, things happen in my daily life that could make a blog, but I don't always think people need to know about the daily details. At this point, those details just entail Christopher's diaper rash and driving Colin back and forth to school. Not the most exciting news ever.

Two, I have had no desire to write down the simple things lately. My life with my kids and Roger is absolutely wonderful. Lately, however, I don't feel any push to take the time to sit down and make a witty story out of it. I just want to live in it and enjoy it all, even when I'm not always enjoying it. If I stopped and shared every event, every cute smile, and every cute/funny saying I would be too concentrated on my grammar and spelling of the event and not on the event itself. That's no way to share things.

Having said all of that, I am going to try and do better at sharing the funny stories and the not so funny stories as well because they are all important to me. This is my life, boring as it may be sometimes, and I love it. That's what makes it worth sharing. Diaper rash and car rides here we come!