I need something to read!

So with Ivy's long hospital stay coming up sometime in the very near future, I've decided I will need some books to read. There will be so many moments of waiting and boredom that I don't think Sudoku alone will cure.

What I am getting at is, I need some book suggestions, but let me get a few things out of the way first....

Okay, so I don't want to offend anyone, because I know most of you (if not all of you) have read or are reading The Twilight books, but please don't suggest them. I don't like vampires, and I'm not a romantic, I don't want to read them. No matter how hard you try, you can't convince me (most of you have probably already tried anyway). Not going to happen. Just wanted to save you the trouble. Also, I am not a big scifi/fantasy person either, so if it has dragons, witchcraft, or elves of any kind, it's a pretty safe bet that I'm not at all interested. Other than that, anything will do, as long as you think it will catch my attention, and keep it!

Now that I got all of the specifics out of the way, and if I didn't totally offend you about the whole Twilight thing.........whatcha got?!

Ivy's new room

Since Scott was off work for Memorial Day Weekend I decided it would be the perfect time to paint Ivy's room. This is actually the first painting job in the house so far. We've lived here almost a year now, so its about time!

Scott helped me tape around the edges and in the center of the room, but I did all the painting myself. Scott hates painting and always wants just white walls, because it is too much work. I always have to beg him to let me paint anything. So I promised to do the work myself, if he watched the kiddos, and he agreed. After all the painting was done and dry, Scott was a great sport and helped me put up the border (which turned out to be way more difficult than I had anticipated).

Anyway, here is the finished product. To my surprise, it turned out very cute (after I painted the green, I was like, oh crap it looks like mint!), I am very happy with the results. In case you can't tell from the pictures, the bottom is a very light pink, and the top is green.

TiVo - Blessing or Curse?

When I was growing up there were educational kid shows on PBS in the morning, and silly cartoons on regular tv (I don't remember the station) after school. There weren't alot of choices, Mr. Rogers, Today's Special, etc..... But when they were on, I'd watch them or I wouldn't, when they weren't on I played outside or in my room. I didn't care if I missed them, I was not addicted to those shows.

Now PBS Kids is on ALL DAY until 5:30pm with a ton of different shows that my kids love, but annoy the crap out of me (ahem, barney, reading rainbow, and zaboomafoo!). Sometimes I have a hard time pulling the boys away from the tv to go to the park, or for a walk, or to eat lunch! But at least by 5:30 pm, thats it, its over, life resumes!

Not anymore!

Now we have satellite tv which came with a DVR with which we can pause, rewind, and record tv shows. And now it never ends.

Corbin has to go to the bathroom. "Pause it!"

Ivy has a doctors appointment, "I don't want to miss Curious George, record it!"

Dexter is screaming, "I can't hear, rewind it!"

Not to mention the shows that we record every once in a while just because they are on too early for Corbin to see, and I can't bring myself to wake him at 7:30am to watch them (ie. Special Agent Oso, and Martha Speaks).

The recorded shows come in very handy when we are bribing them to be good or something, which seems like a blessing, but may just be a curse in disguise. Now instead of finding myself free of cartoons by 5:30 and finally outside playing, I am stuck watching a recorded episode of Special Agent Oso at 8:00 pm to bribe the boys to put on their pajama's and go to bed. It's miserable.

How did I let my kids get so addicted to tv?! I have always tried to get them to play outside, or do other things, and we do, but if we are inside the house, they have to have the tv on. I feel like a slave to Curious George!

What are your thoughts?

Summer Fun in Advance

Summer is still about a month away, but we are cashing in on the fun early. The weather has been extremely warm here the last few days, down right blistering today, so we decided to cool off with some water-sliding. The boys were so cute out there just going down the slide over and over again. They laughed and played, and there hasn't been any fighting so far, which is a dream come true for me! I caked them in sunscreen, but I think little Dexy's bum might have gotten a little burned. His suit kept sliding down, and silly me, I didn't think to put sunscreen there. Anyway it has been a super fun day, here are some of the best shots of the fun.

Ready to be done

Ivy had her catheterization yesterday, and we are so glad its over. We were stuck at the hospital for over 12 hours yesterday for what was supposed to be a relatively short procedure. The doctors told us that the procedure itself would be 2 or 3 hours, and then of course there is prep time, recovery time etc. All leading us to a discharge time of about 5:30 pm. Well they were a little off on their estimates. The procedure ended up taking 5 hours and the recovery time was SUPER long. Apparently they couldn't get her to stop bleeding, which happened with her very first surgery as well. They had to spend an extra hour getting it to stop.

Meanwhile, Scott and I are in the waiting room expecting the doc to come out and speak to us any minute (we'd recieved a call in the waiting room saying he would be out momentarily), but he never came out. I had such a horrible feeling of dread waiting there for him. Where could he be? What is going on? Is she okay? Finally, after about an hour Scott asked the receptionist to find out what was happening, so she did. That's when we found out about the bleeding, but she said that they just got it to stop and that the doc would definately be out in a moment. I was SO RELIEVED.

So Dr. Womack finally came out and explained everything that went on, and said things had gone well (up until the excessive bleeding), and they got all the information that they needed to be able to proceed to the next step (surgery). Hooray! We then headed to recovery to be re-united with our little trooper. She was swollen, tired, and quite grumpy, but she looked good. We waited and waited to be released, and waited some more. Ivy couldn't pee.........we tried scaring it out of her by saying we wouldn't be able to go home.........she finally wet, and I mean WET! Then the doc had to do another quick echo, followed by another LONG discussion. More waiting......and finally at 8:15 or so we signed the release papers and walked out the door. Thankful to be done!

So thanks again Russell and Collette, you guys are amazing. Seriously, we owe you big time!

Anyway, it looks like surgery will be taking place sometime in early to mid june. I know it sounds wierd, but we can hardly wait. I am nervous of course, but I am so sick of this looming over head. I just want to be finished (for a while anyway). Finished with the nurses, physical therapists, dietitions, social workers, doctors, doctors appointments, endless paperwork, and most of all, the mountain of bills. After this surgery, we will still have all those things for about a month, but then most of them will either diminish substantially, or go away all together. I will have no problem giving them up!

No More Bullies

Not that we've ever had a huge problem with bullies, but there have been a few occasions. We finally got the playset that we ordered a few weeks ago, so Scott has spent countless hours the last few days setting it up. I helped a little. The kids LOVE it! They have been out there non-stop since it was finished (as well as before it was finished). So fun!!

In the beginning.....Corbin says, "That's not a playset, that's wood!"

Helpful boys.....

Coming along.....

Still coming.....The boys are still "helping"

We have to play RIGHT NOW! We can't wait for it to be done!

Hooray, swings!

It's like a club-house, sorry Mom, no girls allowed!

Now it's a playset! Isn't it beautiful?! Nice work, babe!

Ivy's MRI

So Ivy had her pre-op MRI today, and she is a little champ. She wasn't allowed to eat after 7 am, and refused to eat since 4:45am, so by the time everything was done at about 2 pm, she was pretty hungry! We went into the hospital super early this morning where they made her cry several times for various reasons like, poking her arm for an IV, checking her oxygen sats, taking her blood pressure, or just bugging her in general. They finally got us in for the MRI at about 11:30 am, after hours of waiting. They had to give her some anesthesia since for an MRI you need to be perfectly still. It was weird because I was holding her and they pushed the button to start the medication, and said, "it works pretty fast" and she instantly went limp in my arms, before her eyes even closed. They grabbed her from me and laid her down and she was out cold! They took pics of her heart for about an hour and a half and then we were allowed to see her again. They kept the anesthesia on for a few more minutes while they also did an echo (more heart pics), and then turned it off. She woke back up within 5 minutes, crazy.

We don't yet know what they found in the MRI, but should have the results in just a couple of days. She has her cath procedure on Monday, and that will give us more information also.

I also want to say thanks to Russell and Collette for taking our boys overnight and watching them for SO LONG while all this went on. Our boys had a great time, they love you guys, You're the best! And thank you in advance for Monday as well!

A Cath, by-the-way, is a procedure where they take very small catheters into either the jugular or an artery near the groin area, and maneuver it to the heart and then they are able to check things like size, pressure, flow, etc. All of these things will bring us closer to surgery which, due to oxygen saturation's, will most likely be sometime in June.
Good job today Ivy, you are such a good sport! We love you!