Caution: Graphic photo: read at your own risk...

The little man is growing up!


His friends have been loosing teeth for over a year now and Caleb has pouted over the fact that he had all his baby teeth still and not one was even wiggly.



My little man is growing up. :)

On to the awkward stage we go! 2 down, one more to go!

Some things will never Change...

Isn't it nice to know that when life is being turned upside down and everything is changing that you can count on a constant that will never change.




Like when you go to get your blood work done- and Wham! Just like old times- you're out cold. Thankfully the nurse sees that your blood has drained from your face just before and is quick to bring you out of it; giving you a nice snack of crackers and juice before you'll allowed to go home.

*sigh*

I am significantly petrified. Last surgery was non-evasive as they say and although there was some pain involved- it was a relatively easy procedure. Once I was out of recovery I went home and just took it easy for a few days.

Not so much this time. The nurses talked to me about a living will and gave me the paperwork to fill out. Didn't get that the last time around- Uh, yeah... Just a little freaked.

Then I got my scripts to fill and I have graduated from Tylenol with codeine to Perkocet- Uhhhhh... Yeah... Even more freaked.

And then once again I got the "what could go wrong" information. Of course, these are rare, but they do happen so they have to warn me about it. You got it... Freak city.

The anesthesiologist was nice. He asked if I wanted a little something to help calm my nerves before the surgery. Very thoughtful, but I don't see why he thought it was funny when I asked for it now... Apparently my nerves are on my own until Thursday morning :(


Jim will be making calls to the powers that be on Thursday- I should be discharged Friday or Sat. Until then- I bid all my faithful blog viewers a fond adieu.

xoxo:

Jen

Miss Potter

Ewan McGregor is my most favorite actor. :) (didja know that Gimili's Middle name is McGregor- as we named him after him???)

Anyway- we watched Miss Potter for the first time yesterday and I was pleasantly surprised to see that Ewen was in it.

The movie was a lovely story- and a tear jerker as well. :) The kids watched it with us and loved it as well. They know Beatrix Potter from her stories- we have the entire collection on the bookshelf.

Lovely movie- if you haven't seen it yet you must. :)

Silly Lilly

Just some pictures of Lilly being... well... Lilly. :)






Didja notice the absence of a door knob in these pictures? It's one of our latest battles with room sharing. The girls are having a hard time sharing a room and the old knobs had locks on them. It was a never ending battle of slamming doors and locking big sister/little sister out.

So off came the knobs. Caleb's too- for he had tried to explain the reasons why he needed a locked door in the middle of the night... most of which had to do with Darth Vader and star wars. Usually he is very fire concious- as a fireman is one of his favorite alter egos... But he ignored my fire safety speech and kept locking it. So- his came off too.

We had contemplated reversing the door knobs so the lock was on the outside. We did this in our old house when the kids were little- for fear they would lock them selves in. However, the more we thought about it, the more I could see the locks being used to lock one or more of the kids INSIDE a room- So we just took them out altogether.

Which leads us to todays pictures and why there are no knobs on the doors. We are going to replace the doors anyway and when we do, they will have brand new NON-LOCKING door knobs.

Caleb's award...

His school had their first awards ceremony for the year. Caleb was one of the 2 first graders to get an award for Reading.

His name was called in front of the whole school, every one clapped for him. He was so happy and We could not be prouder! He is reading so well. He's beyond reading the step books now and he'll pick out library books and read them to Lilly. It's amazing to see how much he has learned on his own! Books are a big thing in this family and I'm so happy to see that he loves reading as much as I do.

After the rocky start he had last year, this year is going so much better. He is on the bus and has not had one issue- he's only had one day where he had more than a warning. Jim and I have really noticed a change in him over the summer. He grew a couple of inches and he has really mellowed out.

His biggest challenge is he likes to talk and when he talks he voice booms- so it gets him into trouble.

Good Job Caleb! Keep up the good work. Mom and Dad are very proud of you!

Just some more reception photos...

These are some of the ones I edited. :)

Colorado Trip- Day Two Part three

Photojojo sent out a cool new photo feature that I was playing with today. (In case you didn't know- Photojojo is an awesome site for not only great photography tips, but also cool stuff to do with your pictures after you take them)

So anyway, I decided to play around a little and I did put in pictures from the reception to Animoto and this is the 30 second music video that was made for me. :)

Enjoy!


The Reception:

Colorado Trip Day 2- Part 2

The wedding:

The wedding was beautiful. It was an outdoor ceremony, and so we were all praying that one of the very common passing showers would hold off as the sky suddenly got very cloudy. Thankfully the rain did hold off. The wind was another story. As we were setting everything up the wind kicked in and it was wicked. I totally regretted my decision to keep my hair down as the wind had it flying all over the place. But wind and a cloudy sky were a small price to pay to avoid a downpour and making the site muddy and everyone extremely soggy.



One of my jobs as the groomswoman was to make sure that the wedding rings and the marriage certificate were at the ceremony. Can we say Pressure??? I've been a bridesmaid many times, and you make sure the train is straight and hold the bouquet and help with the planning and what not. This time was different. The one job I had was a very important, as the ceremony would have been ruined had I goofed on my responsibility! Yup, lots of pressure.


The officiant asked me to fill out the marriage certificate- which seems to be more of a big deal in Colorado than it was when we got married in New Jersey. So I did my best- and hoping that my hand would stay still to keep the writing neat and tidy (if you've seen my handwriting, you know it's sloppy at best!)



But the time is finally here. We heard the bride arrived so Jess and I made our way back with the bridal party to start the ceremony. We were thankful that the wind had died down a bit and the weather was looking hopeful!



Now, every wedding has little hic-cups that aren't planned on. However, I think these hic-cups totally give the wedding character. Miss Lucy was to walk down with Abby. However, Lucy was very comfy in her grandpa's arms. So, Allison was given away by her father who was holding Lucy. It was completely adorable and Miss Lucy was quite the trooper and sat through the ceremony wonderfully.


At the very end of the ceremony, there was the kiss and as the newly married couple turned around and were announced as Mr & Mrs, the sun peaked though the clouds and through the trees and beamed down on J & A and lit up the isle. You couldn't planned better timing. It was just one of those things that made the wedding even more beautiful, as if God were smiling down.




After oodles and oodles of pictures, we took a ride across Grand Lake to the reception site. It was an experience being a groomswoman. I throughly enjoyed it and I was honored to stand up next to my big brother at his wedding. It's too bad I could not get these thoughts out for the toast, as my fear of public speaking did me in. However you will have to wait to hear about that until part three. Until then:

Happy Anniversary to us!

8 years ago today... Time flies when you're having fun.





And see how our little flower girl has grown? This was the first of 5 weddings she has been in...


9/11/99


8/11/07

Quite a difference huh? She grew up right before our eyes. :)

Water Bugs

Thank you Grandma, Grandpa and Aunt Kay for the fun weekend. The kids had a blast swimming and I think you will appreciate this picture the most- thankfully this is a still shot and you do not hear the whining that went along with it.



For the everyone else- Abby, Caleb and Lilly were Water bugs yesterday. 8 am we were in the pool until lunch and then back in after naps. We had to drag them out- with the high hopes of swimming before we left today. This picture was taken when the temperature this morning did not get into the 70's and Jim took it as I was packing up the swimming suits. They were not happy at all.


Whining aside- it was a fun weekend. Lots of yummy food, dominoes, birthdays, swimming & all that fun stuff that make Grandma and Grandpa's house so fun.

Surprise!

I was going through our memory cards and I almost deleted these pictures before I realized they never got to the computer yet!

They are from our trip to Crystal Cave with The Gruesome Twosome.

Abby's Birthday video

I'm not sure if this will come through on email or not- Blogger has their own hosting now and I don't have to go through You Tube which is good. I'm thinking that the file might be too big to go through an email still.

So- If you email people do not see a video screen- high tail it to my blog and watch it there. :)

Earning my mothering stripes.

Where oh where did August Go? Seriously. I can't believe it's September already!

I'm kinda quiet for many reasons. I am in the process of cleaning our carpets. Today's mission was to do Caleb's room and the hallway while conquering the mountain on laundry that has accumulated.

For those of you who have been in my house and have seen the mess Caleb calls his room you can relate to my anxiety over this.

Let me just start by saying this. You enter a whole new realm of motherhood when you deep clean a 6 year old boy's bedroom. Seriously- Toddler boys bedroom was bad enough, but 1st grade boys bedroom- the only word to describe it is Gross.

Among the weird things I have picked up and tossed in the garbage can was:

A dead Stink bug graveyard (or what Caleb Call his "collection"- Whether they were alive or dead when he brought them in my house I do not know- nor do I care to know)

A bazillion tiny little leggo pieces

Enough crayon wrappers to wall paper his walls with

broken toys

Umpteen shoe boxes that were broken and held together with tape

Daddy's tools that he "borrowed" and never put back

Oh, the list could go on and on.


Anyway, Jim ended up building him shelves in his closet and we sorted through his toys and cleaned his carpets and his room smells nice again. (sans stink bugs of course)

At any rate, this further proves my theory that boys are just plain weird and I am quite certain that when God was handing out weirdness- he gave my son a double dose.