Out of the House - MNF

So this new life of being a stay at home mom to two has been an interesting adjustment.  The one thing I took for granted when I worked was my freedom!  The freedom to listen to the music I wanted to while in the car at whatever level I wanted, the freedom to jump in my car and run and errand of make a quick return to Target when necessary and the list goes on.  So when I got the chance to get out of my house without both kids for HOURS I jumped at it.  So off to Monday Night Football we went.  I mean really who is going to turn down all the free beer and food you can eat before the game and then seats only 10 rows up from the players? Thanks for the season tickets Mom and Russ!  

Anyone know who this fella is?  Just think blockbuster.

This was Mom's good luck wand.

Football Addict

If I thought that the amount of football watched in this house was bad before this year has reached an all time high.  Adelaide officially knows the different between the sports being played on the tv and which teams you yell for on which day.  Saturday is Go Tennessee and Sunday is Go Jaguars - RUN RUN RUN!
Normal nap time is 1:00 in our house which is rough when that is also game time.  You would think this crazy 3 year old would hit major meltdown when we take her to the stadium at that exact time, but the opposite happens, she yells at the players and jumps up and down until she literally passes out in the 3rd or 4th quarter.

Local Attractions

Living in North Florida is an absolute blessing.  We have the perks of living in a touristy area without it interfering with our everyday lives.  Traffic does not include lost Disney World patrons or nuts trying to find the beach.  With that being said we are only a short drive from private beaches and days spent strolling through the oldest city in America, St Augustine.
So when we need a quick little escape Grant and I load the kids in the car and make our 45 minute commute to the great tourist trap.  It doesn't happen often, maybe once or twice a year depending on how many visitors we get that year.  This time around I was tired of being on the "bubble" which is what we call the area we live in and needed a quick escape.

Family fun day was a little cloudy so please excuse the dark photos.

The Things We Buy

My assumption would be that most three year old little girls like to spend their money on frilly items or arts and crafts.  Not my little Adelaide.  We took Adelaide to the Dollar Store and gave her $2 to spend on whatever she wanted.  We didn't come home with a hair bow or a Barbie, instead we brought home one pack of football cards and another pack of baseball cards.  

This should be no surprise to those who have played with her recently because her obsession is with anything that resembles a card and of course books.  So now we know what Adelaide spends her "dollars" on and I am glad that they don't take up a lot of space.  All of this would be perfect if we didn't have to hide Grant's thirty year old baseball card collection which makes Adelaide go wild.

I hate fruit

I have never been a fan of fruit or vegetables, in fact in the fruit department I pretty much eat apples and bananas.  Lately the one fruit I really can not stand is cantaloupes.  Yes, the fruit I hate so much is haunting me.  A few posts ago I wrote about the cantaloupe growing in my body that was unwanted and unhealthy, but I was relieved that it want away on its own.  Unfortunately things didn't stay that way.  I spent most of October in and out of my GYNs office checking on my cantaloupe and finally on Monday, October 31st I was able to get it removed for good.

The plan was to check into day surgery at 5:30 am for a 7:00 procedure.  I was going to have a cyst removed from my left or right ovary (it was so large they weren't sure which side it was on) during a one hour laparascopic surgery and be home by lunch.  Of course things haven't been easy lately, so the procedure did not go as planned.

I did show up at 5:30, checked in and ready for surgery.  At exactly 7:01 I remember looking at the clock in the operating room while I took my first few breathes of the happy gas to put me to sleep and then I was out.  At the time my only thoughts were, 1. they should knock you out before you get to the room because this looks nothing like Grey's Anatomy, 2. the operating tables are really small, 3. can't wait to see the girls in their Halloween costumes.

Fast forward a few hours later and I kind of remember coming to in the recovery room, but all that I really remember was my throat hurting, feeling nauseous, hearing "too much excitement and loss of blood", I was grabbing at the oxygen mask on my face and that was it.  I passed back out and then a while later I actually woke up enough to speak and ask where everyone was and what happened.  

Long story short is that I did not have a cyst on my ovaries, it was a fibroid on my uterus and after three hours of surgery they could not fit it through the laparascopic holes because it was so big and they couldn't cut it apart because the doctor didn't know if it was cancerous or not.  So after all of that time and work I ended up with an open surgery.  My throat hurt from breathing tubes that I had while in surgery and I was now being told I wouldn't go home for a couple of days.

This was not the way I expected my Halloween Monday to go.  Thank goodness for the support from out friends and families who stayed with the girls, made sure to get them to all of their Halloween activities, supported me in the hospital so that Grant could get back to work and spent the night on our couch so the girls didn't have their whole routine disrupted.  

Two weeks later and I have just had my last check up appointment and I am in the clear.  No more growths, surgery, drugs, pain or anything else that went with this trying time in our lives.  I will have a nice little scar on my abdomen, but the doctor did a great job stitching me up because there shouldn't be too much of a mark.  I had 15 staples and two holes from the surgery, the doc says I am a great healer which is allowing us to get back to a normal life.  

Most importantly I received my final pathology report and I am CANCER FREE! Oh and thanks to Aetna for paying my $73,000 medical bill.  

With everything that I have said in this post I hope that everyone will now understand my hate for fruit...

How Old Are You Now?

If you ask Adelaide how old Daddy is she will tell you 43, but really he turned 33 this year.  Last year on Grant's birthday he spent an entire night after work sitting in the daycare parking lot waiting for tow trucks because his battery decided to die in his car.  He has such a miserable day that we tried to make up for it this year.  Not sure how much more we could have done for him, because this year wasn't just a birth DAY, it was more like a birth WEEK.

-Blacky and Lindsey were in town - yay - two of our favorite people.

-Oreo Birthday "tate" (cake), because everyone must have one

-Mini pizza party at home including a homemade birthday hat

-A night of beer and bowling

-UT football in the swamp

-Birthday lunch at our favorite whole in the wall fried chicken place in Jax.

-Karate lessons as a birthday gift.

-Golf gift certificate

-Golf

-Tickets to the Masters

-Learned to cook prime rib 

Not a bad few days in the world of Grant.

Doesn't everyone need a birthday hat?

What a cool dad

G doesn't like cake, so we went with his favorite ice cream instead.

Kari also made the trip for the birthday fun.

Nice socks Blacky

One too many beers and things get creative.

Sweet Sisters

What have these sweet sisters been up to in the last few weeks?  

Penelope is smiling and laughing all of the time, when we need to get her to calm down we try to position her so that she can see the fan which of course is the funniest thing in her little world.  Adelaide had a doctors appointment last week and while we were there P was put on the scale and weighed in around 12.5 pounds with her clothes on.  She is turning into our not so little girl.  P is still not sleeping much during the day as her sister doesn't have an inside voice.  At night we are lucky to say she is sleeping about 7 hours straight, gets up to eat and a diaper change and then back to sleep for another 3 hours.  On the nights when she doesn't wake up around 4 I am up watching the clock and waiting.

Adelaide is still my little helper girl and will jump up as soon as P starts yelling for a pacifier.  She loves her little sister and always wants to hold P.

A helping Mommy while wearing pearls.

Yep, A is always touching Bumbo baby.

A still fits in the baby seat - crazy.

Getting into shape.

Good morning sisters.

A wanted P to play in her bed when she woke up.

Sister is too big, get her off of me.