Belated Happy Birthday to Noelle

With all of the other happenings going on around here in June I missed doing the post for Noelle’s birthday.  She turned 3 on  June 3rd just a few days after Karly was born and even though Karly was still in the hospital and things were really hectic Kelly wanted to make sure that she had a special birthday.  So, that evening the family all went to Chuck E Cheese.  Everyone had a great time and it was nice to have some time to take our minds off everything else and celebrate Noelle.

My tribute to Noelle this year is going to be different that my traditional count down of all the things I love about it and focus on just two of things that I love about her.

Noelle is independent and loves to do things for herself.  She doesn’t like anyone to help her do things she can do for herself.  She also loves her Daddy and her brother and doing the dirty jobs that they do together. She also loves to be the princess.   A perfect example of this was a couple of weeks ago Dave and Thomas were out in the backyard planting the garden and Noelle just had to join them.  This is how she prepared herself.

 

She got right in the middle of things with Dave and Thomas with her Ugg boots with pink flowers and nothing but her diaper on.  If the boys don’t wear their shirts Noelle doesn’t wear hers! We’re lucky that the boys were wearing their shorts and her diaper severed as her shorts. We’re also lucky that she only is in the backyard looking like this!!!

Then that evening she took her bath and asked me to paint her fingers and toes again because when she worked in the yard they got all messed up!

She is the princess and I love her so much.  Life just wouldn’t be the same without her. 

Cupcakes

Auntie Julie knows Noelle pretty well and she got her the perfect gift for her birthday!

 

This cute little bag with all kinds of wooden cooking utensils and a mix to make white chocolate cupcakes with raspberry frosting.  Noelle was in heaven!!!  She had a blast making the cupcakes with Kelly and was even happier when she and Thomas got to eat them for dessert that night.

Karly is 1 month old!!!

Karly turned one month old on Monday a full month before she was suppose to be here! Yep, her original due date was June 28th.  She has been through so much in short amount of time but I’m happy to say that she is doing really well.  She continues to gain weight and at this point the little tumor in her mouth appears to me, to be getting a little smaller.  We all have our own opinions about that.  Some just think as her head and mouth get bigger it looks smaller.  I believe the tumor is getting smaller.  Regardless we are all so happy that she is home and healthy.

This digital scrapbooking design personalized with Smilebox

Troy’s Birthday/ Father’s Day

Troy called a couple of months ago and said that  one of Julie’s relatives was getting married on June 19th in Napa and wanted to know if we could pick them up at the airport on the 18th and keep Tyler overnight when they were at the wedding.  Then Sunday the 19th we would surprise my Dad on Father’s Day with them being here.   This was a perfect opportunity for them all to see Karly.    Keeping it a secret from my Dad was going to be the difficult part!

I picked Troy, Julie and Tyler up on Friday in Sacramento just in time to have a birthday party for Troy that evening (his birthday had been earlier that week).  Thomas and Noelle thought it would be a lot of fun to have a birthday party when Tyler was here. 

The kids loved playing outside with each other while Kelly, Mom, Julie and I finished up on getting dinner ready.  Kelly made a fantastic lasagna, salad, and fresh French bread. 

 

  After dinner we brought out the birthday cake and that was hit!

Saturday morning Julie and Troy left for Napa and the rest of us headed to the park.  The kids had a blast having a picnic lunch and playing in the water.

Then we headed to the park for a few minutes on the slide.

When we got home Kelly, Dave, Noelle and Karly headed to Modesto to buy a new car (check out her blog for those details) and the boys and I stayed home and played outside.

Tyler loved playing basketball and running with the big kids.  And he was the only one that stayed on the sidewalk!

Sunday morning was Father’s Day and Kelly was sure to call Dad by 8:30 and made up an excuse that Thomas really wanted to see his Grandpa before leaving to spend the day with his Dad. So Grandpa rushed over to see Thomas (he had actually already left) and when he got to the door, Tyler was was to greet him.  He was totally surprised and very very happy!!!  We all had a great day hanging around the house watching the golf tournament, Nascar race and of course the baseball game.  That evening our good friends Sandy, Gary and Shauna came and joined us for dinner.        

It was a prefect weekend!  I’m so glad that Troy, Julie and Tyler could join us.  I can’t wait for their next visit.

This digital scrapbooking design made with Smilebox

Fond childhood memories

I have a lot of fond memories of games that my siblings and I played when we were young.  We lived in a court and all the other family’s that lived in the court also had kids that were our ages so we always had friends to play with.  One of my fondest memories was playing store.  Sometimes Troy, Kelly and I played by ourselves and other times our friends would join in.  We actually had more than just a store.  We should have called it strip mall.  We had a grocery store, shoe store, library, town newspaper and restaurant.  We made our own money and Troy was always the one to write the newspaper.  We set each place up in different rooms of the house and took turns going about town.  It was great fun and we would be busy for hours playing.  I’m sure my Mom was happy that we were busy for so long but I’m sure the mess that it left wasn’t all that fun to help clean up. 

Noelle just had her 3rd birthday and her friends Jonathan and Andrew gave her a grocery cart filled with food and a cash register.  When Kelly and I saw that we both thought of the times we played “store”.  We had moment where we became our parents and started a conversation of with “when we were kids”.  We talked with Thomas and Noelle all about our memories of playing store with Uncle Troy.  They thought that was a great idea and set up their own store.  It wasn’t as elaborate as ours was but it was a good start!! I hope that when they get a little older they will want to follow in our footsteps.

Keeping the kids busy (day #2)

Since yesterday went so well, I decided to take the kids to the Jelly Belly factory in Fairfield. That morning I made my list and schedule. We started the day off again taking Thomas to swimming lessons.

On our way home from swimming lessons I received a text from Kelly saying that there was a possibility that Karly would be coming home today!! What?!?! We had expected that she would be there for at least 3 days and then would go back to St. Joseph’s for several more weeks.  My heart stopped for a moment and thought I needed to get home and clean and vacuum the house, get some balloons, get a cake and have a little party planned for Karly’s arrival.  But I had already promised Thomas and Noelle we would go to the Jelly Belly factory.  I couldn’t cancel on them for baby Karly.  That definitely would not have been good.

So, we came home packed the car for our little road trip and ate some lunch and off we went to the Jelly Belly factory.  I was careful not to mention to the kids that Karly might be coming home because I didn’t want any disappointment if things didn’t go as planned but I wanted to scream with joy!!!

The kids were great in the car and I even got them to sign some songs with me on the way!  As soon as we arrived we got in line for the factory tour.  We had to wait for about 45 minutes and they were great.

The kids really enjoyed the tour and seeing how the jelly beans were made.  I was surprised at how well they were listening and what they remembered from they were told.  After the tour we picked out some jelly beans to take home and got back on the road.

While we were in line paying for the jelly beans Kelly sent another text saying that they were just waiting for some paperwork and they would be on their way home with Karly. 

I couldn’t believe it and when I told the kids they couldn’t believe it either.  Both of them fell asleep in the car which was nice to get some quiet time.  Once we arrived home the kids helped clean up all the toys and the rest of the house, just in time for Kelly, Dave and Karly to walk in the door!!

Karly couldn’t believe she was home either!!! It was another fantastic day. 

Keeping the kids busy (day #1)

I have a lot of things to be thankful for and sometimes need that reminder.  Today has definitely been one of those days.  I was lucky that Kelly and I have a great OB-GYN that knows us well and is kind and thoughtful.  After Karly was born he  wrote a  letter to my employer so I could take a  leave of absence so that I could take care of Thomas and Noelle while Kelly and Dave spent hours upon hours at the hospital with Karly.  The last couple of weeks have NOT been easy though.  I spend a lot of time with Thomas and Noelle  and 99% of the time the enjoy being with me and very rarely ever give Kelly a hard time about staying with me.  However the last couple of weeks have been the polar opposite. They don’t understand what is happening and why Kelly and Dave are gone so much.  All they want is attention from their Mommy and Daddy so they will do just about anything to get that attention good or bad. We have seen behavior that we have never seen before and some that we thought we had seen the last of a long time ago.   So, when Kelly and Dave had to leave for Oakland with Karly and had no idea when they would be back I almost had a meltdown of my own.  I wasn’t sure how I was going to deal with the two of them for days by myself.  I said several prayers the night before and asked for patients, energy and for Thomas and Noelle to have some patients with me.  It definitely wasn’t going to be easy and I continuously reminded myself that things could be much much worse!!!

So on morning #1 I sat down and wrote out a schedule for the day.  Most of you know much a I love lists and schedules and that worked out fabulously. 

We started the day by taking Thomas to swimming lessons.

Then we ran a couple of errands. We came home made some lunch and put Noelle down for her nap and Thomas and I played the Wii.  When Noelle woke up we painted birdhouses

My great friend Wanda was kind enough to bring a Papa Murphy’s pizza over the night before so that evening we put the pizza in the oven and had an easy dinner.

Noelle and I made a yellow cake that for some reason did not turn out well but the kids enjoyed it.

Amazingly enough the day went super smooth and we managed to get through it with very few problems.  And since today went so well I promised the kids that we would go to the Jelly Belly factory the following day.

Karly’s Journey

Karly took her first helicopter ride this morning! Kelly and Dave are (as I’m writing this) on their way to meet her at Oakland Children’s Hospital where they will meet with a surgical team to determine if they will do a surgical procedure that she will need to have done now or a little later. We’re keeping our fingers crossed that they don’t decide to wait and keep in Oakland until the procedure is done. So I ask that you continue to keep her and Kelly and Dave in your prayers.  At this point we don’t have a lot of information or details so I will try and keep the blog updated daily as the information comes in.

Your Auntie loves you, baby Karly!!!  I can’t wait for you to be home.

In the mist of ciaos a good deed was done

On Monday morning when Kelly was getting the kids in the car to go to daycare, Thomas told her that there was a dog on the porch that looked like Taffy.  She was in a hurry to get the kids to daycare and be to the hospital in time to feed Karly (those nurses in the NICU don’t mess around and if your 5 minutes late you have committed a major crime) so she didn’t stop to look at what he was talking about.  So, when we arrived home Monday evening there was a dog sitting on our porch that looked just like the dogs (Taffy and Buddy)  that Kelly and I had growing up.  He was dirty and very smelly. He had poop and leaves stuck in his tail.   You could tell that he had been out for sometime and he didn’t have a collar on.  Noelle overhead my conversation with Kelly about how much the dog looked like Buddy and from that time on the kids were calling him Buddy.  He was a great dog.  He just sat at our sliding glass door and didn’t make a peep.  It was hot so we gave him some water and Noelle couldn’t resist so he got plenty of dog treats too.  We had to leave to run an errand and he ran right to the car with his tail wagging and when I said “no” he just ran back to the door and laid down.  Kelly and I thought in the middle of all of the ciaos in our house right now, what were we going to do with this dog.  He had no tags and when we left for our errand we looked for signs and couldn’t find any about this little guy.  So we left him on the porch and went to bed. 

Tuesday morning when we got up Buddy was still sitting on the porch wagging his tail.  Again we thought we do not have time for this! We have been on a tight schedule getting Thomas to swimming lessons and back and forth to the hospital every three hours to feed Karly.  But Kelly being Kelly felt sorry for him because he was smelly and nasty.  She decided that we a hour before we have to leave and that would give us enough time give him a hair cut and a bath.  So we could take a picture and make a sign to put up in the neighborhood.  Since we lost Indy in January we know exactly how it feels to have lost a dog and have no idea if you will ever get them back. 

  

 

 

After his bath we left him on the porch with some food and water and left to get the things done what we needed to.  While driving a couple blocks from the house I saw a sign on a stop sign and it had a picture of him.  Now he was no longer Buddy but Spike.  When we got home I called the number on the paper and a lady answered the phone.  I told her that we had her dog and she was in tears and very very grateful to have received the call.  A few minutes later she drove up and Spike went running to her.  She said that she had taken him to the vet a couple of weeks ago and forgot to put his collar on and the gardeners left her gate open and he got away over a week ago.  Who knows how he got so far or why he picked our house to come to but in that moment it felt really good to have the opportunity to make someone's day.  She said that they bought the dog for her son when he turned 2 and now he is 14 has been really upset that his dog was gone.

As I said in another one of my posts, our family has been blessed over the last couple of weeks by friends, co-workers and even strangers praying for our family and especially Karly.  We have had meals brought to us and lots of kind deeds that we will never be able to repay and this was one opportunity for us in the mist of all of our ciaos to do something nice for someone else!!!  The best part was when Thomas said “Heavenly Father is probably really proud of us for giving the lady her dog back, huh Auntie.” priceless!!!!