Long Bumpy Beardy Road

It's been a long couple of months here. Things have been rocky at best, but we keep trucking. I hate it when I feel focused on the bumps in the road, but they are there and only God knows why, so I can't deny them. But we must keep our spirits high or we shall fail. The last time we were swimming around blind in the waters of unemployment, we decided it would be fun to measure our time in the murky situation by the length of Josh's beard. So it's become a little game we play when he gets into bad work situations. Or rather bad UNwork situations I suppose. The last time we played the How Long Can You Grow (your beard) Game, we documented his beard at this length (click here). Now, pardon me for laughing while I write this, but when you see that old post, remember that we were in a very poor situation and thought that things were pretty darn bad at the time. I remember seeing how long his beard was back then and thinking, "Wow! I can't believe how long your beard is!" Fast forward to today. After seeing the previous beard project, you are going to think I've doctored his current beard with photoshop. But alas, it is not so. This is The Beard (it deserves capitaliztion as it is no longer just a beard, but rather an entity of it's own creation) one month ago:

Think that's crazy? Hah! This is The Beard as of tonight. Yes. I put it in three dwarf-like ponytails...laughing all the way:

Sooo...yeah...The Beard is fierce. The Beard is crazy. The Beard is back...and it's getting bigger.

Why can't I stop laughing at this?? The Beard...lol. Too funny.

Gimme a Break...oh wait...I already have one

Seven or Eight months ago, I'm not exactly sure on the time frame, I somehow managed to break my foot. At the time, I remember my foot hurting. Then after a poorly aimed attempt at catching what I've come to believe was a small tarantula in our house, I managed to take the pain in my foot to a new level. I fell onto the couch chanting, "I think I broke my foot. I think I broke my foot," over and over. Being a massive bloated cow of a pregnant lady at the time, I wasn't exactly gunning to go to the doctor and expose myself to xrays, so I came to my own conclusion that it was a sprained something or other and limped along for a month. Another month came and went all the while I still limped along with pain in the foot. Before I knew it, I was poppin' out a wee baby and the pain in my foot quickly became mentally dialed down from bad to simply bothersome.

Fast forward many moons from that moment to about two months ago. Still limping along and feeling sharp stabs of pain, I took to getting the medical advice from my brother the chiropractor. A broken bone was the last thing either of us thought of so he suggested I try to rub a spoon along the painful area and try to stretch my ligaments (or something like that).(It sounds crazy, but I don't have the tools he has so a spoon was suggested.) One swipe along that spot on the side of my foot and several colorful words forcibly leapt out of my mouth and suddenly there was a spoon imbedded deeply in my wall. (No. Not really.) I decided to bite the bullet and go get an xray done. Sure enough, the doc came back in with a pretty picture of my foot and told me I had a Jone's fracture. Apparently, being a giant fat cow as pregnancy sucked all of my precious calcium from my body made it so my foot decided to spontaneously break under the pressure. Nice, right? He told me to wait it out another month and if the symptoms weren't gone, I'd need to probably go to an orthopedic doc.

Fast forward again to two months later. My foot is still very much broken and I still look like a gimpy pirate when I walk. The ortho doc told me that these fractures are tricky little buggers and don't like to heal on their own. Had I caught it early, I might have stood a chance, but if it ain't healed after 7 months, it ain't gonna heal at all. He scheduled me for surgery to place a pin in it and it's supposed to happen next Monday. Guess who has a problem with that? Yeah. Me...and Josh...and Evie...and my sanity. The surgery will put me on crutches for a month and then a boot for two weeks after with physical therapy for a month after that. What?!? I don't have time for this. A few problems have surfaced. Surgery will knock me out for about five hours. Evie doesn't care much for anyone but me and will scream consistently until she is in my arms. Josh said he's not sure he can listen to her scream for that long and that this is not a great time for the surgery. Evie also won't take a bottle. At all. She gets so mad she throws up every time we try to give her one. Oh, and not to mention I will have to find a way to carry her around with crutches. We're talking about rescheduling the surgery for a month later so I can get Evie on some solid foods so she won't be completely starving while I'm out but I still need to talk to the doc about it. All around, this is just one big pot of boiling over annoying and I just don't know what to do. I've actually considered just having a broken foot for the rest of my life. Is that crazy? Yeah. Maybe a little.

Abby's 5 years & Evie's 5 months

Am I doubling up on my blog posts? Why, yes I am. You'd think that having an unemployed husband home 24/7 would make it very simple to actually accomplish tiny things like...oh...say...blogging. I am left without excuse. Or at least left without a good excuse

We celebrated Abby's fifth birthday last Saturday. It was by far the smallest celebration I've had for one of my kiddos to date. My folks and Mandy with her clan were the only ones here this time, but that was no reason to skimp on the cake. Josh informed me that I am "overkill" mom when it comes to decorating cakes. I think I'm okay with that for now. I like decorating cakes anyhow. Abby wanted very little for her birthday. She wanted an MP3 player like Alex, pink cowboy boots and a little white mouse beanie baby she saw that has been bestowed the honor of becoming a member of her beloved pillow gang. She got all of that and was very happy. We had a nice time celebrating. I still can't believe she's five years old and heading off to kindergarten in the fall. My sweetie growing up! Her request for the cake was  that she wanted her favorite stuffed animal, Cheesy, to be on the cake holding a flower. So that's what she got. It may look a bit odd for a mouse, but if you can see on the picture above, it looks just like her mouse. Honest!

Seriously. Overkill? Probably.

This is Abby's birthday party at preschool. She hates being the center of attention, but she did well.

Evie's 5 months old

And recently, miss Evie turned five months old. She's growing like a weed and has been getting some massive skills on. She's between that awkward stage of wanting to sit all the time but still needing tummy time to learn to crawl. She's also developed her mommy complex to a new level. Josh is not so happy about this part. She still is not in full-on giggle mode. I try my hardest to get her to laugh, but the best I get is a half giggle when I tickle her. Here is her new skills list for the month.

Sitting prettty: Evie can sit on her own now for a few minutes. I still have to prop pillows behind her or sit close with one arm ever ready to catch her but she loves it and wants to be sitting nearly all the time.

Grabby gal: She is grabbing now. Everything. My hair and neck skin being her favorite. Ouch. Toys are her second favorite and she loves to put a fine coating of drool over each of them. Her other favorite is grabbing the cats' tails and hair. One of five cats is okay with this so poor Evie has some battle scars on the back of her hand.

Scooting: She's finding ways to move around the ground and her crib. She isn't crawling of course, but she can shimmy her way anywhere if she puts her mind to it.

Cereal: She started cereal for the first time tonight. I don't think she liked it very much but it will grow on her I'm sure. She's just so hungry still all of the time that I need her to be eating other things. Mama needs a break.

Look at those mad sittin' skills!

Magic Shoulder

As far as bloggers go, it's no secret. I've been one of the worst. It's not my fault! I have a baby! Oh wait. Yeah. I guess it is my fault then. Proof positive that I've failed my poor abandoned blog is this: what you're about to read is irrelevant. Nonetheless, it's cute and will forever be a part of my memory with Evie. There is a difference with Josh this time around in Babyland. Evie does really well with him. I'm not sure if it has something to do with the fact that I'm so busy with the other two kids that Josh has no choice but to be an active participant, but she does much better with him than Alex and Abby ever did. Sure. She cries her lungs out with him more than she does with me (mama complex is setting in). But Josh has one thing going this time around that never happened before and I lovingly call it The Magic Shoulder. As any nursing mother will tell you, when your baby is in your arms during those early months of life, they go on auto-sensory and start snorting and snuffing around looking for the boob. Hey. It's what we're here for, right? Josh, thank goodness, is boobless. (Is that a word?) So for the first 2 months, when I was tired of Evie's constant eating, I handed her over to Josh. What was a restless sleep with me, turned into a peaceful snooze fest on Josh's shoulder. Every. Time. It was cute as can be and relaxing for me while she snoozed away. Evie was also sick for the first two months of life so she had to sleep upright for most of the time. What better place than a comfy shoulder? But alas! Evie is embarking on the fifth month of life soon and sleeping is not her favorite thing to do anymore. There are nights I miss the Magic Shoulder. But I'll never forget the early life cuteness of Evie sleeping on daddy's shoulder.

Happy 5th Birthday Abby!

Abby turned five years old today! She isn't having her birthday party with the real cake and presents until Saturday, but I couldn't resist a little post to celebrate her actual birthday. Her official party is going to be teeny tiny with just us, my folks and Mandy and her gang so we made a day of it today. We went into town and did some "shopping". I say shopping in the loosest form possible as shopping usually requires money. Josh is still very unemployed. So we utilized her free coupon for a Happy Meal for lunch and grandma treated her to a Star Kiss from Dairy Queen. She had fun looking at toys and clothes at Target and Goodwill and helped me pick a new pair of glasses. We then made cupcakes for her school party tomorrow and had her favorite dinner of chocolate chip pancakes, eggs, and sausage. It was a great day and she's excited to get her presents on Saturday. Happy birthday baby girl!

Abby being Abby outside making a "cake" out of sand and dandelions.

Backyard Playground

For five years, we've owned one swing set that has been very faithful to us. The kids have grown up using it and it's been great. But as all things do, it got old. When we bought it, we figured it would last forever. Unfortunately, we didn't plan on our kids outgrowing it so fast. When Alex and Abby would swing together, the set looked as though it might topple at any given moment. It wasn't an expensive swing set, truth be told. Alex has been looking through catalogs for awhile now in hopes that we might purchase a new one that meets his list of seemingly non-negotiable requirements. We had to meet him half way. His requirements were pretty demanding for a six year old. Turns out a $30,000 swing set just wasn't in our budget this year. Actually we didn't even meet in the middle come to think of it. We knocked off a few thousand...er...or perhaps $29,000 really. We found a great deal at Home Depot and promised the kiddos that taxes would buy them a new play set to love and grow up with. When it was delivered, my folks were nice enough to lend a hand (and a bounty of electric tools). It was up and functional in a weekend and Alex and Abby couldn't be more happy with it. Now I don't have to worry about them flipping the swing set and ending up in the ER with broken bones or stitches. Now I just have to worry that they won't get caught in the rope ladder. Yay!

Josh and my mom building our new yard art.

The kiddos enjoying the new swing set. They are out playing on it every second they can. Note the old swing set tower in the background. It has a new home now. Have a good second life old Mr. Swing set.

Evie loves to swing! I think she likes how the wind blows through her long, beautiful hair.

Our backyard is actually a blessing. We lucked out with this house and got a double city lot so our backyard is pretty big for a city house. Don't get me wrong. I'd still love an acre or ten to tinker with, but that just ain't in the cards for us so we'll just be grateful for our extra helping of yard. And the bonus to a big yard? Big fun in the snow. I know the pictures are delayed a bit, but with the last big snow (fingers crossed to "the last" being accurate for the year) we all got to go out and enjoy our big yard full of snow. Even Evie got to be blinded by the bright white blanket of fresh powder on the lawn. Gotta love snow days!

We had a lot of school snow days off with this storm. Worth it!

I'd like to take a moment to not thank my toothpaste. Extra whitening my butt. I'd also like to thank the snow for making me redefine the color 'white'. Sheesh.

:-) I love these kiddos.

Abby and one of her many, many snowmen. I went through a lot of carrots that week.

(Is it obvious I'm trying to multi-blog post here?)

Finding Her Voice

All we hear these days is screaming. Not horror house, something's trying to eat me type of screaming. Adorable screaming. Wait. I'm not insane. Honest! I'm not some strange masochist that enjoys having her eardrums burst time and time again. It's just that Evie is finding out recently that she does, in fact, have a voice. And by golly, she ain't afraid to use it! She now spends quite a lot of time these days parked on the living room floor on her playmat. She's starting grabbing at toys and tries with all her might to yank down those pesky hanging barnyard animals that swing right at the tips of her fingers. All the while, she is merrily screaming away. At first, one might think she is angry. Trust me. She's not. She's happy as a lamb and will scream for 20 minutes on the floor as she's scooting around and grabbing toys. However, what a mother finds adorable is not the same as what brother and sister find adorable. Evie likes to stretch her voice around the same time the kids watch a movie and it only takes a few screams for me to hear screams from the other two kids. Only their screams are angry and involve my name. "Mom!! I can't hear the movie when Evie is screaming!" It makes me laugh. I then promptly tell them that I can't hear movies when they are screaming either so they just have to deal with it. Needless to say, they don't like my response to the situation. Ah. I love being a mom.

Evie is also starting to make those adorable little spittle and raspberry sounds while she's playing. I think that it's just one of the cutest things to hear. And I can honestly say that brother and sister much prefer this sound to the high-pitched screaming. Me? I enjoy them both. I'm crazy like that.