Happy Birthdy Matea!

It my booday now Mommyyyyyyyy?

I've heard this question at least 20 times this morning. And when I tell her it's not until Thursday (which of course, means nothing to her), she yells, "NO! It my booday!". I also keep hearing, "It mine Elmo booday pah-ty". I think the girl will have lots of fun this weekend.

Swim Lessons: Part Two

Today was Bella's last day of swim lessons. She had fun but after 10 days and $70, I sort of thought she would have learned something. I don't know that playing motorboat and holding an adult's hands while jumping in from the side of the pool is going to help her if she falls into a lake.

















































She did go off the diving board for the grand finale today. She insisted that an instructor be there with her and spent a lot of time negotiating with them about when they would drop her, when she had to let go, etc. She's like her mama, very cautious and careful, so I was just happy to see her try something new and scary.

Fourth Fun

We had a really fun holiday yesterday. Spent the day hanging out around the house and then crashed our friend's neighborhood block party. Bella spent hour after hour on the water slide and since Matea was too tiny to crawl up to the top, she occupied herself with eating treats.

Both girls did sparklers but Matea couldn't seem to grasp the concept of only holding on to the very bottom of the stick so she only did a few. Once the real fireworks started, she kept covering her eyes and saying, "I'm cared, I'm cared" (scared).

Swim Lessons

Swim lessons got off to a rough start. Lots of sitting on the steps doing nothing while the teacher repeatedly asked the kids, "What do you want to do now?". I'm not paying you $70 to ask her what she wants to do, I can do that at home for free. So after speaking with the 18 year old head honcho at the end of day two, we arrived to find a new and much improved teacher yesterday.

Bella's really enjoying class but has no problem letting the teachers know when she doesn't want to do something. Yesterday she actually gave her teacher the "talk to the hand" while saying "no, no, no, no". Luckily, after persistence from the teacher and an evil eye from mom, she always follows through with the task and ends up smiling.

I still think they're kind of babying the kids and am hoping they'll take a few steps back from the wall and just let them go soon but we'll see.

Happy Birthday Papa!

Wednesday was Steve's 31st birthday. I took the girls shopping at the Dollar Tree where Bella picked out a blue and green stretchy worm for Papa and Matea found a ping pong ball gun. Then they completed his gifts with pink butterfly and flower balloons, just what Papa likes. We set up a "celebration station" and jumped out and screamed "Happy Birthday!" and blew horns when he got home from work. We went out to dinner at Applebee's, came home and watched a movie and had delicious cake from Coldstone Creamery.

Update

3:00pm. 93 degrees in the house. "Shut the world out" plan officially not effective.

Freakin Hot!

It's been over 100 degrees here the last three days and it's miserable. Yes, it may get hot where most of our family lives but you bastards have air conditioning. Our house was a sweaty 90 degrees at 7:00 last night. We've been eating dinner outside because it's just too damn sticky to do anything inside and we've been avoiding any meal that requires use of the stove or oven. We've done lots of swimming this week and went to the beach last night but didn't get much relief unless we were standing with our feet in the water.

Today, we're trying a new plan of attack. All windows closed along with the blinds, tank tops and undies for the kids, crock pot cooking in our laundry room, and trying to be so lazy, we can't work up a sweat.

Weekend Videos

"Happy Father's Day?"



"ABC's"

Genius

My grandpa was right, Bella is a genius. Ok, maybe not a genius but she does love to write and in general, really likes to learn new things. Yes, she watches her fair share of tv, but I think it's very balanced with books, art, and pretend play.

Anyway, she's been spending 2-3 hours everyday writing notes to her friends and has even learned to spell her friend, Hannah's name without any help from us! So, now she can spell her name, Papa, and Hannah all by herself. One morning, she decided to draw pictures of animals and then asked me to tell her how to spell them. She did all of this just by me dictating the letters to her, not me writing them and her copying them. You can see she definitely needs some work on her "s", but Steve and I were both really impressed.

Dinner at the Beach

We had another beautiful, warm day here today so I suggested that we eat dinner on the beach and then play in the ocean for a while. Matea is still grumpy - either because she's still not feeling well or she's just practicing being two years old -but as usual, Bella had a fabulous time. She absolutely loves being at the beach and since we have an annual pass and can drive right on, it's a super cheap and easy activity to do with the kids.

I think we're amazingly lucky to live here and we really try to appreciate the fact that we get to live at the beach. I mean, how many people can call their spouse at 4:3opm and say, "Hey, lets go eat dinner next to the ocean tonight"?

Health Update

Bella had her post-op appointment yesterday and the doctor was pleased with her healing (so are we). He said that the scar needs to be kept out of the sun for the next year or there's a small chance it could turn black. Say what?! He suggested I keep a band aid over the area...for the next year! Um, how in the hell do you think I'll keep a band aid on her lip? First off, it's moist area, there's no way the band aid will stick. Secondly, the girl yaps away all day long about various pretend scenarios we're living in, I can't imagine a band aid would stay put through all this talking. So, we're doing the next best thing and being very liberal with the sunscreen. I'm already very careful about applying sunscreen to both girls and I bought Bella some special chapstick with SPF 30 that I guess we'll just apply all the freakin time and keep our fingers crossed.

Matea has been battling a fever since Friday and it finally appears to be breaking today. She's had a really low fever before, but this is the first time she's consistently had a high fever for several days. It got as high as 103.5 and just like big sister, she was a total trooper. Other than being a little more fussy and clingy, she's handled her sickness fairly well. After lots of activity over the weekend, I let her spend most of the day yesterday hanging out in the recliner and watching her shows.

Graduation

Our niece (Steve's older brother's daughter), Haley, graduated from 8th grade last Tuesday and we drove over to Lemoore for the evening to celebrate with her. She was one of the top students in her class and did well in academics, athletics, and extra curricular activities. We're so proud of her and hope she continues to do this well through high school and college. We've decided that she's going to go to Cal Poly and live with us. She'll be our live in nanny and Steve will accompany her to parties. It will be a win-win situation (for us and Haley's parents, for Haley, not so much).

Doesn't she look like Steve? I'll have to dig out a picture of her as a little girl. She and Bella look a lot alike.



















And here are my babies showing off the matching dresses I made them. One of the few items I've made for Bella that she approves of and willingly wears.

Weekend Camping

We decided to take the girls camping at a local spot last night, actually the first place we ever made a family camping trip with Bella when she was 15 months old. Everyone had a good time despite the most annoying neighboring campers ever. Not only did we have to listen to this lady scream at her grandkids the entire time, but a stray camper around 8 years old showed up last night and helped himself to our marshmallows. Steve tried to give him a lesson in good manners but I think his efforts were wasted.

The girls got to see lots of wildlife including turkeys and deer and last night Steve and I spotted a skunk heading toward our trailer. And we learned an important lesson...don't serve beans with dinner when you're all sleeping together in close quarters. Matea's hiney played a symphony of toots all night long.

Pathology Report Just Came In

Bella's lesion was not cancerous or anything else serious:) Just a benign tumor on a blood vessel like the doctor suspected after the surgery yesterday. Bella and I are having ice cream right now to celebrate. You should have some too. Yes, you.

Post Surgery Update

Bella had her surgery this morning to remove the "thing" on her lip in the corner of her mouth. We couldn't have been happier with the facility that did the procedure and the nurses were excellent. They were all really great with Bella and she responded very well to them.

We check in at 8:30 and had about 45 minutes of waiting in a kid's room. Bella had to change into a little gown and then hung out in bed with warm blankets while they checked her vitals. She had to put a butterfly sticker on her cheek next to the lesion to mark it for surgery which she thought was really funny.

At around 9:30, they wheeled her back to the OR, we walked with her and gave her one last kiss and hug before she went through the double doors. We waited for about 35 minutes before the doctor came out and told us everything went well and she was waking up nicely. He said that after doing the surgery, he's fairly sure it was a benign tumor on a blood vessel but we should know for sure when the biopsy results come back later this week.

I got to go back and be with her while she woke up and Steve entertained Tater in the waiting room. She was definitely out of it but not upset or crying at all like the nurses had told us to expect. I held her in a rocking chair for 20 minutes or so and then we were off to get her some Jamba Juice, medical supplies, and snacks that will be easy for her to eat while her lip is healing.

The surgery site looked worse than I was expecting at first. I think maybe because it was still really swollen, bruised and her lip was partially white. She has just a few stitches that should fall out in a few days.

I told her that today is her princess day so she can lay around and watch tv all day and I'll bring her whatever she needs. I also told her that tomorrow would be my princess day but I don't think that's going to happen.

Some recent pics

Kite Flying

Another Construction Update

That's right, it's still not over. But at least there's an end in sight now. There's someone coming tomorrow to put the bathroom back together so for the first time in almost 5 months, we'll be a two bathroom family again. We knew the tree falling through was bad, but I don't think we ever could have imagined how many little things would have to be done. Here's just a quick run down of the work:

-new roof
-3 new ceiling joists
-all new drywall in bathroom ceiling
-drywall patches in hallway and master bedroom
-painted ceiling in entire house
-painted bedroom, closet, bathroom, hallway, and laundry room
-new door
-adjusted door frame
-new counter tops
-new tile
-vanity cabinet repair
-carpet cleaning

We cannot wait for this to all be over. Besides the strain on our family, all of the work has created a huge mess, both inside and outside of the house.

Another Update

We're finally going home (again) today after spending another week in the hotel. There's still more work to be done next week...tile, carpet cleaning, door replacement, and more painting but I'm really hoping to find a way to stay at home through everything. Our house is a complete mess with furniture and decor thrown everywhere but a guy from the company handling our construction is supposed to meet me at the house this afternoon to help put everything back together. I've missed my sewing (and customers!) and can't wait to get back at it this weekend. Oh, and having that part time income again won't hurt either.

In other news, we've decided to postpone Bella's surgery for a few weeks. Life is kind of turned upside down right now and because Bella's so emotional and sometimes dramatic, we both think it might be better for her to wait until our home life is more stable. On top of that, her surgery was going to cost about $1000 and we're in the process of trying to switch her to a better insurance that would make the surgery virtually free. And on the medical front, Matea has developed a runny nose and junky cough again. Both girls have always been so healthy but this winter and spring has been marked by cold after cold for us. I talked to our pediatrician about it and she said age 4-5 is prime immunity building time and typically it's when kids get the most bugs. She said next year should be a little better for us and the year after that should be much better. I'll keep my fingers crossed.

Construction Update

If you didn't already know, construction to repair the damage done by the tree finally started last week...over three months after the tree fell through the house! I was really anxious about having people working in the house with the girls and I home (I've watched too many crime shows on A&E) but so far so good. Not only have the guys shown up promptly at 8:00 every morning, they've been really nice to the girls and I and respectful of the fact that we're home while all this is going on. Right now we have a father-son team working on the house and the son has two boys about the same age as the girls. Yesterday I caught his dad ruffling Matea's hair after she said "hi" to him, just like a grandpa would do. Kind of a sweet moment in the midst of all the chaos.

They started work last Wednesday and have ripped off the old roof, replaced the trusses, and replaced all of the damaged drywall. They're putting the new roof on today and tomorrow and we're just waiting for the inspector to show up and sign off on the drywall so mudding, texture, and paint can start. So far, we've been living at home. Steve and I are sleeping in the playroom, the contents of our closet are piled right inside the front door, and everything in our bedroom is pushed to one side with a huge, zippered plastic barrier. Today's goal is to get a straight answer about when the mudding, etc. can start so I can line up a hotel room for a few days.

One good ear...

out of four isn't bad, right? See if you can keep up. Bella was on antibiotics in February for bronchitis. She had about two cough-free weeks and then has returned to hacking for the last few weeks. Matea just finished antibiotics for a respiratory infection on Saturday but has had a fever off and on since Monday. Took them to the doctor today and Bella has a double ear infection and Matea has an infection in one ear. Dr. Hoffman gave them the big daddy of antibiotics, hoping it'll clear up their ears and the respiratory crap for awhile.

Matea's super fussy and clingy and not napping. Bella's in naughty time in her room right now, otherwise I'd take a picture of her crabby face too.