I am such a clutz

I cannot believe myself sometimes. I am on my way down the stairs to do some laundry when just as I begin to descend I remember that I need to get something out of my room. Well apparently my brain did not communicate this to my feet because they decided to keep on going. The result? My right foot slipped out from underneath me. I tried to turn my body to catch the railing but failed. I landed with all 150 pounds of me on my right femur sideways. I felt something snap. Could have been my neck, my back, my leg. I am not sure. But it is quite swollen and I am on my way to the ER now. Will post my results later. Wish me well.

Time to blog finally...

OK, I have time to myself finally! Ben has taken the kids camping to Glen Rose/Lake Whitney for the weekend and I am home alone with the baby. I had initially planned to go but Alex came down with fever, cough, snot nose, etc three days ago. He was put on breathing treatments 3 times a day with a follow-up scheduled for yesterday to see how his lungs were doing. Well he is still sick and now is vomiting everything he eats and has a double ear infection. So we are staying home while the others go out for a fun weekend. At least I will get to watch all of the movies I have wanted to see but have waited since there is always something more pressing going on. The remote is MINE!

On to my anniversary that I thought was so great. Ben always asks me "what do you want for (insert event here)." I am not too big on gifts since I can never think of what I want/need the most so I usually reply, "surprise me." Things that mean the most to me are sentimental ideas. Write a letter, take the kids out for the day, just do something along those lines, ideas like that are the best gifts in my opinion.

So our anniversary comes and he gets up, gets the kids ready for school and leaves for work/school. I actually figured he had forgotten what the day was since he usually does forget little details like that until I remind him later on. I had planned to make him his favorite dinner for when he got home that night. I am not big on cooking as everyone who knows me knows this to be true, so that was going to be quite the gift as far as I am concerned.

I get a text from him saying he is working on a project and will likely be home late. No big deal to me, I know how things go. So I am on the treadmill running my bum off when I hear Daisy freaking out barking. Around the corner comes Ben with a little gift bag. So I pause my workout, wipe off my attractive sweat and greet him with a little kiss.

Inside the gift bag was a card that I will absolutely treasure forever. I won't say exactly what it said, but in a nutshell it talked about how much he values the last nine years we have spent together and he would not have changed a single moment of it. How much he is looking forward to the rest of our lives together and all of the experiences we have yet to share with each other. There was more, but it may bore you and I want to keep my little love note personal, or at least somewhat personal.

Then I opened the gift. I absolutely love the Willow Tree figurines. So Ben picked out the absolute perfect one. The card that comes with it says, “For those who have found their true partner in love and life.” Perfect. Absolutely perfect. I love my husband. He also arranged for his mom to get the kids from school so we went on a real date! How long has it been? Lunch, a movie, my day was perfect.

Here's to another perfect nine years. Bring it on. I love you baby!

Happy Anniversary to ME!!!

Wow, against all odds we made it to nine years! It is late, so I won't write about what a perfect husband I have just now. But stay tuned for one heck of a story. I love my man.

See you tomorrow!

What a weekend

Sometimes it feels like the work will never be done. We have been spending the weekend cleaning out the kids' rooms, closets, the garage, etc. in our house in preparation for moving. It feels awesome to actually clean things out and feel like we are making a dent in the cleaning. It stinks as well when you look around and see all of the items we have and they have to be packed and dealt with. Overwhelming...

We are still waiting to hear back on a home in Keller that we made an offer on. It is by far my favorite, but the current owner had some unrealistic expectations which we had to negotiate on and we wait to hear. We are still planning on moving the first week of June after school lets out. It is absolutely bittersweet. I hate the idea of leaving Decatur. I love it here! But with Ben working in Fort Worth the gas is killing us. There are other issues that take too long to go into, but it will be a great move for our family at this point in time. Let's just hope we enjoy Keller as much as we have loved Decatur. I do not look forward to the traffic again. Definitely have not missed that.

We have had Chase and Austin with us this weekend as well. The kids love having their cousins come over and play. They spent the entire day out hunting for "cougars" and building a dam in Terabithea. They were filthy dirty but had loads of fun so it is hard to fault them for their mess. One thing is for certain though, I don't think that Ben will ever convince me to have more children like he wants. I am good with four. Plenty good.

I have started running again. I am pathetically out of shape. I did a 5k and it took me 50 minutes to complete. That is insane. I used to do it between 20-30 minutes. Oh well, I will get back to it. At least I am making the effort again.

Love her or leave her?

Not Amanda - the dog is who I am talking about. Why on earth did I ever pad train my dog? I thought it would be so much simpler to do it this way rather than have to take her out in the weather, or leave her kenneled all day when we are gone, but I am really, really second guessing this decision. Case in point, last night we forgot to lock Daisy up in her bed so when Ben came downstairs this morning he looked around to see if she had got into anything while we slept. He saw nothing immediately. He leaves for work and thinks nothing more of it. Well when I came down an hour later after my shower she has left some really disgusting, questionable remains on her pad. It is obvious that she has eaten a diaper from somewhere- - it is sad that I can tell this just by looking at her little poopies. So I go on my quest through the house to find what I know I will find. Sure enough, upstairs in the kids bathroom is the remnants of a diaper all shredded and eaten on the floor. So I get to clean up this disgusting mess. I then proceed downstairs to clean up her pad and mop the floor where she is. I fold the pad all up and ask William to carry it carefully to the garbage can. As my luck would have it one of the corners slips from his fingers and he spills the contents all over the kitchen floor. My patience is all but gone now. Don't worry, I did not blow up at him - - it was not his fault- - I just counted to ten, finished laying out a new pad, went to the kitchen to clean up yet ANOTHER mess from this lovely dog of ours. What stinks (no pun intended) is that this is a daily occurrence here at my house. Cleaning up her pad that it is. I love our dog. The kids love her. She is fun and energetic and it really is not her fault that she has to defecate and void and we just so happened to train her how to do it on those stupid puppy pads for our convenience. I just don't know what to do to save my sanity.

She is really quite amusing at times. In fact, at this precise moment while I type she is attacking the window with her little paws because there are bees flying around just outside of it and she is desperately trying to get at them. Kind of cute.

Perhaps when we move we will just have to install a doggie door and re-train her on where she needs to do her business and my nerves will then get a break. My kids make enough messes for me to deal with without having to add a dog to the mix.

SNOW!!!

This is unbelievable. I don't think I have ever seen this much snow in Texas! I started heading home from Fort Worth at 12pm today and did not pull into my driveway until 6pm! Crazy! The DOT shut down almost every highway in Wise County it seems.

We could not pull into the driveway for all of the snow that was here. My van is stuck down at the base of the drive for however long it takes for this stuff to melt.

William was so proud of his first snow angel.

Here is the road that goes between Mom and Dad's house and ours. Or better known to the kids as "The road to Terabithia."

This was at 4pm this afternoon. Unbelievable.

Erikah's battle...

I got a call this morning from Susan (my oldest sister). She wanted to let me know that our niece Erikah is back at Dallas Children's Hospital again. She was sent via ambulance last night because she was not breathing and turning an ugly shade of blue. When she got to the ER she had about five doctors surrounding her and working her up. It turns out she has pneumonia in both lungs and the bacteria has spread through her blood stream. Her blood pressure was 60/20 with a heart rate of 185. She has since received a blood transfusion and they are going to sedate her and put her on a ventilator to assist her with her breathing. They have attempted to put a PICC line in, but have had no success due to her severe dehydration. Chalea said they may have to put her under anesthesia to do it. The docs told Chalea that had they not brought her in she likely would not have made it through the night. She is a very sick little baby right now.

What makes this so difficult is that Erikah is a transplant patient. She received a new liver about 5 months ago. She is just over one year old and has had quite a struggle in her short life. She was born with no bile duct in her liver so she was not able to rid the toxins from her body. She was put on the transplant list and was lucky enough to receive one before she got too sick to be able to be considered. Now she will be on suppressants for the rest of her life, thus making it incredibly easy to pick up the simplest of viruses.

I pray for my brother and his wife that the Lord will give them the strength to see them through yet another trial and keep them strong.

And I thought my Monday was a bad one. Count your blessings.