Summer fun

Hey there!! Long time, no see.

We've been having an eventful summer. The girls got out of school around the middle of June, and all 5 of us got on a plane out to California. The girls stayed with our in-laws, and Jeff and I had our 1st vacation with no kids in almost 6 years. We went to Vegas...it was awesome. So much fun. We were able to see Ka' and Penn & Teller. We can't wait to go back.

The girls had a fabulous time with Jeff's parents. Their cousin Ariel was there, too, for the majority of the time, so they had a bunch of girly fun. Played dress-up, got in the spa, played with dolls and Barbies, and generally ran amok for 4 days straight. Needless to say, my worry that they would miss us while we were gone (as this was the longest we'd ever been away from them) were unfounded. I doubt they noticed we weren't there. In fact, I think we got a passing "Hi mom, hi dad!" after we came in the door. They were too busy.

Emma got her ears pierced with Auntie M & Aunt Kammie. I'd been asking her for 3 years if she wanted to get them done, but she kept telling me no thanks, because she knew it would hurt. Ok fine. But, as soon as mom's gone, and her aunts suggest it, SURE! LOL

As soon as we got back to Michigan, Emma started PEAK. It's a day camp that runs for 6 weeks during the summer. They have water days, do arts & crafts, go on field trips. Just the thing a kid like Emma needs. Not to mention the fact that most of the kids go to her school and she needs to make some new friends. Her best friend is switching schools next fall and making friends can be hard for her.

Sarah & Katie are doing well, having fun running around like banshees at home. Katie's doing really well with the potty training. Sarah we're still working on. Hoping to have her almost 100% trained before school starts. They're getting along pretty well, with only a few screaming matches a day. Otherwise they're like peas in a pod, best friends, partners in crime, the whole thing.

Jeff is doing well. Traveling for work. He just got back from Ithaca, NY. He & a co-worker did a presentation @ a conference at Cornell for a software product they use. I got a nifty Ivy League school sweatshirt. Yeah, you're jealous.

We also went to visit our friends in Tennessee for the 4th. Fun drive, all 14 hours of it. But it's worth it because they're our oldest friends, and our kids actually get along pretty well. We're the "Brady Bunch": they have 3 boys, we have 3 girls. The logistics are going to start getting a wee bit uncomfortable, as our two oldest are only 2 days apart, and they call each other their "boyfriend/girlfriend" when they're apart. Ahem They're 9 1/2. Oh boy, not looking forward to the teenage years.

This coming semester is Jeff's last. It's going to be hell, not looking forward to it, but then it'll be done and he'll have a degree that he's been working towards for 5 1/2 years. I'm so very very proud of him. Between going to school and working full-time, not to mention getting a promotion in between there and having to travel constantly for work. he's done extremely well. He'll be graduating with honors, which is hard enough for some people to accomplish without all the responsibilities that he has.

That's pretty much the rundown of what's been going on with us. Not a whole lot of excitement, but then again, I'm not sure I want a ton of excitement.

Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day to all you fabulous mothers out there!! I hope everyone had a wonderful day.

Mine started out by waking up to raucous little girly voices telling each other, loudly, to be quiet. They brought me lovely yellow flowers, a beautiful card, and, the staple of all decent holidays, donuts and coffee. It was perfect.

I sort of had my Mother's Day gift yesterday, when Jeff stayed home with all 3 girls and a friend and I went out to the outlet mall and had a "girly shopping day". It was great. No kids, no real time limit, just us & miles of shopping.

Jeff & the girls had fun, too. They went to McDonald's for lunch (which is braver than I am when I'm by myself with them), Emma had a Tennis Fun day, and there were no "Lord of the Flies" moments, so yay! :) I always knew he could do it.

But, this being Mother's Day and all, I did reflect on my mom. It's funny, the littlest things remind me of her. A few weeks ago we finally finished going through all the boxes that had come with her from California, and then stayed in a storage unit for a year. They sat in our garage for almost another year before we got through them all. I laughed a lot going through those boxes, laughed at the way my mom thought, and the way she did things. She had 2 complete sets of the same exact comforter set, with shams. I actually asked out loud,"Ok mom, what was the deal with this?" I also found another box full of linens and towels, which, whenever she moved, she would put into a big plastic bag and THEN put into the box. I always thought that was a bit of overkill, but she was like that. When I opened the bag, the smell hit me. After 2 years in a bag & box, they still smelled like her. Smelled like her fabric softener. And that smell brought tears to my eyes. Even after I washed and dried them, I used one this morning, and it still had that smell.

I'm also finding that I'm having very similar issues with Emma that I remember having with my mom. Specifically her room. Emma is a slight packrat, keeping everything she writes on, draws on, or puts a sticker on. So today I put the proverbial foot down and stormed into her room with a trash bag and a mission. I came out 2 hours later with a sore back, a slightly miffed daughter, and a very full trash bag. I also found about 15 toys of Sarah & Katie's that apparently had made their way into Emma's room, where we thought they had gone to the Island of Lost Toys. I remember my mom getting so mad at me when my room would get so bad that she couldn't see the floor. I'm trying to avoid that with Emma.

I still try to make sure that Mom is a part of my life. I have her earrings and necklace that I wear frequently. Every time I have something important to do, or it's a big day for the kids, I wear them. If it was an event that I probably would have called her to tell her about, I wear them. I still get the urge to call her, even now, almost 2 years later. I still have her email in my computer address book, and her old cell number on my phone.

In a few weeks, we'll be traveling to California as a family for the first time since Mom died. This will be the first chance I'll have had to go visit her. I remember distinctly, when my Grandpa died, how mom had said that she had never visited either her mom or brother. I remember driving by the cemetery and having her point out the general direction where they were buried, but we never went. The first time she went was the first time I did, at Grandpa's funeral. That day will be hard, just like today was, just like some days are. Most are better, some are not. But, she will always be with me, and I will never forget.

I'm so rone-ry

*Just for clarification, that last word in the title rhymes with "lonely".

So, Jeff's gone for a few days. I know it's nothing compared to the ghastly 6 month deployments back when he was in the Navy, but it still sucks having him gone. Especially on my birthday. All the girls are asleep in bed, and I'm sitting in the living room on my laptop listening to music. That's usually what I do when he's gone and I don't have children awake & running rampant throughout the house. I stay up way too late, listen to music, and play on the computer.

I had my aerobic kickboxing class tonight. My Jaime Pressly look-alike instructor so very nicely pointed out the fact that it was my birthday and had the entire class sing to me. She made up for it by not telling the entire class how old I was. Heh

The girls went to Emma's friend's house while I was at class. They have 3 boys, so she gets her "girl-fix" when they're over, lol. Of course, it takes a crow-bar to pry Sarah & Katie away from the house, cause it's apparently more fun than our house. Either that or they know that they're headed for bed as soon as we get home. LOL But they must have played hard while they were there because they both fell asleep with little to no arguments. I'm lovin' it.

So, here's to being 31...as my friend Deanna put it, "It's not as traumatic as 30." Hear, hear.

Prayers for Emma Hope

This little girl is having major heart surgery this morning, even as we speak. Her parents lovingly adopted her and a little boy, both with Down syndrome, from Ukraine. This little girl is 5 years old but barely weighs more than Katie. She was given up on, she's been living with this heart defect her entire life. Doctors here in the US have told her parents that this surgery shouldn't be done, as it was unlikely that she would recover from it. But they persevered and found a doctor who gave them hope.

Just pray that this sweet little girl is able to continue her 2nd chance at life.

Busy bees

That's apparently our motto for this weekend. We have way more stuff to do than we ever do normally, and it's kind of surprising.

Today: I have my call-backs at the same time Emma has a birthday bowling party to go to. DH to the rescue, and have fun putting the littlest ones to bed, hehe.
Tomorrow: driving to a local lake for a day of boating/food/fun with a group of people from Jeff's work. I needed to make an emergency trip to Kohl's last night to find a bathing suit that covered up my "doughy-ness".
Sunday: taking Emma to her friend's house for a playdate in the morning, and then we have our monthly Central Michigan Ds group meeting at a park.

We're never this busy. And poor DH is going out of town next Friday, so he won't have another weekend to himself (well, with us, too) for 2 weeks. I suppose when you live in a climate where people generally hibernate during the winter, you try to get in as much socializing and outings as you can while the weather's good. The way I see it, if I can get the house clean before we have all these engagements and then we LEAVE the house, we won't be home to get it dirty. Works for me.

YouTube

We have recently come into the digital age in the Wilson household with the purchase of a digital video camera. Now it won't take 5 hours or an act of Congress to get videos of the fam onto the computer for the rest of our family far away to be able to see the kiddos. We went a little crazy this weekend, and put up 2 new videos. One from the 4th of July and one of Sarah doing some Signing Time. Here's a link to where you can find them all, yes it's on YouTube. :)

http://www.youtube.com/jmwolf

*Edited to add: the videos that are listed on the bottom of the page are Jeff's favorites.

Surgery day for Kennedy

I haven't had a chance to post today, but Kennedy had her spine surgery today. According to her mom's updates, she's now out of surgery & in the ICU. Things are looking good and the doctor's said everything went well! Here's a link to her mom's blog: Life with My Special K's

A new friend for Emma

Well I finally took myself out of my shell & introduced myself to our neighbor across the street today. I saw her shoveling her driveway & decided I needed to stop being so shy & just do it. I knew she had a little girl right around Emma's age, but I also found out she has a son who is 6 years old. She's a professor at the college & is very nice. She said that her daughter, Morgan, goes to preschool at the college & also to day care, so they're not home most of the day, but she was sure that Morgan would love to get to know Emma. Finally Emma's going to have a friend! I've been feeling so bad for her, leaving all her friends in San Diego and me not having the courage to strike up conversations with any of her preschool friends' parents. I guess it's the strain of moving cross country & having the thoughts in my head that everyone's going to be completely booked with friends & won't have room for Emma. I get too scared to even try. It doesn't help that I feel like Jeff & I are so much younger than most of the couples around here who have kids, that I'm afraid we have nothing in common with anyone except the college students. I mean, who else around here, besides the students, got all excited when "The Return of the King" came out? And I doubt any of the married people that Jeff works with play video games with their wives. I guess we're just weird.
But one good thing I found out talking to my neighbor, they have a lot of classes for young kids at the college. Her daughter's about to start gymnastics, and we're thinking about having Emma start as well, for the same class, so they can be together. They also have 2 sessions on swim lessons during the summer, as well as soccer. So maybe we can help Emma expel some of her excess energy that seems to make this very large house very small at times.
We finally found a company that is building new homes in this area. I've emailed them and hopefully they'll get back to me quickly about the prices. The floor plans look really nice and hopefully if we have a brand new home, it'll sell quickly, if we decide to sell it. That's one thing I'm worried about here. It's not exactly a booming housing market. There's a big revolving population, but it's all the college students, and they probably don't want to buy a house in this area. They'll want to go back to where they're from. It's only one of the big differences between here & California.

My first post

Hello all! I decided that since there were a lot of people who want to know how things are going out here in Michigan, with my pregnancy & just life in general, I figured that it would be easier for everyone to find out the scoop by just going to a website to read about it. That way, people can read it at their leisure. Hopefully, you'll enjoy reading this & it will help our friends & families who are all the way out in CA feel a little closer.
Just to catch you up, I'm 25 weeks pregnant now & I'm due April 19th. So far, things are going pretty well, just the usual aches & pains. I am seeing a physical therapist 3 times a week now, which is really helping with my back problems.
We had a great holiday season. Jeff was able to have 2 weeks off from work, completely paid for. We visited our friends Robert & Tiana, and their 2 boys, Ryan & Austin, in Tennessee. The drive is NOT fun, and I don't envy the fact that they've driven it twice to come up & see us. Then on New Years Day, our friend from Sacramento, Deanna Goss, came to visit. I'm sure it'll be a trip she won't soon forget. Freezing temperatures, 6 inches of snow that caused her flight back home to be cancelled & crazy Michigan ticket agents that apparently can't do their jobs. Needless to say, I don't think she'll be visiting again anytime soon.
So now things are starting to get back to normal. Jeff's back at work, Emma starts preschool back up tomorrow & it's still cold...really really cold.
As for everyone who is asking when we're going to find out what we're having, it's not going to be until at least the beginning of February, unfortunately. But it's ok, that will still give us 2 1/2 months to get everything we need before the baby comes, provided it doesn't come early.
Ok, that's it for now, but I will try to update this daily, if I can, and if something interesting happens.