School! Better Late than Never

Laura has needed to go to school since she was like 2, but try to convince preschool teachers of this...right? She's too smart for her own good, so this has been a long time coming. Even though she won't start Kindergarten until 2011, She so needed to be in school and wanted to be apart of somthing other than gymnastics and dance. And Learn A Lot preschool and Mrs. Cottle could not have come along any sooner.

Laura leaving for her first day at preschool. **sniff sniff** Looking too grown up!

Strike a pose girl! Don't be shy.

Grandma and Daddy Help Laura do a puzzle. Did i say help? I meant WATCH. She could probably teach them a thing or two.

You tell us like it is, honey. This new stucture will do your brain some good I think.

Hilarious!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJ8qz-Vg-Cs

I love this woman!

Our Little Gymnast

We put Laura into Gymnastics this spring and she had a blast. The only time slot we could fit her into was the 4-5 year old class, but as tall as Laura is, you really couldnt tell she was only 3. She actually towered over some of the 4 year olds. She kept up with the class pretty well also. Some of the 5 and older 4 year olds were more advanced, but Laura did quite exceptional given her age. It was a blast watching her learn mad new 'skillz' and learn to follow the direction of someone other than her parents. She really enjoyed herself and always after each lesson she would ask,

"Are we coming back tomorrow Mom?"

"No, not until next Thursday."

"AWE!" Pause. "But we are coming back tomorrow, Mom, right?"

Sigh. "Right."

The teacher always had fun obstical courses that he would set up in between sets for the kids to work on their balance, tumbles and other stuff.



Laura was a regular monkey!

Benjamin's First Haircut

As adorable as Ben was with his feathers of fine hair a top of his little head, it was deffinately time for a haircut for my 9 month old son. It was hard to let go of my infant and graduate him to...well I guess a baby/toddler. (But the kid had so much hair!) Dale needed a cut as well so we went to Dale's barber, Brad Store, and after Dad got his ears lowered, Brad put an apron on Dale and Ben sat on his lap for the most squirmish haircut I think Brad has completed in a long time, if ever. I have to hand it to him though, Ben's hair was amazingly perfect and he looked so handsome afterwards. Awesome job Brad!

Before the haircut (with a little improvising on the mohawk so that you can see how long it was on top)

In the barbers chair with Dad before his first big boy haircut....AHHHHH how cute is he!

...and the finished product! I know he looks scared, but he was actually just really ready for a nap. Way to go son. We are proud of you!

Property of Mom Forever

I loved, loved, LOVED this outfit. For one, it says Property of Mom FOREVER, for which I plan attempting forever ownership in regards to my adorably handsome son ( can you say "momma's boy?"), and for two, he looks so darn cute in blue because of his deep baby blues. So I ordered this outfit online from Penney's with a coupon that ended up costing me, including shipping and handling, only 6 bucks. Score!

Well as you can see, he had grown out of this particular size, disapointing his momma and crushing her dreams of showing him off as, ofcourse, HER precious baby boy. That's ok, him still makes his mommy so proud!

I had to atleast put him in it for picture sake. Dispite the pot budda belly, I still think he's adorable! "Ooooh! What a tubber tubbers!"

Laura's Song

I made up a song for Laura about the itsy bitsy spider and she loves to sing it and likes it so much, I have decided that I need to write it down for her to remember when she gets older. For all of the body parts mentioned in the lyrics, we point to them while singing.

The itsy bitsy spider climbed up the Laura Lou
He ate her ears, nose, mouth and eyeballs too!

(she thinks the eyeballs reference is hilarious)

He ate her fingers, toes, knees and her Beeboo (Belly Button)
And the itsy bitsy spider ate all of Laura Lou!

We have sung this song so much that it's getting hard to remember that her actual middle name is Madelyn and not Lou.

Oy...

This will go down as one of the worst years, with the exception of Ben being born ofcourse.

At the beggining of October I had a relapse of my Mulitple Sclerosis and it continued to get worse. I tried to see a Neurologist, any Neurologist, here in town and no one would see me without an MRI and alot of dough. So we went to the ER with paperwork stating my diagnosis from years ago that I had faxed over from my Neurologist in VA and they gave me the steroid medication I needed to stop the progression of my symptoms. I am still numb from my toes to my upper chest with my left hand not working all that great. I stumble and fall into things all the time and have too many bruises to count from it all. It scares me, but I just live with it and hope that it will go into remission, and soon.

Dale on the 29th of November went up to the mountains to get our Christmas tree with his uncle and was in a car accident. His uncle slid off the dirt road into a boulder and Dale suffered a broken L1 vertebrae. They called in Life Flight to get him but there was too much fog. Then they sent an abulance whom when half way broke the oil pan and couldn't reach him either. They finally sent some EMT's up in a snowmobile trailer and got him off the mountain and to EIRMC. While in the hospital his blood oxygen levels were extreamily low and he was taken to get a cat scan of his lungs. Come to find out that he had two large pulmonary embolisms, one in each lung, and they transfered him to the ICU for a 2 and half day stay to get those disolved and under control. He was on major pain killers and a medication called Cumadin (later to find out is rat poison) to thin his blood to stop the clots from traveling to his heart or worse. I didnt stop crying until he left the hospital a week and a day after he was admitted. Needless to say my face was quite sore. He has to wear a turtle shell for the next 3 to 4 months with no lifting. He missed his finals as this was all during the week he had to take them so he will have to make them up in the next 2 weeks and he will not be able to work until healed as he cannot lift more than 10lbs and no twisting, bending or turning.


And if this is not enough stress, hey, lets add on a selfish, deceitful 14 year old who kicked and screamed and made us all miserable until she got her way and is now leaving our home to go up to Alaska to live with her biological mother who abandoned her and her brother 3 and half years ago so that she could go be single and resposibility free thousands of miles away from her children. There is not one person close to the situation at home that has not said to her, "Chelsea this is a bad idea on so many levels." Time will tell I suppose. Chelsea has a borderline personality disorder and is Oppositional Deffiant and her mom hasnt been a very responsible parent thus far either. Who will end up being the parent?

Ok, enough of my rant over that...

Here are some pictures of Ben, Laura and my poor lovey in the hospital.