2 Little Chiefs: September 2013

Sunday, September 29, 2013

Kids go farming...Mom and Dad go to STL

Brandon and I have had plans to go to St.Louis for a Cubs, Card game for quite some time. The timing worked out for my parent's to take the kids down to my grandparent's for the harvest. While we are having a lovely time in a party suite, eating and drinking to our heart's content I receive a text from my dad with the following pictures...

(bad picture, getting ready to blink, but shows the extracted product!)

I knew immediately what had happened...Grant shoved a soy bean up his nose! What will this boy think of next? The next text from my dad said "He was quite proud of himself and luckily Pops is a good surgeon!" After further discussion I learned that they had been picking corn, but my grandma took them across to the soy bean field so they could see the beans. For no good reason at all (and certainly not my grandmothers fault!) he decided to put it in his nose! After being asked several times if he stuck the bean in his nose and him giving different answers my mom ignored him. When they arrived home my mom took a closer look and when the nostrils where pulled up a bean was indeed revealed. Pops swooped into action with special craft tweezers and got it out. Oh he keeps us on our toes!

...meanwhile in St.Loius!

Sold!

You may have noticed in the past picture, we have a new front porch. I wanted to wait until the papers were signed and now that they are, I can officially announce that we SOLD our house! I wish I had more exciting news to add behind that declaration but we have moved in with my parent's until we find the right house for our family. We had a farewell pizza party with some neighbors to say good-bye to the house (not our friends - who we hold close to our hearts!)

All the kids had was an empty room and their imaginations....so they ran around crazy!

Hannah was trying very hard to run an organized sport!

Caleb really wanted a bite of Elizabeth's dessert!

The McMurray girls!

Hugs...

and more hugs!

Saying goodbye to the house was harder than I anticipated. When the moment came I kept thinking about this being our first house and where we started our family. All the memories that were made inside those walls.... Elizabeth was starting to struggle too. I had tears running down my checks as I was telling her "a family makes a home, not a house," but none of it was easy. Grant and Brandon were our rocks and made it all a bit more light hearted by being so....so...well...dry eyed?!

We are all settled now and the house hunt is on and this is the fun part, so we are in a good spot. Not to mention extremely lucky to have such gracious parents and loving grandparents as we work to establish boundaries!!

One chapter closed....a new one to begin!

Grant's First Day of School

Grant's first week of school was delayed due to his surgery. But when it was his turn for his first day of school, I let him choose his own breakfast and of course he choose Pop-Tarts as well! At least I got him to get Brown Sugar & Cinnamon, a favorite flavor of mine :)

Taking his picture was much different than taking Elizabeth's, who poses and frequently asks for her picture to be taken!

We got our front porch pictures and loaded up. I dropped Elizabeth off first and then we headed to Grant's school. I was prepared for the worst. Surely he would cry. Well, he always surprises me. We walked into the room, found his cubby and I leaned in for the hug. He hugged me and then started to walk away. Once he saw me start to walk away he came over for one more hug and turned and sat down on the mat to play cars with a couple other little boys. He didn't shed a tear, which made it easy and I didn't cry either! I was too proud of him to think about all of the emotional stuff. When I picked him up he ran into my arms and said, "mom, I had fun!" Yay Grant!

At school, ready to walk in

Sunday, September 15, 2013

Grant's Surgery

Grant has had an umbilical hernia since birth. When he was just a few months old he was evaluated by a pediatric surgeon and we were told that he only operated on babies with hernia's the size of softballs. Well it wasn't quite that big (we were in the ping pong size category). Many times these hernias will self-correct and they don't want to operate unnecessarily. Every time I had him in for a well baby check I would ask our pediatrician if we could have it fixed yet and every time the answer was "not until he is 4 or 5." This summer at his 3 year check-up I didn't even ask, because I knew what the answer would be and of course this time the doctor looked at me and said, "what do you think about seeing the surgeon again, I think it is time." I was ecstatic! A week later we saw the surgeon and two weeks later we had surgery scheduled.

We are five days into recovery and he is doing great. Trying to keep his activity level low is a challenge. We go back next week to have the bandage taken off and we will get to see what it looks like! I really liked the surgeon that performed the surgery. As we were in the waiting room I noticed the magazine rack and sure enough our surgeon was on the front of one of the magazines. I took a copy :)

Pre-op! Looking good in the garb!

Pre-op entertainment

Last picture of the "hernia" and he was not in love with these shorts! (he said they kept riding up!)

Post-op...cuddling with Mommy & Donald Duck (who went through surgery with him!)

See, cookies do make you feel better!

It was very important for EB to get him a gift...balloons and a new Lego set :)

Grant was well pampered afterwards with get well gifts. He is one lucky boy! We are so grateful for a successful surgery and a quick recovery!

Elizabeth's First Day of School

Elizabeth started her last year of pre-school and I am happy to say not a tear was shed by anyone! We all held it together very well! Her teacher is Miss Carol and she knows a few kids in her class from last year. I let her pick out her breakfast for her first day of school. She picked Cookies 'n Cream Pop Tarts. I felt like the worst mother ever feeding my kids cookies for breakfast! But it's just one day, right?! I also got her a new charm for her bracelet. Let me just say, finding a charm was no easy task! We ended up with a mustard seed charm. It probably would not have been my first choice for a 5 year old, but when she opened it we discovered a lovely bible verse on the back...so all is good and she was excited to have another charm to add to her collection. Mommy will be shopping online, ahead of time, next year and stocking up on charms!!

Next stop...kindergarten (and I might cry then!)

Interrupt this picture how you like. I think he really just wanted his picture taken too, but if you think he is upset because big sister goes to school...hold on...he goes next week!