Stress

I don't know why but I have been stressed out ever since our amazing trip to Disney World. I just feel like since we moved I haven't been on top of things the way I usually am. There is so much I want to do, so many projects I want to finish and books I want to read. I would love to finally get settled into the house (still no pictures up and still some organizing to do). I'm not caught up in my photography class and would love to just sit down and read many unfinished chapters. Not to mention getting pics out to those who have suckered me into taking their pictures. I'm starting a military wives support group and am hosting a dinner at the house next week to kick it off. Stress. Not to mention that Issac is two TODAY (which will get it's own more positive post). I have the party to plan and costumes for Halloween to finish. Young Women in Excellence is less than a week away and I am NOT ready for that either. I'm trying to get the budget all caught up after four months of neglect (our fabulous YNAB program is on the desktop which was in storage for months). Ugh! I just feel like I could drown in all this stuff. I think what I'm most sad about is that I don't do my daily projects with the kids....It's moments like these when I consider how crazy I am for wanting another baby. I can just feel relief all bolstered up and ready to flood in when Tyler finishes his very last week of training TOMORROW. Something about him reigns in my anxiety and fills me with such a positive perspective. And insanely enough I feel slightly better after unloading my brain on this post!

Here's the skinny

We moved into our new home four weeks ago! We LOVE it! It is beautiful and just the right size for us. The owners took great care of the house and especially the lawn, plus we have lots of beautiful parks close to us! I have been busy in Young Womens and am also enjoying a photography class at the community college. I have lots of pics I'd like to post but we'll have to do on another day. Ashton started preschool with an exchange group with members of our church, and Isaac is talking more and more everyday. Tyler got home yesterday after almost 11 straight weeks of out of state training and as for the rest of us, our three days of puke fest are over and we are off to Disney World this afternoon for an amazing week of fun and best of all, being together as a family!!!!

JDRF

For the last couple of years my brothers and their band Studio 7 has played at the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation walk-a-thon fundraiser. They are getting really good and played for several hours. What's crazy is that two of the band members have junenile diabetes, the second one being diagnosed after they first played for JDRF. Anyways, there was a lot of activites, the walk itself, good music and a yummy lunch. It made for a really fun morning. Plus I got to try out my camera skills. I am currently taking a photography class so almost all the pictures I took were a result of my handiwork. So if some of pictures are out of focus or overexposed that's why...I hate to admit it but I lose A TON of pictures to overexposure :(!

The Balloon Classic

Colorado Springs holds an annual Hot Air Balloon Classic over Labor Day Weekend. I loved going as a kid and now that we are here I just HAD to wake my boys up for a special surprise.

Ashton LOVED running to the inflating balloons for a photo shoot. He did it again and again!

Unfortunately it was dangerously windy so the balloons didn't take off but we still had fun and we have been lucky enough to spy a few hot-air balloons since floating new my parents home since!

The Spinning Chair

A couple of weeks ago the boys put on their uncles sweet shades and took turns spinning eachother in my parents study on the computer chair. After several minutes they both climbed on and asked me to spin them...I was a little leery because they had both finished a huge dinner but I thought to myself "kids handle spinning way better than adults do" it was very logical to me! So I spun and spun and they chanted "faster, faster!!!"

Can you see his brother in the reflection of his glasses?
He's THRILLED!!!!

Another several minutes passed and then I was kicked by a spinning leg. I fell over and pretended to be hurt so I could sucker them in for a few hugs and kisses. My plan worked. They scurried off the chair, ran over and jumped on top of me. Isaac came in for the first kiss and as I puckered up I saw his lips seperate and his mouth got wider and wider. It was seriously in slow motion. I began to yell "NO!!!!!" My mouth opened at just the WRONG moment! Vomit came pouring in. I sat up quickly but it kept coming, EVERYWHERE. My hair, down my shirt, on my skirt on the floor...I ran him to bathroom whith Ashton close on our heels. Isaac is almost through when Ashton says "awwwww! There's puke EVERYWHERE!!!" and then he starts hurling....EEEEWWWWW!

Note to parent: Never indulge your kid in a "spinning chair". It's not worth it!

Lazy me....

No posts for me for months now! I guess I have just been down right lazy since we moved from Texas. So for those of you who don't know Tyler finished up his intern year in general surgery the beginning of July and recieved our next assignment as Flight Surgery at Peterson AFB in Colorado Springs. So while we are not thrilled at being forced to delay residency we are grateful to be in Colorado Springs with TONS of family :).

Unfortunately we recieved orders so late that the AF was overbooked to move us until the end of July which didn't work for us since we had my brother's wedding to attend mid July. This meant an unepected DITY move (do it yourself). We made arrangments through ABF where we loaded a trailer and they drive it out for you. Would have been perfect if they hadn't given us a broken ramp which ended up crushing Tyler's hand...(torn flesh, broken bones, severed nerves...wonderful!). In any case we had lots of friends and family come to our rescue and left two days after the accident...right on schedule! I have been staying at my in-laws and my parent's house over the last few months for a few reasons. #1- Tyler was sent back to Texas that very same month for a 2 month training and #2 The cute house that we chose to rent wasn't going to be available until Sept. 20. I am very excited to have my family back (for a little while) and hopefully will be able to establish some normal routines again and stop being so LAZY. So rather than try to post what all we have been up to over the last couple of months I will do a couple of entries that will definitely be out of choronological order...

Toddler Talk

Yesterday morning we asked Ashton what he wanted to do that day. He said with a sad face "We can't go to Sea World because we don't have passes....(happily) but we can go to SAM'S!!!!". I didn't know the two were comparable!

Good Bye Wilford Hall!!!

Today is Tyler's last day as a surgery intern! Hooray!!!!! I am so proud of all your hard work this last year and insanely happy that we will have tons more of you this next year!

Expiration Date June 30

One year ago today we bought our family zoo pass to the San Antonio Zoo. My how the time has flown! So we had to get one last outing to the zoo in before our move to Colorado next week. I brought our camera but not the not the good one...I figured some pictures are better than no pictures!





Afterwards I was interviewed by the news station about my opinion on the San Antonio Zoo and Sea Worlds cleanliness since they passed the Health Departments inspection with flying colors...."I'm happy!?" what were they expecting me to say? I didn't say much since it's kind of a skewed question and also because I didn't want to miss the train that Ashton had been dying to ride one last time. Too cute!!!

Toy Story 3

Tyler came home early a day last week and so we decided to take the kids to see Toy Story 3. It was a first real experience at the theater with the kids and Ashton was sooooo excited. In fact he was so into the movie that he didn't want any of the snack I had brought or the popcorn that Tyler bought! Isaac on the other hand was in heaven with all the food!

We had such a good time and the movie was soooo good that I believe that we will be going back soon!

Operation Swimming: Resumed

After Ashton's surgery, he was unable to go swimming until all his 87 stitches disolved from his delicate scalp. (Sunscreen before then was obviously a NO and you don't want to soak a healing incision especially since we want a better looking scar this time around). This was a four week time frame and for those of you who don't know, the kid LOVES water...In fact when swimming outdoors is unavailable to us in the winter we do often do multiple baths a day.

Monday was the four week mark for us and we celebrated by going to the San Antonio Zoo. While it's not my favorite zoo ever (St. Louis Zoo, why are you soooo amazing???) it does have a fun man-made beach area for kids to play in the sand and cool off. And what can I say, the kids had a blast!!! Hooray for Ashton! The celebration continued when Ashton's friend Kate invited us to a pool party on Tuesday. We took a breather from swimming on Wednesday but Thursday we set up our own kiddy pool out back and then again Friday we were back at the pool with our friends Natalie and her kids Luke and Sammy. FUN, FUN, FUN!!!

News

Yesterday we got our long awaited orders. I'm not even sure if I have written about this but once again Tyler didn't match for residency. This time around (and I think he is sticking to it) he applied for Radiology but in the Air Force it is extremely competitive. And unfortunately what makes you competitive is how much time you have in the Air Force, not how qualified you are....So when you don't match into a residency you are place into Flight Surgery, also called Flight Medicine. This is simply being a Family Physician to Air Force pilots and their families. So that is what we are doing, and now for the where....Colorado Springs! Because we got orders so late we were unable to get the Air Force to move us in time for us to be in Colorado for my brother's wedding July 15th....The wedding isn't really in Colorado either, it's in California, Tyler and I are just flying there from Colorado while his parents watch the kids....In any case we are REALLY excited to just get there. We have both our parents, lots of siblings, cousins, nephews and a niece, etc....And we are ready to spend some time doing some REAL camping!!!

empathy

We had to go to the Doctor's office yesterday morning. Nothing big, just to get some paper work signed for Ashton. Without it we cannot get orders and well, most of you know that we are moving in a month so to not even have orders yet is ridiculous. But that is another story for another day.

After a very speedy visit I decided to head over to the immunizations clinic to get Isaac caught up on his 18 month shots. Ashton was NOT happy. He HATES POKES. I reassured him that HE was not going to get ANY pokes. It was Isaac's turn today. Well, the memories of getting stuck were all to fresh in his mind and as I held Isaac down for his shots Ashton started pleading to the nurse "Don't poke my brother, not my brother!!!" The shots were delivered anyways and that's when the screams and tears let loose on both parties. One because he felt the pain and the other because he remembered the pain and did not want his brother to have to endure it. The love was SOOOO real that I had to fight the tears myself. I love you boys!!!

Surgery

Ashton had his long awaited scar revision and cranioplasty last week. The surgery was originally scheduled to be a tissue expander placement (which would allow the skin to stretch over the course of 3 weeks by fluid injections into the expander). We opted to do this surgery because as you can see by the picture below taken just a few days before the surgery, he had a big fat scar on his head that we wanted to get revised. The stretching of the skin would allow the surgeons to revise that scar during a cranioplasty (fixing the skull in this case with metal rods and plastic to fill large holes in Ashton's skull that were a result of his craniectomy when he was just a day old.)
With Tyler on nights, I went to the surgery alone with Ashton. Almost an hour into the procedure the surgeon came out...My heart DROPPED! She reassured me immediately that nothing was wrong, that on the contrary, after shaving Ashton's head and manipulating the skin with her partners it was decided that they could forgo the tissue expander. There was enough skin to do the revision and they wanted consent to proceed with the cranioplasty. I was NOT ready for that! I was prepared for a simple surgery. I was prepared to have Ashton back in my arms in an hour and back at home the following day. I was not prepared for a MAJOR surgery! Especially when the recovery time IN the hospital was 4-5 days if all went well with Tyler working nights. What about Isaac? Well, in all reality how could I deny Ashton this option? One less surgery? No needed fluid injections (That were described to me by the surgeon as feeling like braces being tightened every other day!) The whole lead up to the surgery was awful!!! He hated even taking his shirt off (new Toy Story Birthday shirt). Thankfully they didn't start an IV until after he was under. He's a hard stick. No kidding after surgery he had at least 6 missed IV sights :( Well, my anxiety was calmed after I cried for at least 30 minutes. I called my mom and OF COURSE she dropped everything on her schedule for the week and found a flight to San Antonio that night. The surgery lasted almost 4 hours and then I was able to hold my little boy and be reassured that everything went really well. Dr. Mancuso was wonderful too. She gave me the biggest hug after the surgery and talked about how well it went.

Ashton slept for almost an entire day. When he did wake up it was for short periods of time and he was SOOOO lovey! It was great! And miraculously he NEVER once complained of pain, even to this day that his head hurts. Here he is in the PICU the morning after the surgery. He doesn't even look very swollen!!!


Later that evening we transferred to the floor. This meant that he could see his brother again! He was so happy to see mom, dad, Isaac and Nana. Can you believe how happy he looks?

Ashton LOVED the activities there were in the hospital. We were across from the largest playroom in the hospital. He felt so good that we were there morning, afternoon, and night. We even played BINGO and won a prize. He felt sooo good that he didn't even want to stay in his room for a movie. Below is the morning we were discharged. They took the bandage off and he looked GOOD!!!

Seriously this kid looks GOOD bald! What a cutie!

Check out the scar...So small and close to the head!!! I am soooo excited for him~

The beloved NANA!!! Mom, thank you so much for dropping everything. It feels so good to know that my wonderful friend and mother will do anything for me whenever I need it! My kids were in such good hands and my house looked wonderful after you left!!! I hope that I will be the kind of mother you are to me.

See how happy they are!!!

So here we are 8 days out and things are looking good. The wound overall looks great, Ashton is extremely cautious with his head, although he still has had mishaps bonking his head on the car, wall, brother's head, etc. But we are optimistic that this it. And so is he. In fact when I mentioned to Ashton that he needed to rest after the surgery to help his head get better he mater-of-fact-ly stated, "but mom, I'm fine, member Dad gave me a blessing!!!" We are more than ready to finish this chapter and move onto the normalcy of childhood for this little guy. I LOVE YOU ASHTON!!! You are one brave, strong, faithful boy.

Happy Three!!!

Ashton turned 3 today! My little baby has grown so much!!! So much that he cannot be called a baby, although he will always be my baby, my first baby! So here is the birthday boy on his special day...He started the day with a present from papa and Nana Rust.

Then his present from Mom and Dad. He quite liked his Big Wheel. It took him a while to get the hang of it but he sure enjoys it. The only problem, like all our toys, is that there is only one.

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Here is little Izey after finishing his turn on Ashton's bike.

Then we had a little birthday party with his friends Alijah, Kate and Kimberli. He was pretty sad that his friend Eli couldn't make it. But the kids loves a party and he sure had fun. He just gets soooo excited when his friends arrive and that excitement remains the entire time: games, pinata, cake and presents. He LOVES every minute of it. (I have to confess that he had two parties this year, one in Colorado with family...don't have any pictures of that one yet and then in San Antonio). So here are some pictures of his special day...

The Pinata!!! Boy do kids ever LOVE pinatas!!!

LOVE IT!!!!