Kid Free Night!

It is not often that Dan and I get to go out sans kiddos, and even less often that we get to do it with our friends. It is a rare occasion that everyone can get babysitters at the same time.

BUT we succeeded in doing this on Saturday, and we went out to celebrate Kristin's last birthday in her 20's. We went to a Mexican Restaurant, ate and drank and didn't have any kids to chase after or share our food with. Then we went to a bar...a real honest to goodness bar! And we drank, and laughed and enjoyed ourselves until 1 in the morning! It was great!

Better late than never....

I'm finally getting around to writing out my goals for 2011.

This year I'd like to purge my home of all the extra crap I have shoved into cupboards, closets, and drawers.

Eat in at least 5 days a week....we have a horrible habit of eating out and/or getting take out when I'm too tired to cook or can't be bothered to fix something. So this year my goal is to cook dinner at least 5 nights a week. And with this I'd like to branch out from making my standard dishes every week.

Lose weight, as always this is a goal for the year. I have a feeling that I'll be attending a few weddings in the next year or two so it would be nice if I could wear the dresses I want to wear and feel comfortable in them.

Stick to my budget, I am awful at budgeting...absolutely awful. So my goal for this year is to cut down on my frivolous spending in a hope to stick to my budget better.

I plan to update here my ability to adhere to my goals for the year, to keep myself accountable.
And so far this week I've cooked dinner 5 nights, so I'm happy with my progress!

Wordless Wednesday

At the park

We are lucky to have a great park just up the street from our house, it is so nice to be able to pop up there and let the kids expend some energy...and lately soak up some amazing sunshine!

Addison LOVES the swings...(please excuse her crazy hair, this was just before they got their stitches out so she hadn't had a bath in a while.)

Natalie wanted in on the swing action but the other swing was occupied so she jumped in with Addison....good thing she's skinny!

Kids are so resiliant...

In less than one week, they went from this....

To this!

Amazing!!!

They are all healed up now, we had stitches removed on Friday and they did great! They can now run and jump and climb as much as they'd like!

We do have to have a follow up appointment in about 3 months for both girls just to check on them and then after that they will want to follow Addison until she is potty trained. They aren't concerned with re tethering since It was a simple tether and repair but they still like to monitor them.

I'm so relieved to have all of this behind us.

2011 Reading....

So far I've read 4 books and am about half way through my 5th book.
In case your interested I'll update here what I'm reading, and give a quick review of some of them.
*bold = the books that I really enjoyed.

1. Size 12 Is not Fat by Meg Cabot I really liked this book, it was a fun mystery/chick lit book. The main character Heather is hilarious. This was the first Meg Cabot book I've read, and I liked her writing, the characters were well developed and fun. The story moved along quickly and overall I really enjoyed this book.

2. Three to get Deadly by Janet Evanovich This is the 3rd in the Stephanie Plum series, and so far I LOVE these books. I'm slowly working my way through the series. The characters are all so fun, Stephanie is hilarious and totally fun.

3. Stuck in the Middle by Virginia Smith UGH! I downloaded this book to my kindle because it was free and had decent ratings, but I failed to read the reviews. This was a Christian Chick Lit, and it was LAME! I didn't realize it was a Christian book until I was about a quarter into it and by that time I wanted to know what was going to happen. I really should have just quit while I was ahead. This book was super religious, but I was able to get past that, I was not however able to get past how poorly developed the characters were. The issues that the main character faced were just ridiculous, as were her solutions. Overall a total waste of my time, but at least it was free.

4. Jemima J By Jane Green OMG I LOVED this book. I loved the characters, I loved the writing style, I loved the storyline I LOVED it. At first I was a bit put off by the disdain for fat people, but once I realized where the author was going I was able to really get into the story. I fell in love with Jemima and the other characters, and when I finished the book (in just about 2 days since I couldn't put it down) I was just happy. It was a happy, feel good book, and overall a great read!

5. Four to Score by Janet Evanovich I'm currently about half way through this book, it's hilarious like the prior 3 books and I can't wait to see what happens to Stephanie. *I finished this book, it was of course hilarious like the previous books, but this one had a little more steamy romance which was a nice addition.

Back to the grind....

I've been off work for 2 weeks with the girls while they recovered. In reality after the first week they were fine and I probably could have gone back to work but I had already been approved for the time off and thought it would be a good chance to spend some time with my girls.
We had a great time, went to the park a couple times, went to an indoor play place, ran errands and just hung out.d we
But now all the fun has come to an end...and I have to go back to work tomorrow. I will really miss my girls, they are growing like weeds and amazing me every day.

2011 Reading Challenge

I have challenged myself to read 30 books this year. I've read 2 so far so hopefully if I keep this up I'll meet my challenge easily.
I'm excited to get some good use out of my kindle!

The Hospital stay....

After the surgery we had to stay in the hospital for 48 hours, during which time the girls had to lay flat...they could lay flat on their backs or on their sides but that was it. Talk about hard, try to keep a 2.5 year old laying flat for 2 days.
Our nurses were amazing. We were in the PICU for the entire time but for the first day we were in an older more compact side of the PICU, there were 4 regular beds and 2 isolation rooms. It was noisy and difficult to relax. Most kids there were pretty sick and our girls were by far the least sick of the bunch. But they were needy considering they needed to have meds regularly...since day one they were getting morphine.
The girls slept a lot and we were able to relax a bit too. Sleeping was another story, they had "sleeping" chairs for the parents but the should consider renaming them to torture chairs instead. They were the most uncomfortable chairs ever.
On Friday morning they had to move Natalie to the other side of the PICU because some of the other kids in the PICU needed more care and had to be one-to-one. So at 7 Natalie got moved to the newer side of the PICU and Addison was kept in the older side.
We begged and pleaded with the nurses and doctors and were finally moved to the other side with Natalie. Ultimately it wouldn't have been the end of the world if we'd had to stay on opposite sides but it would have been hard on Natalie. Especially since to get between the two PICUs we had to go through 2 secure doors.
At any rate the amazing nurses were able to get us moved so that we were in the same room, not next to each other but in the same room...which was great!
The second day went well, Natalie had some visitors which kept her happy, and Addi was busy charming the nurses.
Dan and I were able to get some sleep that night and our amazing nurse read some books to Natalie when she woke up so that Dan could sleep. We really couldn't have been more lucky with our nursing staff...they were compassionate and caring and really went above and beyond to make sure that not only the girls were well taken care of but that we were comfortable too.

On Saturday we were discharged and made it home uneventfully. Once we got home and scarfed down some lunch we all fell asleep on the couch....and took a nice 2 hour family nap.

The girls have been doing great, getting better each day. They are down to just regular Tylenol and are able to do almost everything they could do before. I think by this weekend they will be good as new. I planned to take 2 weeks off with them, and I probably don't need to take the entire time off...but really who wants to go to work if they don't have to, so I'll probably stay home next week just to spend more time with them.

I want to thank everyone for their well wishes, thought, and prayers. We really appreciate every ones support and could not have made it through without all of you!

Surgery Day

Thursday was surgery day for the girls. We woke up bright and early and loaded the car to treck over to Oakland.

We had to be in Oakland in at 9 am, we got there and got checked in at the surgery center. The nurses were great, and gave us our own pre-op room and it would be the room Addi used too so we could leave our stuff in there between surgeries.

They did the pre-op stuff and got us all settled, the girls got their cute little gowns on. Natalie got some meds to make her sleepy since she was going first. Within just a few minutes of getting the meds she was super sleepy. Once she was sleepy the nurse took her back to the operating room. At that point we went to the cafeteria to have some lunch at relax for a hour or so until we could take Addison back to finish her pre-op.

We sat in the cafeteria and had some lunch with Dan's mom who had come down early and relaxed for a little while until my parents came. Then we waited about another half hour before we got the call to bring Addison up for the rest of her pre-op. We knew that once we were called for Addison that they were in the "closing up" stage of Natalie's surgery.

We headed back up to pre-op and got settled in, Addison got her sleepy medicine and we were just starting to relax when surgeons came in to tell us that Natalie's surgery went perfectly and that she was up in the PICU recovering.

Dan stayed with Addison until they were ready for her while I went up to the PICU to be with Natalie. When I got up there she was still out and the nurse was just getting her settled in and checking her out. About 20 minutes later Dan came up to the PICU and we sat with Natalie.

She was pretty upset when she woke up but the nurse was great about keeping on top of her meds and she continued to sleep. She was most upset about the IVs and the catheter.

About an hour later Addison came up from the PICU and was still out. The nurses tended to her while we sat with Natalie and finally we were able to see Addison as well. They had put them next to each other so we could easily go between the girls.

At this point we were able to have our parents come up to visit, and that was nice. It was nice for the girls to have the distractions and for us to have some time to relax and know that someone was always sitting with the girls.

We were able to have some dinner while my parents stayed with the girls. Poor Natalie had a reaction to the morphine while we were at dinner and threw up...but again the nurses were great.

Dan and I were both able to sleep there as each child could have one parent room in. So we were all able to be together and both able to be with both girls.

Over all the surgery went perfectly and our care was amazing. We loved all of our nurses, the surgeons and the PAs. Our recovery time was great as well and I'll post more about that later. But for now I leave you with pictures of the girls in their gowns pre-op.