Luke Chisholm Update

This is a letter Luke's mom posted today about his current status. Please be in constant prayer for this sweet family!

Hopefully this won't be as long as my "weekly" updates that I share with all of you on Luke, but I just wanted to let you know about the last few days and ask for some specific prayer warrioring.
Tuesday, the neonatologist came in and talked with me while David was out in the lobby trying to get a little sermon work in. The neonatologist talked with me about Luke's prognosis, saying that Luke's medical situation is very unique and very very serious. We knew that, but he indicated that Luke's prognosis is worse than we had talked about before.
Luke is having quite a bit of trouble breathing. We keep having to raise the level of oxygen he's getting through his ventilator, and we don't really know why. Monday and Monday night was particularly bad. The neonatologist wanted David and I to know that while we of course had the option of pursuing every medical treatment available, he also wanted us to know that we have the option of doing nothing. We have the option of taking him home and letting him die peacefully without putting him through months of NICU, tubes, IVs, surgeries, etc. The doctor was very kind as he was saying this, and eventually we figured out that he just wanted us to know that the medical staff would not judge us if and when we decide to "stop" pursuing medical treatment and take him home.
That sounds a whole lot like giving up to me.
So, David and I spent abou 24 hours seriously thinking about what if we lost our precious baby boy. It didnt' take long for us to decide that we would do everything in our power to help him get well, no matter the time or financial cost, as long as Luke has even a very slim chance at a normal life. But have again been slapped in the face with the possible reality that Luke might not make it through surgeries #1, #2, or #3. We spent a long time in tears and in silence and in prayer.
Yesterday afternoon we finally got to speak with Luke's cardiologist, Dr. Kao. She told us that our plan of three surgeries hasn't changed. His heart hasn't changed from the past tests she has done. We're still going to follow the plan. She said it is too early to tell what kind of prognosis Luke really has, but she was quite positive and hopeful that she and Dr. Mendeloff (the surgeon) can give Luke a pretty good shot at a normal life. Her idea about Luke's breathing is that it's possible that his heart (right atrium) is so enlarged that it is pressing on his bronchial tubes or trachea and making it difficult for Luke to get good oxygen flow. She said that if Luke has another bad day like Monday, she will do a CAT scan of his chest and then decide how to proceed. Yesterday and today have been pretty good days so far.
I am reminded that these doctors, as kind and as brilliant as the are, may not realize that God is in control of this situation. We weren't even supposed to make it to 26 weeks, remember? We made it to 38 weeks and 3 days - full term. God has continually surprised and delighted us with his mercy and provision. I fully believe that he's not about to stop now. We pray that God's glory and power is shown to both believers and non-believers alike, and we will know that the LORD is God.
Please pray for Luke's breathing. Pray that he will need less and and less extra oxygen to keep him stable, and that he will be able to breathe normally. Pray that whatever is causeing his breathing difficulties, whether it's the size of his heart or something else, is healed without medical intervention. Pray that God's will is done in the timing of his surgeries. Pray for strength and courage and faith for all three of us.
We love you.
Thanks for praying,
Rachael & David

Why not?

I am going to throw all the boys toys away.
Seriously, this stuff is beyond out of hand.
I'm sure they're mounting an army as I write and about to invade my pantry and fridge.
We can't have that happen.
Oh, and the last of the new, expensive fish died last night.
Stupid expensive fish.

'Nuttin' Better

All gone

I love reality. I mean, really love it. Obsessed about it. It's funny because when the reality tv craze first started I thought it was dumb. Who would want to watch reality when you could watch The Cosby Show? But that all changed when Survivor came out 9 years ago. Seriously. 18 seasons over 9 years and I have watched every single one. One could say that my adult life has peaked with the premieres and finales of this show. Not really but it sounds good.

Stuart and I were watching the finale of season 18 on Sunday when he looked at my ankle and promptly commanded me to take my anklet off.

Gasp!

"Do what?"

"Take it off."

"But I have had it for years."

"Who gave it to you?"

{silence}

Do you remember in middle school when everyone made anklets out of their mother's thread and wore them for like two weeks and kept adding more and more anklets from friends until everyone's anklets started to resemble socks? I was so one of those girls. I thought anklets were beyond cool and seeing that high school girls wore them too, well that just did me in. I HAD to wear them. And so I did.

My freshman year I started dating this guy from church. Well, kinda from church. Someone in the youth group had invited him to come and then he started coming to church on a regular basis. That's neither here nor there. BUT his father was a professional Santa Claus. For real. His full time job was to actually BE Santa Claus. Amazingly he really does look like the man. So much so that one professional photographer uses him exclusively for pictures before Christmas. He also taught driver's ed where I learned that before you take off, you should check to make sure that the parking brake is not engaged. Ahem.

So this boyfriend of mine, who was a junior!, noticed that I was wearing ratty, knotted threads as anklets. For Christmas he gave me a new one. It was quite sweet actually. He went to James Avery, again because he noted the ridiculous amount of jewelry that I have from that store, searching for an anklet. Unfortunately they don't actually make anklets. But he was not leaving without one. Somehow he or the nice store worker (probably a woman) came up with the idea of turning a larger bracelet into an anklet. Viola! The finishing touch was a heart charm with "S&C" engraved into it. Kinda funny foreshadowing...

When we broke up a few months later, I still wanted to wear the anklet. I mean it was sterling silver and from James Avery but I didn't want to display the heart with our initials. I mean, come on! We were in high school! No one should profess their likeness to one other thru engraved initials.

[Some people do find their soul mate in high school. And if that was you, then congratulations! Please, by all means, engrave everything you own with your initials. And then post pictures of all your stuff. Really. I want to see this. I just wasn't that person. After by brief encounter with S (not Stuart), I went on a 3 year dating relationship with G. I honestly thought this was the man I was going to spend my life with. And why not? We had met at church camp. We started dating the summer before our sophomore year. My life revolved around his football schedule. We dated for 3 years. This was it! Wrong. Shortly after graduating we broke up because we were going to different colleges. Different colleges. Are you kidding me? We had been dating for 3 years. Of course a measly couple hundred miles couldn't separate our love. Right? And thus began my year long attempt at getting us back together. Thank goodness that didn't happen!]

So I did the only humane thing: I cut off the heart charm. With scissors. It's amazing how easy it was to do this. Makes me want to go and reinforce all the charms on my charm bracelet.

That was 14 years ago.

Holy Montana.

14 years ago.

Give me a moment here to recognize how old I really am for being able to not only make that statement but also know that 14 years ago I wasn't a baby but actually in high school. Dating boys. Riding in cars with boys.

I digress. Again.

You can see now that this anklet has been part of me for a long, long time. It has only been taken off a hand full of times for surgeries and x-rays. I honestly don't even think about it. It's there. My trusty little anklet. It obviously holds not significance to the boy that gave it to me. It's just been part of me for 14 years.

Apparently Stuart didn't see my anklet in the same light that I did. I'm not even sure he knew who gave it to me. I think he thought it was from J. Hardly.

Either way, he wanted for me to take it off. And as we were sitting there bidding adieu to another fantastic season of Survivor, I did just that. I took it off for that last time and threw it away. And now it's all gone.

Divide and Conquer

I need to take care of some blog-cleaning: JW if you don't post something soon, I might just have to come to San Antonio and steal Hobo and your Guitar Hero. Serious times call for serious measures. Oh wait! I AM coming to San Antonio this weekend. You have been warned.

The pictures of that sweet little girl were of my niece. I do not have a daughter. I only have boys. Two of them to be exact. Two kids. Both boys. That's all. I do though have 3 nieces and 1 nephew, in case you were wondering.

Alright, so have I mentioned that Stuart split the boys into two rooms while I was gone? On his own accord? And then took the door off of our room to put on the playroom? I mean Tyson's room.
Well he did. All by himself. Several things come into play here: pros and cons.

Pros:

• the boys have their own space now. This is particularly important to Tyson. As he's getting bigger, we've noticed that sometimes he just needs some quiet time alone without his ever growing, tag along, body slamming, toy stealing, red-headed brother. Tucker also has his own place in which to jump, slide, and slam his body into the walls. We really need to look into padded walls.
• sleeping times have been so much better. Without each other to antagonize, the boys actually go to sleep without 2 hours of me bursting thru the doors and threatening to pull my hair out the next time one of them sneezes.
  
• um, that's all I have right now....

Cons:

• the boys have their own space now. This means DOUBLE the amount of mess. I didn't think that this was possible but now that there are two rooms to play in, there is two times the amount of stuff trailed between the doors.
  
• sleeping is different. When one brother wakes up first, it doesn't take long for that brother to go into the other brother's room and wake him up as well. Brothers!
• we only have one dresser right now. Since there are now two bedrooms, there should be two dressers. Stuart does not see the flaw in only one dresser. Apparently he hasn't been married to me long enough.
• this has totally thrown a kink in my Sunday Night Ritual. I can no longer clean the playroom once the boys have gone to sleep since there is no longer a play room. Last night we had to go thru all the toys, with the boys help, before bed. I am not saying that I don't want the boys to learn the value of cleaning up. It's just that THAT clean up time was MINE.
• we no longer have a door into our bedroom. Let me expound on this: our house is old. Really, really old. It was built in 1920. It has no doorbell because the original owners had a butler. Yeah, that old. We are only the third owners of this house. As you can imagine, things are a bit different in my house compared to modern days homes. The paneling is real wood, the A/C is under the house, we have a firewood storage next to the fireplace that resembles a coffin, all the electrical outlets were two prong, a washing machine hook-up was added sometime in 1960, converting a closet into a laundry closet, the main bathroom has no shower head, and last but not least, all the doors are custom made and therefore are all different sizes. Yup, every single one is different. This wouldn't be such a big deal had the previous owner not taken every single door down and thrown them out with the trash. Yeah, she was missing a couple of screws. So to make the playroom into Tyson's room, Stuart stole our bedroom door and maneuvered it into the frame in Tyson's room. Here's the kicker-it doesn't fit. Duh! Now, not only do I not have a door but Tyson's door doesn't close or open all the way and we still are going to have to pay way too much money to have a custom door made. Thank you Mrs. Whitaker for taking all the doors down while your husband was on a business trip and throwing them away.

So now I have to update my Sunday Night Ritual by adding Divide and Conquer. This may take just a little getting used to. And just to calm your nerves, my toenails are painted. And the dogs got a bath.

I totally missed it

I'm a bad dog mommy. I totally missed Turbo's birthday. Oops!
Turbo turned 5 on May 12. Five. F-i-v-e! I can't believe he's already that old. And look how far he's come. I remember thinking that he would never get out of the puppy stage. Those were some bad days. In fact, I wasn't even sure he was going to make it to the next day. And now I can't think of life without him.
We've been thru a lot together, moving 3 times, countless hours in the car, a broken leg, almost being put to sleep for eating an athletic sock, passing the sock and realizing you were going to live, welcoming (hesitantly) Tyson and Tucker into your home, camping at Lake Mead and the Grand Canyon, learning how to sit and shake, greeting every person who walks in our house, alerting us of foul ply outside of our house, inviting Scout into your territory and lots and lots of poop. It's been real.
Here's a brief montage to Turbo:

Happy Birthday Boy!

Catching Up

I need to make a correction. I misspelled my new cousin's name. eek!! It's Lucas Hermon Chisholm (aka Luke). Alright. Better? (His parents in no way shape or form commented on the tragic slaughter that I did to his name, I just felt the need to share that I noticed I was wrong and needed to fix it)

So it's Friday. Friday. Almost a whole week since I have blogged. Goodness. Have you missed me? I have certainly missed you. And my kids. Not so much my husband. Ha. Just kidding. I did miss him. Quite a bit actually. So let's start at the beginning of the week shall we?

Sunday was a great day for me. Stuart got up with the boys and together they brought me breakfast and Starbucks (no spills this time) in bed. Aww. The boys were just clamoring to get in bed with me, so I retreated to the table so that we could all talk without food getting on my sheets. They then presented me with cards and flowers and the boys took turns taking every.single.flower out of the vase and smelling it. Stuart's "gift" to me was that I did not have to do anything for the boys for the day. No diaper changes, no clothes changes, no preparation of meals and snacks and no sitting in the bathroom doorway while Tyson made lemonade. It was glorious! He also took me (and the boys) to dinner where I partook in some tasty adult beverages. Well, beverage. I can taste it now...

Monday I began my little blog hiatus. My cousin David and his precious wife Rachael, not to be confused with his sister Rachel, were scheduled to deliver their first child some time on Monday. At 16/17 weeks, Rachael found out the her little boy had a major heart problem and would most likely not live to term. Week after week God continued to amaze everyone as Luke continued to grow and defy the doctors. He was born on Monday evening and continues to amaze all that are around him. Luke is by no means better, or ok. He is still very, very sick. One of the valves did not form correctly or at all and thus his heart is not functioning correctly. Because of all the extra work the left side of his heart was having to do, his entire heart became very large and thus his lungs did not form properly either. Double whammy. He is currently in the NICU and will be there for some time. The doctors are waiting to see how his little body can handle being on medications before they make decisions on surgery or heart transplant. Please keep Luke and his family in your prayers. Rachael was discharged from the hospital yesterday and so now begins the daily trek to and from the hospital.

All that said, I really wanted to be in Dallas to support my cousin during this painful time. Stuart was able to take off this whole week thus allowing me to go without the kiddos. Hooray!! I mean, I love my boys but it's so nice to get a break for a couple of days and remember how to walk around without two sidekicks. Ahem.

I made it into town just after Luke was born and so my sister, BIL and I went up to the hospital to meet and greet my aunt, uncle, cousins and a few strangers who also wanted to witness the birth of this little boy. Tuesday and Wednesday were filled with much of the same-playing with Kate (my niece), feeding Kate, bathing Kate, sleeping, shopping, hospital runs, oh and watching Dancing with the Stars and American Idol (two shows which I don't personally watch since we don't get Fox or ABC). Good times!

Let me just say: I have the cutest niece in the world!

Exhibit A

Exhibit B

Exhibit C

Exhibit D

Exhibit E

See?? Isn't she adorable? I LOVE her! Quick note-thanks Marci for letting me borrow your guest room, your bathroom, your towels, your food, your car, your week! I love you!

And what were my handsome three boys doing while I was gallivanting in Dallas? Good question. I know there was lots of pajama wearing. Take for example this conversation I had with Tyson this morning:

Me: Booger, what did you and daddy do while mommy was gone?
Tyson: Daddy let me stay awake till morning time!
Me: Really? {hmm, maybe I need to have a word with Stuart}
Tyson: And daddy let me wear polars bears every day (i.e. his polar bear pjs)
Me: He did!? Did daddy wash them for you everyday too?
Tyson: thinking....daddy is a naked boy at night time so I wear my polar bears every day!

Let me point out the key words-daddy is a naked boy at night time. So many thought fighting for attention!

What else you ask?
Well.
While I was away, as in not-in-the-same-city-thus-Stuart-can-make-any-and-all-decisions-without-consulting-me-and-has-no-need-to-fear-my-wrath, this wonderful man decided on his own to split the boys into separate rooms. On.his.own.

When I left my house Monday night, the boys slept in the same room. There were two beds in one room. There was one room dedicated to being a play room. There was also a door on the frame into my bedroom.

When I returned Thursday morning, the boys were sleeping in two separate rooms. There was one bed in one room. And another bed in the another room. There was one room that looked quite empty since it only housed a bed and a dresser. And another room that looked ridiculously morbid since it now carried the weight of all the boys toys AND a bed. And somehow this third room acquired a door.

Do I really need to write it out? It is NOT wise to make major decisions/changes/improvements while one's spouse is away (unless that spouse happens to be the male in which case it is perfectly legitimate for the female to make said changes). And while I am on the subject, major decisions/changes/improvements should also not be made while one is pregnant and for the first year post delivery. Just a thought.

Cleansing breath.

And did I blow up at my dear, thoughtful husband? No. But I am enjoying sliding snide remarks at him. I am still me.

But my boys are in one piece. They seem to have eaten a large amount of food as witnessed by the remains of the unorganized refidgerator and pantry. The dogs are in one piece and unfortunetly have to sleep on the floor now that I am back. The fish are alive. My house is still standing. The grass grew, thanks in part to the $100 grass seed Stuart laid down before I left.

Eveything is ok. And alive. That's kind of a biggie.

So now begins the tumultuous task of cleaning up what has been done since I have been gone. It's going to be an interesting couple of days.

Shout outs:
Aquarium vacuum-my fish might be dead if not for you since Tyson decided to help by feeding the fish (while mommy was gone).
Fresh pineapple-I could smell you all day.
Noise makers-who doesn't like to hear the gentle murmur of crickets and waves and birds and white noise?
Daddy taking off work so that mommy can leave the house for a couple of days-yeah.
My sisters-love you!

P.S. Bri-ok, the Nuva Ring, I'm not sure if it really works or not. I had only been on it for a month. I too was tired of remembering to take my pill and I was just ready for a change. I couldn't do the patch since I am sensitive to latex and I couldn't do the shot since I did want to have kids sometime in the future. So the ring seemed like the best option. Apparently we were supposed to use another form of contraception during the first month of transitioning from one method to the other. Oops! And so Tyson was conceived!

Getting ready

**UPDATE**
Luke Herman Chisholm was born this evening.
He was delivered via c-section to help ensure his safety. Weighing in at 5 lbs 10 oz, he was much bigger than expected. Luke wasn't breathing when drs delivered him and he immediately underwent tests on his heart. As for now, cardiologists are holding off on surgery and treating him with meds.
My sister and I got to see momma and she is doing remarkably well given the circumstances. My cousin, David is glad delivery is over but still very concerned for Luke. He did get to travel with the baby to the NICU and hopefully momma got to go and see him tonight as well.
Please keep this sweet family in your prayers!


It was a great Mother's Day weekend (more later) and now I am getting ready to head to Dallas for a couple of days (yay!).
Would you please say a prayer for my cousin and his wife? They are being induced today. This is their first child and first grandchild for my aunt and uncle. This baby boy also happens to be the first Chisholm boy born in awhile (my cousin was the only boy Chisholm between my dad and his brother; my dad had three girls and my uncle had two girls and one boy). He's been very sick and the dr.s aren't quite sure what's going to happen when he comes into this world.
I can't wait to see my sister, brother-in-law and sweet niece! Plus I get to see some cousins, aunt and uncle...fun times!
Here's something to pacify you while I'm gone:

We're THIS Much Closer to School

On Becoming a Mom

The journey to motherhood was quite easy and uneventful for me. Stuart and I had just celebrated our 2 year wedding anniversary, we were stationed at Nellis AFB in Las Vegas, NV and we had our first dog, Turbo. Life was good. Stuart was obviously working and I had a fun job (with a not so fun boss) at the Arts & Crafts Center on base. We were quite proudly-DINKS (dual income no kids).
All off that came screaming to a halt when at the end of January I realized I was late. Let me explain a bit here: we were on birth control. No, not just a condom, but actual, prescribed by a doctor birth control-Nuva Ring to be exact. Silly me was tired of taking a pill everyday and thought that this handy little ring would help. WRONG. I had just started using it at the beginning of December and I in fact got pregnant sometime around December 15 (too much info??). I took two home pregnancy tests, both coming back positive and then got a blood test the next day. When that came back positive as well, Stuart did that right thing and bought me my first ever roses.

41 weeks and 2 days later, we sat in a private room on the L&D floor at Wilford Hall. Let's just say I was very ready to not be pregnant anymore. 18 hours after starting the pitocin, after 2 extra "bumps" to my epidural, and 2 hours and 45 minutes of pushing, this beautiful little boy was born and I was a M-O-M.

Tyson Clarence Doss
17 September 2005
9 lbs 4 oz
21.5 in

A brief nine months later, I had another one of those late months. I chalk this up to baby brain. No one in there right mind gets pregnant 9 months after delivering their first child, unless that person is me...

Apparently when you have sex, you get pregnant. Someone should have told me this!

A mere 38 weeks later, Stuart and i found ourselves in a very familiar setting. Well, except this time we were at United Regional Hospital in Wichita Falls. And we also had a 16 month old waiting at home with no idea the bomb we were about to drop on his world.

Lucky for me, Tucker decided that he wanted to make his debut a little more dramatically and after 12 hours of labor went in for a C-Section. Less than 30 minutes later, I was a M-O-M, again.

Tucker Patton Doss
1 February 2007
9 lbs 14 oz
21.5 in

Here are some things that have taken on a whole new meaning since becoming a mom:

• Showers. No longer can I sit under the very warm spray of water for 10 minutes. No longer can I take my time shaving, making sure not to cut any major arteries in my legs. No longer can I exfoliate while the steam from the shower surrounds me. Now, I'm lucky to get 5 minutes of shower time without a head poking in to say hi, no longer to I worry myself with shaving-that's why jeans were invented!, and exfoliating is now Greek to me.
• Eating. When the boys were young, I affectionately called this civilized experience-grazing. I would grab snacks in between feedings and do my best to muster up something edible for Stuart somewhere near the appropriate eating times. Now that the boys are bigger, eating is an event.
  
• Dressing. Long gone are the days of "real" clothes. "Mommy" clothes are totally the norm and they consist of t-shirts, pajama pants, yoga pants, athletic shorts, and flip-flops. Yessss.
• Decorating. When we didn't have kids, I would laugh at our friends with kids because their houses were completely over run with "kid things." I vowed to never let such a silly thing as a child get in the way of good decorating. Right. Let's just say I am all over kid friendly houses.
• Sleep. Hello!! What happened to you?
  
• Socializing. Before we had kids, we went out with friends, went camping, had people over, went to movies...ahh, those were the days. Now, I am truly frightened to leave our home. Our home is safe. It has all the boys' toys. It has diapers and wipes and extra underwear and little potties and extra clothes and I can walk around with glasses on and hair un-brushed and no bra-why would I want to leave the house?

After all the dirty diapers, all the messy hands, all the thrown food, all the melt downs from not being able to have cookies for breakfast, all the sleepless nights, all the stuff-it really just boils down to: I am a M-O-M. And there is nothing better in the world.

I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you. --Gen 28:15

Look Mom! No Fingers!

**Tucker did NOT actually loose any fingers in this process.
And the knife is a plastic, fake knife. Somehow it was still able to cut thru the strawberries.**

Sincerity

Stu: Honey, what do you want for Mother's Day?
Me: A day at the spa.
Stu: Anything from Refurbisheddepot.com?
Me: ???

Stu: Hon, what do you want for Mother's Day?
Me: Breakfast in bed.
Stu: How 'bout we go get you MCD?
Me: ???

Stu: What do you want for Valentine's Day?
Me: Hon, Valentine's Day was 3 months ago.
Stu: Oh, right. When is Father's Day?
Me: Next month.
Stu: Why do moms get to go first?
Me: Apparently a man invented the holidays and he was in trouble with his wife.

All Dressed Up and Nowhere to Go

Happy Cinco de Mayo!

Sunday Rituals

I don't know why I do it to myself. But I do. Every Sunday. It's not like Sunday isn't already full, but I have to make it absolutely ridiculous. Why? Because everything has to be in order before Monday. It just has to be. Without this order the world would come to a sudden stop and I might have a nervous breakdown. Or an anxiety attack. Which is really kind of dumb since the reason I would be having the anxiety attack is a direct result of my anxiety over not having everything done, to perfection. It's a vicious cycle. I want things to be a certain way, a perfect certain way and I flip out if they aren't this way and then get anxious about things not being this way and then get anxious for feeling anxious about this way and it all goes down hill.

I do it to myself.
I know this.
But it still happens.
And no amount of therapy or pills will change the fact that I want things this way.
Ahem.

So Sundays I have a set of rituals that I always do. Well, almost always. Most always.
Sundays I:

• catch up on all the laundry from the week/weekend. This mainly involves washing and drying Stuart's uniform but it also means that all the laundry that I have done during the week and just stacked on top of each other needs to be folded AND put away. This is part of the reason why I smile Monday mornings: empty laundry baskets.
• strip the bed and wash the sheets.
  
• take out the trash from the bathrooms. I'm not sure why this happens on Sundays, but it does and now I can't not do it.
• clean the bathrooms. This is not a job that I enjoy. But toilets are icky and if not cleaned, well, you know what happens.
  
• clean up the playroom. Not just make a path for little feet, but CLEAN it up. OCD clean it up. I sit in the middle of the room and go thru all the different bins, taking out the contents that don't belong in them and placing the errant items in their correct location. Books are straightened and relined, the tool bench is put back together with the proper tools hanging from their proper place, the kitchen is tidied with all food/utensils/pots put neatly up and the floor is vacuumed. The playroom looks great for a good 10 hours.
• go thru my meals spreadsheet (really is there any better application than EXCEL?) and clean up items from the previous week and make adjustments for the week to come.
• straighten the refrigerator. I get an obnoxious high from seeing an organized fridge and pantry. Good times.
• check the calendar and make a list of things that need to be done for the week. Lists!
• relocate all the items Stuart has hap-hazardly placed around the house and help them find their way back to his drawer/basket/garage.
• straighten up the backyard. All the rolling toys are lined up. Smaller toys and picked up and placed into a receptacle of some sort. Random trash is thrown away.
  
• paint my toe nails.
  

I know. Daunting. Why again do I do this? Because I have to. I need to. Monday just wouldn't be Monday if my toe nails weren't painted.

And we all fall down

So it has been raining for the past 4 out of 6 days here in lovely Wichita Falls. (Stuart likes to say wuh-chee-tah falls) The two days of no rain there was also no sun so the ground had no chance to dry up. Therefore my house is covered in muddy paw prints. It also means that the boys and I have been stuck inside all day long. We've colored, painted, busted out the playdoh (something that I never do because of the heart attack that I have when the boys start mixing the colors and then pushing little bits into the crevices of the table..ahhh!), played hide-and-seek, yelled, ran around in circles, cleaned out closets, cleaned up the playroom, destroyed the playroom, cleaned out the pantry (my personal favorite) and watched a ridiculous amount of Handy Manny.

It came as no surprise when I woke up this morning to see a light mist coming down outside. Another rainy day... {violins playing something soothing}

I was determined to get out of the house, so I dressed the boys and loaded up to go to the commissary. We were out the door at 8:02 am. A personal record. As I pulled into the commissary parking lot, I was pleasantly surprised to see a new cart return in the parking lot. We have never had one here at Sheppard AFB and with the inclusion of self checkout in the past 6 months, there has been no option for returning carts when you self checkout. I digress.

Shopping went swimmingly. The boys did superbly. We sang our ABC's, Please/Thank You, Spider Man, all to the delight of our fellow shoppers. Luckily, since I made it out the door so stinkin' early, there weren't that many shoppers. We did have to maneuver around stockers but that's the price you pay for an empty store. While we were shopping, the mist had turned into a pretty hard rain so the boys and I ran to the van while our bagger waited patiently under the awning.

After getting really wet, I decided that it would be so nice of me to get Starbucks on the way home. This is a big time guilty pleasure for us. The funny thing is that I never get actual coffee there. I'm more of a cream and sugar with a little bit of coffee kind 'o girl. But I do adore their Carmel Apple Spice and Stuart has never been known to turn down a Venti Coffee with cream and 4 sugars. As I turned under the overpass and started to pull into the Starbuck's lot, I noticed that I was among the other half of WF that decided to grace Starbucks with their presence. Yes, we only have ONE location. I park, unload the boys, scurry inside the store, place our order, wait very patiently with two sets of ogling eyes, get our order, shimmy back to the van, reload the boys and head to the house. It was quite the adventure.

As I pull up to the house, Stuart opens the garage and comes out to help with the unloading. He was more than excited to see the 4 fantastic Starbucks cups. I hand him the carrier with all 4 drinks and make my way around to help Tucker out. As I set Tucker on the ground, Stuart's greatest nightmare happens. He falls. Really hard. In public. And drops all four drinks.

Tyson immediately bursts into tears. Tucker runs over to play in the new mess. Stuart flails about trying to stand back up. And our fabulous sidewalk gets a taste of Carmel Apple Spice, Cream, Sugar and Coffee with a double side of chocolate milk and whipped cream. Yum.

Thankfully Stuart was ok, just a skinned knee and bruised ego.

I load a sobbing Tyson back into the van and make another trek to Starbucks. $15 later, we all have a beverage and sit around the table eating chocolate donuts. Good times.