Ben's Trip To The ZOO.

--The Ladies

--our every expanding family* photo by Alina my neice

--what a handsome little monkey

There's Music in the Air

My little Mozarts had their Christmas performance and play. The play "Christmas at the OK Corral" was super adorable and Kiora was one of the narrators and both girls did great. Then after the play they changed clothes and had there very first violin concert. Kiora's teacher spotlighted her in the middle of the performance telling the audience how amazing she was and that she had just started two months ago and was already in the advanced class--all that hard work and practice has paid off and I'm so proud of my girls!

How did Ben like the performance? He slept through the whole thing, I guess that is to be expected of a 10 day old baby.

Something In The Turkey

Our Thanksgiving was delicious, so good in fact it put me into labor--yep we had our own little turkey Saturday afternoon at 1:29 pm. I went to the doctor on Wednesday and told her I was chickening out of the whole c-section idea and that if I went into labor before Dec 2, I wanted to try to have the baby without surgery. I was feeling some contractions on and off for several weeks, but Saturday around midnight they became very intense and were coming every two minutes.

I didn't want to wake up my husband so I took a bath and tried to deal with the pain as long as possible, and by 4 I was more than ready to go to the hospital. We arrived at the hospital around 5 a.m., and I was checked and an IV was put in and the nurse called my Doctor. After the Nurse left Tim looked at me said kinda puzzled "umm so I guess we are staying" awe I love this guy. The first thing I asked for of course was if they had wi-fi, then for an epidural lol.

We hadn't really picked out a name yet so we spent a few hours going over names. I actually knew my nurse so I was excited and of course got spoiled. I worked with her in the hospital on Med-surg before I moved to Phoenix. Dr. R came in a few times and we went over my previous labors of 36 hours, and all my complications, and we talked about having a low threshold for a C-section, and then she had to go check on a few other patients--there must have been something in the turkey because the hospital was over flowing with women in labor, and they didn't have enough rooms for everyone, but I luckily got the last recovery room.

My parents came in to talk to me and to get my poor starving husband some food. I felt a lot of pressure and had the nurse call my doctor, and she came in just in time for me to push. Three contractions and our handsome little man was here 6 lbs 11 oz --13 hours of labor, record time for me, and absolutely no complications.

My recovery was not so great. . . The next day I was able to take my little man home. Tim told me he felt like he was busting me out of prison because usually I'm in the hospital for at least 4 or 5 days--I think part of the reason I was able to go home so soon was because they needed the room.

We had named him Darius Vaughn--I was on drugs when I chose that name and after getting to know our little man I knew he was a Benjamin, and he's just perfect!!!!!

The End Of Days Are At Hand.

Never in my life would I have imagined me of all people to win such an award as this--PERFECT ATTENDANCE. It frightens me to the core, in away this is actually more impressive than pigs flying, so clearly the end of days must be here.

OK in all seriousness I was dumbfounded when I opened up my email and couldn't help but bust up laughing, you see I'm not one for routine, and schedules, and predictability, I love change and spontaneity, adventure and surprises--and this was definitely a huge surprise to me. In high school I hated going to school, in fact I joined ever club and sport, just to get out of school: choir, band, cheerleader, color guard, track, volleyball, basketball, french club, student council, FBLA, NHS--yep even the chess club and knowledge bowl, and even with all those approved absences I still ditched just about every day, in fact so much I almost didn't graduate from high school even though I had a 4.0. College was pretty much the same and so on and so on.

I guess I'm living proof that people can and do change. And I would like to accept this prestigious award--who doesn't like free money-- and in doing so I would like to thank the one man who has made this impossible task achievable, my darling husband, who not only watch my children, cooked dinners every night, did all the house hold chores while I slaved away working from home in my sweats, and who of course never played hookie a day in his life--he even went to work on his birthday, what kind of animal does that, oh but most importantly for giving me daily words of encouragement like "you should quit", "you don't need to work", "Don't go to work", "I'll pay you an allowance more than you make working" etc because there is one thing I despise more than boring schedules and routines and that is being told what to do--lol.

Dreams really do come true--sniff sniff.

*picture credit http://dailybail.com/

Lost wallet--lousey luck

I'm not going to lie it's been nothing but headaches since we moved back to Pima and nothing seems to be working out the way I had planned. All the classes my husband needed to take where filled, I didn't get my applications in time to finish up my degrees, we had to take Kam's to E.R., our remodeling efforts have been a complete disaster, I was stung by a scorpion, my husband's work fell through so it's been a little tight without his big pay checks, and I wasn't expecting to have to pay cash for school or doctors visits because I thought we would keep our insurance and get student loans, but that didn't work out either. We haven't had time to go to Disneyland and now he loses his wallet. GRRRRR. I keep telling him maybe it's a sign we should just move back, but the little booger just tells me that maybe it's a sign we are where we should be and all the stress we have been having has been a test to see if we can get through the rough patches and get to our blissful paradise.

He totally stole my thunder--I'm always the one telling everyone it's going to be OK, and I'm an incurable optimist and never worry about anything, and here he is giving me advice on how to look on the bright side. I guess after almost ten years of him being married to me all my optimist mumble jumble is starting to sink in. Of course he was right although it did take a few months things are starting to work themselves out.

We found his wallet, the remodeling is coming along, and missing out on turning in my application is going to work out the best in the long run. My work has been going great and I will have 6 weeks time off. Not everything is exactly how I planned but it's been so nice having time, being around family, and living in a small town again. We are coaching our girls in soccer, they love their school--things are good, well at least until my hormones go crazy again. I love being pregnant.

*picture credit google images

The Impossible Crib Chase

--I TOTALLY MISSED MY TARGET


I was perusing online for baby stuff getting my shopping fix when I came across this amazing crib, and to make it even more perfect it was at target--my company gives out gift cards for contest they run and I just happen to have a boat load to target I could to use, and it was a crazy deal buy the crib and they would give you the changing table for free, so I excitedly showed my husband and ask his permission to buy the crib, I know silly me asking for permission when his motto is "it's better to ask for forgiveness, than for permission", but non the less I was a good wife and got his approval first and of course he said yes--how could he turn down an adorable pregnant girl, with her big eyes, and pouty lips begging for something to buy. So I quickly place my order online and almost died of a broken heart when I got the error message--Can not ship to that address, you live in the middle of no where loser ha ha. I tried everything our P.O box, both parents houses nothing. I was furious because before we moved my husband asked me several times are you sure you want to move away from all your shopping and I replied silly rabbit I can shop online, so you can imagine my devastation when I found out online shopping is out. Of course my husband hates to see me sad so he packs us all up and we drive down to Phoenix to go buy my precious crib--I know he is pretty freakn amazing.

First target, sold out, second, the same, third no luck, by the fourth target I thought to myself there has to be an easier way so I asked a manager if they have a network of inventory of all the targets in the area, and if they could look up an item before we drove around all day long, and of course with the technology we have today that was no problem and every single target sold out most of them on Sunday night--no fair I'm not a sinner so I didn't even have a chance. It was a little funny in retrospect that we could have saved the six hour trip by calling target a head of time.

We decided to have a little fun before we made the trek home so we went to the zoo and then to the movies, so the trip wasn't a complete bust. Oh and the girls really wanted to go through a car wash so we did and the machine ate our car. When we parked at the mall I notice a huge piece of our roof rack missing. We drove back but they couldn't find the missing piece. Ironic to come out of a car wash with your car in worse shape than when you entered but a least the girls had fun.

So we are still crib less and I'm kinda hopeless without my online shopping : (

IT"S A BOY!!!!!

So our life has been insanely crazy and hectic lately but at least I'm sure Tim can sleep a little better at night knowing he's finally going to have a SON!

So some of you know we have moved back to a little tiny place called Pima--HOME to me. Tim gave up his high paying career, with a company he has been with for the past 7 years, just for me. I know quiting such a secure and lucrative position especially during a recession may sound insane, and well it is, but hopefully when you are given the choice Family or Money like we were you would choose Family hands down and don't look back.

It is kinda devastating leaving our beautiful home, to stay with family until we find a place of our own, but honestly it's kinda nice not having to pay our $2000/month mortgage bill and $500+ electric bill for a change and to get out of the city.

So we drive up to Gilbert--I didn't have a new doctor yet, only to find out that my ultrasound was canceled and they had called me that morning but we had already made the three hour drive before I got the message-lovely luckily I was able to stay with my sister n law that week and I was able to rescheduled.

I wanted to wait until we had the baby to find out if it was a boy or girl, but there was no way Tim was going to wait, so I caved in too. The tech was relieved because she didn't think she would have been able to hide the sex from us. Our son is definitely not shy one bit and it was very clear we were having a boy. Our little man flashed Tim the goods and then gave him a thumbs up. The tech thought it was so hilarious she even printed out the pictures of him showing off his manliness and giving his proud daddy the thumbs up.

The tech then asked me if I had big babies and then looked over at Tim and said oh I see he must take after his dad--apparently he's a big boy.

I've never seen Tim so happy he was practically shouting from the roof tops it's a boy!! and dancing in the parking lot.

And then the Tech totally made my day by stating I was the easiest exam she has ever had because I wasn't "fluffy" and that I had hardly any fat and kept going on and on pointing out that I'm not a big tubby--all though everyone else would disagree and I constantly hear--"your so big, and my sister n law reminds me every time she see me that I'm as big as she was when she gave birth bla bla bla. So it was nice to hear for a change that I'm not a gigantic elephant.

I'm so glad we are finely going to have a boy for daddy to play with--he's been begging for one for the past two years, and he's been such a good boy raising a house full of girls, so I guess he deserves one.

*picture credit http://www.clipartof.com/