Wow, that hurt

So, I finally feel like I'm getting back to life. Decided to give running - okay, jogging - a try tonight. Since my surgery (if you know me at all, you've completely ignored that phrase and inserted "since I was 19"), I haven't done much exercise except the stationary bike, but my brother's got me intrigued by the idea of trying a mini-triathalon at the end of June (http://www.callawaygardens.com/Callaway/info/calendar/calendar.fitnessseries_sprinttriathlon.event.aspx ) It occurred to me that perhaps I should try running, swimming, and/or riding a bicycle sometime between now and then, or I'll just be shelling out $50 for the opportunity to embarrass myself - which I seem to find myriad ways to do daily at no cost. Granted, there still stands a very good likelihood that I'll still be experiencing said embarrassment, but at least I now know that I can run a mile and a half and not die. And, it was probably at a faster pace than most octagenarians . . . at least those who had surgery 9 weeks ago.

So, now David (who began jogging while I was in the hospital) is out jogging the same route I just jogged. He was surprised by how quickly I made it back (honestly, he was probably surprised that I made it back at all), so he's out to outpace me. I'll keep you posted. (He's going to kill me for this post!)

Update: he's back. He beat me. I'll keep the times to myself lest he feel he didn't beat me by enough.

Mom, come see how cute we look

This is what I heard from the kitchen a few minutes ago. It was Josh, of course. He and Ethan decided to make a train out of the kitchen chairs. This was by no means the first time they've done this, but apparently today Joshua thought they looked cuter than normal. :)



Josh said, "Did you notice we're in our pajamas? We're ready for small group!" (Which starts in almost 3 hrs!) Once I had the camera out, Josh wanted me to take a picture of the that showed the dino on his pajama pants. (Don't ask me how he ended up standing on the counter.)



This has been one of those days where my patience wears thin easily. Okay, I admit, that seems to be most days lately. Since tonight is a small group night, which means Lauren will be up late, I knew she needed to take her nap later in the day than normal. However, when I felt like I was running out of patience for the day at 9:14 am, I also knew that I would not be able to keep her up until afternoon if we stayed home all day. So, needing to go to Sam's anyway, we decided to get out of the house for awhile. Took the kids to Burger King for chocolate milkshakes (thank you, BK $1 menu!) and let them run around on the playground for almost an hour. Josh and Ethan found a couple of other boys to play with and had a great time. Then, off to Sam's and home for Lauren's nap.

Is it really Monday?

What a great weekend we had. We started Saturday by going to watch my brother Dan's band (Bibb City Ramblers) play at the Spring Fest downtown. They were really good - best I've heard them sound. The kids loved it, too. (Dan, I really liked how y'all sounded on "Whistle High, Whistle Low.")

















Saturday afternoon was the first swim day of 2008. All the kids had a blast, but it was waaaay to cold for me. Fortunately, Lauren was not a fan of the cold water either, so I didn't have to get in for long. Ethan, who was just beginning to enjoy the water and get a little braver at the end of last summer, took right to it. He jumped off the diving board (with swimmies on) the first day in! I think he will learn to swim without swimmmies pretty easily this year.























Pops and Gaga bought a new swing, so the kids has a giant box to play in. They played in it, decorated it, ate in it, drank in it . . . and then apparently broke it in half, created teams and weapons and waged war in it!

Guess it's about time, huh?

Okay, okay, so, it's been a little while since I started this and then abandoned it. We finally got photoshop installed on our new computer (the new version - LOVE it!), so it should be easier to keep this updated now.

The kids are all doing well. For now. Most of you know that we recently spent several hours in the emergency room with Lauren after she decided to chug a bottle of children's Tylenol. Thank God she was fine, and the worst we had to endure was a little (okay a lot of) activated charcoal. So, that was on Sunday. Not to be left out of the drama, on Tuesday, Joshua decided to turn his dresser into a Transformer by opening all of the drawers at the same time. Of course, it fell over on him. Again, THANK GOD, he is quite strong and was able to hold the weight of it off of himself until I got there. It was suggested that I keep Ethan in bubble wrap for at least the rest of the week since he's the only kid in the house who didn't almost die last week!

Okay, the real reason you're here - to see pictures. Let's see if I can remember how to do this.

Lauren came in to my room the other day and, while wearing her thick footed-pajamas, tried to put on my shoes. I said, "You can't put those on with your pajamas." Not skipping a beat, she instantly took off her pajamas and put on the shoes. She knows her priorities!



She was also pretty happy about her new bathing suit:





(Sorry about that - for some reason, I cannot get that first one to stay rotated.)

Going back a ways, here are a few pics from Easter. The first is my favorite because of Lauren's hilarious expression. Of course, the boys are darn cute, too.







And, now for today. Since it was 80 degrees, the boys talked me into letting them play in the sprinkler this afternoon. Little did I know they moved it to the part of the yard that becomes a swamp with the slightest bit of water. They created a giant mud pond (I'm sure David will be thrilled), and when I made them turn off the sprinkler, they decided to "go fishing" with their plastic poles and fish. Josh (who else?) dragged the wagon into the puddle so that they could fish from a boat.





And, that's about all I have time for today. I promise I won't wait another month and a half before posting again!

And away we go

So, I finally decided to hop on the blogging bandwagon. Seems like a good way to keep the family near and far up to date on what's going on with the kids and to show off new pictures. Because, really, how can more pictures of my kids be a bad thing? Not to mention the fact that I am house-bound thanks to the painfully slow surgery recovery process, alone, and not allowed to do housework. So, since I have nothing better to do, here I sit sharing my thoughts with you. Whoever you happen to be.

For those who haven't been following my life lately (as unfathomable as that may seem), I recently had surgery to repair a massive avm (look it up) that was located near my kidney and endangering my heart health. Surgery was a success, but I'm now recovering with a 10 inch incision that starts at my belly button and then makes an S shape all the way around my left side. My doctor says I look like I've been in a really good knife fight. Maybe that's the story I'll tell some day. The kids have been basically moved out of the house for the past 3 weeks, the boys staying with my parents and Lauren staying with Ben and Renae. Lauren has been eating up the attention and is in no hurry to return home. Joshua informs me that he would like to stay at Gaga's house for just 300 more nights and then come home. Yep, they know how to make a mom feel loved.

Since I'm new to this blogging thing, I thought I'd post a few test pics just to make sure this thing really works. What a waste of time the last 15 minutes have been if not. Control C, control C, control C . . .

In case anyone didn't get our Christmas card, here's the picture that was on it . . . along with my sincerest apology for not sending you a Christmas card.