A Nice Trip Home

So Alli and I went up to stay with my family last week. We left out on Tuesday. We woke her up at 6 a.m. Well, she was wanting to comfort nurse and I wasn't getting any sleep anyway, so we woke her up so I could pack and she could spend some time with her daddy before we left. We got backed and were ready to go by 8. We tried calling my Aunt Lea who lives in Tulsa to see if we could spend some time with her and her two boys, but she was out at an appointment and we were in Vinita by the time she would have gotten home. (We missed you Lea, maybe next time!) It really was a good idea to wake her up early because she slept almost the whole way there!

We stopped in at Cable One and saw Sandy and I went to the bathroom. Then we went out to Sandy's and got unloaded and rested a bit until we went to my grandma's and spent the afternoon with her and Jordon and AJ. They were really excited to see us. I got a bit of reading done that afternoon! Then we had dinner and went to VBS. It was a good time!

Wednesday we went and spent a few hours at my great-grandma's. When we got there she was taking a nap (Allis was too!) so I put Alli back in the car and we went to my grandpa's for a bit. He went back over to grandma's with us so he could let us in if he needed to. My Aunt Kathy and cousin Trent met us at the farm and they brought some KFC. It was good stuff and my grandma ate more than she thought she was going to be able to! She was having kind of a rough day so it was really good to see her eat. She gets so excited when we come out to see her and I was very thankful for being able to actually spend some time with her. Usually we are rushed and are having to meet up with Michael's family afterwards so we don't get to stay very long. Trent entertained Allisyn for a little bit, then he went and got my laptop and found some game on there that he was playing. We got to see my Uncle Lloyd and Aunt Jeanie right as we were leaving. Then it was back to Sandy's to finish out her nap. Then over to grandma's for dinner then on to VBS.

Thursday we went and spent the day with my grandma Mozie. I was very thankful for this time. She is starting chemo tomorrow and I know that our visit meant a lot to her. I'm very sad that she is going to have to go through chemo and radiation, and they think it is because of some hormone therapy a doctor put her on. She is a strong woman and I know that she will come out fine, but it is just unfair that she has to go through this. Our visit was nice though. Allisyn was busy trying to get into everything and playing with all sorts of stuff. My grandma gave a beautiful antique corner shelf, and some of her Boyd's bears that were on it. I LOVE she shelf it is gorgeous. I also love Boyd's bears, but did not have any until now. My grandma is so cute with all her things. I think she gets a little grief from my aunts sometimes about all that she has, but I love her house and all her stuff. We also got to see my Uncle Kenny for a few minutes here and there. It was a really nice visit. I wish my family wasn't quite so far away so we could visit more often. We left when Allisyn started getting sleepy and she slept all the way home.

That evening we met my mom and sister for dinner, then went out for ice cream. Then we went to VBS and then Katy and Eva (my sister's best friend) met us out at Sandy's. This was the first time Eva has gotten to meet Allisyn. It was nice to see her again. They stayed for a while and hung out. It was nice.

Friday we slept in and hung around Sandy's. Then we went to grandma's for dinner before VBS. Then we went to our last day of VBS and Alli got her attendance certificate, which she tore, and a little bible, which she managed to tear a page in while fighting me for it. She usually does really good with books, but she got a page this time. VBS was fun but the hours of 7-9 is too long and too late for little ones. I think they should do it from 6:30 -8:00. It would be much more little kid friendly.

Saturday we spent the morning at Sandy's so the kids would help wear Alli out for our trip back. On the way back through Tulsa we picked up my youngest brother-in-law. His dad was 20 minutes late in meeting us which made Allisyn MAD. She was doing fine, but at the very end she got upset and I ended up having to drive all the way to half-way McDonald's touching her. We stopped and took a break, and I had to touch her for about half the remaining trip until she fell asleep because she was NOT happy. My arm was NOT happy for the rest of the day and part of the next.

She is starting this phase of getting upset and throwing a fit when I even try to take a step away. They say it is separatin anxiety, but I think her case is much more extreme. I'm hoping to get her into the Sonshine School and the Edmomd CoC this fall. I think it would be good for both of us!

Yesterday Alli and I met a woman I met online and her husband and grandson for lunch. I met her accidentally about 5 years ago. She and my mom's best friend Sue had the same email, except Sue's was hotmail, and Di's was yahoo. I thought Sue's was yahoo and I was emailing this lady instead! Sue was excited and we all became friends! Di's new husband is originally from the city and they were back here visiting and we met up for lunch. It was really nice to meet them after all these years of sharing emails and pictures back and forth!

The reason I picked up Steve, my BIL, from Tulsa is so he can work on the mural on Allisyn's play room wall! I'm really excited about it. He is up drawing the outline on the walls right now. Allisyn is taking a nap, thank goodness. She has been wearing her cranky pants for the past couple of days and it is wearing me out!

Well, I should take advantage of nap time and get some stuff done!

I'm getting bummed.

Today we did not make it to church....again. I woke up with something that had me spending more time in the bathroom than I like to spend. I think it might have been we ate at On the Border last night, but whatever it was it caused us to not make it. I'm getting really frustrated because I really want to get back into church, but stuff keeps coming up. Yesterday Michael and I went out on a date! Yes, for real. We left Allisyn with our friends Jeremy and Natashia. It did not get off to a good start. We snuck out and she did fine until she noticed we were gone and then Natashia said she cried for about 45 minutes. My heart broke when she told me that. She said she was playing and walking around, and finally she let Natashia hold her and ended up falling to sleep for a while. Then Jeremy got home from work and they ate and she fussed a bit more while she played, but other than that no big problems.

We went and saw Transformers. It was pretty good. We had no idea what to expect so it was nice. They could have done without a lot of the language, but that is in just about every movie you go these days. I didn't mention what movie I went to see on Tuesday, sorry! I went to see the new Harry Potter movie. It wasn't too bad, but it was really dark. I think the reason I didn't mention it is because I didn't want to get on a soapbox. But I am going to. I really find it disturbing that parents don't research movies more before they take their children. Both movies were rated PG-13. Yet in both movies parents had very young children there. I understand that the new Harry Potter movie is all the craze and all that, but it is not anything young children should be watching in my opinion. I don't think parents spend enough time with their young children explaining the differences between what is really and what is not. I think parents need to do a better job at screening movies for their kids and paying attention to the ratings. They are there for a reason! Ok, stepping down off my soapbox now.

In other news, our house in Tucson almost closed on Friday. Yes I said almost. We are getting so frustrated with this whole ordeal and are praying that they guy gets his head on straight and goes back in on Monday and gets it finished up. He said the payments were higher than he thought they were going to be and that he had to go talk to the bank. AGGGGHHH! He was supposed to close a month ago, but things kept coming up. We really need the house to sell so we can get furniture for our living room!

Allisyn and I are probably going to be heading up to my family's for a few days this week. Michael works his long day on Tuesday and it is his weekend to work next weekend. They are also having VBS this week and I think Allisyn would enjoy it. Well, my wonderful husband is getting lunch ready and I should go help!

Yesterday

I got to go to a movie! All by myself! It is the first movie I have seen since before Allisyn was born! Michael is really great about giving me time for myself. Usually I just run out and do some required shopping, or run out for a coffee and some reading time at Barnes and Noble or something of the sort. But yesterday he said I could go to a movie! I was so excited! I was almost skipping through the mall to get to the theater! After I got my popcorn and drink (Which are outrageously priced) I was humming as I walked to the theater! I went in the middle of the afternoon so there wasn't a lot of people there. It was really nice.

Then I came home and we FINALLY got the kitchen into organized, working order. I had this way a few weeks ago and then we found a couple more kitchen boxes that required some major rearranging of things. But it is now all set up and clean, and I have space in my pantry and we can eat at the bar/counter. Everything happens in the kitchen and I like to have it in working order. We need to finish our painting in there and the dinning area. Hopefully that will happen soon.

This morning Allisyn and I went on a playdate. It was nice other than the fact the both she and Madelyn (who is 1 day older) were kind of clingy. Allisyn likes to chase little boys, it is cute, but I hope it isn't a permanent thing! LOL!

Today has been fairly productive, I've gotten the regular laundry just about caught up. I have one more basket. It is hard to do laundry with an Allisyn. She tries to help and our laundry room isn't big enough for us to both be in there without her wanting to go see the litterbox that is in there. After we get our regular laundry caught up, I have a whole pile of towels and sheets that have been in storage since December that need to be washed and put away. And there are 2 boxes marked Michael's clothes. I think I'm giong to try to go through them when he isn't home and weed out the stuff that he really doesn't need. He is really bad about letting go of clothes. Even the one's I have never seen him wear!

Well, I still have things I'd like to get done so I better wrap this up!

We didn't make it :(

to church yesterday. I am pretty bummed. As soon as I was wrapping up my last blog Allisyn started crying for me. She was having some tummy troubles. I was tired and frustrated and was trying to get her back to sleep without her nursing. I tried, Michael tried a bit, nothing was working. We gave her some gas drops, and some Tylenol. Nothing was helping. So the best thing for us to do for her is to get her fully awake. So at 2:30 in the morning she got a bath! We finally got back to bed by 3:15 or so, and I gave in and let her nurse to sleep.

I had not been to sleep at all and Michael said he didn't feel it would be a good idea for me to drive in the morning. We would have had to take both cars so he could leave for work. So he changed his alarm so Allisyn and I could go to the late service. That didn't happen either. He tried to get me to wake up and get going, but I was just too tired. We were going to go to last night's service, but they were starting VBS and we had dinner plans with Jeremy and Natashia.

The day yesterday was a long one. We did get in a nap from about 11:15 to 1:30. It was much needed because we were both tired and cranky. Then we just hung out and tried to entertain each other. It is such a wonderful thing to watch when Michael gets home. Allisyn will here the door and she will stop what she is doing and toddle over towards the gate if we are upstairs and towards the door if we are downstairs. When she hears his voice she will look at me and get a little grin. When she sees them her eyes get really big and he gets a big smile. It melts my heart everytime!

When he got home, I got a shower. Then we left for Jeremy and Natashia's. Dinner was nice. Then we played a game of spades before Allisyn started getting tired. She cried allll the way home. It was sad. I hate it when I can't hold her when she is upset. She didn't go to sleep right away, actually it was a while. I thought we were going to have a repeat of the previous night, but she finally went to sleep about 11 and didn't wake up to nurse until about 3. We slept in until just before 10. Slowly I am getting caught up on my sleep.

I think my problem is with our weaning is that I wait until I am really tired and don't have energy, and that's when I try to say ok, no nursing. That has only proven to make everyone frustrated and upset. Michael is working the morning shift, so he has tonight and tomorrow, and Wed. morning off so hopefully we can make some progress over the next couple of days.

Well, I've got a lot of stuff that needs done, so I must run. More to come later.

Getting out of the house.

So with all the rain here lately we have been getting in a rut of not getting out and doing to much. We really need to try and do better because our day goes much better if we get out and do something.

Here are some pictures of Allisyn playing at an indoor play place called Fun Stop. Here she climbing up little stepping toy. This is the first time she has took it on!




Here she is about to go down the slide. The first time I tried to get her to go down she freaked out on me. Now, I just sit her up there and she is sliding down on her own!









Here she is pushing a little car around.








Here she is just being cute! She is always cute, of course, this is just another example!! (Yes, I am biased, I'm a mom, it's my right!)



Today we got out of the house by going to a picnic with my mom's group. I found an online group to participate in play dates and mom's night outs and such. It has proved to be a great support group!


This is a before picture of Allisyn's room. This was the room of a 5-year-old. Kind of a dark color for a child's room if you ask me. This paint and boarder were horrid to work with. It took 3 coats of primer to cover it up and it still wanted to bleed through in spots.






Here is a picture of the finished product! We are going to back eventually and paint the trim, but we wanted to get her room set up. We are trying to transition her into her own room, but it is not easy. I am also working on weaning, but it isn't going well. Especially the night time. I don't think she actually nurses a whole lot at night, but she uses me as a human pacifier. I am getting very discouraged. I'm not emotionally capable of letting her "Cry it Out" as some people recommend. Prayers would be greatly appreciated. Michael tries to help, but he gives up pretty quick and says, "We'll work on it tomorrow." I know he works hard and is tired, but I am too!

It is now 12:30 in the morning and I am so tired, but I can't get to sleep because Allisyn is a bed hog and Michael is snoring! We started out with Allisyn in her bed after I got her to sleep, but it lasted maybe 25 minutes before she was crying for me. She's been in our bed with me gone for about 45 minutes. I don't understand the difference.

Anyway it is late and I am tired so I should wrap this up and try to get some sleep. We are going to try to make it the early service tomorrow, or I guess today, so Michael can go with us. We are trying to find a home congregation, I am really excited about this. I'll post more on that next time!

Catching Up

Isn't it crazy how time flies? It is hard to believe that we are already in the middle of July! Since my last blog we have had many things going on! We had Allisyn's birthday party last weekend and it was great fun. The Tuesday before (the 3rd) we gave Allisyn a practice run on her cake. We are glad we did, becuase she had more fun with ours. We think it was the type of icing on it. She was a bit hesitant at first, but then she really dug in!

Here she is playing with her great great grandma. She really enjoys going over there and seems to show her cuteness a little more for grandma!

Here, my grandma got her going on riding her walker. I wish you could zoom in and see the look that Allisyn is giving her. It is just precious. This prompted Allisyn to walk the walker around the circle of living, dining, and kitchen with her dad.

Then Allisyn and her dad went to see his grandma and his parents in Pryor. My mom and I went and did some more shopping for the party. Well, first we ran by my grandpa's and picked up his gift. He was not feeling well and couldn't make it to the party.

It was really good to see my Grandma Mozie, my Aunt Kathy, and my Aunt Lea and her boys B and N. (She doesn't use their full names on her blog, so I'm going to follow suit and call them N and B.)

Here is a shot from the party. She had a lot of fun, but got bored with the presents pretty quick. She wanted to go see what the other kids were doing.

Here she is playing with a slinky she swiped from her cousin AJ.

Here is a shot of her cousing N coming up and getting some wrapping paper to play with! It was really cute. I wish we would have gotten more shots of him and B, but I wasn't behind the camera.

Here is a shot of B and N playing with their party bags. B is telling Grandma Mozie something! Aren't they just the cutest!

Here we are blowing out the first candle! She did really well. She had such a busy day, but she stayed in a good mood the whole day.

She got a lot of nice stuff as well! She loves this little stack set that she got. It came with 9 cups that stack and nest and a little shape sorter bucket. She is really starting to work on her fin motor skills so this is very good. She got a lot of nice clothes. Which was a blessing because she is out growing all of her 12 month stuff! She got the Little People's Barn and a V-Smile Baby. She did good!

This has taken me a lot longer to do, because of pictures, but I think I figured out how to make it go faster!

A celebratory couple of days

Monday, I did not get to sleep until after 3 am. My mind kept reflecting over what an amazing year it has been. I wrote Allisyn a letter for her first birthday, and looked over pictures from the past year before I finally went to bed. Then I laid there for a while before I could get to sleep. Michael had to work Monday morning, so Allisyn and I hung out together and had some "us" time. Then Michael got home and they went and had some daddy and Alli time. I went and got my haircut and set up an appointment for pictures on Tuesday. Then we got back home around the same time and spent the evening together.

Tuesday, we slept in a little. (YAY!) Then got up and got ready for pictures. They are the ones posted in a very unorganized matter about the page!

So, I am not very good at uploading pictures on here! I was wanting them to go down the side, but it did not work out that way! Hopefully, I'll get the hang of it soon.

After pictures we came home and let her tear into a small cake. I'll post pictures of that later since they are still on the camera. Then we went out to dinner with some friends and Allisyn got to flirt with her guys.

Today Michael is working until 3 and then we aren't sure what we are going to be doing. It has been a nice couple of days celebrating Allisyn's first birthday!

A Year Ago Tomorrow

Our lives changed immensely! Michael and I had been married about a month and 1/2 shy of 2 years. It had been a wonderful near 2 years. We were in Tucson starting a life out there. Then I got pregnant a little earlier than we had planned. (Only by about 6 months so not too much of a shock.)

July 2nd, 2006. Tied for the most memorable day of my life. (Sharing the tie with my wedding, of course!) Starting at about 5 am I woke Michael up and told him he needed to wake up and help me. I was having contractions! I had got up and took a shower about 4 and tried to lay back down, but that was not working. I new it was going to happen that day! Michael was scheduled to work that day, and we decided that it was best that he went for a few hours. WHAT!? Yes, it was best. He tends to get excited and impatient, and I did not want to risk going to the hospital and having them send me home! So he went in for a few hours before they opened. When he got there everyone was telling him to go home, but we knew what we were doing!

About 8 or so, I went and told Katy (my wonderful little sister who was staying with us) that today was THE day. I spent all morning walking around bouncing through my contractions to a mixed cd of Jars of Clay. Michael got home around 12:30, called the Dr. He misunderstood the message. He thought my contractions were 45 min. apart and the were actually 4-5 min. apart. He said "Yes, she needs to come in!"

On the way there we texted people to let them know we were heading to the hospital. Luckily, it was Sunday and there was no traffic. On a busy day it would have taken us up to 45 min. to get to the hospital. It took us about 20. We got there, got checked in. I got checked out. Yes, I was in labor! We got there about 2:30. They asked if I wanted drugs. I almost wavered, but said no. I'm sooo glad I did. They make you get an IV catheter anyway. They blew one vein, and didn't get the other one too well. (I was bruised for more than 6 weeks) None of that really mattered though.

I remember I was having a hard time not pushing. They kept trying to get me to breathe so I wouldn't. I wasn't very good at it! Luckily my wonderful husband was there the whole time. I am proud to say I made it through without any pain meds, any cursing (a really bad habit of mine in times of pain, I'm getting much better), and without snapping at Michael, Katy, or anyone else!

Finally, they said it was time to push. The doctor came in and Katy went out. (She didn't want to see any blood or anything). It really didn't seem to take that long. At 4 p.m. exactly Allisyn Renee joined our lives. She was soooo amazing, so tiny, so beautiful. She was a perfect gift from God. They got her and me cleaned up and Katy came back in. She was crying and the nurse handed her to Katy and she stopped crying! It was so beautiful to see my baby and my sister bond like that.

(I don't know why this picture came out small)

We started calling people and kind of got a slight reprimand for not giving any updates throughout. :} Then we started breast feeding. That was an amazing feeling. It is totally amazing to know that your body can nourish your babies. It was an amazing day. I couldn't stop smiling. Michael got to stay with her while she got her first bath, and while they did her first tests and such. Then they brought her to my room. It didn't want to let her go! My friend Megan came and picked up Katy and took her back to the house. It was a long night. We kept setting an alarm so we would know when I needed to nurse. Allisyn kept us on schedule as she always wanted to nurse about 15 min before the alarm went off! We got to go home the next day and started our lives at home as parents!

It is hard to believe that tomorrow it will be a year.