a pirate party!

(I realize that my son's birthday was last month, but he had so many cute small celebrations rather than one huge party that I still have pictures....and besides I have an excuse, I had surgery in July... :)

This is going to sound silly but as a kid I was always jealous of my friends whose mom's would bring them cupcakes on their birthday for the whole class (mine is Christmas Eve..) and this year was the first year that Carter was celebrating a birthday at school. I was already planning and scheming about the amazing hand decorated cupcakes I was going to make when his school told me that although it was wonderful to have a little party with cupcakes, they had to be store bought. I get it, and I understand that it makes sense...but man, mine would have been cooler.

Carter was very surprised when he saw me halfway through the school day with a big tray of cupcakes. His 'friends' were very excited...a bunch of rowdy boys and one lone sweet little girl. His teacher must have been blessed with the patience of a saint. It was a perfect pirate party.

We even had a pirate entrance! (Carter's door to his classroom)

My mom's here? And she made me this cool crown? I want to wear it upside down!

We asked the director for permission for KJ to leave her class and come to her brother's party. They said it would be fine and she was very sweet singing nicely to her brother and helping to "serve" all of his friends their cupcakes.

Look at that face! Totally just took a swipe of icing from her cupcake and is giving her the 'eyebrow' to see if she notices! So sneaky!

Happy Birthday my sweet little man.

mmmm...icing

it's fair to say I might have had a few moms mad at me for giving their children a sugar high in the morning...maybe they won't know it was me :) this is Carter's best friend, Henry.

Ella, such a sweet face.

all the rest of Carter's buds...

Katie making sure the countertops are clean (shocking) :)

it would appear my pirate birthday boy had a good time.

love you bubby, I promise to bring you cupcakes at school until you tell me it's not cool anymore...

big boys

Imagine the voice of my three year old "Mommy....we need to tell my fwiends that I don't sleep in a yittle bed anymore cuz now...cuz now I a big boy, and big boys need bigger beds!"
I wasn't sure his class at preschool would understand why I was talking to them about Carter's bed, so I thought I would tell my friends instead. Carter is a big boy, as he says, and admittedly big boys do need big beds. This is our latest craigstlist steal...and his new quilt was even on clearance! I love his new room. About him becoming a big boy?? Not so crazy about that...

a promise made.

Once upon a time there were two sisters who made an important yet personal promise to each other that that one day they would go to a Dave Matthews Band Concert, and not just go to the concert, but go to the concert alone. Now before anyone's feelings get hurt, quite frankly it only takes a couple drunken nightmares (not by the two of us if you get my drift)...to wish that sometimes you could just enjoy the music you've loved and followed for years...just the TWO of you. And one year, these sisters stopped making excuses, and they bought tickets to this concert...and despite the fact that one of the sisters was recovering from major surgery...they made this promise come true.And the night...even though it rained, it was perfect, nearly heavenly. We were oblivious, really as large as that crowd was I remember only being happy that we were sharing this moment together.

The setlist for the night was perfect...I might have preferred that he played a few more older songs. I guess it's time to accept I'm just getting older :)

1. You Might Die Trying

2. Seven

3. You and Me

4. Dancing Nancies

5. Lying in the Hands of God

6. Shotgun

7. Say Goodbye

8. Funny the Way it Is

9. Dive In

10. Crush

11. The Stone

12. Shake Me Like a Monkey

13. Alligator Pie

14. (cover) Burning Down the House-Talking Heads

15. Pantala Naga Pampa

16. Rapunzel

double encore-
Don't Drink the Water
Two Step

The concert was every bit of what we imagined. Each musician was highlighted...we missed LeRoy Moore...but the new saxaphone player was unbelievable. Boyd Tinsley was breathtaking as usual. What a perfect night.

I'll conclude with my fav of the night..

Baby, I'll be your soldier
Gladly I'll do your bidding,
For just a taste of what you're holding
For just a taste you could own me.

Save your sermons for someone that's afraid to love.
I'll be right here. Lying in the hands of God.

Here it comes diving into me
Now the floor is the ceiling
If you never flew why would you
Cut the wings off a butterfly

Save for the sermons for someone's that afraid to love
If you knew what I feel then you couldn't be so sure
I'll be right here. Lying in the hands of God.

If you feel angels in your head
Teardrop of joy runs down your face
You will rise

Fill me up now drain me
Skin begins to grow back slowly
Faster until I'm choking
I really should call my mother

Save your sermons for someone that's afraid to love.
If you knew what I feel then you couldn't be so sure.
I'll be right here. Lying in the hands of God.

It was a perfect evening.
Thank you, Melanie.

these children sparkle...

There once was a little boy and a little girl who came into this world the hard way. Every mother dreams of her newborn snuggled tightly against her chest, soaking in love. These children spent weeks not even able to be touched...growing quietly in their incubators, while their mothers faced fears they wouldn't wish on their worst enemies. Yet, here they are. Our children, who sparkle.
Britch-Box, I could never tell you in words how much I love you, how much your love has changed my life and your mommy's life. You have given me hope.
KJ, every single day of your life I am grateful for every breath you take. You beat the odds. All of them. Thank you for fighting, for staying strong, even when I couldn't sometimes.

We didn't know that you would be best-friends, our sparkling children just barely a year apart. Yet you love each other with a kind of love I imagine comes only from heaven...perhaps you've seen a glimpse we can only dream of.

twins?

oh my brady...how much you are loved.


I was lucky beyond belief to catch these moments forever...KJ snuggling with her favorite blankie, and Brady with his special SpongeBob pillow (made by his uber creative mom).

laugh. love. dream.

Our wish for you...is that this life becomes all that you want it to...
Your dreams stay BIG, your worries stay small

these are the moments that matter.

pretty words.

You Can't Have it All
(babara ras)

But you can have the fig tree
and its fat leaves like clown hands gloved with green.
You can have the touch of a single eleven-year-old finger on your cheek,
waking you at one a.m. to say the hamster is back.
You can have the purr of the cat
and the soulful look of the black dog,
the look that says,
If I could I would bite every sorrow until it fled,
and when it is August, you can have it August and abundantly so.

You can have love,
though often it will be mysterious,
like the white foam that bubbles
up at the top of the bean pot over the red kidneys
until you realize foam's twin is blood.
You can have the life of the mind,
glowing occasionally in priestly vestments,
never admitting pettiness,
never stooping to bribe the sullen guard who'll tell you all roads narrow at the border.

You can speak a foreign language, sometimes, and it can mean something.
You can visit the marker on the grave where your father wept openly.

You can't bring back the dead,

but you can have the words forgive and forget

hold hands as if they meant to spend a lifetime together.

And you can be grateful for makeup,
the way it kisses your face, half spice, half amnesia,
grateful for Mozart, his many notes racing one another towards joy,
for towels sucking up the drops on your clean skin,
and for deeper thirsts, for passion fruit, for saliva.
You can have the dream, the dream of Egypt,
the horses of Egypt and you riding in the hot sand.
You can have your grandfather sitting on the side of your bed,
at least for a while,
you can have clouds and letters, the leaping of distances,
and Indian food with yellow sauce like sunrise.

You can count on grace to pick you out of a crowd
but here is your friend to teach you how to high jump,
how to throw yourself over the bar,
backwards,
until you learn about love,
about sweet surrender,
and here are periwinkles, buses that kneel, farms in the mind as real as Africa.
And when adulthood fails you,
you can still summon the memory of the black swan on the pond of your childhood,
the rye bread with peanut butter and bananas
your grandmother gave you while the rest of the family slept.

There is the voice you can still summon at will, like your mother's,
it will always whisper, you can't have it all, but there is this.

[my deepest congratulations.]

and she lived to tell the story....

I would find the title to this a lot more humorous, if it didn't actually feel true. It has definitely been a rough three weeks., emotionally and physically. Thank you so much to everyone who has prayed, cooked meals, watched my kiddos, sent flowers and cards, and been there for me. Your love and encouragement has meant so much. I'll just recap, and try not to tell all the boring details...

Don't I look thrilled? Ha! Eric said that we must document this whole process, so I tried as hard as I could to smile...that's about as fake as I could get in the parking lot with my precious pillow waiting to register for surgery. Due to very painful endemetreosis on my right ovary and the damage done to my uterus due to my two very problematic pregnancies, my Dr. and I decided that the best course of action was a hysterectomy. It was a decision I thought long and hard about...I'm only 28, come on! Because of the fact that I knew he could leave my other ovary, so I wouldn't actually go into menopause this early, and my forced peace in knowing that I had to be okay with not having any more babies (this one was a hard one for me....), I decided to go with what my Dr. considered to be the best decision with the best recovery time. (ohhh...if I had only known). Because I'm an efficient person, and would hate to waste anesthesia, I decided to also have two suspicious lumps that have slowly been getting larger in my back removed. Compared to the hysterectomy, they were a minor, minor surgery and I was able to coordinate both surgeons for the same day. So, really total I guess I had 5 incisions for this surgery (3 for the laprospoic hysterectomy). I'm crazy, I know.

So I get to the hospital that morning (still not thrilled to have my picture taken....) ready to get it all over with so that I can start healing. Having had two C-sections, I thought that I would know generally what the recovery was going to feel like....(I wasn't right)....and I thought I would be able to return to action fairly quickly. The insurance company was ready to kick me out the next day, so off I went to recover, barely able to walk.... It was NOT like a c-section.

My sister and my mom were there with me, as well as Eric (who is doing all of this annoying picture taking of me). My love, my rock and my stronghold, I know I couldn't have made it through this without you guys.

So...I'm at home, I can kinda walk and fend for myself, and I wake up 4 days after surgery, don't feel particularly well (actually like death), take my temperature and realize that something about 101.7 isn't right after major surgery. I called the Dr. and he sent me straight to the ER. This is where the ball of hell starts rolling...and lest I bore, I will just summarize. I developed a post-op infection because blood pooled in my stomach, and that apparently is a very nice breeding ground for bacteria. They put me on crazy potent antibiotics, I've never felt sicker in my life, and several days later I was released.

It's pitiful isn't...I know. I mean really, how could someone look that beautiful and feel so awful?? (sarcasm dripping)....

my sisters were really sweet and put these foam letters behind my bed. They wanted me to know that all my nephews were thinking of their auntie coco.

I have A LOT of allergies, so I have to wear the huge yellow band. Embarassing. But the story continues....(unfortunately). This blood that pooled in my stomach developed into what is called a hematoma. That is basically a bruise inside of your body. When my fever spiked again, the doctors did a CT scan and determined that I had developed another post-op infection. While using the CT scan the dr's would thread a catheter through my body and remove the abcess. Very painful procedure...they just use local anesthetic. Very, very painful. So they get into my stomach cavitity, and start to draw the bad stuff from the abcess and it's just blood from the hematoma. Oh geez! Come on! So at this point, I know have had another procedure for no reason just to rule out something that was already taken care of. But....I have healed remarkably well from the actual hysterectomy part, and can walk fine, as well as lift the kiddos, drive, etc. My back is healing fine, I had the stitches removed today, and the dr confirmed that the bioposy results were negative. One less thing to worry about.

So that's my story...and I'm sticking to it. It's been a hellacious month, but it can only get better from here. I am most happy that my kiddos are back...being without them was unbearable, and getting this all over with. Never again. Barring severe trauma, I will not have surgery again. I retired (if it works that way...)

Did I mention that this surgery was really really painful? (he, he)

I felt all of these things. Thank you, Mel and Britty.

Just a few of my hospital gifts. A Wonder Woman figurine (can turn into an ornament) and a book I haven't read from my favorite author? One lucky girl. That's me.

The rest of these pictures are just a sampling of some of the flowers I received while I was in the hospital. These have to be the most beautiful cala lilies I have ever seen. Thank you to everyone for all these gorgeous boquets :)

All in all, I'm guess I can finally say I'm doing okay. There are times I still don't feel great, and I can tell pretty easily when I've overdone it. Wasn't what I wanted to do for a whole month of my summer, but happy to be on the mend!

the cutuest faces.

i love them
(as BIG as it gets!)