HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

So, yes, I'm writing this at 2:28 on a school day.  How?  Well, in true Molly Halloween fashion--she's home sick...3rd year in a row (well actually the first two years were in the hospital sick so I guess we're moving on up!)  She has hand foot and mouth disease.  There've been no less than about 10 cases roaming around at her preschool in the past few weeks and she showed up with the nasty little blisters yesterday just in time for us to declare a no-church-nursery day.  I was confused, and glad, when she didn't have a fever with it.  Evidently hers is a mild case which is good news.  So, I took her to the doctor today and Dr. Jack Sparrow (they were all in costume) declared she shall not return until all the blisters are gone which could be 7-10 days.  Ryan and I will be finagling our schedules around to accommodate the wee one.

So, needless to say we didn't end up over at the Trunk-or-Treat extravaganza at Eastside last night (boo, we were looking forward to it!) but we did take a little car trip over to Karma's to get in one trick-or-treat for the year:

Our original plan was for Molly to be Little Red Riding Hood with Ryan as the woodcutter and me as the, I don't know, Granny?  Wolf??  (how glamorous!) but instead we went simple, comfy and warm to Karma's in this cheetah get up that Maggi sported last year:

And though I thought, boo hoo, no Halloween fun for Molly, it turns out going to the doctor was actually quite the treat instead of a mean trick:

Yes, they had a face painter set up as we left and she said, "would you like a pumpkin or a kitty?" and Molly said, "I do want a kitty cat on my face!"  So I sat her on the stool and the lady started sponging a black circle on the apple of Molly's cheek.  And then...she kept going!!!!  I'm thinking, cute little black cat on Molly's cheek.  Oh, no, no, no!  By the time I realized that she was covering Molly's ENTIRE face it was too late to stop her (and Molly was so still and quiet I kinda didn't want to!)  I have to say, the lady turned me into a cat person...for today only...cause she is the cutest little kitty I ever did see!  Molly was totally into it.  She'd just had a teddy bear drawn on her face CHEEK the weekend before at the cowboy festival (pics to come) so she knew the drill but I think this really surprised her!  And we had to run a couple of errands so we got some good face time in before I had to wash it all off for nap time:)  And once we got home I let her roam in the yard so I could get in some Halloween pics of course.

ROAR!:

How much do you want to take this kitty home with you???:

She looks just pitiful, doesn't she?:

And finally here are some videos of our kitty cat:

face painting

mr. golden sun

Happy Halloween!

This weekend was the pits...

 ....the fire pits!

Yeah, Ryan tackled the easy (and FREE) project of digging a fire pit in the corner of the yard this weekend and tonight we broke it in with a teeny family fire before Molly went to bed.

Molly was super excited to go out and experience the fire.  She sang "happy birthday" when she saw it and tried to blow it out.  She said "it's very hot and dangerous" and I agreed with her.  She said "I hafta obey".

Her very first roasted marshmallow!:

She said it was yummy but was annoyed at her sticky hands.

I taught her how to suck the sticky off:

I love that sticky face!:

Oh, and here's a bonus for the end of the post:

The pic above is one I took before we closed on our house.  It's the house directly across the street from us.  (the mailbox on the left is ours).  This picture doesn't do it justice but it's our favorite house on the street what with the copper dormers and plantation shudders and newly added carport for main level entry (they have a two car garage down below on the other side like ours).  Anyway, since this pic they took down the tree on the right (which is a travesty because it had the most beautiful pink blossoms this spring and pink goes good with green<=Wicked reference)

But over the past three days we've watched it morph into this:

Again, the picture doesn't communicate what the in-person feel is.  Check out the giant arachnids scaling the house:

 Even though I know they're really wire and craft paint I'd be lying if I said they don't creep me out a little.  And here's the flowerbed graveyard with black candles that are lit at night.

 And a black cat that's waiting behind the bushes ready to pounce (his head moves):

 And a sleepy hollow-esque coach now resides in the carport with a guy in the back that raises up from the dead every 15 seconds (I counted).

There are actually A LOT of houses all decked out for Halloween on our street.  Apparently all the kids meet up at the pool in their costumes and do a parade before trick-or-treating.  And Ryan was told by our neighbor that we better have a lot of candy on hand.  As for our seasonal decorating...my plan is to hit up the stores after each holiday this year to stock up on clearance items for next.  Anyway, I thought they put in too much effort not to share.  So there.

Limp, Limp, Limp to my Lou

Thought I'd share a video with you real quick-like this morning.  Though she's been pretty grumpy for the past day and a half (marking it up to anesthesia weirdness) she was super happy to be at school this morning.  I took this video just a few minutes ago before dropping her off at her class.  She said, "look, Mommy, I'm skipping!  Sing "Skip to My Lou"!" so I did and she skipped limped around the room.  Oh, and you get to see my super cool new digs at school (though the color is quite off on the video).

Here's the link.  Enjoy!

*After watching the video it looks like the picture's ahead of the sound...don't know what to do about that*

Done and Done

Thank you for your prayers!  We are home and all is well!  Molly was a champ and Dr. Smith said that there was no residual tissue to remove.  He did give her a deflux injection to curtail any reflux that was still occurring.  He told us again that the UTIs will fade with maturity.  For now he's put her back on a preventative dose of antibiotics.  The vein thing was a non-issue as they put the IV in after she was asleep--a first for us and I like it that way!  We'll continue with follow ups for awhile now--more ultrasounds and xrays and such--but he doesn't see the need for any more procedures in the near future!  

God is good.  All the time.

Here's Molly just waking up:

Goofy Juice

4:30 came early this morning! We put Molly straight from her crib into the car with her footie pjs intact. We put her in footies for the first time this season the other night and Ryan made the observation that it was the first time we'd ever seen her walk in them. We've decided walking makes them way cuter (if that's possible). Every time we're here we thank God that we have such a wonderful place to come and that we're so close geographically speaking. This place is awesome.

Here's my girl after some goofy juice with a side of albuterol. She's been so talkative this morning and now all her speech is slurred. And I'd be lying if I said we didn't find it quite hilarious. We might even be making her perform for us just for our own entertainment...

Her OR nurse just came to wheel her back and she did so well. We came back to the room and prayed and now Ryan's gone to get us some breakfast from the cafeteria.

I'll update soon!
Sent from my iPhone

Procedure Prayer

It's back to the hospital we go tomorrow.  Molly has one more procedure.  This is the one that came about because she has continued to get multiple UTIs after her last surgery in January.  Her urologist wants to go back in (via scope) to see if there’s something he’s missing (possibly scar tissue that’s formed post-surgery that’s causing urine to pool inside the body?) . We are thankful that it will be a short procedure and there will be minimal recovery (she’ll be back at school Thursday).

A picture from a date in the park with Daddy

Here are the things you can join Ryan and me in praying specifically for:
-for “good” veins.  They always have a hard time with her IVs.  Even since she’s been a toddler they have to call the NICU IV team in and it still takes multiple tries.  We tell everybody straight up that it's going to be hard so that they'll just call the team right away instead of trying themselves four or six times (no joke).  The hard part is that she's more aware of it all now.  I also just realized that this is the very first trip to the hospital sans pacifier.  She's been absolutely without it for over a month now.  Hmmm.  I might have to sneak one into her bag just in case...
-that Dr. Smith finds something definitive
-that it’s something that can be fixed on the spot while she’s already under the general anesthesia
-that everything runs smoothly from pre to post-op.

With God all things are possible!  Thank you for praying.  I'll keep you updated!

Our Life in iPhone Pictures

So my picture taking (and camera hauling) is (are) getting less and less reliable but there is one thing I always have readily available and that is my phone of course.  (Unbelievable to me that just 10 years ago I didn't even own a cell phone and now it is perhaps more important than my wallet.)  It's good for Molly (and certainly subsequent children) that it takes decent pictures too...unlike my cell phone of 9 years ago--remember the old Nokia's with the tapered body that everybody had once upon a time, you know before Razr's were the cat's meow? 

Anyway, I was cycling through my cell pics and thought I'd share them since I don't have any real pictures of the past few weeks.  I've got to do better.

Here are Molly and Arena.  Arena's mom is a fellow teacher and good friend of mine.  She and Molly share most days together and this one started out with Arena leading a storytime that Molly promptly succumbed to:

 This next one was on a day Molly wasn't feeling so great.  Ryan happened to be working from home so I brought her home during lunch (the beauty of a mile-long commute) and put her down for a nap.  When she woke up Ryan was on a call and I wasn't home yet so he had to work her into his plans.  This is the scene I found when I walked in the door:

Aren't those headphones giant?!  Ryan's work setup at home uses two monitors--he was on one and "Blue's Clues" was on the other.  She was loving it!  She's even got her own handy dandy notebook (if you don't know "Blues Clues" you won't understand:)

Here's Molly at her pal Ally's birthday party in the park one Sunday afternoon:

Another event I tragically left my camera behind for--it was darling!

And here she is taking Daddy through an alphabet book while I got ready for school one morning:

 Ah, a bit of two-year-'tude here:

 And here's a bit more:

These dramatically distressed faces are more and more frequent these days it seems.  But I'm okay with that cause life's too short to get worked up over her being worked up.  Plus she's so darn cute...I'm quite sure these faces get less cute with age.  Like, when I'm the one making them.

And they're followed by things like this:

On this particular morning the sky was breathtakingly gorgeous.  Like, lumps were forming in my throat I was so excited about this sky.  We were actually on time this morning but I walked in late anyway because I stood out in the parking lot with Molly just taking in the morning.  Totally worth it.  The cell pic doesn't do it justice.  We talked about the sky the whole [short] way to school and then I got her out of the car and said (with lots of awe and expression in my voice while dramatically pointing heavenward) something like "Oh, Molly!  Look at the beautiful day that God created for us today!  Let us rejoice and be glad in it!  Thank you, God for this beautiful morning!  Wow, isn't that sky just incredible?!"  And Molly said back (with an equal amount of expression, inflection, and drama while waving her hand over the expanse of asphalt before us) "Oh, yes, Mommy!  And look at all dose caws in de pawking lot!  Awen't they bootiful!  But I gotta howed your hand cause it's dangewous!  Thank you, God fowr de pawking lot.  God made dat!"

Incredible.

"Yes, but look at the sky!"...

And I leave you with these pics from a weekend trip to the grocery store:

"Dats a BIG punkin!"

Kitchen Remodel

Sorry if the title was misleading...regrettably it does not reference our home kitchen but rather all two square feet of Molly's second birthday gift.  I decided quite awhile ago that I wanted to rework an existing piece of furniture into a play kitchen for Molly's second birthday.  My dad made a wonderful play kitchen from scratch (for lack of a better term) for my niece and nephew some years ago but neither Ryan nor I are inclined to start from nothing.  So I started looking and decided I wasn't going to spend more than $10 for the starter piece.  I kept my eye out for awhile and all of a sudden this fell in my lap for FREE!:

Now I hadn't even thought of remaking a play kitchen into another play kitchen but hey, half the work's already done right?  It really brought back church daycare memories of yore and, except for the split top, lack of sink and faucet, exposed nails etc., I was tempted to keep it that way for a moment.  Note: At the point of these pictures Ryan had already pried the top off and taken the oven door off the hinges so he's just holding them into place cause we forgot to take before pictures.

The first step was (for Ryan) to pry off the top, cut and attach a new one (out of a scrap of wood we already had), and cut a new, much smaller, sink hole to fit the baking pan we decided to use for the sink.  (It was between the pan and a dog bowl.  We chose the rectangle.)  Oh, and he added a board (the old sink cover) to the inside to separate the oven space from the under sink space (which you'll be able to see more clearly in some later pictures below.)

Now here's my proudest moment.  During the course of working on Molly's kitchen we ended up doing a mini project in our own kitchen.  It consisted of ripping down the scalloped border thingy over the kitchen sink...  Can you see it here?:

...and replacing the fluorescent sink light with a new fixture (I'll have to cover the after look in another post).  Anyway, after taking that piece down I thought, "hmmm, this looks about the length of M's kitchen" and surprisingly enough it was indeed a nearly perfect fit!  So, a free update to our kitchen and custom look to hers while also recycling!

Here's a picture of the part where I said it was nearly perfect:

He did have to trim the sides just a tad but it was worth it and I think it gives her kitchen a bit of charm:).  Here's Ryan roughing up the surface to get it ready for some primer, after drilling a hole for the faucet.  You can really see how he divided the cabinet space into two here.  Before there was no wall in the middle:

Speaking of the faucet, I'd been hunting for something for quite awhile and had decided to just use a letter "J" upside down with two knobs.  We'd already looked at several thrift stores, Goodwill and even the Habitat restore but everything was either too expensive or too big.  Big Lots had an $8 faucet but it wasn't the aesthetic I was going for.  One night, though, I was at Home Depot and decided to walk by and see what they had by way of bar faucets right before they closed.  I found a cute, single handled $20 one (the cheapest faucet they carried) and quickly scanned their stock in hopes of finding an open package I could use to haggle.  Indeed, there she was...an open box with the parts all strewn about and wonky packaging.  I took it to the front and asked the first person I saw if there was any way I could get a discount since it had obviously been returned and there was no telling whether everything was there or not.  "How much is it?" he asked.  "Twenty bucks" I say.  "How much do you want it to be?"  "Five".  "Done".  "What?!  Okay."  Shoulda said two.

There was a gap in my documentation of this project so just imagine a couple of pictures of Ryan and I priming and then me painting it the perfect shade of mint green.  And voila!  There you have it:

It is still sans knobs and glued-on burners.  Hobby Lobby only had 2 wooden circles in stock that were the perfect size for a burner so I'm waiting to get two more before I glue them down.  For now we're using some foam coasters.  The knobs (for the burners) on the before kitchen were on the back plate.  I'm hoping to put a little spice shelf back there so I plan to put knobs in the front where they'll be more easily accessible.

We toyed with the idea of moving the hinges on the oven to the bottom to make it open like a real oven but we were a bit worried about things lining up correctly.  Plus, if it opened down it would be harder for her to really play with and access the inside.  So, we opted for buying a more "oven-like" handle and moving it into a horizontal position from the original vertical position.  The opening for the oven window was already there but we added some plexiglass for a real deal feel.  The oven handle came in a pack of two so we used the second one as a pot rack on the side.  The under-the-sink door handle was free from a bin in the as-is section of IKEA.

Here's a close-up of the faucet:

The balance of my baking powder now resides in a ziplock bag cause the Clabber Girl can makes a way cuter utensil caddy.:

 The sink makes a great place to wash cucumbers for Carrot Cucumber Watermelon Soup.  This picture also shows a close up of the curtain's raised swiss dot pattern.:

 I found these curtains (this set plus 6 more just like it) at Park Ave. Thrift for a dollar!!!  I plan to make (read: have Mom make) her an apron and perhaps a teeny tablecloth out of some of the extra curtains.  Initially I was going to fashion a faux window for the kitchen backdrop but thought better of it when I remembered we have fourteen real ones in the playroom.  The curtain's on a tension rod so it can be taken down or moved at any time.

 As for the cook?  Well, she feels right at home!  Okay, so here she's not actually using her kitchen but she is making a sandwich which is pretty darn cute.:

Mmm, mmm.  I smell some pizza baking:

She's repurposing the orange juice as soap for now.  She kept asking me, "where's the soap?".  And the pots and pans were a b-day gift from G-ma and G-daddy.

So how do things measure up?  Well, she's all tiptoes here which just means she'll get plenty of use out of it:)!:

Yeah, I think it's safe to say that we have one happy camper, err, cooker!