Easter

Easter was good. Good food (as long as I cut it small and put it into the back of my mouth), good company, and excellent weather. We spent most of the day outside playing. Joey and Daddy played a good game of soccer. Ben mostly just wanted someone to play with him and his new Handy Manny toy from the Easter Bunny. His two 8 year old girl cousins kept running away from him and the boys were playing football and baseball. :( This really was unacceptable to Ben.
Both boys looked very handsome, but I had a hard time getting a good pic of Joey because the sun bothers his eyes so he's forever squinting and looking down. This is a group shot that I cropped. Pretty good.
And of course there's baby Charlie. I love him so much and he is so cute and good and precious.

Oral Surgery Sucks!

It was horrible. Really horrible. They kept telling me that it would be better than a root canal, but it was not. After my root canal I could eat. I could function. After the surgery I was in pain. I have a mouthful of stitches. And my whole upper mouth is swollen. When I took a vicodin I must not have had enough food in my stomach because I got really light-headed. But when I tried to figure out something to eat (not too easy when you can't use the front part of your mouth) I almost passed out in the kitchen.
Plus my stinking husband was at work and I had the boys to worry about. Thank goodness they can fix themselves a bowl of cereal for dinner in a pinch. And after I almost passed out my dear loving husband who couldn't possibly get off work to help me called his Mom to come help out until the kids went to bed. But when I went to put the kids to bed, Ben (accidently) punched me in the mouth and made me start bleeding.
So what did they do? I'm not entirely sure because I had my eyes squeezed shut the entire time to avoid seeing any knives coming at me. The Dr told me afterward that there was a ball of tissue that resembled rubber cement that he was able to scoop out whole. It was eating at the bone so it was good that I got it taken care of when I did. Now I should heal right up in about 2 weeks and hopefully never have a problem with this tooth again.
This morning I woke up without any pain, but really puffy. My mouth feels nasty because I can't brush anywhere near the stitches, and now that I worked and talked all day I'm feeling pretty sore. I've got the kids planted in front of the tv again and plan to take it easy for one more night. We have a 4 day weekend for the holiday so that takes some pressure off, too.
Any sympathy you want to express is surely welcome today. I'm not whining (much) but have to say that this whole experience has really not been fun.

Surgery!?!?!?!?

I had a Root Canal way back in December because of an abscess. I had two rounds of antibiotics then and in January. And yet there is still swelling and tenderness. I finally called and went back to the dentist today. The result: surgery. In my mouth. On Wednesday. And by the way I have to pay for it up front. Hmm. Perhaps that is why I put off going back in.
Wish me luck.

Job Updates

I finally have my permanent job title: Nursery Director. (Nursery is what we call our 3's program.) Basically nothing has changed- I got a small raise and I have the same duties. My co-director this year is now Preschool Director as well. So, nothing really new, but we have official permanent positions and can stop worrying about the future.
And now, exactly one day later, I have a parent complaint. Oy. Apparently, and I never realized this before yesterday, some Christians feel that Yoga goes against their beliefs. I had been doing Yoga for Kids (that I had learned in college) about once a month in gym class. A parent let me know that this is not ok with them, so now we are simply doing stretches and "Animal Poetry." Hopefully that will keep everyone happy:)

PS I found a new way to entertain the kids. They had never witnessed the washer draining before and found it very fascinating last night. I had about 30 minutes of peace and quiet while they stood by the washer waiting to watch the water come out. Woo-hoo.

Good News

So in order to fully enjoy my spring break last week, and because I was so busy, I neither worked out nor dieted at all the whole week. The good news is that my weight is exactly the same as it was 10 days ago (down to the tenth of a pound). So now I am back on the wagon. Turned on My Fitness Coach to be berated about missing my workouts, turned on Wii Fit to be berated for not visiting for 10 days, got to work, and now I'm ready for more progress. I also ordered 2 new Turbo Jam workouts from Amazon yesterday for some new motivation.

So Many Things, I Don't Know Where To Start or Spring Break is Awesome!

We've had quite the adventurous week over here, despite the horrid weather that I hear is about to get much worse.

Sunday: We did take advantage of the one nice day and go to the park for a few hours. That ended when a big boy kicked Ben in the face. grrr

Monday: Museum of Science and Industry. We loved the submarine, trains, coal mine, chick hatchery, farm exhibit, and especially sticking our heads in all the photo props.On the drive home Ben fell asleep before he could even finish his Doritos. Tuesday I got to have a girls day trip to Archivers. I only got a few pages done, but I had fun and learned from my master scrapbook friends Sarah and Candi.No pictures for Wednesday. We closed on refinancing the house, I did some grocery shopping and chores, and we relaxed a bit.

Thursday I took the boys to Coco Key in the morning. They had a great time but it was really crowded. After 3 hours we were done. So we got some lunch and then got to visit Baby Charlie at home. He is doing sooo good. He pretty much eats and sleeps, rarely cries, and makes some great faces already.And here are the birds.

Today we head in to Navy Pier to see Monsters vs Aliens on the IMAX. And tomorrow I fully plan to do nothing.

They're Huge!!!

And you can't even really tell by the pics. Now the parents are getting ready to lay another set of eggs.

Happy Birthday!

One day late on the birthday wishes, hope you had a good day yesterday, Sarah.
Can't wait to give you your gift:)

Finally!

So I had a health screening a week ago today. Found out that my cholesterol is not good, triglycerides not good, body fat downright bad (I did already know that one, but I had hoped it would be better than last year.) They recommended that I get a lot more fiber, fruits and veggies, and a lot less cheese and red meat. Problem: I HATE veggies. Solution: I do like salad. So since Thursday I have been eating lots more fruit, salad every day, and less bad stuff. Guess what? I have lost 3 pounds in a week! It is soooo true that neither diet nor exercise alone will solve the weight problem. Now that I've added diet to the exercise I am looking forward to actually losing the weight.
I never claimed to be a genius, but you'd think I would have figured this one out before, right? Oh well.

Pigeon Update

Ok, I don't really get the cute factor like my husband had hoped, but the changes they go through in just 24 hours are amazing, aren't they? (And isn't it nice that I finally got smart and put the day on the picture?)
A cute Ben story with the pigeons: The 2 non-homing pigeons are "his." He named them Mr and Mrs Sammy (I think for his cousin). You can see Mrs Sammy here. She is the second one. See how her feathers stick up? It's technically called a frill. Well, when Ben was visiting the babies, he pointed out that "when the babies get olda, we're gonna hafta teach dem to spike der haiw." Right. That's one of the things they'll have to learn. :)

More Human Baby Pics

Just had to add some more pictures of the precious baby. He is doing super good and it sounds like he should be going home by this evening. Can't wait to spend more time with him.

A New Human Baby:):):)

Welcome Baby Charlie. If you haven't been paying attention, my sister has been in the hospital for over a month with pre-term labor. Today her water broke, and she was 34 weeks and 2 days along, so they decided the baby was coming. Lots of story between then and now, but I'm sure she'll want to tell the story on her blog when she feels up to it. Mom and baby are doing great, he might even get to go home with her. Congrats Heather. You did a great job!
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And here are those pigeon babies. Day 9 and 10.

Babies Day 7 and 8

Day 7 Day 8- They are getting so big already.We put bands on their legs today. They didn't really love it. When I helped hold one down he tried to bite me with his teeny tiny beak. Silly.

More later about my health screening I had yesterday, and the survey I did with the boys.

Babies Day 5 and 6

Day 5

Day 6Why do we have so many babies? Well, several reasons. 1-my husbands ideas are usually bigger than his space/money/time. 2-We have 12 pairs and they each lay 2 eggs, so 24 babies (23 have hatched now) 3-many of the Mommas and Daddas are loaner birds which have to be returned to their owners after we have babies, so we need some for racing and some for mating to make more racers. 4-one (I) can hope that maybe we could sell some if we get to having too many.

In other news, public registration started this week at preschool. We are so excited to have almost 20 more students enrolled than at this time last year. My co-director and I are breathing a huge sigh of relief that are jobs are secure and our changes have gone over very well.

Babies Day 4

We're up to 19 babies. This first pic is of the babies of our 2 non-homing pigeons. They are quite a bit smaller than homing pigeons. This is how I get to take the pictures. Hungry birds let their babies fend for themselves for a few minutes. I even touched one today. You should see these birds fight for the food. It's kinda like 9 piglets trying to eat off 8 nipples. One shoves it's way in, pushing another out. The pushed out bird moves down a few inches and pushes a different one out. Over and over every 2 seconds or so. After about 5 minutes the food is completely gone.

And here are our first two babies on day 4. Their eyes are starting to open and you can already see how much they are growing.

PS: Daddy took most of the pictures up until today. That is why they are not the same every day. I will try to get out there from now on. There is a reason I am the family photographer.

Babies Day 3

We missed day 2 because of some technical difficulties, but here are the babies on day 3. We now have 14 babies with a few more to hatch yet.

They're Pretty Ugly, But...

A few of the babies were born last night. I'm taking it in good faith that they will get cuter soon.

Babies Coming Soon

Our pigeon babies are due to start hatching on Saturday. Apparently they grow very fast - by 28 days they are on their own- so I plan to take a picture of one every day and post it so you can see our babies grow. The only kind of babies that will be growing at our house.

A Scrappin' Post

I don't like to post twice in one day, but I'm feeling motivated and there is nothing on TV (I refuse to have any part in that nasty Bachelor show). I took some pictures of the totally adorable, awesome scrapbook I made for the boys when we went to Archivers this weekend. The product line is Bo Bunny.

Pretty simple, but all of the boys seemed to really like it. And I felt pretty creative and proud for putting it together.