a bag of chips

Back in full swing!

And school starts next Tuesday. And I have a kid entering kindergarten, something I've been anticipating with equal parts excitement and dread. I'm constantly telling my kids to stop growing. And they never do.

Aidan has been doing much better lately. We had a rough start to summer but he's been awesome lately. I'm so proud of my big guy. He's so goofy and silly, and he and Nadia have a special bond which I've loved watching develop. If he's in a time-out, she goes and sits next to him. She just sits there quietly, keeping him company. I've never had the heart to ask her to get up. Aidan's looking forward to kindergarten and being in school so close to home (two blocks away!).

Here's Mr. Saturday Night now:

He's going to be six on Halloween. And I swear today I looked at him and he looked like a ten-year-old. His new shoes are a size 2, his new pants are a 7, and he's in a boy's medium shirt. He's losing his clumsiness and is less like a Great Dane puppy (all legs and paws) and more like a sure-footed, able-bodied athlete. "ET" is his new favorite movie and he's bugging me for "Star Wars" movies.

Miss Makena is entering what must be the pre-PMS stage of a young girl's life. She's been so emotional lately. Crying and whining and then laughing wildly at Aidan's weirdo shennanigans. My no-nonsense tough-it-out tomboy tendencies is having a tough time dealing with it. And I'm horrified to think that this oh-so-fun stage will last until she moves out. Or at least until she's fourteen and has boobs and stops speaking to me altogether. Her saving grace is that she is still the most beautiful girl and still says the best things: "Mommy, when it's Easter and the Easter Bunny forgot your basket, I'll share my candy canes and jelly beans with you."  Let's hope the sweetness is still there when she's fourteen. Hey, I can hope, right?

Here's Miss Thang with my cousin Katie, and then yesterday during the 17.3 seconds she sat still for me and my big honkin' camera:

And then there's Nadia. Spaghetti, Oreos and cereal are her current favorite things to eat. Oh, and paper, too. She loves to eat paper. She's also back into her screaming stage, and I swear it's only a matter of time before glasses start shattering. In China. She adds new words to her syllabus daily, including the new and inevitable addition of "no". It was coming; I knew it had to happen at some stage in her toddlerhood that it would arrive and be the clearest and most frequently used word in her limited vocabulary. What I didn't expect was that she'd use it with reckless abandon, stringing twenty or thirty together while kicking daddy in his nether regions on the way to her crib every night or on the way to a diaper change. If we weren't infertile, we would be now. Either the kicking would afflict Chris or the screaming would shatter whatever's left of my eggs.

Lucky for us (and for her, too, sometimes) that she's so damn cute:

She starts pre-school next Thursday. But I'm not ready to talk about that yet. *sniffle* September is full of big milestones for us and for her, and I'll just save talking about those for when I'm ready. Like after three or four gin and tonics. Well, I'm not really drinking anymore, so maybe just a few stiff chocolate soymilks and the rest of my Vicodin will do the trick. =)

And because I hardly ever post scrapbooking stuff anymore, here's a little project I started tonight:

This where I'll put photos of all those fun fall activities - school, Halloween (and Aidan's birthday!), turning leaves, colder temperatures, Thanksgiving.

7Gypsies album, Basic Grey paper, Maya Road tree chippie, American Crafts stickers, KI Memories paper, Kaiser Crafts rhinestones (they're yellow and orange and very cool), EK heart punch, and *tada!* my new favorite tool, the Stampin' Up! scallop border punch.

And, just in case no one caught it, my handiwork (photo and layout) is on the current cover of Simple:

The beauty on the cover is the daughter of a friend of mine. Isn't she gorgeous? And in the July/August issue I was the featured artist and I created all the section openers. But I'm not bragging or showing off or anything. =)

I'll be back over the weekend with some more ramblings, and with a few fun give-aways!

The road to recovery...

...is quite boring, really. I had an uneventful surgery (praise God!) and an extremely uneventful recovery (praise God again!). So uneventful that I was bored out of my skull (though the being waited on and catered to is quite lovely and almost worth the price of admission). The last 11 days have been pretty painless thanks to chemistry (yay for Vicodin), and I'm finally feeling about 90% of normal. Not too bad.

So, back to the boredom. Wanna know what I did with my time?

*  I knitted five scarves. (Knitting is my other other other other other craft obsession. Guess what everyone's getting for Christmas this year?!)

*  I watched every episode of "Everybody Loves Raymond" seasons 1 to 8. At first this was a great idea. Then I had to laugh which is not an altogether pleasant feeling after abdominal surgery. Please note: Do NOT watch comedies when recovering from abdominal surgery.

*  I drank one entire case of 7-Up, two stacks of saltines and about two pounds of rice.

*  I lost ten pounds in the last four weeks, with half that time spent sitting on my ass doing absolutely nothing. Pretty cool, eh?

*  I watched about ten movies, most of them featuring Julia Roberts, Richard Gere, Hugh Grant, Tom Hanks or Jennifer Garner. My bedroom has been chick flick central.

*  I played 2000 games of reMovem on my iphone. That freebie game is seriously addictive.

*  I walked laps around my cul-de-sac starting on my fourth day of recovery. I *had* to get out of the house. Today we went to Legoland.  So glad to be mobile again!

Wednesday was my first full day up and about and though I'm a bit more tired at the end of the day, I'm amazed at how resilient and strong my aging body is. And yesterday my surgeon gave me the thumbs up to resume all my normal activities, like pick up my kids and get squeezy hugs and push a stroller around Legoland.

So, for any of you out there who are facing a cholesystectomy (having your gallbladder removed), rest assured it's a pretty basic procedure and a week or so resting in bed with some good drugs and a doting mother and/or husband is really all it takes in recovery. (Though I also wish I'd had a good recliner since getting in and out of bed by myself was impossible for the first few days.) I'm glad I had it done and am looking forward to a more pain-free life from here on out.

Gallstones are very common in women who fit the fat-fair-forty profile, but there are other factors that can predispose us to attacks. Go here to read more about gallstones. And, if you have any of these sypmtoms, especially if you're fat+fair+forty-ish and your doctor tells you have GERD or acid reflux, request a gallbladder ultrasound or a blood liver levels test to rule out gallstones. I saw four different doctors who all said I had acid reflux when, in fact, I never did. Tums and Prilosec did nothing for my symptoms, and none of those bozos ever thought to check for gallstones. It was the Doogie Houser-esque doctor who treated me during my last ER visit who finally got it right. Bravo, Doogie!

So thanks for all your well wishes and kind words for a speedy recovery. Your prayers were heard! Thank you!

And Makena says "hi!".

What's new?

It has been a crazy summer. Crazy I tell you! And it just got a little crazier.

If you've been visiting here lately, you may know that I've had some gallbladder problems and I've been waiting for surgery. Well, last Thursday afternoon, while taking the crazies on a field trip through the mountains (killer lightning storm!) and the desert, I get a call from Kaiser.

"Your surgeon has a cancellation for Monday and we'd like to know if you're interested in having your surgery Monday."

"Me?" I say. "Monday? As in Monday-in-four-days Monday?"

"Yes. Can you do it?"

So I made some phone calls to make sure my husband and my mother could be available to be with the kids, and I agreed to fill the spot and have my surgery Monday. As in today. I'm actually glad to be having it done sooner rather than later. As things were, it was a huge unknown exactly when I'd get the have the surgery done, and I'm just so ready to get on with my life and get better already.

I do have to say, though, that cutting most of the fat from my diet and avoiding most animal products has made a huge difference in how I've felt the last few weeks since my last ER visit. That I'd felt fine was the only reason I haven't been chomping at the bit for surgery. I've also lost a few pounds since changing my eating habits and that's always a pleasant side effect.

Other than that, things have been pretty quiet around here. The only exception was my nephew's 5th birthday on the 5th. We spent a few hours at the Corona Del Mar State Beach with my mom, my brother and his two kids, and then headed off to my mom's for cake and icing.

So, dear friends, say a prayer that my surgery this afternoon is uneventful and that my recovery is full and quick. I'll see you all in about a week.

Peace out.

And the winner is....

...(thanks to the random number generator thingy) is...

AMY COOSE!

Yay, Amy! Send me an email and I'll get the goods out to you in a week. Or so.

Thanks so much for playing, everyone! I'll have another give-away later this month.

I'll also post again tomorrow with the latest and greatest around these parts.

Happy Friday!

Happiness is...

...cute, easy DIY home decor!

Stampin' Up! has released it's new line of self-adhesive vinyl home decor called Decor Elements. Phrases, words, numbers, art - available in three different colors. How cute does this word look against the pink in my girls' room? I have two framed pieces I'll be adding above it to complete the happy theme, but I'll cover that in another post.

And, to help SU! celebrate the release of their exciting new line, I have one of these to give away:

The entire number set in white shown in this picture I borrowed from the SU! website. Isn't this darling? (I'd have put this in my son's room but Captain Destructo has been making some naughty choices lately about the walls in his room. Bummer!)

So, kindly leave a comment and I'll draw a random winner on Friday!

Good luck!