Mouse trap car

Kaylee had to make a mouse trap car for school that would drive 2 meters.  Hers drove 11.2 meters! Needless to say she got an A!

The Halloween party was a Tripp!

Today was Lincoln's Halloween party at school.  His teacher Mr. Tripp did a great job at keeping the crazy under control.  As always I am very grateful that I can attend even though for this party he seemed to care less that I was there.  As I was wondering why I go he came home and told me how happy he was that I was there.  He is such a sweet boy!

Thank You Little Debbie!

I went to get something for Lincoln's Halloween party tomorrow and our families favorite snack.  So it is not even Halloween yet and I just bought our first box of Christmas cakes for the season!

New car, well new to Kaylee!

Kaylee was given a car today! Mom got a new car and she gave her old car to us for Kaylee.  She will get her permit next month and she cant wait to get behind the wheel!  I am so grateful to have such a good daughter who is deserving enough to be given a car.  I am also very greatful and appreciative of my parents for doing this for her. They helped us out tremendously!

Our 1st Cricut project!

I am so excited that Sam bought a new Cricut.  Mostly because of the endless possibilities when it comes to making our own tshirts.  This is was our first attempt and Kaylee's first pick..we needed something easy to start with.  It turned out awesome!

Hilarious!

Kaylee got a new app on her phone called Face Swap.  That is pretty self explanatory. ..check out the pic!  We all laughed histarically especially at Lincoln's new face!

Fall soccer champ!

Mr Creative

Vineland Haunted House!

Linc's wanted to go to the haunted house at his school.  It was advertised as kid friendly so I called the Heines to see if they planned on going.  Bryan was taking Sophie and Joey so we decided to meet up with him.  I guess you could say it was our first date, we paid as a family (for the discount) and we were asked if 'our' son Joey would be attending pre-school.  Once it was our turn we were told that there would be kids that will jump out and scare us but that they can not touch us and we cant touch them.  I am pretty sure both the kids and adults needed that warning once we were in.  The first half was pretty scary with the kids jumping out at you and walking through the dark halls.  The kids where leached on to Bryan's arm the whole time and looked terrified, which I understood because I was too!  I had no idea that was nothing compared to the second half.  We were not even all the way in and Linc was crying and Bryan was carrying Sophie and Joey because the were banging on the floor.  In this half the teachers were dressed up and would jump out at you and get really close.  I just held on to Lincoln and kept him as close as I could and kept telling him to close his eyes in hopes that they would stay away from us.  I just stared at the back of Bryan's hat and stayed as close to him as I could.  What felt like an eternity was probably only about 5 min and we were so excited to see light in the hall which told us we were almost done.  As we walk in the cafeteria and Linc is wiping his eyes he yells "that was NOT kid friendly"!  Bryan and I were amazed at how scary this haunted house was for the elementary school kids.  Neither one of us expected that and we wont be taking the kids back anytime soon.  I myself will never do that again!

A Converse Homecoming!

Kaylee was so excited for her first homecoming.  She found the perfect dress, found her a date and had the perfect converse shoes!  She was more than ready.  I was still in the hospital that day so Kaden's mom took them for pictures and dinner to the Pasta House.  Since I was not able to be there I hired April to take pictures of Kaylee for me.  She did an amazing job and Kaylee had a couple of her friends there too.

First Kiss!

Still in the hospital and I get a call from Kaylee, "guess what happened, Kaden kissed me"!  Holy cow I was not expecting that.  My little girl is growing up and she just told me about it!  I was so happy that she felt comfortable enough to call and tell me that. I was even more surprised when I found out she told Matt too! Of course I asked a ton of questions...Where were you? Did he do it in front of anyone? Did people see?  She obliged and answered them all, they were at the homecoming game and he just kissed her! In front of everyone!

Surgery #1

After months and months of test and doctors appointments it is finally the day of surgery.  I would finally be finding out what this was in my stomach.  The test concluded there was a cyst but no one was really too sure where it was.  I was told that I had fibroids and that my uterus was very enlarged so the decision was made that an abdominal hysterectomy would be performed.  I was fine this with due to fibroid surgeries in the past and I just wanted this to be over.  I wouldn't have to keep dealing with all of this if I didn't have a uterus anymore so the plan was put in place.  The biggest issue was that no one knew what this 11.5 cm cyst was so I was going to have to be cut which is the most invasive way to have this surgery.

Once Dr Veronikas finished he explained to Matt that I had stage 4 endometriosis and that they cyst was an endometriosis cyst and that it has spread and was compacting my bowels and bladder.  He said as soon as he opened me up he knew that is what it was so he called in a second surgeon to help him because it was so bad.  It took both surgeons 4 hours to completely remove all of it.  They removed my left ovary, uterus, cervix and my fallopian tubes.  They had to work hard to clean up my right ovary so that I could keep it so that I wouldn't be thrown into menopause.

Recovery was a nightmare!  Doctors and nurses do not really get that I do not handle pain meds well.  I had an epidural drip of morphine and it was torture.  It made me itch like crazy and I was so out of it I couldn't even stand.  I was supposed to be out of there after two nights and I was ready for it.  I was ready to walk and get the recovery started so that I could go home but with all the drugs they were giving me they were making it impossible.  I had not ate since Monday or had anything to drink since Tuesday so by Friday I was a mess. Gretchen came up and finally got them to understand that I would not get better unless they stopped the pain meds so they took the epidural out and finally gave me Tylenol!  Instantly I was a different person.  I was up walking and showering so that I could pass the gas from the surgery.  Once I passed the gas I could have FOOD!  Saturday morning I was finally able to have something to drink and eat and let me just say "toast never tasted so good"!  Dr V came in a little after lunch and said I could go home and I was so relieved.  I couldn't handle staying another night.  I was a little disappointed when I found out that I had to keep the JP drain in but I accepted it and was discharged.  After a few days home the drain was the worst.  It was the only part causing me pain and made me so sick and dizzy to have to mess with it.  I finally called the office due to the amount of pain I was in because of it and they told me to remove it.  My body was rejecting it so it kept making its way out of my body so it was no longer working properly.  I had Beth come over and remove it and it was instant relief.  The hole left from the tube was hard to handle, made me sick and dizzy to clean and dress but at least the pain was gone.  After that each day things got better and better.

Perfect Pumpkins

We had to go to the pumpkin patch a little early this year with the upcoming surgery.  We decided to go to Mertz this year.  We always find the perfect Christmas tree there why not the perfect pumpkins too.

Sheree's Golf Wedding!

Go Cards!

Spending the day at the river...

Today was the poker run at the boat club.  We decided to stay back at the club and wait to hear who the winners were instead of going on out the river.  We always have a good time just hanging out and watching the boats and barges.  

Wonders of social media!

I can not express how much I love it when the teachers post pics of the kids during the day!  I love seeing what he is up to all day. I got to see all of these wonderful pictures on Facebook on today!
Mr. Tripp is going to be an awesome teacher!  I mean what kind of teacher take a selfie with all their kids! We are so excited!

First day of school!

Wow, summer flew by!  This year I was sad to see it end.  I figured out if I just keep my headphones in while I work the noise didnt get to me.  With that said I had mixed feeling of school starting.  I am not sure we are all prepared for the school chaos to begin again.  We already have the stress of finding the right graph composition notebook and calculator for Kaylee and then add to that all the deadlines and everything you have to remember.  Then right as you are getting the hang of it the sports start and then the homework and you name it.  So Matt and I as parents may not be ready but the kids couldnt be more excited.  Once again I will say we are very blessed to have kids that love school and count down the days!

Lincoln couldnt wait for the bus to get here this morning, it was the first day so it was a long wait.

Open house!

The kids both had open house this week.
  Lincoln was super excited to meet Mr Tripp and was even more excited when he said he didnt give homework.  Linc doesnt get that now he has spelling test and other things to study for so he will still have stuff to do at home.
Kaylee was exciting to go put her atuff in her locker and walk to all her classes.  We had trouble with a couple but I think she will do fine.  Most of her teachers were pretty great but her physics teacher was a little intimidating!   She was a little bummed when she found out she was the Trend leader.  She want to be in the club and probably still will be since they are so active and Kaylee loves that.  She thinks that her FACS and yearbook teachers will be her favorite.  She if course had more important things to do than let me get a picture so I only have one of Lincoln!

Celebrating our Parents!

I mean what can I say, we wouldn't even be here if it weren't for them and we definitely wouldn't be who we are if it weren't for them.  We have some pretty awesome parents!

Our favorite family tradition, crab leg dinner!  Well, the boys scarf down hotdogs with us threatening them that they have to eat it the whole time. :)

I dont think we laughed as hard as we did over these headphones.  Lincoln SCREAMED the whole time!  Jake was pretty loud too and they would stand right next to each other and scream!

Ha, now thats some cake! It didn't quite turn out as planned but it tasted delicious.