Panic stricken

I love to entertain. I love catching up with great friends, meeting new ones, and the conversation that comes out of it. However, I hate the pre-cleaning that you feel like you must do prior to having guests come over. It never fails. The week of said event I can feel the panic rising and the laundry list of things that need to be done forming. Last night, we hosted a wedding shower for a couple in our Sunday School class that just got married and this is a synapsis of my week:

Monday: Start picking up the clutter and tabulating in my mind what has to be done.

Tuesday: Wipe down the baseboards and kitchen cabinets. Pick up more clutter. Sweep and mop.

Wednesday: Clean ceiling fan blades. Hose down deck and straighten up various kids toys and chairs on deck. Holy crud. Look at those shrubs. Get out the bypass loppers and start whacking away. Call DH panic stricken and ask how to use weed eater.

Thursday: Vacuum upstairs, start cleaning bathrooms. Pick up more clutter. Carp. Where is this clutter coming from? Clean out dining room which has become the black hole for sewing stuff. Go shopping for food. Clean kitchen. By night fall, start breathing a little easier, because all that's left is living room.

Friday: Start working on the living room floors. But, something's not right. Hmmm. Maybe I should move the couch over there. Now, the overstuffed chair looks funny where it is at. Move over stuffed chair across the room. What if I move the love seat against that other wall. Now, the end table looks weird. Ok, lets move it by the couch and the accent chair. I'm liking it, but you can't see the tv. That's not going to work. Ok, ok, let's move the t.v. and entertainment cabinet across the room. Pant, sweat, pant, sweat. Move area rug which reminds me about the floors. Carp! I still haven't finished the floors!

(Seriously, why do I decide that yesterday of all days is the day to rearrange my living room?!! I am a glutton for punishment, I guess. LOL. Despite it all, I love the flow of the new set-up. Before the room always seemed choppy and now it works and feels so much more open.)

With all that said, everything always comes together and it is always so much fun. Last night was no exception. We had amazing food. Great conversation. We "oohed" and "aahed" over N and J's honeymoon pictures. We had a streaker. Huh? Yes. W ran into the living room showing off his goods to the whole crowd. (He's potty training and has a hard time getting his undies and pants up after going potty.) So, there was nudity and lots of laughter.

We know how to throw a party.

Now for the good stuff. PICS!

Getting ready to open some gifts. :D

The fabulous newlyweds

These guys are up to no good. Trust me.

Our resident, professional photographer taking the real shots.

Lest we forget...the rearranged living room. Ha!

Much nicer, eh?

We finally have a new date

Daddy's kidney transplant has finally been rescheduled for September 8th. I'm so happy to have a date to work with. Funny thing is that I'm not as worried about the surgery (UAB has one of the best transplant units in the nation) as I am trying to make sure my boys are taken care of while I am trying to take care of Daddy. (BTW, I have already set-up a carepage for daddy that I will keep everyone updated through when we get to transplant time. That site is: http://www.carepages.com/carepages/crayp.)

You see, daddy will spend roughly one week in the hospital and approximately 2 - 3 weeks in the rehab unit. In the rehab unit, he will be required to have someone there 24/7 to assist him. Since my mother is gone and my sister will be recuperating from donating him her kidney, this responsibility will fall to me. This means that I will practically be living at the hospital for 3 weeks with dad. I'm kind of panicking on how to do it all: take care of daddy, taking care of my babies, making sure laundry and home stuff is done. Thankfully, I have a really good friend who lives close by and who has offered to help with the boys as well as my wonderful Aunt S who has always helped me out with the boys when I'm in a pinch.

(I know y'all are going to think I am nuts but I am putting it out here to help me stay organized.)

Monday, Wednesdays and Fridays: S will drop the boys off my GF's house on his way to work. GF will take the boys to school and pick them up. (They are in school from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.) They will stay will GF until S can pick them up. I'll probably spend the night at the hospital unless a family member offers to relieve me.

Tuesdays and Thursdays are a different story: I need people to keep the boys which one of my aunts has offered to do, but I am also hoping that other family members are willing to stay with daddy during the day (and I'll stay the night) so the kids won't feel like I've totally abandoned them.

And then there are the weekends, I'd love to have someone to stay with daddy on Saturday mornings so I can have a little family time with S and the boys, especially since W starts soccer in September.

Most of all, just pray for peace and healing in all of this. That dad's surgery and transplant goes well. That, his body won't reject the kidney. That everything works out well for him and the care of my children.

Grow Sunday Carnival

The past Sunday our Sunday School was assigned the task of providing a bean bag toss for our church's Kids Grow Sunday. Kids Grow Sunday was the Sunday deemed where all the kids would move to their new Sunday School class. I was one of the four members of our class who volunteered to man the table and game. Being the stereotypical Type-A person that I am, I searched high and low for the perfect bean bag toss game. Since we didn't have time to order one, I was pretty limited to Party City which only had a small rinky-dink game. Obviously, that wouldn't work so I promptly came home and told S that we needed to make one. Thankfully, S was up for the task.

S constructed it and I painted it. I think we did an awesome job! I see this being pulled out at many occasions in the future. Here's the finished result:

TA-DA! Think we could earn some money making these?

The other thing we have going on right now is getting W prepared to play soccer for the first time. S played soccer for most of his life and he'd love to see the boys enjoy it too. Unfortunately, we are still trying to convince W that he's going to love playing. Thankfully, his best bud and his cousin, who are the same age as he is, both play and we keep using that to get him excited. LOL! But there is one thing he is crazy about and that is his new soccer ball. He and every other little boy in the store picked out the shiniest red soccer ball they could find. Ha! Anyway, we find out in a couple of weeks which little team he will land on and what their schedule is. Wish us luck!

San Antonio Vacation: Yee Haw!

When I originally told my father that we were going to fly out to San Antonio for vacation, his response was "Oh no." When I said S was flying out the day before and it would just be me and the boys flying out the following day, his response was "Oh God." LOL! You would have thought I has told him that one of us had cancer. Now, I know that trekking out with 2 small children wouldn't appeal to an older person, but after staying at home for a year, I was ready to do whatever it took to go somewhere, even if it meant I had a day of Hell in order to get there. Ha!

I did a little research prior to our flight on how to keep the kids happy and off we went. The boys did much better than I had ever expected. Really, the worst part was lugging 2 car seats, 2 suitcases, 1 back back for mama, and a lightweight stroller by myself into and out of an airport. Once it was checked in, we were all copasetic.

The key to keeping W happy was bringing his pack back filled with beloved items and packing a few new (little) presents. I had brought 2 new gift wrapped books and a little toy set that he had gotten for his birthday but hadn't been allowed to open. I also loaded a new Thomas the Tank Engine movie on the Ipod and he was set. The key to keeping little G happy was to ply him with snacks. On the first flight, he had a sucker, yogurt pretzels, fruit snack, airline pretzels, his sippy of water, and another lollipop. I was covered head to toe in sticky but we had made it through the flight with 2 quiet children.

Little G is my child even if he looks like his daddy. Look at him sticking his tongue out at me while waiting for flight #2.

W showing off his Toy Story book bag. He wanted to wear it every where!

We had a fantastic time in San Antonio! S was there for a conference so mama and her little ducklings headed out on our own during the mornings, nap in the afternoon and then go out with daddy in the evening. Since we arrived Tuesday afternoon and we were adjusting *cough, recuperating, cough*, we kept it easy that night and just went out to an authentic Tex-Mex restaurant - Pico De Gallo. They has a fantastic, but loud Mariachi band which little G loved, but scared the bejeezus out of my big boy. He sat in my lap, covering his ears with my hands and asked to go home. Once the band took a break, he was a happy boy and even told the waiter, "Tanks, tanks for making da noise!" Maybe he enjoyed the music a little? Ha!

On Wednesday and Thursday, we went to the San Antonio Children's Museum, ate in a Saloon and swam in the hotel pool. The children's museum wasn't as nice as McWane, but it gave us a place for the boys to run around and burn off some energy in a cool place, safe for kids. The Saloon was apart of the Texas Buckhorn Museum, a tourist trap, but it did give us a neat place to eat and people watch.

G climbing through a little house and playing peek-a-boo.

W having a good time playing with balls.

Mounted animals at the Saloon.

I'm a cowboy. YEE-HAW!

Why yes, that would be a grizzly bear and woolly mammoth behind us.

What would be San Antonio without the Riverwalk and The Alamo? San Antonio is beautiful city with a lot of history and culture plus great amusement parks like SeaWorld, Six Flags Fiesta and Schlitterbahn Water Park (in nearby New Braunfels). If you haven't been or haven't been recently, I would highly recommend it.

Beautiful.

Mama & her boys

Daddy and his boys

Look at those sweet pink cheeks.

Sweet, but hot little boy.

Another view of the Mission

So cool.

The west side of the Mission.

I love this tree.

We capped off the trip by going to Sea World and San Antonio Zoo. W was excited and then terrified of the Sea Lion Show. He's not a big noise kid and it got to him. Little G clapped and laughed through it all. Thankfully, by the time, we saw Shamu, W had calmed down and actually enjoyed seeing the show.

But all good things must come to an end and we were happy to come home on Sunday. We are ready to settle in fall and a new routine as the boys prepare to go to school part time in a couple of weeks. We are truly blessed .

too long gone

It's been a little crazy around here, and I know everyone says that about themselves, BUT it's true. I've started a little side business and have been trying to get it up and running. If you didn't know, I'm making children's clothing. You can find my store on Etsy (phofer.etsy.com) and I even have a Facebook fan page - Whistle Britches Clothing. Come check it out!

What else is going on? Well, my dad's kidney transplant has been scheduled. Ironically, it falls on the one year anniversary of my mother's passing. The date was assigned by the hospital transplant team. When I first learned the news, I immediately started crying because it was so hard to process. With this surgery, there is a risk of, well, you know. I'm not sure that I could handle the loss of both parents on the same date. But, I can't sink into these dark thoughts. Life is too precious. I will just have to focus on the fact that it could be the day that my father gets a new lease on life. My mother was very hopeful of my dad getting this transplant and having a great recovery.

Thank God for good friends that I can talk to about this. One friend was so comforting in her words. Upon learning that my mother was an operating room nurse, she said "An OR nurse? Yes, she will be there the entire time. She practically called and scheduled the case herself." What a wonderful thought.

The more I think about it, the more I come to the realization that my mother would somehow approve of this date so that it wouldn't always be an awful reminder of what we had lost but a reminder of what we had gained as well. It's bitter and sweet at the same time.

so, ummm, phone calls

I just want to put it out there. If we don't get to the phone and it goes to voicemail, please don't think it's personal. It's not. We're just either busy with the kids, because they are small and need a lot of hands on time when it comes to bathing them, or putting them to bed and let's not forget diaper changes. Lord knows, that darn phone decides to ring every time I do a diaper change. It's like it's got a sensor which alerts it to the fact I am up to my elbows in poop and wiggly baby.

Case in point, last night's phone dilemma occurred with S. He was on solo duty as I was at my sewing class. When he's keeping the boys, well, our bath time and bedtime routine slightly goes out the window. Anyway, S has just finished giving baby G a bath and put him bed when chaos ensues. S discovers that W has gotten into a tube of toothpaste when the phone starts ringing. Obviously, S has to deal with our toothpaste bandit since W doesn't get the whole spitting it out and Scott has no idea how much W has ingested. (See below for the rest of the story regarding W and the toothpaste.) So obviously, the phone call right in the middle of this gets lost and we don't call that person back.

Today, we woke up to an e-mail from that person commenting on how we always seem to not to answer his calls, followed with a "don't you check your answering machine?" Since this is seems to happen to this one person in particular, I would like to explain to this person with all love and respect:

1. The reason this keeps happening is that you tend to call on Tuesday nights and Tuesday nights aren't a good night for phone calls. S gets bogged down with the boys and I'm not here.

2. The time you call ends up being around the time S or I (if I'm home by then) are putting the boys to bed. Usually we do put them to bed earlier so that time would be good, but with me being in class, S gets a little off track with the boys' schedule.

3. Yes, we do check our answering machine, but it's normally checked the next morning. I don't do it late in the evening, because by the point in the night, it's normally the first opportunity S & I have had to have alone time so we are trying to catch up on each other's day. Plus, we tend to believe that if it's an emergency then the person will call back or try our cell phones.

With all this said, I'm sorry. I hope we didn't hurt your feelings, because we love you and we do want your phone calls. I asking for a little patience and understanding. After all, you did have small children at one point so maybe you remember what it was like.

So, what happened with W and the toothpaste? I arrive home 15 or so minutes afterward to S completely panicked and reading horror stories of fluoride poisoning and telling me that we need to take W to the hospital. Thankfully, I think a little more rationally in crisis and have S call poison control instead while I go inspect the tube of toothpaste to see how much I think he has eaten. The good news is that it isn't much. We give milk as instructed by poison control and stay up with W to make sure he's okay. They call back and all is well so to bed he goes and we pretty much are exhausted and head to bed with the toothpaste put away up high where little hands can not reach it.

a day out with Thomas the Tank Engine

Anyone who knows us knows that W is a die-hard Thomas fan (second only to Lighting McQueen). When we found out that Thomas was coming to town, we decided to take advantage of the nice spring day and go. W was so excited to see Thomas and to ride in one of the cars. Surprisingly, baby G was really enjoyed the ride as well. Daddy, however, was not excited about every hook they threw out at little kids in order to get moms and dads to buy stuff. Fortunately, they didn't know how cheap W & G's daddy can be on this type of stuff so we made it out of there with our checkbook intact.

Here we go!

On the train

Daddy and his boys. Please note that W has entered the age where he is *not* going to smile for the camera. Freaking little turkey.

W goofing off and smile captured before he realized it!

Mama and sweet baby G

Again, W refusing to look at camera and smile with Daddy & G.

Such a pretty day to get out and see some trains!

Mama & her boys

W wasn't too sure about Sir Topham Hat

G on the otherhand was offering him a drink