Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Landscaping

Butch had a "free" day off work a couple of weeks ago because the Pope was in town and half of the student body was going to Mass. So, he did a lot of landscaping. The side of the house (the side that is seen as you drive up) had nothing.


And, now it has lots of shrubs and flowers. They are all fairly small right now, but it is such an improvement!


Tuesday, April 15, 2008

A Wedding = Adult Time

It's been a while since I've really had time to do any posts!


A few weekends ago, Butch and I got an afternoon out.....without kids.....for my cousin, Chet's wedding. The wedding (2:00) was full Catholic Mass and even though we aren't Catholic, the homily was pretty good. The reception (3:00) was at Olde Breton Inn (the same place we had our reception). When we came in, heavy hors d'ouevres were already being set out. Unfortunately, it seems they should not have been set out yet. The reception didn't include dinner, so really everyone should have waited for the bridal party before digging in. However....the wait staff was telling people to eat. We were still holding off at our table, but had decided (finally) since we were being told to eat, we should. While in line, the bridal party arrived....and I thought "this is silly, how can we see them be announced if we're standing in line". This is when I heard someone say "well they shouldn't be eating". So, the staff at Olde Breton Inn seems to have messed up. Oh well. There was plenty of food and the bridal party absolutely had enough to eat! By the way, we sat down after we heard the "well they shouldn't be eating" comment so we could see them walking in.


We didn't have a lot of time to really enjoy things since I wanted to get home to nurse Leah and get her ready for bed. We were initially trying to get home around 5:30, but ended up getting home around 6:30 or 6:45. (Kristin babysat.) There was a little time for drinks and dancing. Quite amazing watching Dad gettin' down. I hope I'm doing that at age 70!

Monday, April 14, 2008

Lacey & Leah's Well Visits

I took Lacey and Leah in for well visits a couple of weeks ago (April 1, actually). Lots of fun (sarcasm, sarcasm.....)! Lacey is quite afraid of stepping on a scale. No clue why. But, she won't do it at home either, so it isn't just the doctor's office. I finally convinced her to sit on the baby scale. Yes, she is 3 and she sat on the baby scale. I also had to really work to get her height. But....alas we did. She weighs 33 pounds and is 39 inches tall. Tall and skinny.

Leah was 19.5 pounds and 27.5 inches. She was also much easier to weigh. :-)

No shots for either of them...thankfully. However, I have lab slips (somewhere) for both girls...urine for Lacey and blood for Leah. I'm not rushing since I know how much fun both of those will be. (again....sarcasm, sarcasm.)

Of course, even though it was a "well visit" for both of them, they both had colds. Lacey walked out with a prescription for a boo-boo she had on her face. She had fallen face first into Miss Lisa's driveway a few days before and busted her lip and nose. The nose was starting to look pretty bad, so Dr. Jill fixed her up. After 1 application of the cream, the difference was noticable. After a couple of days, it was almost gone.

Maybe I won't need to go back to see the doc again until Leah is a year? Cross your fingers for me....

Kramer

Kramer (14 years old) has been losing weight. Yes, I have been thinking "here we go again". He used to be about 15-16 pounds. We noticed the weight loss couple of months ago, but since he was holding at about 10-11 pounds, I hadn't rushed him to the vet. There were way too many things on my to-do list. But, I finally got him in last Wednesday. They took blood and urine to run some tests. On Saturday, we found out he has hyperthyroidism. I was so relieved to here it is something treatable and that he doesn't have kidney disease. I've had enough of that.
They prescribed meds for him and since he doesn't do pills, it was called into our local pharmacy to be "compounded" into a liquid that tastes like chicken. :-) Of course, it's not like he'll drink it, but I feel better holding him down and squirting it in his mouth.
In 2 weeks, we have to go back for more blood work to make sure the doseage is okay. Sometimes they need to adjust it a bit.

A Dog on a Rainy Day

Yes, she got a bath. Need I say more?

Sunday, April 06, 2008

Spring Break and Easter

Butch had a nice long spring break. He was off the Thursday & Friday before Easter and the whole week after Easter. Nice. We left for Pittsburgh on Thursday morning. What should be a 5 1/2 hour drive is more like 7 hours with 2 kids. Not bad, though.

Once we got into Pittsburgh, we stopped at Becky's house for a visit. Becky is someone from my February Sweethearts group. (We met online at Baby Center over 3 years ago.) Becky has 2 little ones under age 2 and is pregnant with her 3rd. I don't know where she gets the energy! Anyway, it was nice to meet her in person after all this time. Lacey was a bit quiet and shy around Cristian and Emma, but that's typical for her. She didn't want to leave their house, though.

After we left Becky's we drove another 45 min. to get to Chuck & Nancy's. Lacey fell asleep on the drive (when we were nearly there) and stayed in the car for a bit longer snoozing. It was a good visit, even though it was short. On Friday, we went to Shakespeare's for lunch since Lacey is obsessed with princesses at the moment. There aren't any princesses there, but she loved the castle.

We were back home for Easter. Lacey was excited about the Easter Bunny's visit and thrilled to discover the baskets left for her and Leah. We headed to Dee & Bucky's for "linner" (late lunch/early dinner.....the name comes from my friend, Tonya). Before Linner, Lacey got to hunt eggs in the yard. She loved it this year.

I took off Tuesday & Wednesday to use up some vacation from 2007. I wish I'd taken the entire week. It was good to get things done. I organized and packed away baby/kids clothing, we took lots of it and other things (bouncy seats, play mat, etc.) to the consignment shop (and made $165) and organized the basement a little. We also took time each day to watch a movie. Day 1 was Knocked Up and day 2 was Atonement. Two extremely different flicks, but they were both really good. I think I'm going to take 2 back to back days off in April, too. Unfortunately, Butch won't be off to help with bigger things, but it will still be good.

Friday, April 04, 2008

"I Pledge Allegiance...."

Leah - 9 Months Old!

How did this happen? My little baby is 9 months old! She started crawling about a week ago and has been nonstop ever since. Last night, she pulled herself up to a standing position for the first time! She's doing GREAT! I couldn't get her to sit still for pictures this month! :-)

9 Months

8 Months