The girl turns 3

Last Friday we celebrated Bella's 3rd birthday. How quick time has gone by. It seems like just yesterday we brought her home from the hospital, all 5lbs 14oz of her. She's so full of energy, personality, and wonder. She is truly a Daddy's girl, every morning since he's been home the first complete, coherent question she asks me is, "where my daddy at?" Finally, she is also potty trained. I wish it had happened sooner, but like the path I followed with the boys, I waited til it seemed like she was ready. We had a handful of accidents but for the most part in the almost 3 weeks we ditched the diapers, we've had 2 weeks accident free. 

A day or two before her birthday. She's into wearing dresses now, too bad she only has a couple since she was so against them for so long...

Waiting to open her presents...

an attempt at the photo a day...again

Ok, so maybe it's not really like a photo of the day, I'm not stressing out about getting a picture every.single.day. but I am trying to get one the majority of days. And so far I think I've only missed a handful of days in March. Of course the majority of the pictures were taken with my iPhone, but anything is better than nothing. Next month I'm going to attempt to get out my camera and take what I can only hope will be be half of the pictures for the month.

I'd really like to put together a Project Life album but the thought of making sure I was getting a picture every single day was a daunting task. So, after getting through the majority of this month and doing fairly well I decided that I can do the Project Life and I don't have to have a picture for every single day - it'll be ok. I can use multiple pictures for one day, or maybe write out what happened and why I don't have a photo. It inspires me to try because I have already given myself permission to slip up, because with 4 kids and a husband who is deployed, I will. I'm also going to try to do the Day in the Life one of these days too. Now I just have to get an album binder and get some sheet protectors. I'm eyeing the Midnight collection by Paislee Press for Project Life, I need to have some things at hand so get started on it before I crumble underneath the overwhelming feeling of getting behind. My album will go from March through December or March through March...this is one detail I haven't quite finalized yet - I have another 8 months to do so though, so no rush. Now to decide how I'm going to print the pictures, I hate to send them out constantly but there's no way that my personal printer will print anything of quality and that would last. I'd like to send it out to Persnickety Prints but the thought of doing it frequently hurts the bank account. I'll have to come up with a solution of some sort.


March 26th
Alex had to be picked up from school and taken to the Dr because or suspected pink eye. Thankfully he didn't have it.

March 27th
Mark helped me get all the supplies and did most of the dirty work in building the box in the top picture for Bella's bed and the trundle to use in the boys room.

March 28th
This is a note I found on the kitchen table this morning. Alex wrote it yesterday after Mark left and he was invited over while Tommy was at soccer practice.

February 14th update

Sorry I haven't been posting like I had intended. I promise that my intentions were much different when I started this blog. I am glad though that I decided not to renew the domain name or the web hosting.

Last week Anthony had a concert with the 5th and 6th graders. He sounded really good!

I'll try to post more often. I have quite a few photos from my phone I can share. I'm also doing a 30 day challenge with my good friend Kathy over at http://kandkphotoadventure.blogspot.com- check it out if you have the chance. I've been MIA for the past few days but we've been doing pretty good so far.

day 1...thankful for

Every year I see people professing their gratitudes on Facebook, blogs, etc. I can't promise that I will get through all 30 days because...well frankly, I have problems following through on things such as this. I wanted to try anyway. I'm going to attempt to do mine with pictures and at the end of each day.

So, without further ado...today I am thankful that, after each one of us suffered through the stomach flu and the poor girl ended up being the sickest and ended up in the hospital, my kids are all happy and healthy once again.

happy halloween

Happy Halloween from my ninja, the girl who screamed at me when trying to dress her in her costume, a creeper from Minecraft and a Minecraft skeleton.

what...an awful week

It all started a week ago from this past Thursday. Bella started throwing up. By Friday night it hit me and then, one by one, the boys dropped like flies. We all had the stomach flu. It wasn't exactly the way I had envisioned on spending our weekend. We even had to miss soccer games on Saturday, the tv was on 24/7. We were lazy and slept, a lot. The boys and I recovered and were almost back to normal by Monday morning. Bella, however, was not better. She kept throwing up occasionally. I let it go a few days thinking it was just taking her little body a little longer to kick the bug. Then a couple friends made me feel bad that I hadn't taken her in to see the Dr yet. Arrangements were made for someone to hang out with the boys and we were off to the ER.

At 5:40 we were standing in line to check in, by 6:05 we were admitted, triaged and vitals had been taken. Around 6:15 we were taken back into the ER. A nurse came and spoke with us, then it was sit and wait for the Dr to come by to speak with us. We were seen by the Dr by 7:10, she wanted to run some tests thinking Bella probably had a UTI. So by 7:30 poor baby girl had a catheter inserted to get a urine sample and immediately after that torturous moment we were whisked away to have X-rays of her belly taken. At 8:00 the nurse came back and asked if the Dr had told us what was going on, she hadn't, so the nurse explained that the Dr looked at the X-rays and thought she might have a bowel obstruction. They wanted to draw some blood to run some more tests. They inserted the IV, took their blood and hooked up little girl to some fluids. It was then that they told me they were talking to the Dr's down at Balboa about transferring her down there. Of course at this point I'm going slightly crazy. By 10:15 we had Bella buckled into her car seat which was strapped onto the gurney for the ambulance ride down to Balboa Navy Medical Center in San Diego. By 11:30 we were unloaded and settling into her hospital room.




We tried to sleep. It was a pain with all the people coming in and out of the room to check on her and talk to me. Thankfully the pediatric surgeons weren't concerned that she had a bowel obstruction. They said since she had the stomach flu and then got the UTI her system probably just slowed down, and that it was rare in a kid her age to have a bowl obstruction. So then the focus was on watching her, getting her fluids and making sure she doesn't continue to throw up. We slept off & on through the middle of the night, sometimes she let me lay in the bed with her other times I was sitting in the uncomfortable chair next to her bed. 








  They gave the ok for a normal diet again so she was thoroughly excited to be able to get her cup with some milk. They brought her breakfast and she nibbled on some toast. Around 11am one of the daytime nurses brought me good news...they were going to discharge her! So I began to make plans for someone to pick us up and because of the time they were supposed to discharge us, I also had to get someone to the house to hang out with the boys. They brought her lunch while we waited. Our discharge time came and went, our ride showed up and we continued to wait. I know nothing is set in stone, but I guess we were waiting for the head pediatric surgeon to come see her. Her meds had already been brought up from the pharmacy and the discharge papers were ready. Finally at 3:30 the head Dr showed up. She spoke with her group of Dr's outside her room for a minute or two and then looked at Bella and talked to me for about 2 minutes total. After that they got things moving. They removed her IV, brought me her antibiotics, and gave me the discharge papers to sign. Finally...we were free! I know that it was a short stay in the hospital, but I hadn't eaten anything in 24 hours because when we left for the ER I hadn't even made dinner yet. I didn't bring anything with me except her, my wallet and a book.


It was nice to finally get home, she seemed to be much happier at home also. We settled in for the night because we had to get back to normal routine really quick. No rest in this house, the following day was Saturday and Tommy and Alex had games in the morning.

the fourth one begins

Yesterday we said goodbye, again. He deployed again. There's no determined return time, all we have right now is 7-10 months. We had been preparing for a deployment, only it was supposed to have been for him to go to Okinawa for 9 months. One week before his pre-deployment leave they decided he needed to fill a spot on a boat. This deployment will be very similar to his last one, same ship and same general area. So, unfortunately for him, he'll do and see a lot of the same things he did last time.

We'll keep busy...with four kids to keep up after it's definitely not something I have to try hard to do. Saying goodbye was weird and difficult yesterday. It wasn't the same as last time, so it seems like we didn't really say goodbye. I'm sure the reality of it all will set in soon, and most likely at the most inopportune time. 

All I can do right now is breathe in, and out and keep it together for the kids...and make a list of things I need to catch up on. Things around the house got a little lost in the shuffle of the kids starting school and soccer and getting him ready to deploy.