Prayer Request

Whenever I receive a new comment I get a little giddy inside. Does anyone else feel that way?

The best is when you get a comment from a new reader. Last week, I received a comment from a young mom of 4. If I don't know the commenter I always click on their name to check out their blog. Sometimes I leave a comment, sometimes I just read their story.

With this young mama I did both. Her story tore me up inside and inspired me at the same time.

She is currently fighting the battle of her life. In September 2008, a mass was discovered in her lung which has now been identified as Large b-cell Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma.

She is currently undergoing chemo while trying to live her life to the fullest. She is trying to enjoy her 4 young children and still have a life outside of cancer.

I can relate.

When I first found out that I had cancer, the support that I received from my friends in Bloggeritaville was AMAZING. It still is.

So, I have a request. Please head on over to Molly's blog and offer her your prayers.

Speaking from experience you can never have to many prayers, get well thoughts, or hugs and kisses:)

Now, while I am not asking you to hug or kiss her, prayers and get well thoughts would be great:)

300th post

My 300th post is coming up. I have been tossing around ideas in my head about what I should do. I think I have settled on a question/answer session.

My goal is to get at least 30 questions (that's 10% of 300, because I'm pretty sure I can't answer 300 questions!)

Sooooo, please, ask away. What would you like to know about little ole' me?

You can leave the question in my comments or you can shoot me an email at dolfinlvr101@yahoo.com

I can't wait to read all of your questions. This is going to be so much fun:)

Not Ready

Would someone please tell my daughter that I am not ready for this:

Before long she is going to be driving, going on dates, and kissing boys!

I can't handle it!

Randomness

This week has been rough. Daddy is in St Louis for work, my parents are in St. Thomas for fun, and my in laws are in New Orleans for a wedding.

Under normal circumstances taking care of the kids for a week by myself is rough. Add chemo to that and I am wiped! Luckily, the kids have been pretty good and Kyler has been a good helper for mommy. I'm just so tired!

We are also dog sitting my in laws huge black lab. He's actually a pretty good dog. However, his internal alarm clock goes off at 5:30 AM! Mine does not!

My mother in law thinks I am a bit depressed. Interferon can cause depression. But honestly, I don't think it's depression. I think it's exhaustion!

Another side effect of Interferon is hair loss and weight loss. These are rare, however I have them both. My hair is falling out in handfuls. I am also losing weight like crazy. Not that I am complaining all that much about that, but I have no clothes that fit! And guess where the weight is leaving first-it's not my ass like I need it to-it's my boobs! That sucks!

I have currently gone down 3 sizes in pants. Which in turn means that I have to buy new pants or my ass hangs out. Oh wait, my ass hangs out of these darn low rise pants any way!

Ella is getting her 1 year molars. She is a little crabby. Good times.

Ella's cloth diapers are pissing me off. We have a High Efficiency washer and apparently that is not the best thing to use with cloth diapers. At first they had a stinky smell, after many, many washes I got the stink out. Now they are giving her a rash so apparently something that I used to get the stink out did not agree with Ella's little tushy. I really do like cloth diapering and I don't want to give it up, I just need to figure out what in the world is giving her a rash. All 30 of her diapers are currently in the wash on the sanitary cycle. Let's hope that does the trick!

Kyler had his 3 year well child appt yesterday and the Dr is concerned about his growth. He weighed 29 lbs which is in the 20 %ile and his height is 37 inches which is the 38%ile. I don't think they measured his height very accurately though. I measured him at home and he was 38 inches. I'm not going to stress about it to much. He eats. A little!

And, just because my kids take goofy pictures. Here are some funny pictures to brighten your day.

That's a good little tent.
Mama! Quit taking my picture.

That is so not funny Mommy!

Tunnel Time

This week the weather has been kind of icky so we decided to get out the tunnel.

Kyler has always been a fan of the tunnel, but this was Ella's first time experiencing it.

She had a blast!

Her favorite part was when Kyler (or mommy-yeah that only happened once!) would go through the tunnel with her.

For some reason she found that hilarious.

10 months and 3 days

Check out Ella's new shoes! Come to find out Ella has HUGE feet for her age! These are a size 5! I made them measure her feet 4 times just to make sure!
She is still getting used to walking in them. She prefers to be barefoot.

Mama, help me walk. These shoes are funny feeling!

Dear Ella,

I can't believe you are already 10 months old. That means in less then 2 months you will be ONE!

One.

I can't believe it.

You are already so ahead of the game it amazes me.

You are a walking fool. Sometimes you prefer to crawl, but lately you walk more then crawl.

You love to give kisses. All I have to do is ask for a smooch and you start kissing.

Your newest trick is waving and saying "Bye-Bye."

You can say mama, dada, bye-bye, and hi.

You are definitely a "high maintenance" baby girl, but I love you so very much.

Thank you for keeping life entertaining!

Read Me A Story

Hey Kyler, will you read me a story?

Please?
Dang, this is one great story bro!Here, let me help you.

Ha, ha, ha. That is one funny story!

Thanks Kyler!

Baby Kyler

This afternoon, as I was moving pics from my computer and putting them onto my external hard drive I found these adorable pics of Kyler when he was a little man.

I think he was about 5 months in these pics.

Where has time gone?

Good Mama

Why I am a good mommy:

'Nuff Said

Zoo Day Fun

If you look closely, there is a monkey on the other side of the glass. When I put Ella up on the ledge, the monkey came over and sat down beside her. It totally freaked her out!
Ella hanging out in the jungle!

Hi mommy! I love the zoo!


Mommy, what is Daddy doing at the zoo?:)

I love penguins! Can we take him home with us?

This penguin is almost as big as me!

These penguins rock Mama!

Last week, after my treatment, I decided to take the kids to the zoo. I didn't know if I would be able to handle it or not, but I knew I wanted to try.

One of my favorite things about being a mommy is being able to do things with my children. We don't have any family that is extremely close by and the family that is close, works, so it is usually just me. I don't have family members that live right down the street that can watch my kids when I need them too. Although that would be nice, I am usually on my own.

So I usually just suck it up and do it. You do what you gotta do, right?

So that is why when a beautiful day presented itself, I decided to take advantage of it. I would deal with the consequences later.

The weather was gorgeous.

The kids were well behaved.

The animals were out and about.

It was awesome.

Until later that day. Mommy was beat! I was exhausted. So exhausted that I was nauseous for two days.

Yes, I enjoy spending time with my beautiful children.

Yes, I enjoy doing things that make them happy.

However, I also need to remember that mommy can't over do it.

Thank you guys for a wonderful day at the zoo, however, I think next time we will have to make the zoo trip a bit shorter!

The Big 3!

The other night Kyler got into the closet with the blankets and had a good ole' time pulling them all out and playing in them. For some reason, he kept calling the blankets his "Birthday Party."

Our zoo trip-more on that tomorrow.

What a handsome young man he is! I think he is deep in thought here!


Yep, he is gorgeous!

Dear Kyler-

Today you turn 3 years old. I am excited, yet at the same time sad. I am excited because this is a big milestone for you. I am sad because this means that my little man is growing up.

When you turned 1, I was happy. So many new milestones were going to be reached and I was excited for you.

When you turned 2, I cried. You no longer needed me as much and you wanted to do EVERYTHING yourself.

And now, here we are, you are turning 3. You technically aren't three until 10:58PM and not one minute sooner young man! I am pretty sure you still need me, although maybe not as much as I would like.

You are turning into a wonderful young man. You are one of the sweetest little boys I know.

At least to me. To your sissy, not so much. But we're working on that and you are getting better!

My favorite thing that you do is when you come up to me, give me a huge hug and say, "I love you sooooo much Mama." The first few times you did this I had tears in my eyes. Now I just hug you back and tell you how much I love you.

I seriously don't know what I would do without you. You are my best bud and I love you more then life itself. Please don't ever change and don't you ever stop being a Mama's boy.

I love you monster man.

Happy 3rd Birthday.

PS Please tell me that you are NOW ready to be potty trained!

Wordless Wednesday

Our House Sucks!

There was a lot of this going on at our house this weekend!

This weekend we were supposed to have Kyler's birthday party.



His 3rd birthday party.



My boy is almost 3.



Hang on, let me wipe the tears.



Ok, I'm better.



Anyway, we were supposed to party it up at our house this weekend and Kyler decided that Friday night would be a good time to get the flu.



The pukey flu.



As in the "It's cool to puke 10 times in 12 hours" flu. Yuck!



Then mommy got it.



Then daddy got it.



We are finally all feeling better now and I am praying that Ella does not get it.



Needless to say, his birthday party was rescheduled.

Pray that everyone will be well enough for the party here in a few weeks!

Money Monday

I've been thinking all weekend about what I have done to save money lately and honestly I couldn't really come up with much.

I have been better about not spending so much money. At least on crap.

I have also been using Ella's 6 month dresses as tops and putting them with a pair of jeans. It actually looks pretty cute.

We have also been trying to win the Monopoly game at McDonald's so every day, on work's dime, Cody has been going to McDonald's for lunch so that we can get some game pieces. So far though, we aren't winners:(

Since it has been so nice here I have been putting some clothes outside to dry. Especially the cloth diapers. This really helps to freshen them up and the sun is a natural bleaching agent so it whitens up the diapers also.

What have you done to save money this week?

I am in desperate need of some money saving tips!

Trick or Treat

For Halloween Grandma and Grandpa Snyder joined us for trick or treating. We just went around our little neighborhood and got candy. Kyler was really into it this year and he had a blast.
Instead of saying trick or treat though, he would say Happy Halloween. Whatever. It worked!

Ella and Mommy
Kyler and Mommy

Ella, looking gorgeous as a thumbsucking ladybug.

Kyler riding in style!