For Dad...

You know you are blessed when although you live half an hour away from your parents and usually see them at least once a week, you still get bugged by your dad to update your blog more. =)

You see, being an only child has given me the greatest gift of having parents that are fully attentive to my needs, dreams and day to day boring activities.

But really, what more could I ask for? I am truly grateful that I have two wonderful parents who care what is going on in my life and are willing to drop everything in their lives to help me when needed and offer advice when it is sought. Yes, sometimes the advice does come unsolicited...but it is always sincere and full of good intention and wisdom.So while talking to my mom a bit ago about her surprise Elvis scarf that arrived in the mail for her birthday today (Happy Birthday Ma!), she mentioned that my dad was anxiously awaiting my next blog update. Well, this daddy's girl certainly doesn't want to disappoint. =)

So what's been going on? Well, lots.

There's been the usual occurances of Cecilia drawing and Jude wanting to do everything with Daddy...

(Can I add that this kid (20 months old now) has the most amazing vocabulary?? He also recognizes the entire upper case alphabet and most of the lower case!...Yes...he got his momma's brains...LOL!)

Cecilia also earned a spot in her school's spelling bee, but didn't place this year. We are very proud of her anyway. Below are the 5th grade contestants.


We also were very excited recently by the visit of Terry's sister, Leslie (who I was friends with BEFORE Terry came into my life), and our nephew Ryan. They live in NJ and are only able to come down for a visit a couple of times a year. And because Jude and Ryan are only a month apart in age, we always look forward to the visits to see how they will react to each other. This was the best visit yet in my opinion for the two because they got to really enjoy playing together...and we even got to take Ryan to his first trip to Chuck E. Cheese's!

The weekend following Les and Ryan's bittersweet return to Jersey, I was able to attend a girls' getaway with some ladies from church. We had a great time despite the cold weather, but I did get out for a bit and take some pictures. The location of our retreat was a ranch which not only contained the usual cows and horses, but also some exotic animals. Unfortunately the weather kept me from venturing far enough out to get pics of the exotics, but I did check out the VERY old cemetary on the grounds and some of the horses and their donkey friends.

Let's see...last week took us to see the doctor a couple of times.

First, on Monday, my dear graceful Jude attempted to bust his lip, yet again. This time he wasn't so successful. You'd think that would be a good thing, but instead his bottom teeth punched a hole right through the area under his lip. That's right...a hole on the inside AND the outside. Of course when I first picked him up I assumed it was the usual busted lip, but once I saw the cut on the outside...I pretty much freaked out. All at once before my eyes flashed a scene of painful shots and stitches and all kinds of uncomfortableness for my baby. We then spend 10 minutes debating on whether this warranted a trip to the ER or not. In the end we decided to take him to a nearby emergency care center where we were informed that it wasn't bad at all and he would require no stitches. What a relief! He now is almost completely healed. Thank the Lord that it wasn't worse!

Wednesday was then my day to head to the hospital. For the past few months I have been suffering from menorrhagia. Let's just say that when the gyno nurse asks when my last period was, I want to slap her because as I've told the rest of them...let's say um...about September 1st until January 1st. I know it's their protocol to automatically ask that...but please, can we at least check the records and see WHY the patient is there before we ask these questions? Anyway, when they did an ultrasound and biopsy in November it was discovered that I had many polyps in my uterus which was the cause for the bleeding. My options were to have an endometrial ablation and tie my tubes or have a hysterectomy. Since the recovery time for a hysterectomy can be a month, I chose the ablation. I do have a toddler to take care of! The tube tying (tubal ligation) was necessary to prevent pregnancy since after the ablation, it would be impossible for an embryo to attach and/or grow without that endometrial lining. So that's what I had done on the 3rd. Recovery hasn't been too bad and Terry was here until yesterday to do all the lifting and such until I could. I had to see the doctor yesterday though because my bellybutton incision is infected. But it's already looking better.

So no more grandbabies for my parents, but I've made 2 very beautiful and remarkable children. I have so much to be proud of.

So, yes, a lot has been going on, and maybe that was the reason for the delay in my blogging. I do apologize though to those who actually look forward to the updates. I will try to blog a bit more often so that my blogs don't end up being these novel-length monstrosities!

Thanks for reading...thanks for caring.