Thursday Thirteen

Sorry I'm a tad late, I had not internet access this morning.


For today's Thursday thirteen, I'm going to talk about 13 things I am making for Christmas gifts. If you're lucky, I might link to tutorials for ya!


1. Cloth Dolly Diapers The girls love changing their babies diapers. And hey, they are reusable.

2. Pillow Case Dresses Both of my girls look absolutely adorable in these. And hey, when they are too short to be dresses, they make great tunics! So easy to do too.

3. No-Sew Fleece Blankets. Caity, Izzie, Lexi, Emmy, and Andrew are all getting one of these.

4. Homemade Bath salts. Great simple idea for teachers, and other friends.

5. Dolly MeiTei baby carrier. My girls love to babywear their dollies, and they already have pouches.

6. Taggies -- Both Blankets and balls

7. Playsilks (hand dyed)

8. Waldorf Dolls -- I'm going to try a simple one first, if its successful, I'll make a heavy baby for Caity

9. Little wooden peg people

10. Fabric Doll house/Barn

11. Cookies/Brownies/Breads in a jar

12. Pettiskirts


And last but not least


13. Playdough!

And so I nominate.........

Five Minutes for Mom is holding another Blogs can change lives giveaway.

This time, its for the kids. Sick kids to be precise.

5MFM has 10 PSP bundles to give to very deserving kids who don't get to have the fun they should.

Our job, as bloggers, is to nominate kids we feel would benefit from this giveaway.

I have had a few friends tell me I should nominate Caity for her kidney issues. But alas I think she's a touch to young for a PSP and there are more deserving kids out there.

And so, I nominate Kyler.

Kyler is the son of another blogger. My bloggy friend Sara, has spoken about him before and introduced me to his struggles. I know some of the pain that goes with kidney troubles, and I can only hope that Kyler gets to have a little fun and feel a little special every day. And I also have hope that a kidney finds its way to him.

Wordless Wednesday -- It's Fall Yall

Momdot's Next round of giveaways

Momdot, generous as ever has lined up another exciting round of giveaways for a blog party leading up to a Christmas of Dreams super prize for one lucky winner.


So Mark your Calenders and prepare to play. November 12-27th with the grand prize, A Christmas of Dreams, to end on November 28th!






For more details check out the Blog Party Info post.

Tackle It Tuesday -- The girls room

The girls lair den room is usually a cluttered mess. They play hard and never the same thing.

But this week, we've tackled it and hopefully they will be able to keep it decent.

I don't have any before shots, but here are some afters. Please note the rubbermaid bins of off season clothes have since been taken to the basement and hanging clothes are in closet!
















For more Tackle it Tuesday, visit 5MFM

Pictures to come, but

We went to the pumpkin patch yesterday! The girls had a blast an dpicked out one fine pumpkin, which they will be carving with Daddy today (I'll be getting pics of that too!)


We also did a hayride and an animal show at the Patch.


It was great fun.

PSF -- The story of two Sisters

Hosted by Cecily and MamaGeek

When I was pregnant with Izzie, Caity insisted throughout the last half of my pregnancy that I had a baby elephant in my tummy. No idea where she got that idea from, but she was insistent. And she loved her baby elephant.




Then Izzie was born.


Grandpa helped her look through the nursery windows.....

Caity was disappointed that there was no elephant. But decided she liked her baby okay.



And from that day she decided that Sisters were better than elephants.






She takes her big sister duties, very seriously








And then of course, there is the annoying.......



But all in all, they love each other. The support each other. And they even sometimes like each other!





For more PSF's click Here

Thinking about Christmas

Writing up my lists of who is left to buy for and what I am thinking of getting them.


Also organizing what I need for the items I'm making.

Here's a short list of some homemade goodies going to family/friends.

Homemade cocoa in ajar
Homemade bath salts
Little wood people
Felt animals
No sew blankets
Playsilks
Bean bags
Finger puppets
homemade playdough


and so much more. I'll be sure to post pics when I finish up stuff!

Wordless Wednesday -- Driving Lessons

I have tons of new pictures, but can't find my memory card adapter to upload them right now. I'm sure it will show up later today, when I get the chance to really look for it.

But until then, you are getting Older pics.









You can see more Wordless Wednesday posts at Momdot and 5 Minutes for Mom

A little surgery news

Caity's kidney surgery has been put on hold. Not sure when it will happen, but for now its put off indefinitely.

We met with the urologist today who after viewing all of her test results and conferring with another urology specialist, decided that with the bladder issues, teh kidney surgery would only have a small chance of being successful. Not worth cutting her open for.

So We will start with treating the bladder issues. Yes. Issues. Plural. Can you hear my excitement at finding that out.

It seems our little Caity is a very complete medical anomaly. Very very rare case is she.

So the battle plan.

For the next 3-4 weeks we will be giving her Flomax (Yes, the prostate drug) every night along with her current medicine regimen. If she does not tolerate this well, we will try lowering the dosage. After that time period,if she's been able to handle the meds, we will take her in for a repeat uroflow test and see if there is any improvement. If there is improvement, we will add Ditripan to the drug cocktail. If there is no improvement we will increase the Flowmax and go from there.

Dr. R said:
Best Case scenerio : The drugs work, help with the kidney issues as a side effect and we are good with the bladder. It will never be normal, but we can make it better.

Worst Case scenerio: The drugs don't work, and she has to be on Ditripan for life and cath herself several times daily.

Onto the Kidneys

Right Kidney -- Beautiful. Perfect. Right size. Right shape. Right everything. Healthy, normal kidney.

Left Kidney -- reflux, grade 5. smaller than normal. Showing signs of heavy damage.

But hey --- You only need one working kidney to live. So she's got that going for her.



Of course all of this means extra special attention on her kidneys to make sure they are tolerating the treatment well and the bladder is not causing further damage to the left and creating problems in the right (a possibility). So yay more time for us to spend at Children's Hospital, cuz you know, its one of our fave places.


There is so much more to add to this, but I'm exhausted and upset and I just really don't have the notion to spill it all out there right now. Look for another update sometime this week.

Tackle it Tuesday

Will be posted tomorrow afternoon/evening.

Whenever I return home from Children's.


I'm a tad nervous. I know we're discussing surgery and my nerves are eating me up inside.


Please, if you pray, pray for my sweet girl tomorrow.

Urologist

We meet with Caity's Urologist at Children's Tuesday afternoon.

We'll decide then what surgery we will be doing and when. They have also been discussing a medicine regimen for the bladder issues, so we'll discuss that as well.

Weekend of FUN!

Saturday, the girls and I enjoyed a trip to the zoo. We attended the zoo on a fun play group day, so we got to meet up with other mommy's and kiddos and get into the zoo for free.

I've got to upload pictures this week and get them posted.

Caity LOVED seeing the monkeys. Especially the baby gorilla! She was a little disappointed that they did not feed the alligators as planned, but she enjoyed seeing all the other animals.


Izzie found herself a little boyfriend and enjoyed sharing her yogurt melts with him. I think he enjoyed her company (and food!) too. She really loved the birds and the fish.




Thank you Monika and everyone else for such an enjoyable afternoon! We hope to do it again!



It was so nice to make it to Little Rock and not have to going to Children's hospital!

NORMAL.........NORMAL.........NORMAL

I don't think I've ever been so excited to hear those words before.


Dr. Martin called this morning (or well her nurse did) to inform us that Izzie's tests came out fine. She did not inherit the same kidney issues that Caity has.

This is such great news. This means that we only have to plan for surgery for one daughter!


Plus, Izzie didn't need more problems on top of her others.

PSF -- The Christmas shoot

Hosted by Cecily and MamaGeek

Last year, I somehow got it into my head that I could get some good pics of the girls in their christmas dresses, dress it up in photoshop and make the perfect christmas cards to send out.

It was a simple plan.


So, I got them all dressed up. Set them on the bed. And the following occured.




When one wasn't pouting, the other was screaming.



One would look away, while the other looked at the camera.



and chew on a tissue



I finally decided that no one would appreciate a card that said MERRY FREAKIN CHRISTMAS and gave up.



This year, there will be no joint picture. There will be no fancy dress, just simple snapshots.



For more Photo Story Fridays click Here

A couple of Awards for Moi

I got Awards!




First, Heather gave me this a while back and I got so busy I forgot to blog it. Thanks Heather! And Leah also gave me this award, so a huge thanks to Leah too.



Rules are Fairly simple:
1. Only 5 people are allowed to receive this award
2. Four (4) of them are followers of your blog.
3. One has to be new to your blog and live in another part of the world.
4. You must link back to who ever gave you the award.

The 5 people are encouraged to pass this award to 5 Blogging friends too, following the 4 rules listed above. Now, for who I pass it onto:
Sara @ My sippy cup runneth over
Melissa @ Mesa's World
Jen
Tracy
Kati








And Thanks to Susan for this blog award. I really like this one, the meaning is so great.






Here's the translation of the award and the meaning behind it:
“This blog invests and believes, in ‘proximity’ [meaning, that blogging makes us 'close' - being close through proxy] "They are all charming blogs, and the majority of them aim to show the marvels of friendship; there are persons who are not interested when we give them a prize, and then they help to cut these bows; do we want that they are cut, or that they propagate?"Then let’s try to give more attention to them! So with this prize we must deliver it to eight bloggers that in turn must make the same thing and put this text.”

Here are the eight bloggers of my choosing.....
1. Sara @ My sippy cup runneth over
2. Rachel @ Following in my shoes
3. . ">Heather @ My quest for Sanity
4. Melissa @ Mesa's World
5.. Nina
6.. Gena
7.. Jennifer J. "All Boys world"
8. AJ

Only in Arkansas ---- My dream house

DH sent me this in an email from a real estate site. I laughed until I cried, then laughed some more.



House Description:

$40,000 - Single Family Home, 1 Bed, 500 Sqft.,
Hot Springs, AR



* Lot Descriptions: 2
* Acres: 2.00
* Bedrooms: 1
* Lakes: Fountain Lake
* Listing Price: $40,000

* Property Type: Single Family Home
* School District: Fountain Lake
* Sq.Ft.: 500
* Year Built: 2006



First thought that popped in my head, what there's no bathroom?

Then I glanced at the pictures.

9 pictures.

9 pictures of a 1 bedroom, no apparant bath house.

Picture #1 -- Why yes, it's a shack. Shed looking shack. mmmmmk



Picture #2 -- OOH look, it has a garage door. Wait a minute, there didn't appear to be enough room in the shack for a garage.




Picture #3 -- Always been a dream of mine to be able to wash the laundry and cook dinner in my drive through home.




No mention of heat and air, I guess that comes in your car, that you drive into the 1 bed shack.


And wait. Here it is......the bathroom...... well almost.





ETA: Um, this is so a joke, I really do not plan on buying this. LOL