Also...

I failed to mention that today, November 15th, was my former father-in-law, Chuck, Sr.'s birthday. Had he lived, he would have been 82 today and he would have rocked it. He passed of multiple myloma in June of 2004. I know he would have gotten such a kick out of knowing Nicholas and would be so proud of the young man Patrick is becoming. He was displaced from his family while visiting his family's summer home in Latvia (from Germany) at age 12 when the Nazis invaded Russia. He escaped a firing squad, lived off roots, berries and bugs and traveled back to Germany only to be put in a displaced persons work camp. Later he was reunited with his family and sponsored by a Lutheran orphanage to come to America where he joined the Air Force and worked his way up to Chief Master Sargent and served at the Pentagon as head of all of the dental facilities of the Air Force bases. He was a truly amazing individual, opinionated and extremely charming and I miss him.

Today

I have been so reluctant to start blogging again, due to the chaos that was our move last summer. We have misplaced our camera charger, therefore I do not have any pictures of the boy's birthdays to share (yet), our time living at the hotel in downtown Chicago, our time moving into our house here in Park Ridge and all of the MANY renovations that have taken place. We will find that charger at some point and I will backlog our summer because the main point of this blog is to keep a record of our family. So many things that have happened over the past 4.5 years since I started this blog are so fun to look back on and remember (for us). Anyways, today I was packing up all of the Thomas the Train stuff that Nicholas has never been interested in and it brought me to tears remembering how Patrick and I used to build tracks and play trains when he was Nicholas's age and how that time is past and will never be again (Although, Patrick is such a well natured child he probably would play trains with me if I asked, but you get my point). Raising children day after day sometimes seems so long, but when I thought about those trains today, it only seemed liked yesterday and in reality it was 5 years ago. I asked Patrick when he got home from school if he remembered playing trains, and did I play with him enough. He warmed my heart by saying "You played trains with me all of the time, Mom. We had fun.". While I can't get those moments back, I am proud of the memories they provide, and I hope to be on this earth long enough to continue to create more...which brings me to another thought from today of a dear friend of ours from Lake Cities, Rich P., a true man of God, a wonderful husband, father and friend. Rich is one of the healthiest people I know, and yet he was stricken last year with kidney cancer. He has been through treatment and has been going for scans every 3 months. Now nodules appear to be growing in his lungs. I am reminded that "today" is all God ever promised us, it is a gift from Him, and we cannot expect anything more than His will. I want to remind myself and others to cherish every moment with loved ones, never lash out in anger, but be kind as Jesus would have wanted and always be thankful.

The Past 51 Days....

have been a roller coaster. Chuck left to start his job in Chicago on June 9th which was incidentally Nicholas 4th birthday and the day of my left thumb surgery. Back in April I fell on my thumb while getting up from the floor while pushing out the coffee table with my other hand...anyways, I tore the ulnar collateral ligament off of the bone and had to have surgery. I had a lovely purple cast that I got cut off last Monday, and I am currently in a soft black splint that resembles a rollerblade wrist guard. We put our house on the market Saturday night of Memorial Day weekend and thankfully it was sold the following Wednesday. We had two full price offers that ended with the first offer giving us 3K at closing toward realtor fees. It was a HUGE blessing. The inspection revealed a leak in our shower that came from loose caulking at the place where the tile met the shower pan. Chuck fixed it before he left and replaced the half bath toilet (cracked tank). The buyers wanted a plumber to come out and make sure the leak was fixed, so one came out and opened up a hole in our garage ceiling and found water damage and MOLD! Ugh! All of this occurred right after Chuck left and I was recovering from my thumb surgery. Thankfully my parents were there the month of June to help me (and I needed it with only one hand). My in-laws came down as well and towed Chuck's boat back to their house. So the mold clean up people came and cleaned up the mold and put in these huge de-humidifiers to suck all of the moisture out of the carpet, walls and garage ceiling. They drilled holes behind the master bed & bath baseboards to pull the water out. It took 3 days to get the moisture out. We were to stay away from the bedroom as the machines could suck the moisture out of your eyes and mouth if you attempted to stay in there too long. After that ordeal, I left for Chicago and stayed 9 days to house hunt while my parents kept the boys at our house in The Woodlands. I enjoyed my time at the Four Seasons with Chuck and Chicago is an awesome place. I am really looking forward to finally moving there. While I was gone, Patrick managed to break our garage door and the pool vacuum hose. Chuck said "Don't worry, I will fix it when I come in for the closing on the 5th of July". So, I was left to get the 4' x 6' hole patched in our garage ceiling. I found a WONDERFUL handyman through our realtor who came 5 days before we were supposed to close and floated the sheet rock with promise to come back in the next few days to sand and paint. He only charged $150 (all of the other quotes were for $700). I so appreciated him, that I paid him $200. As he and his helpers left that day, I went to close the garage door manually. To my absolute horror, I pulled the garage door panels down on 8 of my fingers and was stuck! My parents had left at this point for a break and had gone back to Grapevine and my brother, Russell, had come down to help out. At the time he was taking Patrick to a friend's house and Nicholas was with him. I stood screaming with my fingers stuck. It was pouring outside and THANK YOU GOD, the handyman looked over as he was driving away and saw the garage door hanging half way and my feet twitching underneath. They rushed up and lifted the door, took me inside and got me ice to put on my fingertips. I recently had nails put on and I really think they protected my fingers. Most were broken or split, of course, but that was easy to fix. I cannot tell you how bad getting my fingertips smashed between the panels hurt, but I do recall calling my mom hysterical and calling her "Mommy". July 4th wknd was fairly relaxing. We went to our neighbor's house for their baby's 1st year party. Sunday we ate dinner there again and I took my boys to see the fireworks in The Woodlands and then we came back to our street and lit off fireworks as we have done for the past 3 years. Nicholas loved the fireworks so much that we continued doing fireworks in the street and at Grandma's for many nights after. Chuck came in at 11:30pm on the 5th and guess what I did? I went to Hobby Airport instead of Bush! Chuck was to fly out of Hobby on Wed night and I was confused and sleep deprived. We had our first day of movers that Monday and Patrick's 9th birthday party in the middle of it all. Finally, I picked him up at midnight and we went home for our last night in our dream house (as I now refer to it). Tuesday Chuck fixed the pool vacuum and garage door. The movers finished up loading the truck and my Honda CRV (which was quite interesting to see how they fit it in the moving truck). Leland (handyman) came back and our neighbors graciously invited us to eat with them for like the 5th night in a row. I took the boys over while Chuck and Leland were working on the garage door power cable and chain. I decided to bring Chuck a plate of food. Now, I have become quite efficient at doing many things with only four fingers on my left hand. This particular night, I misjudged my neighbors doorknob and whacked my fake nail on my index finger so hard that I ripped my real nail half off my finger. Screaming and crying and cursing commenced on the front lawn between our house and Chris and Cindy's house. Chuck ran out from the garage and saw red all over my face and hands from a koolaid packet I had mixed in a water bottle for Nicholas and he thought I was bleeding from my face. My nail bled from underneath my real nail..since then I have removed the fake nail and my real nail looks bad, but I think it will live. TO BE CONTINUED....

That popsicle might poke your eye out!

The big dead tree has been a source of much discussion over the past two years. After Hurricane Ike, we have had weekly cards with quotes on our door. Well, we finally got the right quote. We knew at the time that we might be moving soon and we needed to improve the front yard. I have been asking Chuck to take out the giant bush for 2 years and he finally did. The dead tree was so tall that you could see it from far down the street in either direction. It was massive.

 After Chuck took out the bush, the ice cream truck came by. The boys had taken off their safety goggles, but Chuck still had his on. Ha ha!

Kittens!

The director of Nicholas's pre-school had a littler of 8 kittens. The mom was a calico and the dad was orange and white. We had been talking about either adopting a grown cat or getting 2 brother kittens. It was hard to resist the "Free Kittens" sign as I took Nicholas to school one day back in April. This is Tiger. He was the most laid back cat. He was such a doll. We chose his litter mate, Shadow, because they had been connected since birth (always playing and sleeping together). Tiger developed a really swollen abdomen and I took him to the vet only to find out he had F.I.P. We had to have him put down a week later. It was really, really sad.

Shadow is extremely laid back and docile. He lets us hold him like a baby. He is really sweet. Not wanting Shadow to be lonely, we got another one of his brothers and named him Cupid. There were two orange and white kittens left so Pam brought them back up to the pre-school. I took Patrick out early so he could pick out his new cat. Cupid is quite a little lover, too, but a bit more needy. If he is left in a room by himself he cries until we come and get him.