Waiting For A Graceful Morning: October 2008

Ben is Scream fourth from left, Peter is Jango Fett second from right next to his friend, Sponge Bob (Luke)

Rocker Girl

I am sitting in my living room surrounded by stuff...stuff is EVERYWHERE! My house is a complete disaster area and I am not exaggerating. There is not a room in the house that is not a wreck. From where I sit, I even see clothes creeping out of the laundry room. So, instead of cleaning all of it up, I am here blogging. I guess that is one way to get me to blog...make the house too unbearable to clean. We have had a whirlwind weekend which led to the disaster. It started on Friday with Ava's MRI. She had an MRI scheduled for Friday at 1:00. I called them the day before because they had left me a message asking about metal in her body. I told them that I was pretty sure that she didn't, she did have open heart surgery in China but she had an echo done after we got home. Anyway, when we got there they contacted the cardiologist to get the echo results, but then decided they still wanted to do an x-ray to make sure there was no metal. I was happy to do the x-ray...I really wanted to make sure she had no metal in her body before they put her into a giant magnet! During all of this waiting, Ava was not very cooperative with the nurse so we decided to have them give her some Versed before they tried to put in the IV, which turned out to be an excellent idea!!! It was very hard for them to find a vein for the IV and she was not happy, but she would have been hysterical if she had not had the Versed and she would also remember it (thank God for the amnesia effect!). While we were there I asked them if we could get the Chinese rate. Before we adopted Ava, she had a CT of her head done and we had to pay for it. It was all of $26!!! I think that we might have spent that much Friday in parking and coffee at the hospital!! We did not pick a good year for a high deductible insurance plan, our out of pocket medical expenses this year have reached my residency salary!! Oh well, it is just money, we'll catch up eventually and thank goodness we are able to do all that we can to help our sweet girl.

Well, when we got home Friday night, Derek watched our "drunk" daughter while I went to Mother/Son Game Night at the boy's school. It was a costume game night so we had to get dressed up. Peter was Jango Fett from Star Wars, Ben was Bloody Scream and I dressed as the Wicked Witch of the West (Elphaba)...unfortunately, no pix from that night. We had a lot of fun. Friday night was the beginning of the house disaster project.

Saturday was another dress up day!!! Peter's best friend, Luke, had a birthday party with a costume parade and then trunk or treating at their church. On our way to Luke's house we stopped by Derek's parent's house where Peter and Granddaddy Chapman have been growing a pumpkin for months. We had a great time at Luke's party and the kids also had fun trunk or treating. This was Ava's first Halloween experience and she clung to me for most of the evening. Near the end, she finally let some people put candy in her "pumpkin" (actually a hello kitty bucket). More mess made today...no cleaning.

Sunday was another crazy day. I didn't prepare too well for my sunday school lesson (I read it on the way to the party yesterday), so I got on the internet early and looked up some stuff. Teaching the high school class is a little more challenging than the 5 and under group I'm use to!! After church, we had a quick lunch because I had to get back up to church to help decorate for Family Fun Night (FFN). Before heading back to church, I had Derek taste test my chili for tonight's chili cook off to see if I needed to add anything. I also took a few pix of Derek and the kids carving the HUGE pumpkin. I found out while decorating that one of the comittees I am on at church was meeting at 5pm (FFN starts at 6), so I rush to get home at 4 to give Derek time to go get donuts (he is in charge of the donut eating contest) and quickly make my witch cookies. He gets home in time for me to go back up to the church (the kitchen is a disaster after chili making and witch cookie creating). My meeting was longer than expected so I didn't make it back home so thankfully Derek go everyone dressed and met me up there.

FFN was a lot of fun though. The boys both won the pumpkin carving contest. Ben won for scariest pumpkin and Peter won for largest pumpkin (they each carved a side on the huge pumpkin) and I took home the third place price for my chili - woohoo! Ava was a little clingy, but she had a lot of fun too! Anyway, I had to drag everyone out of bed this morning to get ready for school (including myself) and now I am sitting here in a total disaster area!

Peter doing what he does best - supervising!

Ben doing some detail work with his pocket knife

Peter posing with his alien pumpkin

Ben posing with his Screem pumpkin

Ava loves to put on this mask

The boys love their sister

The final product on display

The Costume Parade

Peter as Jango Fett

Ava the Rocker Girl (she wouldn't go alone)

Ben as a Sith Apprentice

Peggy and Marilynn (Susan) with the puppies (LilyKate and Eleanor)

Maddie Minnie Mouse and her dad, Billy

Here is a video of Ava rocking out to her adoring fans.

Yes, I am posting again. After I posted, I read Magi's post about our time together. My posts are few and far between and don't include much detail. I hate to write and it is not something I am very good at. I think clever thoughts all day long, I just don't post any of them (at least that is my story) Anyway, Magi did a much better job of posting about our time together. Not just a better job, but a job because she actually mentioned it and posted pictures about it and I did not.

Well, since I am already here I will post some cute pictures of Ava playing with her adorable Calico Critter's House (I included this link so you can see how cute this stuff is - I know nothing about this particular store...it was just the best picture I saw). She got this last year for Christmas from her Aunt's, Donna and Debbie, but at the time she really was not interested. I brought it out the other day and showed it to her and she got so excited; it was the cutest thing. The house has a family of rabbits, and yesterday before school she was holding one of them and actually said bunny (it was actually bummy, but anyone who knows Ava knows that that is HUGE!!!). We have spent the morning playing with the house including putting in WORKING lights...too cute. I have also been putting stickers on all of the little pieces (butter, milk, cheese, etc...) to stock the refrigerator. It is the most adorable toy.