kinda like bigfoot...

it's not often that you actually catch me on film...

usually, i'm the one with the camera glued to my hands...

but this is a rare shot...not only am i in it, but i like it, too!

i just heard...

that my mass is BENIGN!

yay!!!

{my boobie still hurts...but it was totally worth it to find out for sure!}

who knew...

that a pair of $1 sunglasses could be so much fun!?!?!?

she is...

growing up...

and i'm getting old and sappy!

friday, she jumped off the bus and was running to the house when she stopped dead in the middle of the yard...
i'm standing on the porch freezing, and i hollered at her to move it!

her eyes get about as big as quarters and she shouts:

"oh my god! i have my first wiggly tooth!"


aack!
she can't be old enough for that already, right!??!?!?


so, later, to her amazement, she discovered that she had not one, but two "wiggly tooths"

then, we had to practice writing sentences for her homework, and this is what she wrote:

{translation: "i have two loose 'tooths'. they are tiny."}

boobie update...

i'm a little behind in posting this (shocker, i know!)...

i met with my surgeon on jan. 18th for a recheck

he wanted to see if their had been any change...
so he felt around for a minute, and got a puzzled look on his face

he said it was strange because he could feel it, and it showed up on one ultrasound, but didn't show up on another or the MRI

so he asks what i want to do...thanks! i thought he was supposed to make that decision...ugh!
anyway, we talked for a minute, and we came to the decision to go ahead with an open biopsy

...so, on feb. 13, i go in at 6 am to be put under and have my poor little boobie cut on...




at least now, i'll finally have an answer!

wow...2 posts in one day!

can you believe it???

i've been soooo scrappy lately...
i've been to 3 crops this year (that's like a record for me) and i've done like 10 pages!

but, i can't show it to you

i'm trying my luck again this year with the CK Hall of Fame, and i can't post any of the layouts that i want to enter

so...you'll just have to wait!

resolution #1...

okay...
so i normally don't make new year's resolutions

but i think i need at least one...

let me preface this by saying our house is not dirty...it's messy
i like to call it "lived in" (that's my way of rationalizing it)

anyway, jackson and i were cleaning up the other day, and jaden walked in the room...
she stopped, looked at him, looked at me, and said, "who's coming over?"

sad
sad
sad

i guess we need to make picking up a more frequent activity!

warning...looooong post ahead!

well, it's about darn time! (i know...i can read your mind)

life snuck up on me, and had very different plans than i did...
so, let's start from the beginning...


about a week before christmas, we made a gingerbread house with the girls...1st time ever!
it was fun, and they really enjoyed it, even though i spent most of my time telling them to stop eating the candy, or we'd have nothing left to decorate with...





the completed house...this was a little kit that jackson picked up, and it was super easy to assemble...no baking for us! lol!


and i LOVE this pic of ashlyn peeking at the house...you can tell she's just waiting for someone to turn away so that she can snatch a gumdrop off the roof!





here's the impromptu photo shoot we attempted the night before christmas eve...
it totally turned into the photo shoot from hell!

i know the lighting is a little off, and the pics a tad blurry, but i attempted them without a flash because i wanted some of the glow of the tree lights to come through in the picture...
i took probably 30 shots, and the other 27 look just like these!
2 very frustrated, tired, fed-up little girls who want mom to take her camera and...well, you know!











jackson and jaden had a ball in the little bit of snow we had in '07...


















and, finally...this is where life threw us a curveball...
on saturday, january 5th, ashlyn was admitted to children's hospital with pneumonia...
she had been sick on friday, and i took her to walk-ins on saturday morning.
she was diagnosed with pink eye, strep, ear infections, 102 temp, and the BEGINNING of a pneumonia...all of which the doc prescribed an antibiotic for, and claimed that would take care of everything...

well, about 6 hours later, i noticed that ashlynh was having a lot of trouble breathing, and i knew that something was WRONG...
i tried to tell jackson, but he wasn't sure anything had changed from the morning.
i called my mom, and she told me to go with my gut...
so, i made jackson call his mom (she used to be a nurse for children's hospital) and ask her to come check ashlyn...she got there, picked her up, started crying and said, "you need to take her to the hospital NOW!"

that sealed it for me...
we loaded her up and raced to the hospital where she was admitted right away...

without going into all the details, the experience was NOT a good one...
ashlyn was there saturday night through tuesday afternoon, and we had nothing but bad experiences...{let's just say they are not going to pleased when they receive my survey}

so, here are some pics of my pitiful little girl on days 2 and 3 (after she was feeling a little more like herself)...
monkey and her balloons...{thanks so much mom and vicky}


her poor little arm wrapped up in her i.v.{she was such a trooper!}


checking out one of her respiratory therapists...


checking out pink...




once she was finally taken off of her monitors and i.v., we got to go show pink "nemo" and "dory" in the fish tank...{don't you love the gown???}