Way to go, Allison!!

This morning, our whole family went down to Exley Elementary, (Allison's school) because one of Allison's writings WON a writing contest!!  We got a letter in the mail last week stating that she was invited to come to a breakfast before school where she and her parents could see her writing, and get pictures with her teacher and her work.  We are so excited and proud of Allison.  Her teacher, Ms Young said that there were over 100 entries from Kindergartners and Allison's was the one they picked!  Her entry was "blown up," framed, and then displayed on the wall with all of the other grade-level winners!  WAY TO GO ALLISON!!

This picture above was taken by none other than Allison herself.  

I don't know why you can't click on this picture and see it bigger (does anyone else know why this happens? Sometimes it works and other times it doesn't. So frustrating). Anyway, I'll re-write what her story says: 

     "My Dad and my sister are going camping.  First, we pack up.  Then we get in the car.  We drive to the campsite.  We unpack.  We build a fire. We roast marshmallows.  Then we go to sleep."

 The most impressive thing about Allison and this writing sample is that she wrote it way back in NOVEMBER.  She had only started Kindergarten a few months earlier.  Wow!  

Here's a few more pictures of Allison and her writing:

Allison with Ms Young, her teacher

Allison with the principal, Mrs Kuylen

Allison & Sarah

One more good look at it

Nice work, Allison!  You're a ROCK STAR!

Happy Birthday to ME

Last Saturday was my Birthday!  I had such I good day, that I had to post about it.

To start off the celebration, Matt surprised me with a big bouquet of flowers that were delivered to the house while I was getting ready for the day. 

 He said he specifically requested tulips, and they were beautiful. (Unfortunately, they didn't last long, and I didn't get a picture of them until a few flowers already lost their petals. 

So, just imagine 2 or 3 more flowers in this bouquet)

Then, my sister-in-law, Melissa took me to lunch.  We had a really nice time together, and I'm enjoying getting to know her better, now that we live so close to one another.

THEN, I used a spa giftcard that Matt gave me for Christmas, and got a 75 minuted massage!!!! Yes, I was in heaven.  Reluctantly, after it was over, I came home.  

Thanks to Matt for being such an awesome husband and making my day such a special one, and for watching the kids while I was away!

Surgery Day

Kimball finally got his tear duct probed in the right eye, and tubes in both ears.  Hooray!  

  

Here are several pictures of Kimball while we were waiting to go into surgery (which seemed like FOREVER).  

 

He got a little restless, so he was all over the place. Kimball really liked the bubble tubes as you can see.

   

And the toy wagon too. 

 

But after surgery he wasn't quite so active and bubbly.  His eye and ears didn't seem to bother him, but they did have to intubate him, so I'm sure his throat was sore. When we got home, he slept for almost 5 hours straight! Poor little guy. But he recovered quickly and was back to himself by the evening. The ENT said Kimball is going to see a MAJOR difference, because during surgery she suctioned out a TON of fluid from his ears.   I'm so glad we did it.

New tricks

Kimball is growing up and learning new tricks!!!  He insists on drinking out of MY cup these days.  Yes, that's right, a big person cup.  And, he's feeding himself with a fork and spoon now too.  I captured some of these cute pictures of him feeding himself. (again, only with my camera phone, but still . . . they're pretty cute)  Enjoy! 

 

Right hand

Now, switching hands . . . 

("by the way, does this spoon make my head look big??")

I don't know what's going on with these pictures, but his head isn't this weird looking in real life. . . it reminds me of the funny baby photo of David Cook!! (that was for you, Pat)

 

left hand . . .

Silly boy . . . notice the crossed eyes.  That's a nice touch . . .

Someone stop my little boy from growing up so fast!!!!!

Playground Pictures

Last weekend, we took some time to explore the elementary school we thought we'd be switching to, because we THOUGHT we were buying a new house and moving.  But it isn't going to happen -- yet, anyway.  Long Story . . .

But I got some cute pictures of the kids playing on the school playground.  We also got in some more GOOD 

Kite Flying that day too.  It was another windy day . . .

Here's Kimball (above). He's almost 16 months old now. (as a side note, he's getting his 2 surgeries on Wednesday: tubes in the ears, and a tear duct probe . . .)

This isn't the greatest picture (on the left) but I had to include it because it's the only one I got of Allison . . . She's lying in the "Bend" of the tube, so you can barely see her purple crocs in the foreground, and her forehead and eyebrows between the crocs

Last but not least: Sarah.  Not the greatest picture quality, but I only had my camera phone . . .

I Passed!

I've been working on getting my Texas Nursing License.  It has  been a huge pain.  Everytime I move, I have to relicense in the new state which means paying alot of money and going through a bunch of annoying steps: ie: verifying all previous licenses in every other state I've ever worked in (which is adding up by now), getting fingerprinted, filling out forms, being on the phone with the new state board of nursing for what seems like forever, etc, etc.  Well, here in Texas they ALSO require you take an EXAM on their state's Nurse Practice Act.  No other state has ever required this!  SOOOOOO LAME!  So, about a week or so ago, I got online and pulled up the darn thing and read as much of it as I could stand.  IT's HUGE and LONG and BORING and TECHNICAL, and the thought of taking a test on it was not my idea of fun.  It's a 2 hour timed test with 50 questions and it's pretty specific.  Well, last night I took the plunge and decided to get it over with.  The worst that could happen would be to fail it, and then I'd have to wait 7 days to retake it again (for free).  Thankfully, however, I PASSED!!!  Hooray!  It's over, no more stupid test to worry about.  Check that one off, thank you very much.  I won't lie, while I was taking the test, I thought, "Oh my, I'm not going to pass this" because there were lots of questions I definitely took my best guess on, but was by no means sure of the answer.  But alas, it all worked out in the end. Yea for me!