A Magical Evening!

We took Izzy to watch the play Cinderella at Great Mills High School. She was so excited. Here she is sitting in a chair across from us while we waited in line. It was a perfect place for her to perch and people watch, which she LOVES to do.

We got to sit in the front row! Here she is waiting as patiently as she possibly can.

She loved the play and was so excited to get to sit in the carriage afterward.

But best of all, she got to take her picture with Cinderella. She was so thrilled. It was the perfect ending to a magical evening for our little princess. :)

Izzy Is Five!!

We had a party for Izzy and her friends from church on Saturday. Izzy had fun helping me decorate cupcakes (before she got bored with it that is). She thought it was so funny when I put frosting on her nose.

Here are her cupcakes in all their finished glory. She wanted strawberry cupcakes, with strawberry frosting, pink sprinkles, and other fun princess candy on them. If you couldn't tell it was a princess themed party.

Here is a picture of the place settings with the cute goody bag she helped me make up. She really had fun doing that. I put all the little tote-like bags in a row and then gave her the stuff to put inside and she put one in each bag. She thought it was the best thing ever. Funny how the little things mean so much.

Here she is, in the outfit she picked out: yellow legging-shorts, a tie-dyed shirt with a jeweled crown and attached tutu (very princess-like). This was right before her friends arrived. She could barely contain herself with excitement. As soon as she woke up the first thing she said was: "Is it time for my party yet? When will my friends be here?"

Here she is playing in the pool with Clay and her friends Grace in the background, and Lydia in the foreground. She had another friend stop by, Elli, but she wasn't able to stay. Izzy was still excited to see her and spend a little time playing with her in her room.

We had another party on Sunday with family and a few close friends. Here she is with my best friend from high school, Stefanie, but we all call her Steffie. She got Izzy a Tinkerbell pop-up book and they were reading it together so I had to get a picture.

The last page folds out and makes a big tree with stairs and such to make it look like a fairy home.

I have video footage, but no pictures of her opening presents on either day, whoops. But moms are busy during parties, so oh well, at least we've got the video. :)

Sarah did a photo shoot of Izzy for her fifth birthday, and she got some cute pictures of Izzy. Here she is in her medieval princess Halloween costume.

She loves Snow White, so she wore her costume for the photo shoot. I love this one that Sarah did with only the rose in color.

My Aunt Susie loves to spoil all her nieces and nephews. She got Izzy this adorable ballerina outfit, which Izzy loves, and Sarah is in love with the tutu because it is so pretty.

This is a hand-me-down outfit Izzy got from Lauren (Tony's little sister) I love hand-me-downs! I love this outfit it is so cute and the colors are awesome.

Izzy had loved both her parties and had a blast. She is such a loved little girl, and she brings such joy to our lives.

Izzy Churning Butter with Grandma Everett

What are the odds?

So, last night during the thunderstorm lightening struck right outside our house, striking the extension cord hooked up to our pool filter surging up the cord into the house, frying all our T.V.s, our Ps3, Lori's computer and printer, one of our Direct T.V. boxes, and hosed up our satellite signal and internet connection. What are the odds of all of that happening? I don't think it could be done again even if the situation were duplicated. There were even surge protectors connected to the computer and printer. Like I've said before and will probably say again, "If anything bad can happen, it will happen to us." This is my motto, because it is a no-fail thing. We have the worst luck ever, and if it weren't for bad luck, we wouldn't have any luck at all. So, we've filed an insurance claim (fortunately they cover all destructive forces of nature and major acts of God), and Direct T.V. is coming out Sat. morning to see what's up with the signal and if the dish is fried as well, and we had to turn in our fried modem to Metrocast in exchange for a new one. So, what have we learned here, well, whenever there is a thunderstorm it doesn't matter if you have surge protectors, unplug everything you don't want to get fired by lightening, because if it happened to us, it can happen to you. Just a friendly bit of advice for you to take away from our seemingly continuous misfortune. Everyone try to have an extra good day for me, because I can't seem to get very may of them. Hopefully, Heavenly Father has some wonderful surprise in store for me soon because I need it.

Nothing Better To Do On A Friday Night

Clay had to have surgery to remove his appendix last Friday. But that was on his second E.R. visit. It all started Thursday afternoon. He came home from work with some stomach discomfort and it just kept escalating throughout the evening. It stated as a sharp fiery pain, like something was trying to claw its way out from inside him right above his navel. He was doubled over in pain, and eventually vomited because the pain was so intense. When he asked me to take him to the E.R. I knew it must be bad, let's face it men are stubborn and they never want to go to the doctor.

So, we went to the E.R. around 9ish Thurs. night, they drew some blood and took some x-rays but said they couldn't find anything and told us to follow-up with our family doctor the next day. So they discharged us around midnight (I think that was the fastest E.R. visit I've ever heard of).

We followed-up with our family doctor the next day around 1:45ish and by this time the pain had changed to a sharp stabbing pain and moved to Clay's lower right side. Our told us to go back to the E.R. right away because he was pretty sure Clay had appendicitis. He said he could call an ambulance for us or we could drive there, but he said if we drove we had to go straight there. So we opted to drive, no sense in having another medical bill to pay for.

So we got to the E.R. a little before 3 and they drew more blood, took a urine sample, and did a C.T. scan and came to the conclusion around 8:30ish that it was appendicitis and that they were going to do an appendectomy. One of the nurses teased Clay and said, "So, you didn't have anything better to do on a Friday night, huh?"

He went into surgery an hour later and I didn't get to see him again until 11:30. He was so loopy, and confused. They found out he was allergic to morphine, when they gave him some he broke out with huge hives so they had to give him Benadryl and then some Demerol.

We finally got up to the room he'd be staying in and he wanted me to stay with him, so I did. I got to sleep in this hideously uncomfortable recliner, I didn't even get one of those, Transformer beds, as Tony calls them, no I got a miserable recliner that was hard as a rock and was supposed to be shaped to conform to a person's body, but not for someone who is short. So where there was an indentation or a protrusion it was exactly opposite of what I needed. I got maybe three hours of interrupted sleep because of how often the nurses had to come in and check his vitals and all that good stuff. I think I deserve a Best Wife of the Year award or something. But I did it all for my baby, and I'd do it again if I had to. I am just so glad he is better.

My parents and Sarah and Tony are wonderful for taking care of Izzy during all of this. And Lori was able to, when she wasn't fretting about her son that is, get a lot of her homework and such done, while Izzy was gone.

Clay told me to go home and sleep in my own bed Sat. night and I was so grateful for it, I felt guilty leaving him, but I needed it, I looked terrible and I felt like a zombie. I went to my parents house for dinner then went home and literally collapsed on the bed until the next morning. I still felt zombie-ish but I had to push that to the side. I went back to the hospital Sun. morning around 11 and Clay was finally discharged and we left at 4:44. Bishop came and visited with us for a little bit to see how we were doing, and my parents brought Izzy home as soon as I had Clay all settled in.

Izzy has been really good about daddy not being able to play to much, or lift things, or run, etc. She gets frustrated sometimes, but then I just turn it around on her and say, "You can be daddy's helper." or "Make sure daddy doesn't try to do this or that and if he does tell him 'daddy you can't do that remember' and if he needs mommy and I'm not there come get me." The list is endless, I've had to get creative.

Below is a picture of Clay's "war wound" His poor tummy is bloated and sore (of course) and he has 7 staples, he also has some numbness in certain spots. He follows-up with the surgeon this Thurs. He is dying of boredom and is frustrated that he can't do certain things. My mom is awesome because she is going to be taking Izzy out on a grandma date sometime this week, just to get her out and away to have fun, since mommy needs to take care of daddy.

Other than all our medical drama and such, we are doing alright. :)

Flying Ferrets

Okay let me set the scene for you. Izzy and I are playing with her Littlest Pet Shop. She's the white ferret and I'm the periwinkle one. I'm making my ferret chase hers around and then she suddenly jumps up and makes her ferret fly.

Izzy's ferret: Look I'm flying, come and get me.

My ferret: But ferrets can't fly.

Izzy's ferret: Yes, they can, get a soda.

My ferret: A soda will make me fly?

Izzy's ferret: Yes, I saw it on Chicken Little, so I know.

So, now you know, if you want to fly grab and soda and go watch Chicken Little to find out how to use it properly to achieve maximum lift-off.