Wednesday, January 19, 2011

The One With Some Big News

No! It's NOT what you are thinking! ;)

Unfortunately, we have several surgeries coming up in our little family, and several people have asked me to keep them updated. This is the easiest way to do it.

First, for Ricky... for those of you who don't know, he injured his knee in high school and has had 5 surgeries on it since. It works ok... meaning he can walk on it. But he can't run, play basketball, or several other things that he would love to do. He's very athletic and even played basketball in college, but had to stop because of his knee.

Well, it's been getting worse for quite a while now, so he decided to go see a new doctor. He will need to reposition his patella tendon (I think that's what it is...), which is a pretty big recovery time, but on top of that, they put him on the donor registry for cartilage as well. He will be on crutches for 2 months, but after 2 years it should be good enough to run a little bit, which is awesome. We could get the call any day now, or in a year. We'll just have to wait and see. I'm not good at this waiting game. There is a possibility of a second follow-up surgery for him, but we'll have to wait and see for that too.

As for Paige, we finally got into her ophthalmologist yesterday. That was a LONG time waiting! They are going to do a procedure on her in a few weeks to do 2 things - fix her tear ducts (she almost always has tears, but almost never cries) & test her eye ball. Apparently, her eye ball doesn't look up and down, she just moves her head up to look up. So, when they are doing the procedure, they'll check it out and see if she needs surgery to correct her poor eye ball. Then the final surgery (hopefully) will be to lift her eye lids. As you have probably noticed, her eye lids leave a tiny opening, and as I mentioned before, she looks up instead of using her eye lids. Her ped and I have been discussing her eye lid situation almost from the beginning. I think there's a pretty good chance she'll need a follow up surgery when she's 4, but we won't think about that until we have to. I am glad they can help her, and we are finally making progress as far as meeting with doctors, procedures, etc.

So, there's a possibility that we'll have up to 4 surgeries within the next few months to a year, or it could be just 2. Either way, I'm happy we have insurance and that there are things that doctors can do to help us.

Sunday, January 2, 2011

The One With The New Year

Happy New Year!

My family has a relatively new tradition on New Year's Day, that is quickly becoming one of my favorites. We go hunting that morning, meet up with the kids and ladies who didn't come hunting for all you can eat soup, then we go sledding. Ricky and I haven't participated in the sledding yet (I was pregnant last year, then it was so cold this year, we were worried Paige would hate it, and she hadn't had a nap yet for the day), but we plan to go next year with Paige. It's such a fun thing to do, and a good reason to get together and have a little fun.

Here's the line up...


And here Ricky and I are...

I can't stop thinking about how much fun we had. Maybe it's because my arm is still sore, but it's still fun to remember the story why my arm is sore...

My brother-n-law wanted me to shoot his gun (I thought it was slightly weird that he WANTED me to, but I thought what the heck...) he assured me that the kick was minimal, especially today with the cold weather. Well, come to find out, he was playing a joke on me. The gun is a kicker, and on top of that, he put in High Velocity bullets.... hahaha. We all got a good laugh out of that one.

Do you have any fun New Year's traditions?

*****

I'm not one who loves to make New Year's resolutions, but this year I noticed something about myself that I want to change. I have been more judgmental than I would like to admit... I have hated that about myself lately, so I decided to make it my resolution, to be less judgmental.

What are your New Year's Resolutions?

These are the projects that I would like to work on for the coming year:
  • Traditions Christmas Tree Skirt (I should make this first, so I can still get her hand print for 2010...)
  • Quiet Book for Paige
  • Throw Paige a cute first birthday party (any ideas for themes?)
  • Organize my recipes... how do you organize yours?
  • Make something like this to hang in my front room
  • Make an album of Paige's first year
  • Start a new "mommy" blog
  • Experiment more with Photoshop
  • Write in Paige's journal more often
  • Make a magnetic alphabet puzzle
  • Make a magnetic nativity that goes on my fridge
  • Take some pictures similar to this (you know... to hang in my photography studio one day)
  • Make my blog into a photo album/journal for each year
  • Find and use new recipes that use my food storage
That's a lot of projects to do in one year with a baby, but I think I can do it!