Thanksgiving 2017 and decorating!

We decorated for Christmas the weekend before Thanksgiving (because that's the only free weekend we had for awhile) and had so much fun. The kids and I did it on an evening when Nick wasn't there (because he's more of a grinch than an elf). We had the best time! Tommy started off the night by writing his Christmas list. So cute.

 In case you can't read that, it says, "Shoes and transformers and a remote control drone. I will think what else I want." HAHAHAHA! I love it.

Tommy was so sweet and whenever something was really heavy for me, he'd say, "Watch out, mom. I'll get it for you." And he could usually lift it better than I could!

 We took a little break after we set up the tree to make funny faces and get dinner done....

 Then it was time to decorate the tree! I tried to put aside my OCD this year and they did a pretty good job of spreading the ornaments out. I was surprised because last year....the tree was a little....clumpy.

 

After we were done decorating, we turned the lights off, turned the tree on and snuggled up to watch a Christmas movie! It was the perfect night.

Thanksgiving was so wonderful--good food and good family. We decided to do Thanksgiving with my family on Thanksgiving day and dinner with Nick's family the Saturday after Thanksgiving. I actually LOVED doing it that way. It was so nice to have more time with each family and not feel rushed from one event to the next. We got to slow down and enjoy our time together!

I didn't get any pictures at the Wilhelm dinner, but I did get these gems at my mom's house...

This goofy girl loves her olives!

 Tyson Wayde with his great granny...

 

 After we ate, some of them decided to play a friendly game of football. There were only a few tackles. It was fun to watch!

The rest of us relaxed in the sunshine and dug in the dirt.....

We sure do love these families of ours!

Fun with my girl

Have I mentioned I love having a daughter? She's so much fun and so sweet. I'm trying to soak in this time while she's little because I remember the way I talked to my mom when I got to be a teenager and....well.....I wasn't very nice. I'm praying Tessa is a sweeter teenager than I was, but in the mean time, I'm enjoying her personality right now!

She's been begging to get her hair cut. Like, she asked us EVERY. WEEK. I kept telling her no because her dad was hesitant (and so was I--I love her long, curly hair). But we talked about it and finally decided she could cut it. So one day after school, I surprised her and took her to the hair salon! She was SO excited!

This was how long her hair was before....

I think she felt like such a big girl getting her hair cut. She's had it trimmed only once before, so she hasn't spent much time in a hair salon!

And this was her hair after.....

That dimple....it kills me.  I really do like it short and it's been fun trying different ways to style it. I think it makes her feel extra sassy! And it really is much easier to brush and looks a lot thicker and healthier. She was so happy to have finally gotten it cut!

A few days after her haircut, we got to spend a Saturday with Grandma going to craft fairs and to lunch! It was so much fun. There was one craft fair in Benton at the church and then a HUUUUUUUGE craft fair in Wichita called Vintage Market Days. There were soooooo maaaaaany booths. We could've spent hours there.

We went to Benton first and then went to lunch at Applebee's where Tessa and Grandma battled it out in tic-tac-toe.

Then we went to Vintage Market Days. They had the cutest little photo area set up, so we had to take advantage of that!

 We were tuckered out by the end of that excursion. There were a lot of people and not a lot of room to walk.

I recently took her to the park for a few pictures because I have been so bad about taking any with my good camera lately. She kept begging to take some pictures by herself, so I set up the tripod and let her have at it. She was SO excited. And some of her pictures weren't half bad! I think she's going to be my little artsy child. She loves to color and draw and craft and apparently, take pictures.

 She also loves to do the splits.....

 This last picture just cracks me up. While Tessa is sweet 95% of her life, when she gets an attitude, you can tell just by looking at her face exactly what she's thinking. She's not one that can hide her emotions. She really had to go potty and I was gathering things in the car. I looked over at her and she was standing at the door staring at me like this.....

LOL--I was DYING! Her little grumpy face, her slouchy, pouty body and those eyes....I had to take a picture. Which just made her more mad! I did eventually get out of the car and unlock the door for her, but she was SO over it.

I'm so glad God blessed me with a little girl! I hope we're BFF. And just because I love her so much, I'm throwing these in too.....

Halloween 2017

We had such a fun Halloween this year! The kids are getting older and having more of a say in their costumes (which is fun and also....not fun because they choose things that force me to be creative!).

This year, Tessa decided she wanted to be an old woman. SO funny. I had to google "makeup to make you look like an old lady" to figure out how to give her wrinkles and fine lines. She got kind of weird about it after we finally got it all done and I was almost afraid she wasn't going to go trick-or-treating like that, but she did. I think it freaked her out a little (which I totally understand--I freak out when I see wrinkles on my face too, Tess). We had found the PERFECT old lady dress in her size at Goodwill. My mom had bought her a cane just a few days before Halloween (completely unrelated to Halloween because my mom always gets them weird stuff that they LOVE). So we added a cardigan, pearl necklace and glasses and she was set to go!

 The Sunday before Halloween, Tessa and I went to Towanda to do their Trunk or Treat Street. Tommy didn't want to go, so it was just us girls. She had so much fun! They had cars lined up all down main street and there was a bouncy house that she would've stayed in all day if I let her.

On Halloween day, I got to go help both of their classes with their parties. It was so fun to watch them interact with their friends and see them in their school environment. They have the sweetest kiddos in their classes and we had a great time!

 Halloween night, we went to Towanda to do our trick or treating with the cousins. We go every year and the kids LOVE it. Tommy decided he wanted to be Alvin from Alvin and the chipmunks this year. Once again, Goodwill came through and I found an oversized red sweatshirt and then painted the big yellow A on it. He carried his skateboard around for awhile before deciding it was too much of a pain to lug around. I was wondering if anyone would know what he was, but so many people opened their doors and said, "Oh! It's Alvin!" So I was glad he looked the part.

We started the night at Nana's. We had some chili and got to see this cute guy (I'm talking about the little bear, not the full grown man in a monkey suit--ha!). 

 Everyone wanted a picture with that little cutie! It was his first Halloween....

We went around several blocks by Nana's house with the cousins on that side of the family and then headed to Grandma and Papa's neighborhood to trick or treat around their house. Isabelle decided she's too old to trick or treat anymore and Mackayla was already done, so we headed out to a few houses and then just hung out with the family for a bit!

It was such a fun Halloween night!

Hobblin' around

I'm a little late in documenting, but wanted to remember this season of life, so I'm writing it down now! On September 20th, Tommy and Tessa were playing at the park with my mom. She called me and I could hear Tommy screaming in the background. She said he had been walking and just fell down and started screaming that his ankle hurt. I met them at our house and carried him inside.

Those who know Tommy know that he can be just a touch.......dramatic. So when he's "hurt".....we never know if he's actually in pain or just being his normal Tommy self. So when I brought him inside, I was trying to watch and see if he was crying real tears or if he noticed when I touched his foot.

And he was. Poor guy was crying big tears and would wince and pull away when I touched his ankle. It was (of course) after 5pm, so his doctor's office was closed. Nick and I finally decided to take him to urgent care because his foot was swelling up.

We headed into town and by the time we got checked in and sat down in the waiting room, Tommy had stopped crying and was perking up a bit. We still weren't 100% convinced that he really had an issue or if he had just twisted his ankle and it was uncomfortable. Nick kept "testing" him and he had Tommy walk across the waiting room to get him a glass of water. Tommy limped just the slightest bit, but otherwise walked fine.

We had been waiting for about an hour and a half and were JUST about to leave because we thought he was fine when we got called back. They took x-rays and the doctor came back in and said he had an alvusion fracture on his left outer ankle. The way she explained it was that basically, his foot had twisted so hard that one of his tendons had pulled away from the bone and took a tiny chunk of bone with it. Yikes. She said it's usually a quick heal, but that he needed to have NO weight on it for at least 3-4 days and to use crutches. They didn't have any crutches his size, so she put him in an air cast, told us to try to find crutches the next day and to follow up with our primary care for more x-rays in about 5 days.

I kept him home from school the following day and could not find crutches his size ANYWHERE!! I eventually had a sweet Facebook friend that had some and lent them to me. Tommy's class was so sweet and sent home a packet of cards for him!

 I went ahead and kept him home the next day too (Friday) because it was still hurting really bad and the doctor had emphasized several times to make sure he put NO weight on it and we weren't sure how that would work at school. He was also still pretty wobbly on his crutches and we were worried they'd get kicked out from under him or that he'd fall, so I took Mr. Hop-a-long to work with me. 

 

He was bummed to miss out on his football game over the weekend, but we had gotten an appointment with our primary care on Monday, so we were pretty sure he was going to be able to play the following weekend since the urgent care doctor said it was a quick fix. Our regular doctor was all booked on that Monday, so we saw his partner instead. They did some x-rays to see if the fracture had healed at all and the doctor came in with surprising news. He said he didn't see an avulsion fracture and thought that urgent care had misread the x-ray. He was sending it to a radiologist to be sure, but said that Tommy could start walking on his foot and would be find to practice football on Thursday and play in the game on Saturday. Tommy was so excited!!

But.......the next day, our primary care office called and said they had sent the x-ray to a radiologist and the radiologist DID see a fracture, so they were going to refer us to an orthopedist. Wonderful. We got in the the orthopedist the very next day. They saw him and decided he needed to be in a cast for four weeks. Yay. He was less than thrilled. And I was kind of nervous because he can be so high maintenance when anything "different" is happening in his life, so I was hoping there wouldn't be any drama. He picked red for his cast color....

And of course his best girl had to be the first one to sign it!

The orthopedist had told us that it was okay for him to use crutches for a few days and then to just walk on it after that. He said that most kids are running around with their cast on by the end of the 4 weeks. So we were thrilled with that part!

 Tommy actually did super good about having the cast on! There was very minimal complaining (usually just when it itched and he couldn't scratch it!) and he didn't let it slow him down a bit!

We didn't let him play any football games in the beginning, but we let him practice with the team--just doing stretches and passing and throwing stuff (that's him in the orange shirt). 

 By the end of the four weeks, he was DYING to play football. Nick was also a little anxious for him to play because he had signed up to be the coach and then Tommy didn't get to play for almost the whole season! We finally agreed to let him play in the last game--he got to hand the ball off to the quarterback and it made his day! He was so excited to be able to do SOMETHING with his team instead of sitting on the sidelines. His team ended the season being undefeated (proud coach moment). On a side note--Nick gave Tommy a mohawk. They'd been planning it for months and kept calling it Hawktober. Oh brother.

 Tommy was scheduled on October 25th to get his cast off and we had a count down going. He was so excited! The orthopedist ended up calling me the day before his appointment and asked if I could come in that day instead of on the 25th. I only had two hours notice to leave work, drive all the way to Benton to pick him up and then all the way back to west Wichita for his appointment, but if I didn't take that appointment, they weren't going to be able to see him for several more days. So we made it work!

He was super nervous about getting his cast cut off because the nurse that put the cast on had told him they'd use a saw. We found out at his conferences that he had drawn a picture of a huge saw getting ready to cut his leg in his journal and had told his whole class how scared he was to get it cut off! He was relieved to see it was just a tiny little saw that couldn't cut him.

His leg was SO gross under that cast. His skin was all flaky and he kept having little meltdowns and saying that it felt too weird. He's been walking funny out of habit and I'm wondering when he's going to be back to normal! He said it doesn't hurt much though and he's so glad to not have the cast on anymore--we are too! Showers are so hard with a leg cast!