Thanksgiving at Paul and Laura's house

The boys at the bottom of Paul and Laura's staircase. They love the button made into the rail that lets them turn the lights on and make them brighter and then dim them back down- better than any toy they have at home! ;)

In the kitchen ready to eat!

The boys enjoying Thanksgiving dinner with their cousins Sarah and Katie...

Sherri serving up dessert....

Granny and Paul...

The boys "working" at the snack bar in the basement. They made popcorn and drinks and served them up during the game.

Frank and Phil watching the Cowboys game. Frank declared we went to school for the wrong thing after enjoying the game in the theatre!

The boys had fun playing Uncle Paul's pinball machines...

Eloise camped out in the corner watching Fiddler on the Roof...

Grandma Pat and Granny chatting and relaxing

Sarah and the boys playing pool....

I caught Katie being cute!

back at the snack bar... Jake is sweeping up the mess...

Jake and Sarah, snacking again....

Sarah trying to play Pole Position with two crazy backseat drivers!!!!

School Pictures..

Jake above and Josh below....

The boys got their school pictures yesterday. I was thankful that had nice smiles and their pictures turned out good. You never know what can happen when you send two 4 year olds for someone else to take their picture! ;)

Soccer pics

The kids had the sun in their eyes when they had their pictures taken so they caught Jake squinting a little bit.

The boys played soccer for the first time this year. It gave them another reason to flirt- I swear we are going to have our hands full in a few years. If the girls weren't on the field they wanted to sit on the bench with them! Our coach was awesome, the most patient man ever! The kids all seemed to have a good time they got trophies and had a pizza party last Saturday to wind things up.

Granny is Home!

I wanted to let everyone know that Mom is home now and she's worn out but seems to be on the road to recovery- finally! Keep her in your thoughts and prayers that she continues to get stronger and she can stay on track with the therapy for her knee. She's been through a rough time but she's tough and she's working at getting better. Thanks for everything- you guys are great! :) Marla

What a week- or two!

My poor Mom has been through it lately. She had knee replacement surgery on the 4th- Tuesday. She was doing great with her therapy and was doing more than they said they expected at this point. She came home on Friday afternoon. On Saturday morning I took her breakfast and found her severely dehydrated. I took her to the ER and they had problems getting her veins to take the needle, then when they finally on the 4th try got a vein they blew whey they tried to take blood to run tests. It was awful. We got there at 10am and they finally admitted her at 6pm. They assigned her a hospital Dr. he was supposed to be good. I asked him to test her for a bacterial infection and he said he would- that was Saturday night. He admitted her and they put her in a room. On Monday she still didn't know what type of infection she had and he told her he would run a test- he forgot to order it, again. Tuesday evening he discharged her, no antibiotics yet, and none going home with her. Actually, he didn't discharge her, he sent his "helper" to do it for him and she told Mom to call if she needed anything but we noticed when she got home that they didn't give her a card or anything with their office info or number- handy huh?! Maybe they knew we wouldn't dare call them. The other details that I left out would blow your mind so I won't even bother with them- seriously, it was that bad!

On Wed. morning, you guessed it she was back in the same shape. I didn't want to take her back for more of the same so I called our family Dr. who is awesome. They got us in right away and he got her started on some strong antibiotics and ran the tests we had been requesting since Saturday (this is Wed. morning). She was unfortunately too far gone before the antibiotics kicked in and by Wed. afternoon she was weaker and weaker and we had to go back to the ER.

She now has a new doctor at the hospital, an iv, antibiotics, she's getting therapy on her knee for the first time since last Friday when she was discharged from the hospital! It is frustrating that she shouldn't be going through all of this in the first place since she probably got the infection while she was there, she wasted 4 days of getting quality care and getting better plus running up a big hospital bill only to end up in the same shape again, but finally she seems on the road to recovery.

I'm thankful that she finally has a doctor that is concerned about her at this point, she's getting the care she deserves and the knee therapy she needs. We thought she would be coming home tomorrow afteroon sometime (Saturday) but she had more trouble with her stomach this afternoon so we'll see how things go. We don't want to rush her getting home until we know she is really over this infection.

Thanks to everyone for all the thoughts and prayers. Sorry if I haven't called and emailed as often as I'd like to keep everyone up to date on how things are going, but I've been running back and forth to the hospital, taking care of the boys, plus our cat, Mom's cat and her two crazy dogs that we adopted last month- actually just one of them is crazy but she's crazy enough to make up for how calm the other one is! lol!

Marla

Student of the Week!!!!

The picture above is the boys getting ready for school this morning- Jake has quite the bed head! Josh had his hair combed already or it would have been worse! LOL! Jake is loving having Peanut around all the time while she is staying with us. I don't think he is going to let her go back to Granny's house when she is feeling better!

Heading out to visit Granny and at choir practice Sunday morning...

just getting off the bus Thursday afternoon...

Jake is the student of the week for Ms. Robin's class- yay Jake! His assignment for the weekend was to take Smiley the monkey with him and have his picture taken with him. Smiley got to do a lot of running. Granny had her knee replaced on Tuesday. Jake brought home Smiley on Thursday afternoon so we went to visit Granny and tell her about Jake being student of the week and we introduced her to Smiley. We picked Granny up from the hospital on Friday and had our picture taken with one of her nurses when we got ready to leave. Granny was sick Friday night and went back to the hospital on Saturday. The boys and Smiley played at Aunt Terra's for a while and then Dad took the boys (and Smiley) to the park for their soccer game. After the game we all visited Granny at the hospital.

On Sunday we went to Sunday school and church and had choir practice with Mrs. Carmen. We tried to teach Smiley a new song but he was shy and didn't sing. Grandma Pat and Skip came over and we went to lunch at the Mexican restaurant in town and we even saw Ms. Robin there so Smiley got to say hi to her!

I'm sure Smiley might have had more fun if we didn't have to spend as much time at the hospital- I'm sure Granny would have! the good thing is... Smiley's not talking to anyone! LOL!

November days...

Raking leaves with Aunt Terra above. Ready to head out for school below- Granny's dogs are staying with us while she is in the hospital for knee replacement surgery. Peanut is in the middle and Sophie is on the right- she's the crazy one!

GOD is good!

Mom's knee surgery yesterday went well and she is supposed to be up and trying to walk on it today. I'm getting the boys on the bus and heading over to see if I can help her. She has a few days left at the hospital and then she will start therapy at home. The Dr. said her knee was completely worn out and once she is healed she will have great benefit from the surgery. God is good indeed! :) Marla

Spurs Pictures I promised a while back....

I mentioned a while back that I had pictures from when we used to live in San Antonio and go to the Spurs games- I was a Realtor in San Antonio and my title company spoiled me with awesome tickets so it was lots of fun!
*These were taken before my neurologist put me on steroids and puffed me up t00- ;(

Halloween!!!!

We stopped to trick or treat at Granny's house and let her see the boys in their costumes.

The boys Buddy Brandy came by to see the boys and brought her friend Alex with her.

Visiting with our Pastor Brother Randy

Jake posing for his "official" USPS portrait! lol!Josh says he is the big winner!

The boys were funny- they were going through the candy they get from school yesterday and they were sorting it out and putting some in a big ziplock bag. I asked them if they were saving it and they said no, they were "taking it to church- to the Baptists that needed candy and didn't get any." I thought how sweet, they learned something from all the talk of donating things and helping those less fortunate recently. I thought that comment was pretty funny too. Later I noticed they got into the bag a little bit and it eventually ended up just having all the stuff they don't like left in it, but I guess at least it's something! LOL!

Pajama day- Halloween Parade and COSTUMES!

Josh the boxer.....

Jake the Mail man- check out those fancy white socks! ;)

What a Busy day! The boys wore their pajamas to school then they changed into their costumes and they had a parade through all the classrooms in the school and then they came back to their class to have a Halloween party and eat lots of sweets and fun treats. I went to spend the day with them but they made sure they would get to ride the bus home when the day was done.

Jake and his "girlfriend"

Yes, poor Jake is smitten... in love, taken! LOL! He is in love with Gracie- they hold hands on the bus, play on the playground and occasionally break up and are back on track within minutes-- the dramatic love life of a 4 year old... and his 5 year old "older" woman. It's tough to keep up! LOL! oh, and did I mention Josh is pretty fond of her too?! ;)

Jake and Gracie. aren't they cute!?