lucky 500 is a doozy

can you believe it? this is only my second post for the whole month of december, which is apparently going to end, with the rest of this year, in a mere 3 days. BUT, this also happens to be my 500th blog post! it only took me 6 years but i have written 500 random stories, a good number of them involving poo and pee.

anyhoo, the reason i have been M.I.A of late has been because of my sweet little mia. let me tell you a really long story:
almost three weeks ago, on a monday, mia quit using her left arm. strange. i noticed that she was holding her snacks in her hand but not bending her arm to put them in her mouth. i didn't think much of it until i realized she still wasn't bending her arm to hold her bottle at night. (yeah yeah, she is over a year old and i haven't weaned her from the bottle yet! judge not lest you be judged too... or something like that). oh yeah, and she was in a TERRIBLE mood all day too. but i attributed it all to teething, cause that's just what we moms do. or at least that's what i do. every time, 60% of the time...

so, instead of being a superconcerned and vigilant mom who needed to know IMMEDIATELY what is bothering my baby girl, i went to sleep. cause i was tired! but the next morning, still cranky and still not using her arm, i brought her to an urgent care right by our house, and conveniently right by lily's school. even though we got there an hour and a half before lily needed to be at school, my sweet SIL, lindsay, had to rush over to the rescue and drop lily off for me. this was the first of many favors owed to lindsay...

after a few x-rays, the doctor at the urgent care was convinced that mia had something called 'nurse maid's elbow' where a ligament gets caught in between two bones and just needs to be pulled out by a series of different arm twists. it didn't work. mostly cause mia didn't have nurse maid's elbow! but, because in the doctor's professional opinion, she was too tense, so he sent us to cardon's children's hospital's ER where they were going to sedate my girl for 2 minutes and pop her elbow back into place. so off we went to the ER where a doctor looked at mia's xrays that i brought with me, and he said that she definitely had a fractured elbow. even though he couldn't see a fracture in the xray, there was some dark shadowing around the joint, and apparently that is a 'clear' sign that there was a fracture present. so they put mia's tiny little arm in  a temporary cast and sling, and sent us on our way. in the middle of all this, chris, my phenomenal husband, left work early and sped to pick lily up on time, and was home to support me in the midst of this long and expensive day.

i had an appointment with an orthopedic specialist on thursday. they took mia's once tiny arm out of her temporary cast, and we were greeted by a very swollen and sad looking arm. they did some more xrays but couldn;t really see a whole lot since her arm was so puffy. so the doctor set mia's big ol' arm in a splint with some loose bandaging and told me to up her pain meds and let her arm breath a little every day, and to come back on monday.

sunday rolled around, and we were going to have a birthday dinner for chris at his mom's house. i showed barb mia's arm and she was not happy with what she saw. she said the swelling did not look normal and that there were red areas that looked like they were signs of an infection. all these 'signs'! so many of them wrong! but unfortunately, my not-a-doctor mother-in-law was right. we went to banner desert hospital and the ER doctor there was just as alarmed as barb was at the sight of mia's ever growing arm. after MANY long hours there, we were ambulanced over to cardon's, where we spent the next 5 days!

on monday, she got lots of blood drawn, was sedated, had an MRI, was diagnosed with a septic joint, rested, was sedated again, had surgery to clean out her elbow, came out of surgery, had her IV infiltrate her good arm- which means the IV came out of her vein and instead was pumping her arm full of liquid. so ironically her good arm swelled up to the same size as her infected arm! can you believe it????? so they put her IV in her head, which was fine while both of her arms were swollen, but the minute mia's IV arm deflated and was ready for action- she pulled the IV out of her head and there was blood every where. it was a disaster, which perfectly sums up mia's run-in with the medical community in the last three weeks.

we were FLOODED with love and concern and prayers, which is the only reason we made it out of the hospital with no fatalities under our belt. we celebrated our 7 year anniversay and chris' 33rd birthday in mia's hospital room on wednesday, while lily and topher were being cared for by the 6th of 8 couples who watched them over the course of mia's 6 days in the hospital. i did not get our christmas cards in the mail, and am presently still debating whether or not i should send them out this year or not...

so, that's why i have been missing in action for the last three weeks. apparently, after everything was said and done, mia never had a fractured elbow ever, or nurse maid's elbow, or anything else that the doctor's said she had. if anyone had bothered doing any blood work, they would have caught on that mia had an infection, but alas, no one did. even though when i was asked how she might have fractured it, or gotten the nurse maid's elbow, i told them that there were no incidents of mia really hurting herself.

anyway, i am so glad that it's all over, and that our little mia is getting stronger every day. i am also SO glad to be blessed with so many friends and family who love us and support us- in real and tangible ways, whether it's throught sending texts, watching lily and topher, bringing us food, bringing us starbucks, lots and lots of other things! we are so so so so so very very blessed.

here's mia all bundled up in the ambulance

 

before surgery :(

 

 

here's chris in the harmony garden in the middle of the hospital being as sarcastic as his shirt says he is.

 

happy birthday chris! :)

 

this pic was the beginning of the drama from our first visit to cardon's 3 weeks ago

the cutest hospital patient! after four days of being isolated in her room, she was so happy to be allowed to cruise the hallways.

on the mend with her cute pink bandage after the stitches came out

freedom! still keeping her arm straight as a board, but making it look good!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

halloween 2012. yeah i know it's december

somehow i managed to totally miss out on a halloween post. and to be frank- topher's favorite thing about this blog is to see all the halloween posts. so it would be wrong for me to not post about halloween, just cause it's december.

 

so our halloweens all look more or less the same. we like to go see chris' mom and dad at some point in the day and show off our costumes.

 

here are my ladies with chris' dad. mia is a sexy ladybug (? i don't know. i just threw her in lots of black, white, and red.) and lily was about to go to school but they weren't doing costumes, so she is just wearing a halloween shirt and a tutu. she's rocking the outfit nonetheless. chris' dad didn't have a lot of candy to dish out- but he's an accountant= so he had cash :) as in $0.15 or so. lily was a very happy trick or treater.

topher didn't get to see his Papa Wes cause he was at school doing lots of fun halloween stuff.

this kid really really really loves halloween. look at the sincere joy on his face:

here's a midafternoon pic of Mia. she is so embarrassed about the outfit i chose for her. i guess she does not approve of the sexy zebra look i subjected her to:

here we are at chris' mom's. she gave the kids some halloween cheetos and a chance to see her new bull dog puppy, and her chickens.

here is my sad attempt at getting a pic of my three kids in their costumes:

 

then the next day we went to a little post halloween party and Mia decided to wear the lady bug costume all morning. she is not a fan of stuff of her head- hats, bows, head bands, anything. but she kept this headpiece on for about an hour. i took an absurd amount of pics of her that morning, but i am only posting two for now:

 

 

and that was our awesome halloween of 2012. hope you enjoyed that topher! ;)

 

it's all in the hair

as you all know, i am married to a stud of a man.

he has had the distinct pleasure of being able to look like a total homeless bum for the last four years, but then the tides at work changed and he was forced to shave.

 

he was sad. i was not:

 

look at the adorableness! this is the face i fell in love with 8 years ago.

 

but, this is also one of my fave look- a bit of facial hair. chris was still unhappy about being told what to do with his face by the fine people of the fine city he works for:

 

here's chris looking like a crazy transient. how many woodland creatures can you spot in his beard?

 

the last time chris had a clean face was when topher was a baby and lily was a wee toddler. so when the kids woke up and were greeted by their clean shaven dad, they were both very surprised. topher said that chris looked like a little boy, and lily said that she thought chris looked very handsome.

mia also loved her dad's unburly face. she was all about giving him kisses. so sweet.

 

then we had mia's birthday party and it was a hairy mess.

well, not really. but it was funny.

my 4 year old nephew is growing out his hair. he looks so handsome! so ready for a lunch meeting at the drop of a dime :)

chris hasn't seen gabe in awhile, and when he saw him running around in our backyard, chris had to ask who that was. not a shining moment for chris as an uncle i guess...

anyhoo, then gabe was playing basketball, and he made a basket so chris said: "great job gabe!" (way to come back uncle chris!) gabe said: "thanks uncle chris!" and looked in the direction of the voice that spoke out such wonderful words of encouragement.

and then gabe got really confused. he never took his eyes off of the man who was speaking to him, but gabe calmly asked his dad, who was sitting right by him: "hey dad, is uncle chris here?"

the boy was staring right at chris! classic moment.

anyway, after chris and gabe were reintroduced we took this picture of them:

 

preciousness.

 

stay tuned as we continue on this journey of chris' hair. which for the record- he is back to not shaving and creating a nice home for the stray cats in our neighborhood...

Mia Moo Moo

where did that nickname come from? why do we call her 'moo', 'moo moo', 'mia moo'? i don't know. cause she looks like a sweet chubby baby calf? the name started randomly and has stuck.

our sweet little baby turned one two weeks ago. her birthday was on saturday the 10th, which was perfect timing for a little family party. and by little- i mean with chris' parents, grandparents, and brother's family, and cousins et al. but still, it was small compared to the kinds of parties lily and topher have when we invite friends too.

anyway, the nice thing about a first birthday party is that the guest of honor has no idea it's their birthday, and also has no idea how to request their needs (properly) let alone their desires.
so, i picked a minnie mouse party theme cause i thought it would be pretty and easy. i got lots of awesome ideas from Pinterest (i joined it! major time waster!!!!!! but i love it so...) and i executed them... moderately well.

i hate cake pops cause i cannot master them. but i did rice crispy pops and they were easy, gluten free, cheap, and moldable. my new favorite birthday party treat.

Mia and her lovely Aunt Lindsay. Hail the queen :)

Mia and her Papa Jerry. Notice she is wearing the same dress that Emma wore to her first birthday party 9 months before, which is the same dress that Sunha wore to her first birthday party 9 months before.  

Oreos are the best decorating tool! Mia was interested in her cake but did not attack it with the vim and vigour i expected her to.

 

then we celebrated her birthday again this last friday with my sister and her family, and our friends charles and grace. we also celebrated charles' birthday, cause he turned 40 earlier this month- even though he doesn't look a day over 21.

 

Mia attacked her gelato cake with the enthusiasm i had originally expected.

we did the traditional 'dol jahbi' tyhat one year olds do at their first birthday parties. the reason we didn't do it at her original birthday party is cause i thought Jeehon had her han bok (the traditional korean dress she is wearing). but then Jeehon just informed me that i still had it, and when i looked- i realized i did. Oops!

here are the elements for Mia to choose from- a wisk(to be a baker/chef), a football (any athlete. not just a football player, though with her current girth, she would make a pretty good linebacker), a guitar (to be a performer), a thermometer (to be a doctor), money (to be mad rich), thread (to signify long life), and a book (to be a scholar or sorts).

and Mia chose...

thread. she wants to live forever folks! or she wants to be a crafter. who knows.

but she really stood in front of the table and studied the different things on the table and chose carefully. i love this little monkey so much!!!!

 

anyhoo, i know i make a lot of jokes at Mia's expense about her weight- but before you call CPS (again), i do it all in jest and cause she is a chubby baby- just the way babies should be.

here are her 1 year stats:

-weight: 20 lbs 6oz (50th percentile)

- height: 30.5 inches (90th percentile)

-head circumference: 18.5 inches (didn't catch that one)

 

our girl is growing and developing so quickly we just want her to stop! she is a babbling, walking wonder. Mia moo- you are perfect and we just want to that you for giving us such a magical year filled with so much love, joy, wonderment, and laughter. we hope your LOOONG life is filled with more of the same.

empty promises. from me. not Jesus

its been two weeks since i said i was going to post about my husband, and then halloween happened (seperate post), and then chris and i went to a parenting conference (should do a post on that...) and then mia turned ONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (seriously gigantic seperate post), and then today happened. nothing crazy. but just something i want to remember. and since it requires no pictures to be uploaded, i will just tell you about today instead of all the other stuff i will hopefully get around to blogging about.

so today the internet guy was supposed to come between 1-3. of course, i pick lily up at 1:05 and her school is 2 minutes away from our house. surely the internet guy wasn't going to come at 1. right? right?!?! wrong. i was at lily's school at 12:50, in hopes of being the first mom in line- i was the second. and at 12:53 i get a call from the internet guy saying he was about ten minutes away. i told him we should be home by then- which was a LIE cause there was no way i was going to be home at 1:03- unless i wanted to get home without a lily. so i started praying. a retarded prayer that didn't warrant any attention from the Lord who has so much more important things to deal with. but i prayed nonetheless. i prayed for the internet guy to get stopped at every red light possible, or to realize he had a thirst that needed to be quenched immediately at a local nordstrom's cafe- a mere 10-15 miles from my house.

i sat and waited impatiently for lily's class to come out, and when they did- it was 1:05. dang them for being punctual and not early! and then the car in front of me handed lily's teacher a sack, and had a conversation! WHAT!?!?!? it is a serious offence to talk to the teacher while she is ushering kids into their cars. and i was seeing the rule break for the first time on a day when i needed no words to be spoken and for me to be able to be in two places at the same time a la 'walk to remember'.

lily finally got in the car after i had lost about a liter of sweat through my arm pits. i raced home and i was stuck behind a van. it was the internet guy! he parked in front of my house about 2 seconds before i pulled into my driveway. the kids went into the house and i went to greet this seriously tardy internet guy. at this point it was 1:12. where the players dwell (that's the name of an R&B band and from one of their songs...don't worry about it... i digress) i told him how thankful i was for our sunchronized timing and i mentioned that i had prayed for this to happen. he didn't pay too much attention to my babbling, but mentioned that his GPS sent him to the wrong place.

moral of the story: Jesus can and will mess with your electronics when He wants to. technology has nothing on my Jesus.

so i shared this story with my high school small group girls, and i shared it with my kids, cause it's important for us to see Jesus at work around us. and i am not very good at sharing my faith with my kids, but i am trying. and one day i will print my blog into a book for my kids to have, and i want them to remember this story (cause they were not paying attention when i was telling them about it today. kids!..)

my boys

my men and i have been at odds lately.

first- topher. when he was 2, he wasn't terrible, but when he wanted to be terrible- he was successful. and then when he was 3, he was better than when he was 2, but when he wanted to exert his will over mine- he was successful. and now he's 4. and he is a delightful 4! BUT, when he wants to be crazy- he is succesful.
but i am going to try not to dwell on the negative. there are negatives to be dwelt on. but not here. not today. my topher loves his legos, and he will play with them alone, quietly for hours on end. QUIETLY. ALONE. so great. his brain is so special. half the time he is actually just looking at the instruction manual again, studying it, whilst chewing on his breakfast, or lunch (no lego books at dinner though!). i thoroughly enjoy watching him do whatever it is he is doing. when he talks, i am engaged, even if i don't know what he is talking about (already a star wars nerd). his teeth. he has adorable teeth. they make his words come out so adorably. today while he was pooping, we had this conversation-
"mom, can you hold my hands? do you know who remind me of everyday when i look at you? Belle. because you are beautiful... do you know why i am staring at you? because i love you."
melting near the pot.
i love him. there are moments in our days that are painful. he's freaking out. i'm yelling. he's grumpy. i'm grumpier. he's acting like he's 4. i'm acting like i'm 4. it's bad. but man, when my boy wants to be amazing- he's successful.

one more thing about my topher that i don't ever want to forget!:
the other day he got a new pencil and he excitedly grabbed it and said: "where's the sharpener? i want to make my pencil come alive!"

well, i ran out of time, so i will have to save my story about chris for another day...

fall break

lily has been on fall break for the last two weeks, and last week was topher's fall break. what is a fall break you ask, my canadian friends? remember lily started school in JULY??

even though most of north america is enjoying delightful weather and scenes, we are still enjoying a lot of sunshine and dust. thus all the car washes ;)

 

anyhoo, here are some pics from last week. the pictures say 'fall' but it was over 90 degrees on the days these were taken.

 

mother nature's farm at baseline and stapley. $3 for adults and $10 for kids over 2.

kinda cheesy but the kids loved it.

 here's lily being freaked out by the animals were wanting to come out and play

farmer lily walking her sweet little cow topher :)

strong (yet not successful) attempt to take a pic of my three pumpkins and their adorable chauffeur

mia checking out all the pumpkins

 

the next day we went to the farm at south mountain for breakfast. pretty surroundings, yummy food, delightful company. and it was a magical 80 degrees. mia is shocked at how nice arizona can be.

lily and grace. beautiful!

my stud son/mummy

and then we went to bass pro and enjoyed lots of free awesomeness:

my red power ranger on a reindeer.

lily, aka ariel the little mermaid, on a moose

we also colored and got to trick or treat! check out their website to see the different events and activities they have going on until halloween :)

clean inside and out

today i got a free car wash at greenfield and baseline. i was over there cause i am a terrible mother and i have been waiting for mia's diaper rash to go away (not on it's own- i have bought 2 different diaper rash creams, used a vat of aquaphor...) and all i have to show for it is a baby with open wounds on her heinie. I KNOW! horrifying. my pediatrician says she really likes 'bag balm' which they use for cows with mastitis (a propos for my girl who i call moo.) but she actually prescribed this magic and random compound of some high cholesterol medicine mashed into aquaphor... strange. and don't try it at home. i waited at walgreens for a VERY LONG TIME cause a professional was making the strange mixture...

anyway, back to the car wash. it was free. always love getting free stuff. like a lot. and to boot- they gave me a free cloth to wipe down the interior of my car whilst getting the exterior nice and sparkly! bonus! so we get into the car wash and i start wiping down the dusty dashboard. we live in arizona, therefore everything is always dusty always. which is why i don't bother dusting. but if you give me a cloth and a moment to myself- i might just dust.

so i was happily dusting and the kids were enjoying the car wash. and all of a sudden water was pouring into my van! i had no idea what was going on as i was getting assaulted by water, soap, and those mop-like strands that were violently swishing all around. in all my dusting excitement i had accidentally pushed my window open. and every time i tried to close my window, one of the mop strands would get stuck in my window so i had to reopen my window and reclose and reopen and reclose. don't tell anyone- but i am pretty sure i was cussing the whole time. but the kids couldn't hear me cause the car wash is really loud. and all the louder with an open window...

so, that was my awesome day. in all honesty- my eyes kinda still sting from all the soap and water that was spraying in my face. and the one thing that i was SO THANKFUL for at the end of the ordeal is that chris wasn't in the car with me. cause he would have just straight up died. and i love him so much that i cannot bear the thought of living without him. so i am glad he was at work and that today's ordeal is my little secret.

mini sessions!

everyone is posting about mini sessions these days- so i thought i would too!

as in, i will post about other people's mini sessions, cause i have no mini- or full length sessions of anything to offer.

anyhoo, if you are looking to update your family pictures- now is the time! i have two awesome photographer friends, and they are both offering very reasonably priced mini sessions- so please check out:

my lovely friend jenny bishop. i have blogged about her plenty as she has taken a ton of our family pictures, and most recently (almost a year ago!!!! yikes. time has flown) took Mia's newborn pics.

jenny is up in scottsdale and has 3 different days to pick from:

and

my supertalented friend erin dezago will be serving the gilbert and chandler areas well- so check her out!!!!!!

• 30 minute mini-session at one of two pre-determined locations
• 10 images to choose from in an online gallery
• one digitial file emailed to you for printing as you desire
• (and the best part...) 25 custom designed double-sided Holiday cards with envelopes
• All for only $125
• Add-on options are all 10 images on CD with copyright release for $50 or extra 25 cards for $35.

Sessions will be available on these dates:

• Saturday, October 27th at 3:15, 4:00, and 4:45 pm at the Riparian Preserve in Gilbert (Greenfield & Guadalupe)
• Saturday, November 3rd at 3:15, 4:00, and 4:45 pm in Downtown Chandler

I am happy to open more dates/times if you can fill them, which is why I am also offering an extra 25 cards for each referral you send my way that books a session! For two booking referrals, I will throw the CD your way for free! Merry Early Christmas to you!
And, because photos are always more fun than words, here are the cards available::


hope you contact one of these awesome ladies. they are both stay-at-home moms, so i am all about getting their businesses out there, and they are both ridiculously talented and professional.
i can't believe it's alrady time to say this but- happy holidays (pictures)!!!! :)
  

LEGOLAND!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

in the midst of all our familyfun-having in los angeles, james, chris, and i managed to take lily, sungu, topher and mia to san diego to go to Legoland. we actually got 3 free adult and 2 free kid passes from a friend, which means we paid regular admission for one kid to get in. which was beyond AMAZING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! cause let's be real- it's about $65 for a kid over the age of 3 to go there, and about $75 for one adult. all prices that we would otherwise NEVER pay to just go to an amusement park.

sungu and topher LOVE legos right now. and lily just loves her brother and her cousin, and also has a good number of legos herself, so this was a serious treat for the three of them. mia was along for the ride and she did SO GREAT! i love this baby. she is so awesome:

 

yeah. she napped.

sungu and i rode on the 'helicopters' together

topher's favorite part was probably the star wars miniland. topher LOVES star wars (he was very appropriately dressed as you can see) and he loved all these star wars figures entirely of lots of little legos. he wanted a picture with each figure (there were about 12 of them) except for princess leia. he couldn't care less about her if he tried. funny boy.

this one is the only one he wanted to hold hands with ;)

for some reason, boba fett is his favorite character. boba fett is an assassin... i'm not sure if i should be concerned...

my girls and i met a princess in the enchanted forest!

on a roller coaster that topher equally loved and was terrified of.

i know i dressed her- but this girl rocks my socks off. she is so dang cool!

family pic!

the awesome malloy men :)