Hell Froze over!!! "well not quite"

I spent this morning taking down the tree and the Christmas decorations. I usually leave them up until New Years Day, but this year I have had my living room torn apart for months with the painting. I just wanted it done and clean. It looks awesome now. All the Christmas is packed away and back in the shed.

Then this afternoon, Greg came in and said his car was running (it hasn't moved in almost 4 years) and he was moving it out of the garage so I can park the van inside.

HELL HAS FROZEN OVER....... I knew that the day I could park in the garage would be when hell froze over.

Well my van is still in the driveway... so hell is just cold not frozen. We spent the afternoon working on getting the garage cleaned out so we can park more than one car in it. I finally have the go ahead from Greg to toss stuff. Throw out the junk!!!! Yahoo.

So I started cleaning out boxes. I found one box that was old magazines, I don't need Car and Driver's from before I could Drive. Then I found another box of old Childcraft books from when I was little. Emma loved looking at them, but they are so old and moldy and they stink really bad, so they will be going bye bye.

Then I came acrossed a box packed by a "Beers person". Talk about incomprehensible pack rat-ish behavior. The box had an old High school Annual and a bunch of papers so I figured I better go through it. The annual along with another one in the box belong to my brother in law. Then I found an old pair of slippers and a pair of pants, and a cookbook holder. Remember !!! this is all in the same box. Then I found Greg's birth certificate, the original stamped one. I also found his permit from driving in other countries and his passport information from 20 years ago. Good thing I didn't just throw the box away. What else was in the box you ask?

a package of index cards,
googly eyes
a string of bells (that hang on a camels neck apparently)
boy scout stuff
an old slinky, that was very rusty
a broken dice
two packages of flower pot fertilizer sticks
birthday cards
old paperbacks
and old love letters.

My thinking can't understand how a box was packed like this. My stuff is packed, books with books, kitchen stuff with kitchen stuff, bathroom stuff with bathroom stuff. Heidi, on the other hand loved unpacking this box, because it was kind of like a treasure hunt. If it is treasure hunting she wants, grandma has a whole garage full of boxes like this one. LOL

We got about a fourth of the garage cleaned out, but not enough to get the van in there, so tonight the supra is back in the garage and so is the motorcycle, but not the van.

Someday . . .

Christmas

Merry Christmas everyone.


We celebrated a nice relaxing Christmas this year at home. Emma woke up way to early, at 4:30 a.m. We sent her back to bed. About 7:30 we finally allowed her to get up and open presents.

Here she is with her big huge grin over her new harps a chord toy her dad gave her. She also got a Barbie.

Isn't she cute?

For Christmas my mom made me a new duvet cover for our bed. It turned out beautiful. Here is a better photo of it.
I just love it. Along with this I got a new wall clock and battery heated socks. I also got a few new snowmen for my collection and two more seasons of Friends on DVD.

Greg got all the Star Trek movies, and a book.

Heidi's foot hurt so she was a bit grumpy on Christmas, but she loved what she got. New makeup, jewelry, and a laptop and new cell phone. Here is a shot of her with the lappy.

Overall it was a really nice day with lots of relaxing. Yesterday we just sat around and watched Friends. 9 hours of Friends and counting.

Emma's Birthday

I haven't had a chance before now to post about Emma's birthday. I guess I better do it. It is hard to believe my baby is six years old.

She really had three different birthday parties this year. One with family, one at school, and one with friends. Nothing like dragging your birthday out all week long. LOL Her family party was at home the night before her birthday, we wanted to celebrate while her dad was in town. She had cake and ice cream and grandma and grandpa came over. The next day she took cupcakes to school and shared her birthday with all her classmates. That night Heidi and I took her to see Bolt at the movie theater. VERY GOOD MOVIE by the way.

For her friend birthday party, which my kids only get every other year, she chose PoJo's Family Fun Center in Boise. She was able to invite 5 friends to join her. The night of her birthday party, the place was packed. I spent the whole time trying to keep track of kids, so they wouldn't get lost. It really helped to only give them two tokens at a time, then they had to come find me to play more games. Here are a few of the gifts she received at her party. Sadly, we forgot to take a group shot, with all the kids.

Happy Birthday Emma!

December Kit

Here is the December kit. I like how it turned out, but I am ready for a little break from kits. Look for new kits next year.

Snow Snow Snow

So I got up and went to the Christmas show at the Idaho Center on Sunday. I went by myself for a little me time and some shopping therapy. What did I buy, you ask???

Well I bought myself my ICE ticket, it will be from the girls to me, because they love me so much, and because by the time ICE arrives I'll need the break from them. If you are clueless about ICE , check it out.




On to what else I bought. Besides buying the Honey filled candies that I buy every year,thanks to my friend Tracy, for loaning me .25 so I didn't have to put $2 worth of candy on a credit card. I also bought snow in a box. I thought I would give it a try.



So I take it home and wait for "I'm bored" to be said. Then I got a big plastic bin with a lid and the snow. My girls were thrilled. You put a little bit of this powder in a cup and add a little water and count to three.

BOOM fast as you can say "BOB'S A SNOWMAN" you have snow falling out of the cup. It stays cold forever and it is mold able and not to messy. It will last months according to the box.




So how does it work?
What is it made of?

I don't know and I don't care. It kept both girls engaged and involved without fighting or arguing, so I could paint my living room.

After fully entertaining themselves with Snow stuff for hours, my DH came home and was watching them play. It was at this point he informed the girls that the "snow" they were playing in is the same stuff they use in disposable diapers to absorb wetness.

The 5 year old, could care less and continued to play, the 14 year old will no longer touch it at all. She is done and wants nothing more to do with fake snow.

Heidi's leg contraption.

As Heidi had requested I left the camera in the car at the hospital. No one likes to have their photo taken when they are miserable. She did let me take a few shots of it this morning. Mostly for her Aunt Jackie to see, because Heidi thinks Jackie has a weird foot fascination thing going on. So here is a shot of her foot just laying on her side.

Here is a shot of the top of her foot.

You can't really see much with the bandages, but they will be coming off next week and we will take a few more shots then.

Here is the bottom of her foot. You can see the rods and wires a little here. The big black horseshoe in the photo is attached to her leg.

This is a close up. The blood is old and no big deal. She does have a few stitches in her heel. They will come out next week. There are also stitches on the top of the foot, under the bandages. When all the bandages come off we will start stretching the ankle joint by moving the screws a little each day. They will be lengthening it a total of 5mm, over 10 days. That's my job. Makes me feel like the torcher chamber person. Then the new cartilage can grow back into the joint. There is a really cool shoe part that hooks onto the bottom of this and in a couple of weeks she will be walking on it.

Pre Surgery Hike Photos

These are a few shots of our little side trip... On the way there we stopped at Multanoma Falls and Hiked up to the bridge. It was nice to get some fresh air and exersice.

Pre surgery smile and fun.

The bridge in the photo is the one we hiked to. It is only .2 mile. So not to bad. The trip to the top is about a mile and a half straight up.

It was very wet, but very pretty.

We loved this set of stairs, they were very midevil castle like.

Home at last

Everything went amazingly wonderful in Portland and Friday afternoon the Dr. said she could go home. YEAH!!!!!! We really didn't want to spend the weekend there anyway. She was discharged late in the afternoon, so we checked into a hotel and slept. And slept and slept and watched a little tv.

Saturday we got up and drove home. I gave Heidi her meds and put her to bed in the back of the van and she slept most of the trip home. It is a long boring trip when you have no one to talk to. LOL

Last night we got her settled in her room and she slept some more. I was finally able to get some really good sleep also. Heidi is doing great, she is on pain meds and they seem to keep it under control. Emma was thrilled to have her mommy home, but only until I told her it clean up her bedroom, then she told me "to leave and go back to Portland, because dad doesn't make her clean her room."

We will be returning to Portland in Dec for a check up. But that will be by airplane and will be a quick one day trip. She will have the fixator on her leg until Feb. It is kind of cool, kind of like a erector set gone wild.

I'll take photos this morning when she wakes up.

Heidi would love visitors, but please remember that she needs her sleep and she doesn't need germs. If you are sick or have not been feeling well a phone call would be a better choice. We are asking everyone to hand sanitize when they do come over.

Done with surgery

We got to the hospital at 6a.m. and Heidi had her surgery at 7. She was out of surgery at around noon. She was so sad and in pain and cried and cried. Then they gave her Drugs.

HOW WE LOVE DRUGS

After a ton of morphine she began to calm down and sleep. She slept most of the day. She is in a shared room with a really cute little 8 yr old girl. The rooms are small and with two girls, two moms and all the equiptment it is really crowded.

The surgery went very well and the Dr. is hopeful that this will be one of the last surgeries she will have. Her foot is in a Halo (not the PS3 game). It is three rods and rings that go all the way around the foot. Right now it is bandaged and swollen. She had an epidral in her back so she is confined to the bed until tomorrow afternoon. If I get a chance I'll take a photo of her foot.

well it is bedtime here and that means no sleep for anyone in this room. Thank goodness for wireless internet.

We made it to Portland

We made it to Portland safely and without any snow. It did rain a bit but not bad. We went to the Falls on the way here and got some great photos and some fresh air. Then we hit the mall and did some shopping. Tomorrow is her CT scan and Dr. Appointment. I'm typing this from the business center at the hotel so I will keep it short today.