Tagged

I was tagged again and this looked fun so I decided I was up for the challenge.
I was tagged by my sweet friend Keva.

1. What time did you get up this morning?
7:58
2. Diamonds or pearls?
I like my diamond ring, but I don't really do jewelry
3. What was the last film you saw at the cinema?
Traitor
4. What is your favorite TV show?
Jon & Kate Plus Eight
5. What do you usually have for breakfast?
cereal
6. What is your middle name?
Ellen
7. What food do you dislike?
chocolate ( I know I'm a weirdo)
8. What is your favorite CD at moment?
David Crowder Band
9. What kind of car do you drive?
Jeep Grand Cherokee
10. Favorite sandwich?
BLT
11. What characteristic do you despise?
dishonesty
12. Favorite item of clothing?
nursing tank tops
13. If you could go anywhere in the world on vacation, where would you go?
Hawaii
14. Favorite brand of clothing?
The kind on sale
15. Where would you retire to?
close to family
16. What was your most recent memorable birthday?
2001, hubby planned a special afternoon by the lake
17. Favorite sport to watch?
Braves baseball
18. When is your birthday?
August 17
19. Are you a morning person or a night person?
definitely night!
20. What is your shoe size?
8 1/2 - 9
21. Pets?
Bailey the beagle
22. Any new and exciting news you'd like to share with us?
Not really
23. What did you want to be when you were little?
a vet, the I found out I was allergic to cats & dogs
24. How are you today?
great!
25. What is your favorite candy(lollie/chocolate)?
not sure, I like hard candy like a watermelon blow pop, but I also like some chocolate bars b/c it's usually chocolate with something else like peanut butter.
26. What is your favourite flower?
I love Gerber Daisies
27. What is a day on the calendar you are looking forward to?
Oct. 31st, I love Halloween!!!
28. What is your full name?
Lori Ellen
29. What are you listening to right now?
What Not to Wear
30. What was the last thing you ate?
Vanilla Bean Blue Bell ice cream
31. Do you wish on stars?
no
32. If you were a crayon, what color would you be?
pink, I found my inner pink each time we found out we were having girls
33. How is the weather right now?
Today it was 90 and very sunny
34. The first person you spoke to on the phone today?
my mom during my Sunday afternoon nap
35. Favorite soft drink?
I love Coca Cola like most people love coffee
36. Favorite restaurant?
Cheesecake Factory, not sure because I really love restaurants. I love going out to eat!!!
37. Real hair color?
dark brown
38. What was your favorite toy as a child?
barbies
39. Summer or winter?
Summer, because I love swimming!
40. Hugs or kisses?
both
41. Chocolate or Vanilla?
vanilla, or even better strawberry
42. Coffee or tea?
sweet tea
43. When was the last time you cried?
I watched the movie Step Mom the other day and cried my eyes out.
44. What is under your bed?
tubs of clothes & duffle bags
45. What did you do last night?
scrapbooked a little
46. What are you afraid of?
not doing a good enough job raising my kids, i know, silly, but it is what i think of often. ( I agree Keva this is something I think about all the time.)
47. Salty or sweet?
Salty
48. How many keys on your key ring?
5
49. How many years at your current job?
Stay-at-home Mom- 5 months/ Pre-K teacher-1 month
50. Favorite day of the week?
Saturday...we usually do something fun as a family on Saturdays
51. How many places have you lived in?
3 states; TN & TX & NJ/ We've moved 11 times.
52. Do you make friends easily?
I think so, I hope so!

I want to tag my friends Jill & Jessica

Bummed

I have pictures to post and stories to tell, but unfortunately I'm having camera problems. I am so annoyed with it. I think the cord that I use to get the pics from the camera to the computer is messed up. The computer says it doesn't recognize the thing in the USB port. So I guess I'll have to take the memory card to Walmart to print the pics & get them on a CD. Well here are some of the stories without any pics. I know kind of boring, but it's all I can do.

Spittle bug
Peyton has become a little spittle bug. She loves to spit out little bubbles and make raspberry noises. She doesn't love eating food very much. She just takes her tongue and pushes it right back out. She like to suck on real food. She'll suck on fruit and the other day she was sucking on my crust from my pizza.

The Babies
The girls have little blankets that have bears on them. They've had them since they were infants. I can't remember who got them for them, but they have used them every night since they were little bitty. Taylor grew more attached, she is also our thumb sucker. Well less than a year ago I bought some yucky stuff to put on Taylor's thumb to help her to stop. The great news is she stopped, but within a couple of weeks I realized she switched to her pinky. So she's been sucking her pinky for a while. With her thumb before she stopped she was sucking almost all the time. If she was in the car, watching tv., or going to sleep. When she switched to the pinky it was only when whe was falling alseep. She only sucked her pinky when she was holding her bear blanket ( or what the girls have called their babies since they were babies.) So I realized to stop sucking the pinky I would most likely have to take awa y the baby. I didn't really mind them having their babies to sleep with and snuggle with, but she needed to kick the bad habit. So when we went to the hospital I hadn't taken it with us to the ER. She didn't ask for it all day, but when Dusitn was coming to visit us that night I asked him to bring it. He brought it but somehow ended up taking it back home, so I didn't mention it to her. Well she never asked for it and she didn't suck her pinky. So the next day I told him to bring Taylor's & Cameron's up to the hospital. Taylor & I had seen some sweet babies and I told her she could give her "baby" to a new little baby. She liked the idea and so did Cameron. So we "gave" the babies to the nurses to give to a new little baby. The rest of the time we were in the hospital she didn't ask for it. The 1st nap she took at home she cried for it for a while and the next night before going to bed she cried for it. She told me that we needed to drive back to the hospital and get her baby back. I told her we couldn't and she said yes we can. I made it through a couple of occasions of crying and now it seems like she is OK with it. She's actually proud of herself that she doesn't suck her pinky anymore. I'm so proud to! The hard news for mommy is that I look at sweet Peyton and see her sucking on her thumb and think oh boy I hope she will be easy to break of the habit.

I took some pictures of the girls playing on the swing set and hopefully I'll be able to get them on the computer.

We're Home

We made it home today!!! I'll post more tonight when everyone's asleep. Thank y'all for your prayers.

The 1st hour she was sleeping her oxygen levels wavered back & forth. I was worried that we would be there another night. Then all of a sudden her level went up to a 92 and stayed about that most the night. I was nervous to go to sleep, but I was so sleepy that I fell asleep by about 10. At midnight I remember the nurses coming in, but I was half asleep. At 4 I asked the nurse if she was still off oxygen, "she gave me a thumbs up." At 6:45 the Dr. woke me up and let me know that we would get to go home. I was so excited. We're still doing breathing treatments every 4 hours and on steroids.

We were so thankful to get home. Cameron was excited to see me & Taylor when we got home. The girls had to get used to each other again. They both were kind of like only kids for a few days. They fought quite for bit when we got home. It was frustrating. When Peyton woke up from her nap and I got to get her out of her crib, she looked up at me and grinned real big. I think she was excited to see me. The girls did better this afternoon. We'll be going back to MDO tomorrow.

Still Here

Well we're still in the hospital. She has to be able to sleep through the night without oxygen. I just knew today we would be home, but about 10 minutes after she went to sleep last night her oxygen levels dropped to low. So we're trying again tonight. I really hope she'll be able to make it through the night. I am so sleepy it's not even funny. I have struggled all day just to function. Whenever they all come in during the night and I get up I get extremely dizzy. Which in turn makes me feel nausuas. I'm sure poor Peyton is ready for Mommy to come home. I've been pumping at the hospital and Dustin comes up each night to get the milk. I'm worried again that my supply is dwindling. We'll see. I hope tonight goes extremely well. Please say a little prayer for my little Taylor and her lungs.

Back in th ER

Well folks we can't seem to keep ourselves out of the ER. Taylor had a really bad asthma attack early this morning and I got her up to the ER at about 6:15. Bless her heart her breathing was awful. Her oxygen levels were at a 84 which is really low. Her heart rate was like a newborn baby. It was racing a thousand miles a minute. The funny thing was she was pretty happy. She just kept watching all the fun kids movies. Well we were finally admitted and moved into a room at about 1:00. By 3 she started falling apart. At this point in time she had a lot of treatments & an IV with steroids. So she was becoming CRAZY TAYLOR. She screamed no the whole time she was getting her next breathing treatment. Then they came in to draw blood, oh dear she was awful. She was pinned down and she screamed loudly. Then just about 30 minutes ago the extreme battle happened. They told us she had to have the little nostril oxygen thingys. Well she refused. They had tried them in the ER and she said no so they didn't press it. Well the nurse said it was time and she had to put them on to have any chance of going home. We're talking a full out kicking, screaming, pulling, hitting battle. I was so frustrated that I was basically in tears. She was crying and kept saying owie. She said it hurt. The nurse assured me several times that it couldn't be hurting her. I had my legs wrapped around her legs, my arms wrapped around her arms and another nurse was holding her head still. The other nurse was placing the things in her nose. The first attempt was pulled out quickly. The second time we got it in and I just held her as tight as I could. I had to hold her like that for about 10 minutes without letting up at all. She continued to cry and wriggle. She finally started to calm down and decided she wanted some ice cream. So she has now eaten 2 of the small cups of ice cream and wants to share a 3rd with me. She's a happy girl now. I hope she'll calm down enough to fall asleep soon. It has been a challenging day, but earlier this morning before crazy Taylor appeared it was special. She kept snuggling with me and kissing me. Then she would look into my eyes and say "I love you mommy!" So sweet!

First Day of School

This is our pretend first day of school picture. I couldn't find my camera on the actual first day. Unfortunately my morning was way to busy to worry myself with spending time looking for the camera. So I found it the next day & we took a 2nd day of school picture that will most likely be scrapbooked as the 1st day. The girls are doing really well with school once we actually get out the door. The getting ready in the morning without a major battle is different. I'm adapting OK to Pre-K. Hopefully a few more days and I'll feel a lot more comfortable. I'm excited about the weekend and ready to enjoy it with the family. Dustin & I are excited to have a date night tomorrow night. Maybe I'll try to get a picture of us before we go.

Peyton loves baths

I have taken some advice given to me before the girls were born from my friend Jenny. She suggested that I should take a shower with baby, because it's easy and kills 2 birds with 1 stone. It never seemed feasible with 2 babies in a bathtub shower. Now that I have my new fancy shower I thought I would try it. I have been sitting Peyton's baby tub at the end of the shower and she just chills while I shower. It's great for several reasons: 1. I know she's safe from Cameron & Taylor (if I leave her with them while I run to take a shower there's really no telling what they might do to her). 2. The steam is really good for her congestion. 3. She gets a quick cleaning when I'm all done.

With all that said we had to go on a hiatus from our shower time while I was recovering. So I took a few pictures of her taking a bath in the sink. Here's sweet Peyton enjoying her bath.

Cici & Mama Dot's visit

When I called my mommy & told her I was in the ER. She was immediately concerned. When I told her I was going to have to have an emergency appendectomy she said I'm on my way. I told her no, don't worry about us we'll be OK. Well she didn't listen to me. She & my grandmother jumped in the car and drove from Memphis to TX. I was so appreciative to have them here. The first couple of days I was in pain and hunched over like an old lady. I couldn't drive or pick Peyton up for the 1st few days. It was so helpful that they came. Here are some pictures of the girls with their Cici and Mama Dot.

My new job

I am so excited that I got the job that I've been wanting for years. 7 years ago when we had moved to TX the first time I had a hard time finding a teaching position. I decided to sub until I could find one. Well I was offered to do a long term sub position at a 2 day a week preschool. Since I could still sub on MWF at other schools I thought sure it would be fun. I worked there for about 8 weeks, I think. It was so fun. At that point in time I told Dustin that when I became a mommy I would love to do something like that. Well fast forward to now.

When we decided that we would like to start trying to have Peyton. We both agreed that I would not continue to teach full time with a newborn. I enjoyed staying home with the girls for the first year and a half. I wanted to be able to do the same, plus I know these are the last 2 years the girls have at home before they'll be in Kindergarten. Staying home full time is a challenge for me because I don't particularly enjoy being at home. I love to go!!! We get out of the house almost daily. Even if it is just a short trip to the library around the corner. The challenge I have is not spending a ton of money on my little daily adventures.

I knew I wanted to teach at a MDO type place if possible. The only problem is that many of them still charge a portion for the teachers children. Well with us having 3, it wouldn't be very beneficial for me to work and make no money. So I contacted the director for the same preschool I had taught at before. She then told me she only had openings for subs. I thought that might be a good way to jump into working slowly. After turning in my application she called and let me know she did have a teacher opening. My interview was supposed to be the same day I ended up in the ER. So the following Monday my mom drove me to the interview. So I'm excited to tell y'all that I am now a Pre-K teacher and all 3 girls get to go with me for FREE. We start school on Tuesday. I'm excited and the girls are equally excited.

Appendectomy

Last Wednesday night I stayed up really late blogging. Before I went to sleep my stomach felt weird. It felt kind of like hunger pains. I didn't think to much of it and went to sleep. At 4 in the morning I woke up with extreme pain in my stomach on my right side. I tried to with stand the pain and go back to sleep. Well within 15 min. I woke up Dustin & told him I was hurting bad. He was half asleep and just kind of said OK. He finally woke up and looked up my symptoms on the computer. I took some gas pills, thinking if this is just gas maybe it would help. Well within 15 more minutes I told Dustin I was going to the hospital.

I decided if I was driving I was going to the closest hospital. I haven't ever been there before and I don't know of many people who use this hospital. The ER got me back pretty quickly. After hearing me moan from pains they finally gave me some pain meds. I then had to drink 2 of these super large bottles of this nasty concentration. They did a CT scan. The good news is the pain meds helped me feel a lot better. The bad news was the nasty concentration tore my stomach up. So I was in and out the potty for the next several hours.

At 10 the Dr. came in and told me that it is definitely my appendix. He said I would need it out asap. So at 11 the surgeon came and asked me if I was ready. NOOOO!!! I'm here alone and my husband is trying to get up here. The good news is they were a little slower at getting me upstairs and ready. Dustin was able to get the girls dropped off and up to the hospital literally before they rolled me to the OR. Thank you so much Dorothy for watching the girls!!!

Recovery was OK. It took me a while to really wake up. The hardest part was dealing with pumping to keep my supply good. I think I missed 7 hours between pumping. I'm still trying to decide if we're back to normal. Well I went home on Friday. After I told my mom I was going to surgery, her and my grandmother jumped in the car and drove to TX from TN. So my mom came and picked me up from the hospital. The first couple of days I felt bad. I was still hunched over pretty bad. I felt a little like a wimp because they did laparoscopic surgery. The good news is now 5 days out I feel so much better. Needless to say I still have to be cautious about what I pick up. I can pick Peyton up, but in her carseat she is way to heavy. So that is my appendix story. I said bye to it last Thursday at the hospital.

My 4 month old

Peyton is already 4 months old. I know shocker they get older and bigger, but it really is amazing to witness a baby growing a little bit every day. She is awesome. St her Dr's appointment she got some more dreaded shots and we got her latest stats. She is 14.6 lbs. which is in the 75th % and 25 1/2 in. which is in the 90th%. So I think she's going to be tall. Cool!! So here's some pics of her and the girls.

My Birthday & our funny girls

Well this past weekend was my birthday. Friday night Dustin & I went to downtown Fort Worth had dinner. After we finished we walked around a little, then we found a bench and enjoyed some people watching. It was so fun, downtown FW was hopping. This was a combo anniversary/birthday dinner and we really enjoyed ourselves. On my actual birthday, Sunday, we went to church. I got to work in the nursery and got a gift from the lady in charge of the preschool. She gave me a Coke & a piece of cake. Oh how I love my Coke. Then home for lunch and I got to take a nap, BONUS!!! After naps Dustin made a cake and we had a little family celebration. It was nice. Here's a pic of my cake!!!



The girls have been cracking us up a lot recently and I'm determined I'm going to better about writing it down. So I thought I would tell y'all about one of their favorite things to do now. They love to play with their blocks. They started one day making horses with their blocks. For a while now they've been making them and then putting what they call wings on them. Well the other night Dustin was talking to them about their horses and Cameron said "when they get angry they have a plam." She often makes up words to name things. Dustin said "a what?" Taylor then helped him sound it out and the spelled it together to make sure he was saying it right. So when I walked in they started telling about it, they said the stuff about getting angry and having a plam. I of course said, " what are you saying?" and Taylor then said in her matter of fact way, "You know mommy a plam, P-L-A-M." So I took some pics of their horses. I think the plam is the orange piece across the tops of the horses backs in the 2nd picture. Oh by the way the tall one is a giraffe with it's baby.

An award/tagged

OK so I typically ignore these types of things, but since I got 2 awards and was tagged by a new friend I thought I would roll it into one post. So here is my award. I am so honored to be chosen by Jessica and her little sister Mary as a blog worthy of an award. That's my lame thank you speech. So the 2nd part of that is that I'm supposed to nominate 7 other people for the award and it's not that I don't think other people are worthy of this honor. NO! It is that I am too lazy and since I think it is still mostly our families reading this they don't understand why they're reading about some silly award and not getting the goods ( pictures of my beautiful babies.) The 2nd game is that I have been tagged by Jennifer. A great new friend that I've met in my mom's group. So here it goes:

Here are the rules:
1. Link to the person who tagged you
2. Post the rules to your blog
3. Write 6 random things about myself
4. Tag 6 people at the end of your post and link to them
5. Let each person you have tagged know by leaving a comment on their blog.
6. Let the tagger know when your entry is posted.

Random Things
1. I evaded an officer when I was 17. Funny story maybe I'll tell it sometime.
2. I was on a jump rope team in Elementary school.
3. I have been a lifeguard for more than 10 years off and on.
4. My favorite sound is the sound of popping open a can of Coca Cola.
5. I have watched the Olympics obsessively.
6. I love scrapbooking!!

Now once again I have no plans of tagging anyone else. I am now going to start a new post and put up some pics of my adorable girls.

Cameron & Taylor swimming

Well now that I'm so high tech I had to try to get another video on here. I would have a thousand on here the only problem is that I can only use our borrowed Mac to put videos on the computer. We don't have a certain wire to put them on the Dell. The Mac is an old dying computer. Trust me it has seen better days. It's nice to have, but it dies often. And when your trying to do something big it will die. So last night as I was trying to get this other video it died on me at least 8 times before I quit. Each time I got a little closer to getting the video saved. So finally I got back on today & got it on the second time. So here's a video of the girls swimming when they 1st started doing it at my Dad's house. They're both doing better now, although Cameron still would rather just spend the whole time in her swimmies. I really have to talk her into taking them off.

Peyton's rolling over!!

Peyton has rolled over from her belly to her back a few times. Usually I have to place her hands up under her face. Today she decided she's ready to roll over from her back to her stomach. She's is so strong! I promise if her upper body was strong enough to hold her chest up she would be able to crawl.

So we video taped her and I finally had Dustin show me how to put a video on the computer. I'm so high tech now.

Things in My House Thursday

I have a baby that sleeps really well in my house. I'm so proud of my little Peyton. She is a textbook Baby Wise baby. I am so thankful that God has given me such a good baby. She sleeps really well and doesn't spit up really bad like the girls did. She loves to smile and laugh. So here's my sleeping baby with her glow worm.



If you would like to participate in Things in my House Thursday go over to MSM's blog.

WOW!!!

I love the Olympics!!!! I am such a huge fan of Michael Phelps and I love swimming. Oh how I wish I could have been on a swim team when I was younger. I was actually lying in bed last night wondering if I could go to a local swim team and ask them if I could watch, and maybe swim. I want to be like their old lady mascot. My idol right now is Dara Torres ( only for her ability to swim so well at her age.) I just watched the 4 X 100 relay and it was amazing. I love swimming!!! I'm so on edge every time I watch Phelps swim. He is amazing. I hope y'all are watching because these Olympics have been very exciting.

On a side note, tomorrow I go back to reality. Dustin will be back to work. His new teacher training is tomorrow. I know most of you are like "cry me a river," but I've kind of gotten used to him being home. We do our own thing usually during the day, but he helps me load up the car whenever we're headed somewhere. Also whenever I'm nursing he helps if the girls need something. So like I said back to reality. (tear)

Mr. Handyman

My friend Jessica's mom is hosting a fun thing called Things In My House Thursday. I can't think of any fun random thing in my house, other than a slew of toys. So I thought I would show y'all my new shower that my new found handyman made me!!!

My hubby is trying so hard to become a handyman and guess what, he's getting pretty good at this stuff. After Peyton was born we noticed that some tiles in our shower were leaning in. So eventually one of them cracked and Dustin pushed it a little to see what was wrong and several tiles fell in and broke. So unfortunately we found out that the board, insulation and other things were mildew/moldy. YUCK!!! So Dustin partnered with a friend of ours and they redid both showers. His was similar to ours so they started with his. On ours they had to get out the old tile plus the concrete under it and the shower pan. Then start over with a new shower pan and new concrete. Dustin has finally been working on the new tile and it looks great. He's run into a few problems here & there but for the most part it has gone smoothly. I looked for a before picture that I took of the shower when we had just bought the house, but I think I deleted it. So here are some pics of our shower now.

Dentists Visit

The girls did amazingly well at the visit. No crying or whining and in fact they both said it was fun. Yeah!!! Since my girls have a chance of having my teeth it is imperative that they feel comfortable at the dentist (orthodontist). Taylor especially liked Mr. Sucker, the thing that sucks out your spit. She loved closing her lips around it. Cameron was a little more timid and kept trying to sit up after each thing the dental hygenist did. The best part was to find out that the free toothbrushes that they had to give the girls were Dora!!! Oh if you know my girls, they love Dora. To top it off, Cameron's was a mermaid Dora. Cameron is Ariel so it was very fitting. It was a good visit, now I need to go. Hmmm... all I hear are more bills being laid in my mail box.

Taylor with the cool glasses to keep the light from bothering her.

Cameron using Mr. Sucker and giving her
"not sure about this look."

Blogging

Ok for my 6 readers I've decided I'm going to commit myself to posting more often. I'm going to post stories and pictures, instead of just pictures. I've been reading more & more blogs, especially since Jessica introduced me to google reader. It is great!!! Now I have more time to find other blogs that I enjoy & add them to my list, so that I can stay up even later.

Dustin has told me that I have blog envy. It's true!!! I want to do more with my blog. The sad thing is that even though I've been doing this for 4 years I still don't know how to do many things. So help me learn. I'm a little embarrassed to admit it but I don't know how to put a link in my post. So like up where I said Jessica's name, I don't know how to make her name a link to her blog. ?????? I know I should know how to do this. I want to make a cute signature, that looks like a scrapbook thing. I would link to an example, but once again I don't know how. It's sad I know. I also want to add a cute header, but once again ?????. I was very proud of myself for changing the background, but that took me all night. Tonight I added a counter and I want it to be under the archives list, but it is staying above the about me section. Seriously, HELP ME!!!!

Woo hoo!!! I'm learning! I've made some links and I'm going to spend sometime tonight working on the signature, thanks for the help thus far. I will call out more when I need y'all

The girls went to the dentist office today and I'll post some pics from that tomorrow.