Papparazi sighting

Conversation as told to mommy from daddy.

Conleigh brings her camera out one morning this week and snaps a picture of Campbell.
Campbell goes running in to Peter, "Daddy, Conleigh took a picture of me & my hair looks bad. She is the papparazi!"

Surgery Update

I'm home from the hospital. Surgery was early Tuesday morning & I stayed until Friday which I am so thankful to have been able to do. I feel amazingly better than I expected to at this point.

My fibroid turned out to be much larger and complicated than expected. I am thankful for the surgeons that operated on me and kept calm when more blood started coming out than they thought. The doctor had her nurse take a picture of the fibroid because it looked more like a fibroid that had taken over my cervix rather than a fibroid inside the uterus. She also called the OB oncologist (who happens to be her husband) to check out what they found. Hallelujah there was no cancer found. The fibroid had a large artery of blood flow so when they cut that, I lost a lot more blood than was originally expected.

When I woke up, I had a big ol' needle in my arm for a blood transfusion should it be necessary. Doctor said that thankfully, I had started at a 13 count for hemoglobin and 11 is normal, so when it dropped to a nine, she wasn't unnerved. The day after surgery it was about an 8.5 but that still held in the okay catagory.

The pain meds are working miracles. Each time the nurses would ask me my pain level between 1 and 10, I never had to say above 5.

I'm sleeping in the recliner at home and used the walkie-talkies one time last night for Peter to come help me get out of the chair. God has blessed me with the best husband. He has to take care of my incision in ways that are not very sexy for sure.

The girls are over at some friends for tonight & Alex is playing baseball. My mom plans to come to Austin tomorrow to help us, and I'll see the doc again on Monday.

I'm glad all that is over and the healing has begun.

Happy Birthday Love

Happy Birthday Peter. I love you very much!

Jesus is Alive!

When I picked Campbell up from Sunday school this morning, she greeted me with, "Jesus is Alive!" I absolutely loved it.
All of our children did so well in church this morning. We sat on the front row, so they could see everything happening. Campbell commented on the organist and her talent. Conleigh listened to the sermon and the story of Jesus' resurrection. She recently finished reading the children's Bible on her own and seriously knows more than I do about it.
There was the cross that parishoners could come up & say a loved one who has passed in the last year and place a carnation on the cross. All the kids were curious about this since many people were crying as they spoke into the microphone.
I loved having my kids all around and over me during church and singing about Jesus being alive!Peter had given up beef and beer for lent, so he was more than ready for a hamburger. We headed downtown to Hut's and I think we were the only ones in the place who went to church. At least we were the only ones there that were dressed in what I would consider church dress. He gobbled up a double burger and I enjoyed my usual Richie Valen's burger (with guac, shredded cheddar, jalapenos and tomatoes). Dee-lish.

Our Easter morning began with our early riser Conleigh coming into our room at 6:50. She had looked out our bedroom window and saw an Easter egg on the trampoline. After we roused the other troops, we shared an Easter bag of goodies we had gotten for each of the kids and the children hunted for their chocolate bunnies that we hide inside.

Then, it was on to the backyard for the egg hunt. Fun for all. Thank goodness we had hidden the eggs last night. I think three were found by some varmit in the backyard and the some of the jellybean eggs had ants in them. Oh well. The kids didn't care. The Easter bunny gave a lot of taffy this year. Conleigh ate so much of it today.

I tried one piece and couldn't even finish it for fear of my cap coming out. It was so sticky!
I wondered if Conleigh would ask questions about the Easter bunny this year, but she was still all bought into it. We almost got busted because as our kids were hunting eggs in the backyard, the neighbors were out hiding their eggs.

We tried our best to steer our kids in different directions so as not to notice it. Alex looked briefly over the fence but no questions were asked. We learned later that they had told their kids that the EB was afraid of their dogs, so he left a note for the parents to hide the eggs for him. Very creative I do say.
Happy Easter everyone. Love, The Hardins

Washing down the candy with some chocolate milk. MMMmm good.

LOVE

When she says, "I love it when it is just you & me Mommy", I really do love it too!

This & That

We're busy. Yes, we are. Of course, we want to remember our busy-ness & the funny stuff, so I'm taking a few minutes to write some sentences.

Oh boy. Our boy totally cracked us up last night. After taking his shower, I'm sure he thought he was going to be funny and the little bugger stuck a big round sticker on his 'no strike zone.' I think he knew as soon as he'd done it that that wasn't so funny. He walked into my room and said, "mom, I rolled onto this sticker and look." Wowza! Rolled onto it? Doubtful.

What to do? What to do?

He guessed that I would suggest the fast rip, but he nixed that before I could even say it out loud. Instead, I suggested he go ask his dad what to do?

When I walked into the kitchen, Peter had Alex up on the kitchen counter w/his feet in the sink & Peter had put that Goo Gone stuff on Alex's stuff!
Alex was screaming like a girl. It's hard to know if he was really in pain or if had just gotten caught up in the high drama of it all. .

Peter & I were trying hard not to laugh, but it was really very funny.

The boys took care of the situation and another shower ensued. Alex didn't mention the ordeal at all today.

On a sweet note, Campbell had an Easter Egg hunt at school today. She looked mighty cute on her way out the door, and she had gobbled up all her candy before I even picked her up.

Alex got two more outs at his t-ball game tonight. One at first & one at third. He is a really great little player!

Game On!

Alex's tball team, the Mets, are doing great this season. Alex is quite the player this year. He has played first base & pitcher quite a bit. Last Saturday he earned the game ball. During the game, he caught a hit & then tossed the ball to first for a double play. Way to go buddy!

Dusty time

We enjoyed taking care of Dusty the guinea pig again. He is Conleigh's class pet but one of the kids in class is allergic to him, so now he travels week to week from home to home. We had him for a week & I think we may get one more week with him before summer.

Another family bought this fancy house for Dusty. It was too big for our liking, but it fit Daddy's head perfectly!

Yesterday & Today

Yesterday a dancing queen...

Tonight, she is a sweet little girl with a fever, and I suspect strep throat.

I'm glad today is done. I worked with my regional manager. Great guy with no intentions of finding something I'm doing 'wrong', but stressful none the less.
Sadly, Campbell has cratered. Her bestie had strep last week, and now I guess she has it. Unfortunately, tomorrow is a meet Spicewood activity for the kindergarteners for next year. I guess we'll miss it. Bummer! Headed for the doctor instead.

Do you See what I see?

Baby birdies! They are waiting for their mama to come back with worms. Their sweet nest is in a hanging basket on our patio.

Too short a visit

We love the Lin's. They drove into Austin last night after a 24 hour drive from San Diego, Californ-i-a! We love having them here & wish the visit could last longer. Tomorrow they are on the road to Dallas.

The girls had a very successful lemonade stand this afternoon. $8.25 profit.

The boys played broomstick hockey during the sale.

None of us really understand why Alex was sweeping the floor with his rear as he clung to Kevin's leg??

We accidently froze a watermelon overnight in the freezer, so we ate frozer melon this afternoon and Peter finsihed it off with a big slurp.

Karri reading to the girlies.

Night, Night!

Bedtime means the men put together an Ikea dresser for Campbell's closet and we turn on Due Date. We love having the Lin's here. Come back soon.

Conversation

I want to write this sweet conversation down before it is dust in my mind.

Alex: "Mom, do you know what lunchables are?

Mom: "Yes, I do."

Alex: "I really want to have one for my lunch."

Mom: "Oh, Alex. Those have so much salt in them. They aren't really good for you. Maybe I'll let you try one, but we aren't going to make them a habit."

Alex: "What's a habit?"

Mom: "A habit is when you do the same thing over & over."

Alex: "So, a peanut butter & jelly sandwich is a habit!"

Hahahaha! So funny to me!

Have you ever had this happen?

Campbell & I were headed out to the grocery store last Thursday. We walk into the garage, and I hear a 'pssssshhhhhhh" sound. It was strange, and I said out loud, "wonder what that is?" Then, it happens again. I hustle out of the garage, and this is what we see:

I think I shrieked, and told Campbell to watch it while I got the camera. For the next 20 minutes or so, I was laughing I couldn't believe we were seeing this.

This hot air balloon landed in front of our house!!! What are the odds of that happening in your whole lifetime? The man in the balloon said he left downtown Austin about 7:15am. He was aiming for the golf course near our house. He landed here about 9:15am. There was a posse of folks that had followed him here and were ready to help him keep the balloon down and help him pack it up.

It was beautiful!
Campbell said, "this is the first time this has happened." I told her, "honey, this is the only time this will happen in your life."
After all that excitement, Campbell & I made our way to the grocery store. The checker gave her a balloon, so we had our own balloon release when we got home.

We had the pictures printed, and all three kids took them to school the next day. At Campbell's school, many teachers said they had seen that balloon in the air on their way to work on Thursday. Peter had seen it too.
Conleigh's teacher thought she was playing an April Fool's day joke on her uuntil she produced the photos, and Alex's friends wanted to know more about it when I stopped by their lunch table.
What a great experience. I am thankful for being home with Campbell that morning.