Weekend

It's just Saturday but feels like the weekend has come to an end already.

Things have been going well. THANK GOD! I never imagined things could go from hell to wonderful in a matter of a week or so. I needed this and he knew this and so I am very thankful and greatful for that.

Today I took the family to cracker barrel and then I decided I'd splurge a bit and bought myself two Yankee Candles. Then I felt guilty. I always feel guilty if I spend money on myself and not my children.

I rarely by myself ANYTHING. haha.

After that we drove to the botanical gardens to pay our entrance fee, only to learn HALF the sites I used in the past for beautiful backdrops were destroyed by some construction they have going on:( nooo! The lake is completely drained:( I hope it comes back soon. It looks horrible right now, it left me with few choices, but I did manage to get in a few good shots, my daughter has blue eyes like me, and so the sun makes us both squint because of our light colored eyes.

*shrugs*

Then we made a trip to petsmart so MiMi could see the animals. I had promised her for days we would go and something would always come up, so today we went. Afterwards I realized I needed to put in her cake order for school since her birthday is Wednesday, and we needed cupcakes so we went to the Food Lion next door and ordered the only girly cupcake cake design they had - Hello Kitty! LOL! It's so stinkin' cute! The woman in the bakery who took our order was just sweet as can be, and I was happy to see someone in this town who smiles and seems to enjoy their job, and the people, even if they maybe do not, it's so much better to deal with nice people than sour pusses.


Oh and our bed?

It's still coming along..ever so slowly:) I'll be excited when it's complete. I plan to use Ana's hyde table plans next:)

Bed Building *courtesy of knockoffwood.blogspot.com*

Are you curious what all of this lumber is for? Want to take a guess?

Months ago I stumbled onto Ana White's website:
knockoffwood


And I fell in love. hmm, in love? That's an understatement, I was floored by this woman's talent! More so? That she isn't greedy at all and SHARES her build plans, FREE.

Budgeting here is tight. We need every penny we make, we don't take any income for granted, and never in our lifes would be be able to afford ANYTHING from the pottery barn catalog.

When I saw Ana's farmhouse pottery barn bed knock off, I was smitten! I knew I had to have it!

So I set aside some of my money and set out to Lowe's this past Saturday. All they really had was white wood pine, when we bought all of our lumber and nails/screws the total was 151 bucks, however we can NOT for the life of us find any UNTREATED white wood 4 x 4 pine posts..ANYWHERE:( Nor can we find the 4 1/2 inch screws the plan calls for. One of the lowe's employees told us a 4 1/2 inch screw does not egsist.

I wonder if it's a lag bolt? Anyone know?

For now we are putting the bed together less the 4 x 4 posts, hopefully a trip to a local lumber yard will help us find the untreated posts we need, and if we get lucky we will figure out what to use in substitution for the elusive "4 1/2 inch screw".

Either way I am tickled pink, and THANK GOD my dad has a large supply of saws and tools, or I would never be able to make this (tools are sooo expensive).

I'll post some photos this weekend of where we are at so far. In the meantime go visit Ana's site! I plan on doing some bookshelves for Ethan's room and just the headboard for MiMi's bed.

Baby shopping, etc.

The other day my grandma in Jersey called, she was making mention of sending MiMi and Ethan a birthday gift, along the conversation she had mentioned that so much was happening soon, both kids birthdays, graduations, a wedding and 'the baby'.

For some reason (I blame my lack of sleep), I go "what baby, whose having a baby?"

She stopped and laughed and goes, "YOUR SISTER".

Oh, DUH of course, lol, how could I have thought she was speaking of someone else?
Mommy brain, I blame it all on mommy brain, and, that thing called NO SLEEP:)

With that reminder of sorts, I finally went on my sister's baby registry (granted she isn't due until July) and purchased her the bedding she had on there, it's really cute in person, this is what she picked out:




Ohhh, and I am so cheap, you know I saved on shipping by doing the wal mart site to store. haha, she doesn't mind, really, the last thing I sent her the same way. Word of advice to online retailers, OFFER free shipping or DISCOUNTED shipping codes, or lose A TON of business to places that do offer free shipping options.

Moving along, I also FINALLY went out and bought packaging tape to send her the baby package I put together for her. OH GOSH, let me just say I am not only compromised in my memory, I also can not tape to save my life! The packaging tape I puchased came in a fancy dispenser (I suppose for folks like me who are tape challenged) only this made things sooo much worse. When I was done the box looked like a crumped up taped all over mess.

Even the woman at the post office shot me a look peering over her glasses.

She then darted her eye to Ethan who was chubbily asleep over my shoulder. She smiled and nodded at me, as though she understood.

If only she knew.

This is what I sent my sister in her package:

my fav..omgi loooove elephants stuff for babies lol

these below are organic ..they are at babies r us too it's koala baby brand om they have the cutest stuff!

Then I found her this blanket at wal mart:

Of course I am impatient and I never got my flat rate box so with priority shipping, insurance and signature confirmation, it was 20 bucks to send that thing clear across the US to California.

And I think I am done baby shopping, well until my first neice is born, then it may just happen again:)

Atleast it's Friday

Well, it's Friday, among other things, and today MiMi had her pre k 'spring' school photos. Only, the flyer for the photographer came in the day before they were to be photographed and it specified "bright spring colors/sunday best". Well, I don't know about where you all are in the world, but here it's in the 40's, and even though I attempted to buy a 'bright spring colored outfit' ultimatley the dresses I loved were too pricey, and it was entirely too cold outside for that kind of apparral. Needless to say, after all, I WILL be the one purchasing the photos, and so FALL attire is fine with me.

Infact, I just stuck her in the same dressy sweater she wore a few blogs down, paired with some dark jeans and dark tan boots, I thought it was cute as can be, I mean she's a kid after all and these are just school photos. I'll be doing her birthday photos soon anyway.

I blow dried her hair so it would be super striaght, I mean it's straight naturally but has a kind of wave to it and being picture day I figured I would take the time to make it super straight. Works for me, hopefully they come back looking cute:) They did a great job on her first school photos, so I don't see why this time would be any different;)

American Girl Dolls..

When we went to Georgia for Christmas, MiMi fell in love with her cousin's American Girl dolls. They are admitedly pretty stinkin' cute. I don't particularly care for the price tag, but they are pretty good quality and all. Well one day a few months ago I was looking at AmericanGirl.com to get a feel of maybe a birtday present, and again, just so much money.

Eventually though I came across the "bitty babies" and for 45 bucks, I figured okay, why not - when I have enough money. So then here I am with a little over two weeks until MiMi turns 5 and I figured, okay, okay let me go ahead and buy her one of these babies. I was going to get the doll and an outfit, but then I seen the doll with a starter kit was 115 bucks, still high, but whatever, she'll cherish it (i hope), and well, I still remember my first high quality baby doll (that my childhood dog ate none the less). I remember how much I loved my "betsy" and how she was the prettiest baby doll, EVER.

So I figured I wanted MiMi to have her very own super cute baby. So, I nearly finished my order which came to 129 with s&h costs, and I saw "keycode" at the bottom and thought "oops, why don't I google a code before I spend an additional 15ish bucks I don't want to spend". Yes, I am frugal as all get out!

So I found one on retail me not, and lucky me, free shipping so that was pretty awesome haha!

So are you curious what this expensive thing includes? I have to tell ya I still think it's too much money but she really wants it and I told her "mommy can't afford it" so she will be excited to get it for her birthday. Here it is:



























Now I wonder if maybe I should of just bought the doll and one of the cute outfit sets b/c it would have been cheaper. LOL I think the carrying doll sack tempted me though. hahaha!

Ethan's link, etc.

I feel kind of dumb, as I have never posted the link to Ethan's surgery journals, etc. I made the site after Ethan's surgery, but I posted very personal and private entries of all the emotions I was going through prior to knowing what his exact 'genital' condition was. So, with out further babble, if you care to know what he we've (he) has been through, please visit the site I set up to inform others who have the same conditon (b/c we couldn't find ANYTHING about his condition when we were going through it):


The short version summed up


The site I posted to below:

buriedpenis.blogspot.com



Yep, it's exactly as it sounds, only his wasn't a typical buried penis, it was congenital, meaning NOT buried do to a circumcision, he was born with a very insufficient lower shaft therefor his penis was completely buried under the pubic fat, we were not even allowed to circ him at birth b/c the pediatrician misdiagnosed him as having micro penis (yeah imagine going through 5 months of hell battling with trying to get answers on this one). THANK GOD though after MY persistance I finally got him seen by UNC in September of last year by the WONDERFUL pediatric urologist, Timothy Bukowski. NO pediatric urologist in our city would see us, I spent so many nights crying over it, etc etc. But Dr. Bukowski as our god send when he gave us the correct diagnosis (which was the lesser of the two evils, compared to what Ethan's pediatrician told us it was intially). Well, the link explains it all, it's too much to repeat, but I am very greatful for Dr. Bukowski and his correct diagnosis and for preforming the surgery to release Ethan's trapped/buried penis. He used the foreskin to reconstruct the underside shaft in order for him to have a 'normal penis'.

Enough about PENIS' already! :D haha! but, yeah, I made that blog for the sole purpose of helping other parents being told their kid has a micro penis when he really doesn't and for those whose babies are born with a congenital trapped/buried penis so that they can find our more info. I will post before and after surgery photos within the next month, I just have been overwhelmed.

Don't go thinking I am gross, but when your kid needs a major surgery like that as a baby and you google for hours on end just to see what is 'normal' and can't find any photos of that particular surgery it's NERVE wracking, so I figured I WOULD do it to help other parents see what to expect.

Again, that was the biggest thing I prayed to go right last year, well, first that he didn't have the micro penis and second that the surgery would go well. God came and answered both prayers, and again, Dr. Bukowski is just WONDERFUL. We owe him a lot for not only helping our baby boy, but for also FINALLY helping clear our wrecked nerves (more so mine). lol

Back to UNC

So Ethan's surgery was November 30th but the last week I noticed he was having some issues and I called the pediatrician who in turn told me to call back the surgeon, so I called UNC and he'll be going back for his super late follow up. I don't think it's anything major but they told me they may have to do another procedure to fix things. I just hope when all is said and done my little one just feels normal and won't ever remember all of this. Wish us luck!