It's a Party!

I've been threatening it for years.
This year I figured it was time to get serious.

Earlier in the day I was trying to get the kids to clean up one of their messes and said, "I try to do something fun for you guys, but I need your help to get things cleaned up so we have space to do it." Olea commented, "It's not fun, it's CRAZY."
"It is crazy, but it will be fun too."

We needed to celebrate.
So I delegated the picking up of the party favors to Gary on his way home Friday night. I had dried a bunch of bananas the day before.

I made a cake and arranged and frosted it to look like a bunch of bananas. I am no cake artist, but I was pretty proud of this project.


After dinner we got started making party hats. We had unpacked a bunch of studio boxes and I found a German craft book that showed how to make party hats. Not like it is super complex but it was laid out in pictures and there is something super cool about seeing something in a book and then being able to make it. And due to time and resource constraints: making it your own.

During this time the missionaries came by and Gary answered the door, they asked what we were doing.
Gary said, "We're having a birthday party." "For who?" they asked.
Why Surgery Monkey of course!

The kids and I made hats while Gary and the missionaries looked through his mission pictures and stuff. Olea made hats for the missionaries. They had to be back in their apartment by a certain time so they missed cake and ice cream with us, but humored me with this picture.

(This will probably be one of the crazy things they write to their families about.)

Of course I can't yet find the spool of elastic appropriate for hat string. Zurich did complain that he needed a string but handled it well when I explained I couldn't find it. So we had some hat mayhem as they kept falling off.

We sang happy birthday and had cake and root beer floats.

I love that Gary put the candle on backwards for the pictures, but right ways for the stuffed Monkey. Gary had set the party favors out on the table and the kids kept asking who they were for. Our response (repeatedly), "It's Surgery Monkey's birthday."
Zurich was so cute saying, "Happy Birthday Surgery Monkey," while he enjoyed his cake and ice cream.

After Finishing up with the sweets, I explained that while it was Surgery Monkey's Birthday, he couldn't play with his hula hoops because he is just a stuffed monkey so they each would get one. This was very favorable to them.

The Hula hoops were inspiration from Olea who had asked for one after playing at friend's with one. She was pretty good right from the start.

Nev needed some help.

Lagoon, Father's Day, Surgery: normal weekend

Saturday we went to Lagoon. With Gary's work. The kids had a blast, obvious right? Well, on the skyride, (which I do not like) Olea kept saying "This is the best day ever!"
(so why do I have to throw this kid a birthday party? ;)

Zurich knows how it's done. Zurich and Mommy on "Dragon"

That's Gary with the Nev. Babies wait in line.

Olea and Zurich on the planes
riding the train (Zurich does his train whistle)

Suiting up for our old west picture

Nev waits for the Old west pic to be printed. She wears a snail Tattie. She was a total sweetheart all day long. She's such a good kid!


The Dragon Fly. YUP, Nev rode it. She takes everything in stride. We were all buckling up in a row when some kid hops up in Gary's seat (while he was getting Zurich in) and the one Gary is left with has the SHORTEST belt. Solution, unbuckle Zurich and switch him. Solved.

Olea and Zurich. Bumper cars.

Zurich was hilarious, he totally got this and went after people with purpose and had this maniacal laugh when he connected.

Last ride of the evening, we were there till closing. This picture says it doesn't it?
The kids were out 30 seconds after buckling into their car seats.

Father's Day we all went in our matching outfits to church. After we gave Gary his other Father's Day gifties: a new lunch box-for to make him not be teased anymore, and a new rifle case and pictures from the kids. The Dad frame from last post I gave him on Friday. Couldn't wait.


Then bless it. We took a nap, except mine was interrupted by stomach pains around 2pm. By 4 everyone was up with me. At six I told Gary that, as much as I hate to say it, I was pretty sure I had appendicitis. By 8:30 or so kids were in bed and I was useless, writhing in pain and vomiting. Gary called my sis and her husband and they came to stay the night with the kids. Toward the end of waiting for them to get there I was laying in bed talking to myself saying: lets just go, the kids will be fine. We were just about to head out the back door when Ken and Eric showed up at the front door. Good timing. Of course I was eventually diagnosed with what I had already diagnosed myself with: appendicitis. They decided to postpone the surgery till 6am so the surgeon could get a good night's rest. (it was 1am or so when I got that news). Fine. Load me up with morphine and if it ruptures.... but thankfully it didn't.

On the way through surgery doors, oh yes, I can smile, I'm getting the sucker out!

I remember waking up at 7:30. Back in my room around 8:15 and Gary tucks Surgery Monkey in the crook of my arm. He loves me.

It's Thursday. I'm only just feeling like sitting for longer than a little while. (been working on this post in sessions) Still feeling exhausted and achy, and my shoulders still ache! I thought that was supposed to go away within the first 12 hours. Not my luck. But I've been very blessed, we caught it in time, are home, and have been very blessed with friends bringing meals, helping out, making Olea a cake (her bday was this week) and my dad coming down to help with the kids.

Cake my friend Jen made for Olea, talk about going above and beyond! Olea was SO thrilled and told everyone she could about it.

I just need to be smart and take it easy. I have such a hard time with this. I always think I can do more than I can/should.

A Bear and his Boy

 

 

 

 When Giddy was diagnosed with Wilms Kidney Cancer we were relocated to a small room lined with shelves on one wall, a desk and chair at the end of the thin room and two chairs on either side of a small round end table with a fake plant on it. We sat in the chairs and had time to unthinkingly look at the offering of comfort items a child would be given on diagnosis. When the doctor handed our all boy one year old a sagging stuffed teddy bear, it was not what either of us would have chosen for him, as cute as it was. It sat in the hospital crib with him that time while we did tests and waited for Surgery and healed from surgery, mostly undisturbed.

 I'm not really sure when it happened but at some point he began cuddling with it at night. 

Giddy had pretty good communication and speech by the fall of 2012 (to the point where I understood him better than his sister who was 2 years older, and we put her in speech) so one Sunday afternoon after a nap he and I were cuddling in my bed and chatting the way you do with an 18month old. I introduced him to Surgery Monkey and asked him what his bear was named. To this point we were just calling him Bear. I asked him a few times when he started saying "Dap" every time I asked and I'd repeat it back to him and he'd agree, "ya, ya, Dap." So Dap was named.
 
About six months later it occurred to me he probably was saying "stop" instead of naming his bear, all the same it stuck. At bed time or nap time he'd wander the house singing Da-ap while looking for him. Or we'd forget and put him to bed without Dap and he'd ask "Where's Dap?"

Recently he has been calling him Dappy. He will croon "Dappy" and snuggle him when he finds him. Sometimes he will find acceptable substitutes, if it is brown and looks like a bear he will cuddle it (when Dap isn't around) they are usually small Beany Babies. Dap goes lots of places with us though, he's even been on a plane and the oldest City in the United States.

Dap is loved at nap time and bed time and often any time in between.

He goes on Renal Doctor visits, and regular ones.

One Sunday he brought him to church and took him to nursery with him. We were all loaded in the van and had driven halfway home at the end of services when I hear Giddy say, "Where's Dappy, at church?"

"We don't have Dap?!" I ask.

He puts his hands up. "Dap at church."

So we turned the van around to get Dappy.Thankfully they didn't lock the toy cupboards like they normally do and we were able to get Dap who had been packed away with all the other toys. That would have been a looooong Dap-less week. 

We have been grateful for Dap and the comfort he brings to this little boy. He is part of a charity that supplies a new stuffed animal to children in emergency situations called Allie's Friends Foundation. Dap is part of the family now. :)