Thoughts

One of the reasons I wanted to go back to blogging was because I feel like my brain is always on.  Sometimes it comes up with some weird scientific questions, sometimes it replays events from my day with alternative endings, some times it just gets stuck in thought.  When my brain does this I have a tendency to feel weird while expressing these thoughts.  All throught life we get a lot of practice expressing two emotions: happy and anger.  Happy is the easy one, anger we are taught what is acceptable and how to control it.  But the other emotions are hard, sometimes I can't even appropriately label the emotion I feel.  Therefore, blogging allows me to express my thoughts without the actual awkward social interaction that I want to avoid.  I do want people to know the thoughts but I don't necessarily feel comfortable in that moment.  I guess this is the point that I should warn all of the emotional readers out there at work (Mom), if I as reading this I would probably cry.  So close down the web page and wait for later or grab your tissues and here we go...

This year has already put our family though a bit of a roller coaster and we are bairly 60 days in.  During the first few weeks of the year we found out BJ's mother was rediagnosed with breast cancer but that was all we knew.  We spent many days talking about what test she was going to have, what it would tell us and how would we react to the information we would get.  It came down to cancer localized in just her breasts which would mean chemo followed by a double mastectomy and reconstructive surgery.  All very scary.  All kinds of emotions that we didn't have a lot of practice dealing with.  I mean his family hasn't yet healed from the loss of BJ's grandfather in August, let alone a new family member being horribly ill.  But as the weeks go by the thoughts that are stuck in my head are these:

-Several years ago a pastor did a sermon on Why God? The question we all ask when bad things happen to good people.  The result of the sermon was we are asking the wrong question.  We should be asking "What do you want me to learn from this God?"  So I have been.  Still waiting on my answer, but I think I may be able to help my mother-in-law with her answer. 

-God creates us both externally and internally but sometimes our eyes and minds overlook our best assets that we are given.  My mother-in-law is a strong woman who has had to deal with lots of things in her life that most couldn't imagin.  But I don't think she knows how strong she is.  She has one of the most kind hearts, which makes her a great nurse, but again I don't think she knows it.  She also had beautiful red hair, that she did know.  But notice it is now a had, the chemo that will fight off the cancer stripped her of her hair, but it can't take away the other parts of her.  I think God needed her to know her true beauty.  She needs to be able to see how amazing of a person she is, no matter what she looks like.  This weekend we spent Saturday with all the family and you know what? The littlest kid, never even noticed.  He knows and sees the true beauty, love.  He loves her and she loves all of us.  

-I also feel that this strong, caring heart has taken away her time to really focus on herself.  She is so concerned about how everyone else is she forgets to be just the smallest bit selfish and do things for her.  Well now she is doing things for herself and saying things to people she might not have before.  It pains me to see great people be taken advantage of and walked over just because they are too afraid of the others views.  In reality most people don't even know that they are doing something rude or wrong.  I mean how many times do people get into arguments because they thought the other person knew something they didn't? More often than we probably think.  I just hope she continues to say what she feels, and listen to the responses she gets.

Tomorrow is treatment number two which will take us on yet another crazy ride, but as her body fights the cancer she grows stronger in ways I bet she never knew and I the end she will have boobs perkier than most twenty year olds and more hair/wigs than most actresses and her inner beauty will be shining out of ever part of her.  Talk about life cycle of a butterfly...

Auto show

For the 6th year in a row we went to the Chicago Auto Show for our Valentine's Day celebration.  Most people don't enjoy the auto show,it it doesn't bug me.  After awhile most of the cars start to look the same but I don't care. My husband seems to enjoy it and he knows more about cars than I do.  The first year we went I was pregnate with my little monkey and this year was the first year since we didn't drag a stoller around with us.  I was not sure how Elijah would do with all the walking but he did it without needing to many breaks.  Here are some pictures of our day.  

 

 

At the end of the day Elijah was rewarded with ice cream and was aloud to throw some money into the fountain to make a wish.  When he was done I asked him what his wish was and it was to see Grandma, I kid you not within minutes I get a text from Grandma wondering if we were still there.  Yup his wish came true.  As we wre tucking him in that night, he told me his favorite part of the day was the whole thing.  Can't beat that can you!

If I had to pick it for him though it would have been the hand stamp he got, ice cream, making silly movies, or sitting in all the driver seats. 

Timber!!!

Timber by Pitbull featuring Ke$ha

It's going down, I'm yelling timber

You better move, you better dance

Let's make a night you won't remember

I'll be the one you won't forget

Wooooah (timber), wooooah (timber), wooooah (it's going down)

Wooooah (timber), wooooah (timber), wooooah (it's going down)

Every time I hear this song I think about my cousin Katie.  And for the next 15 min I giggle thinking about our time together when we were kids.  We had and I'm sure we still do have a a wonderful special relationship. We would only see each other 3 days a year after Christmas but we were two of the three oldest of all our cousins so we hung out a lot before the others were around and after the others came around we were too old to play all the kiddy games.  However, before those others came around we had to entertain ourselves and we did so by making up games.  One of our most favorite games was called Timber!  It was a simple game we would stand at the end of two mattresses on the floor (also known as Katie's parents bed) and we would fall stiff as a board back on the bed.  We would do this for hours and hours on end.  As we got older we modified it to us holding pretend weddings to our crushes and after we were pronounced man and wife we would fall back on to the bed and laugh for hours. We would do this so much I think we were the reason for this: 

 Therefore as long as this Timber song is popular I will laugh and remember parts of my childhood at least until the song starts to go crazy and dirty.  Then I just sing the first part over and over and over.  

TIMBER!

I know I know...

I haven't blogged in awhile. I'm having a hard time being motivated to say the least. With the new job change I'm having a difficult time getting focused in all the other area's of life and well that means things aren't getting done. ie...blogging and recently cleaning. So instead here are cute pictures from Easter.

Easter Eggs with MawMaw and PawPaw Fishing on Good Friday

Egg Hunt Sunday morning.  Dino, did you eat any eggs?

Family Picture

Huh?  WHHHHAT?

 Easter bunny after a long day at work.  He needs a snack.

 Hunting eggs hid by Jessima

 Hidding eggs for Brady

 Confetti filled eggs.  So much fun but soooooooo messy.

Flying our Easter kite

Hockey game

I don't want to hear it. I know I'm behind.  I'll explain later.
Last weekend we jumped in the car and headed north to Rockford.  BJ had tickets from work that were awesome seats so we went.  It was my dad, step-mom, sister, me, BJ, his mom and dad, and Elijah. 

The seats were right on the ice, next to the players bench.  It was a special box so all the seats were leather and had padding.  We evem got to be on the big TV.

If that's how all sporting events were I would go to them all the time.  FREE and COMFORTABLE.  AWESOME! 

We taught Elijah how to bang on the glass and the zamboni guy banged back every time he was close enough. 

The team is the farm team for the Chicago Blackhawks so we saw several players that also play on for the Hawks.  Some of the permanent team members were there signing stuff.  Elijah got his jersey signed. 

At the end of the night one of the equipment people gave us a game puck.  We gave it to Elijah and for the hour and a half home he held onto it every once in a while would tell me it was his "aty but, fom da dame, mine"  Once he fell a sleep he he held onto it.  Thank goodness he was sleeping when we got home or else he probably would have slept with it.  The next morning he found it and his play hockey sticks and carried them around until we left for school.  Awesome. 

Sledding

With all the snow and a 2 and a half year old what a better time than to go sledding. 

This is the reason why BJ and I had kids.  It was so we could do cool kid things where there were other kids with out looking like the creepy people without kids.  Being smart though I did not bring the camera because I did not want to kill it.  Elijah loved sledding, other than the part where the snow got all in his face. 

He wanted to stay for hours but seeing as BJ was the only one that was able to pull him up the hill we had to cut it short.  We staged some pictures after we got home in the backyard.  Even Resuce loved the snow.  I think she found something under the snow becuase for about 5 minutes at a time.  I almost thought she wsa going to stop breathing. 

TRAINS

We headed to the Morton Arboretum this weekend with Brian to see trains.  For the 3 adults we came, we saw, and we were ready to go after about 30 minutes.  For the 1 child with us he wanted to sit and watch the trains for hours. 

It was actually very cute, they had it set up so there was a drive in with a a small TV screen that had a closed circuit feed from one of the trains as it drove around.  There was even Thomas and his cars Anne and Clarabelle.

We finally had to call it quits after about an hour because we were getting hungry.  What can I say my child loves Dinos and Trains.  But we stopped and had some coffee before we headed home.  Okay, Elijah really just had water but it he wanted his cup to look like ours. 

Message from beyond

I'm not one much to believe in ghosts and being contacted from people who are no longer living, but sometimes the signs are just so obvious I can't help but acknowledge them.  I have also been reading a book titled "Heaven is for Real."  I don't know if the whole book is real but I like to think it is, plus it also gives you a better idea of what the unknown is.  So needless to say it has had me thinking a lot lately about heaven.  As we were going into BJ's surgery I told him that if he goes to Heaven while he is is in surgery to say hi to family and friends that are there.  We smiled about it and BJ told me the people he really wanted to see if he could.  We were the first ones scheduled for surgery that day and at 6:30 in the morning we walk into the surgery center.  When we opened the door to the center a perfect monarch butterfly fell out of the door.  BJ and I just looked at each other and smiled.  Reason being, his grandma loved butterflies and is remembered by butterflies.  We thought it was a nice way to let us know that his grandma was with BJ during his surgery.

Birthday Cake

I know I'm a bit behind on the blog.  I have had a busy life this last week so blogging has had to take a backseat to that.  However, the other night we went to my dad's house to celebrate his birthday.  It was Wednesday, my late night at work.  BJ and Elijah showed up at my work and we took one car there the at the end of the night we went back to my work and got my car.  We didn't get to my dad's house until about 7:30 but dinner was ready and it was delicious as always.  However, before we started eating we noticed that the chocolate cherry cake my sister made earlier that day had all the candles in it and they were all droopy.  BJ and I being annoying went to straighten them but they wouldn't straighten.  That was when BJ pulled one out.  All that came out of the cake was the wick, no wax.  Um okay.  We tried another one, more wick no wax.  Weired.  Finally we decided that the cake must not have been cool enough when the candles were put in.  We left most of the candles in and had dinner.  By the time we were done eating we waited a bit before singing and doing all the fun stuff.  However, as we were pulling the rest of the candles out of the cake they came out with all their wax.  What the heck?  So weird.  Guess the cake wasn't cool enough initially, but when it did cool down enough the wax reformed around the wick and came out of the cake.  We just had to be careful while eating it.  While I was eating the cake I almost broke my tooth on a cherry seed.  My sister just looked at me and said, at least we know they were real cherries.

Even with the seed and the wax it was still a delicious cake.  Even if BJ took all the cake he brought home to work and didn't leave any for us here. 

Mother's Day

Sorry it is a couple of days late but being a mother leaves you little time to get other things done.  But once you become a motehr it's like joining another another world...an animal world.  Hence one of the reasons we decided to go to the zoo.  The other reason, I love the zoo.  We had beautiful weather, we saw ALL the animals (except the elephants that were on vacation), and we even got in a nap for the baby.

We saw all the good animals during feeding times which was the best time to look at them all.  It was also warm enough for the animals to be out, but cool enough for most of the animals to be enjoying it.  The hippo was even out standing next to his swiming pool.  As we were walking up to the enclosure I thought he was a statue and became very confused about why they would put a statue inside the encousre.  Weird.    Then I got smarter. 

Elijah got to see his gerraffs and we even brought giraff with us to t he zoo to see his old family.  (My real thinking is if every thime we bring a buddy from home we won't have to buy one).