Monday night I took Turner to a Parents as Teachers party they were having for soon to be 3 year olds. It was fun to have one on one time with my little guy!

Nana and her babies. Thanks so much for coming up mom - we love you and miss you!

Sunday night we did pumpkins. Opened them up to get all the goo out - that's the fun part, and then gave the kids markers to do the outside. I know we didn't need to empty them out if we weren't even going to cut them - but what fun would that have been!

Earlier in the day on Sunday my mom and I took the kids to a fall festival thing at a nearby church.

"Mmmmm...Cotton Candy!" Nothing like spun sugar!!

"Look Mom, I'm riding a horsie!"

The calm before the storm

OK, so maybe yesterdays post was a little premature, but not false. Yesterday afternoon was a little rough. I picked Mackenzie up from school at about 1:15. Turner feel asleep in the car on the way there. Unfortunately, he woke up when we got home which meant just a 15 minutes nap....and we all know what a 15 minute nap means for a 2 year old that didn't get to sleep until late the night before, woke up early AND is sick!!!! LOTS of meltdowns. Needless to say, by 6:50 I had his PJs on and had him laying in Mackenzie's bed watching a movie to go to sleep. Mackenzie went in there then too, and Austin went down about 7:30. I guess the big kids didn't actually go to sleep until around 8-8:30, but it did seem like we had a lot of adult quiet time last night. So the moral of the story, I'll be the first to admit that being a "stay at home mom" isn't all the picture perfect moments of story time and crafts, nice naps, and wonderful lunches - but it is awesome. I love that I have more time to complete all of the chores on my plate and still have more time with the kids in a more relaxed setting and when I don't have to be in a hurry all the time. It really does change me, just ask Aaron. Of course I don't know that I would have ever been able to fully appreciate if I hadn't been the working mom first. Maybe someday it will be a long term option - but that would probably end up being an option right when all the kids were in school and then I'd rather be working! Funny how that all works out. But maybe at least I can still hold out that I can be a stay at home Grandma - of course that better be quite a ways off!!

I'll try to post again later on more stuff from this weekend.

Tuesdays for Tuesday

It is Tuesday....please remember to pray for little Tuesday today. She is having scans so lets pray they don't see much on them!

I'm home today, having a good time being a "stay at home mom". Kids had baths this morning, breaksfast, took mackenzie to school, Cameron to work, me and the boys went to work out, came home, Austin nap, Turner lunch and resting.....This is the good life!!

Oh go fly a kite!

And so we did! Here is Mackenzie flying her kite yesterday. We were just sitting around and I decided to take the kids outside for a little while, and she asked if she could get her kite out from "Robby" and so I did, ended up it was a perfect day to fly a kite.

"See mom, I TOLD you it was the perfect day to fly a kite"

"Hey mom, you think if I let it go it will fly away!"

Autin falling asleep on Daddy...AGAIN. He falls asleep like this in no time at all. Amazing. Guess daddy make a good comfy pillow!

Friday night we had our normal gymnastics. (BTW Fran, I changed nights to Tuesdays now so maybe we can get together more on Fridays now.) Just by the end of the week I was so tired. So now that we are done with soccer and won't have practices anymore, Tuesday will work much better. Later that night after I got home, Turner came and sat up in the chair with me while I gave Austin his bottle, and low and behold I lean over and feel his forehead and he is running a fever...AGAIN. And Austin has been pulling at his ear, so Saturday morning I took Austin in to the doctor and although she said his ear didn't look that bad, it did have fluid in it and it was clearly bothering him, so we decided to go ahead and treat. Turner stopped running his fever last night, and seems fine. Saturday we had Mackenzie's last soccer game. It was a make-up game from one that had been rained out and only 3 kids showed up so she played the entire game - and we still whooped that other team! lol We were supposed to have friends over Saturday night, but being as Turner had a fever, we didn't want to expose the twins to sickness so we will have to reschedule...AGAIN. Oh well, maybe we'll just try to plan on getting the adults together, seems easier:) But we did end up going out last night after the kids went to bed because Cameron agreed to stay home with the kiddos. Today we haven't done much yet. Planning on hitting a fall festival in a minute and my mom just showed up and is making us dinner YUMMY.

Good-bye Nany

Well, tonight is the last time I will be picking the kids up from Nany's house. I'm sure I will be blubbering idiot when i leave. It will be hard. This is the letter I have written to her.

Nany,

I’m attempting to write you this letter to let you know just how thankful I am for finding you 3 years ago, but I’m sure it won’t fully capture my true appreciation and admiration. It is so sad to me that we have to change the boys, and I hope that you truly know it is a change of necessity, not of choice or due to any other reason than my work location changing. And I am sorry that I had to move up the timeline from March, but there is SO much uncertainty in my job right now, that at any moment they could move me and when I found this new babysitter, I felt comfortable and knew that I would be confident in my choice.

You have been much more to me and my family over the past 3 years than JUST a babysitter. You have been there with us through monumental times in our lives, and for that you will always be associated with our memories of these past years. During times when we haven’t had much family around, you have been there for me to talk to when I’ve needed to talk, to reassure me when I’ve doubted myself, and offer advice when I was unsure.

In the past three years, I’ve been able to go to work each day knowing that my children were in good hands. That they were being not only taken care of, but loved. It is truly the greatest gift you could have ever given me. I do not take that lightly. I’ve often replied to the compliments I get on the children that their behavior and politeness are much more due to your doing than mine. But in the same, it has given me the ability to let my guard down more at home and enjoy them. (I didn’t feel quite so bad having to give the kids cereal for dinner some night when I was too exhausted to cook because I knew they had had a good warm meal at your house.)

You’ve seen many kids come and go over the years, kids will come in that will replace us, and we are only a speck in list of kids you’ve seen throughout the years, but you are our ONLY Nany. We may be one of hundreds, but you are one of only a select few people I will entrust my children to throughout our lives. You have become part of our family, whether you knew it or not, and you will forever be.

I hope that today is not an end to this relationship. Although we won’t see each other every day, and the relationship will inevitably change, I hope we keep in touch. Maybe some night we can come up and take you to dinner. (Mackenzie was asking again last night when you two were going to have your special dinner together – I hope that can still be done – she will never forget J )

I heard this CD playing in the store last night and thought it was such beautiful music. So relaxing and comforting, emulating the same feelings that I associate with your house. There were many times that I wished I could have gotten to stay and lay on your couch! Thank you so much Nany….we love you!

The Lively’s - 2008
Aaron, Jennifer, Mackenzie, Turner and Austin

We will all miss Nany dearly. But I am confident in my new choice for babysitter and am ready to start the next chapter. We are keeping the kids home for the next 2 weeks, and they start with Ms. Mistie on the 10th.

My blast from the past

Ok, so the other day I’m on a quad site that I follow and low and behold they mention Bishop Carrol HS – wow what a throwback! I went there the first half of my freshman year. So I had to email to see if it was the same one, she emailed back sure enough. I think they are a year or two younger than me, so probably class of 98 or 99. Which got me thinking, wonder about Jenny and Josh and what ever happened with them. They were a couple, she was around 6 months prego when we met (I know shocker right, that I befriend the prego chick! LOL) I don’t know why, but I’ve thought about them quite a bit over the past few years. Sure we didn’t know each other for long, but we were together like every day for that time! But I’ve never really looked for them. SO yesterday I’m driving home and talking to my mom about it all and suddenly their last names came to me from out of nowhere – seriously. So she did a quick search and WhaLa - we found them both.
These are pictures on here to share with Jenny. Oh how I wish digital cameras had been around then so we could have seen how these turned out and did some retakes!!

Jenny, Josh, and their baby Justin.

This was homecoming that year. I thought I was in heaven! I thought he was the most handsome guy in school and he asked ME - the new girl! It was my first "date". He was a Junior and 16, so he picked me up in his car and we drove to the dance.

Here today, gone tomorrow

Wow, this title could mean so many things. In its simplest form, it means I'm hear today at work, but tomorrow won't be for the morning. My babysitter called yesterday and said she has some "emergency" that she has to go to tomorrow morning at 9. I have no idea. It has been hard because she doesn't even talk to me now that we are leaving. Someone I've brought in to our family for the past 3 years, she has been like a grandparent to my kids, and they will never forget "Nany" and yet she is pushing us away. It feels very personal and has been very hard on me emotionally.
In another way it could mean, here today at work, but who knows if I'll be here tomorrow. Who knows what this place has in store for us. Who knows if I'll have a job in a few months, or even tomorrow. This is the first time in my life I've felt like I've been in this position and it is so scary. But to gain some resemblance of having control over the situation, I did sit down and look at where we would be financially if I actually am let go. Basically, I would pull the kids out of any daycare, try to get 2 more kids to watch during the day, and get a part-time job outside of the house for another 30 hours a week, we would be ok. At least I know we could do it. At least I feel like we have some sort of plan B to turn on.
And worst case it is a reminder that we are all here today but may be gone tomorrow. Don't take any day for granted. You know me, a blog stalker, we'll the other day I was reading up on one of the blogs I follow, and followed over to a new blog from that page, and came across the blog of a family with a 7 year old boy, 5 year old boy and twin girls age 2. She had started the blog about a year ago, and it was just normal day to day stuff, just like I write about here. Yet, in August they found out completely out of the blue that one of the twins has neuroblastoma. And I guess I just kind of take that as a sign. Neouroblastoma has affected my life in so many ways, all remote ways, but it just keeps coming up. I know it is a sign for me. Anyways, it is the reminder of my greatest fear, that today I could be writing about how great the kids are and we are all doing great, and tomorrow's post could be something that was so horrible and horrific and in just that amount of time, our worlds could change. So, for everyone reading today, take the minute, if you are with your kids right now, call them over and give them all a hug and tell them how proud you are of them and how much you love them, call your husband at work, email and old friend, text your teenager out of nowhere that you love them. Do something in the moment, because we never know when this moment will end. And for that little girl, her name is Tuesday, and so they ask for prayers on Tuesday for Tuesday. So please pray for this little girl, I'm sure they will take prayers from strangers all the same.