The Puddles

Chris posted on his blog a video of Ben.  For those who were worried about our BenBen . . . check out the video and know that everything is going to be ok.

Ben and his sisters now know that Ben is having surgery next week.  They all seem fine.  The blessing is that Ben has no memory of his surgery the last time.  Ben came up to me later and patted me on the shoulder and said, “I know that you are worried about me, but I’m going to be fine.”  Wow.  I didn’t think that we let it show at all, but apparently we didn’t hide it as well as we thought.  Either way Ben is taking it all in stride.  Go, Ben!

Ainsley needed to decorate her vest for the Thanksgiving Festival for her school.  We were told that the vest could be decorated any way we wanted to.  So I pulled out all of my craft boxes and let her dig through everything and pick what she wanted to do.  She had a blast.  We stamped stars on the back.  She glued glitter stars all over them (in very neat rows I might add!)  Jewels were placed all over and the final product was flower stickers on the right lapel.  She did awesome!  This vest is her own creation.  Dad tried to get her to glue a 1%er picture onto the vest (from the Hell’s Angels.  The meaning of the picture is not appropriate for a preschool Thanksgiving Festival, Dad!)  Since we had all of the craft supplies out, everyone joined in the fun!  Madie and Ben got creative with the craft boxes and made pictures of their own to hang up in the playroom.  Pastor Sue is here to visit for the week, so she joined in the fun too.  I was so glad that she was here.  She helped convince Ainsley not to put the 1%er picture on her vest.  Thank you, Sue.

Ainsley and I went to the Children’s Festival in The Woodlands on Friday with her school, St. James Episcopal School.  We had a lot of fun listening to a Japanese Drum Group and Billy Jonas (not to be confused with the Jonas Brothers) Band. Ainsley and I had fun together.  The drums were her favorite.  She could feel them in her belly.  We like the Billy Jonas Band too, but we were pretty tired after 2 hours of sitting at a concert.  We were glad to have  a picnic lunch with her class.  There was a lot of grass to run around and play in.  I am certainly going to miss my Miss A next year when she goes off to Kindergarten ALL DAY!  I’ll have to get my snuggles with her when she gets home.  I am certainly enjoying the time together while we have it.

Just proof that our girls were successful with the fire building process, and were able to light a fire without chemical help!

The hospital called today and they are postponing Ben’s surgery for one week.  Someone came into the hospital today who was sicker than Ben.  Of course, we understand but . . . it still stinks!  We have a friend flying in from Washington, D.C. on Saturday who was suppose to care for the girls during Ben’s stay at the hospital.  Thankfully we had several friends and family vying to care for the girls (my sister was the only one who threatened me if I didn’t let her care for the girls).  Everyone has been completely understanding and flexible.  I don’t do well with change.  I fell to the floor in complete disbelief.  I have been working since the day we found out the date.  Chris on the other hand does fabulous when forced to change quickly.  So Ben’s surgery in scheduled for November 25th.

Instead of getting to tell Ben the terrible news that he was going to have open-heart surgery again, the kids and I made a huge pile of leaves to jump in.  It took some convincing to get Ainsley to go in, but even she joined the fun.  You can tell from the picture that she really didn’t want to touch the dirty leaves.  Ben and Madie jumped in, buried themselves, and completely enjoyed themselves.  Of course, the excitement wore off when we had to go inside, take a bath, and do a quick tick check.  Trust me.  It is better to find them quickly before they have become engorged.  It was still a good end to a tough day!!!!

Chris brought home fish from recent fishing trip to Orange.  He had a great time.  He spent the evening learning how to clean fish.  He did great.  I can’t wait to cook up some of the fish this weekend.

After some rain delays and scheduling conflicts, we finally had our first campfire at our Girl Scout meeting.  I have been a Girl Scout for over 15 years.  When I was in high school, I helped to teach the camp training class to the new adult leaders.  I still was not allowed to build a fire with my girls because I did not have the official San Jacinto Girl Scout Council Camp Training.  I am not about to break any rules, so I found someone who was camp trained to come to our meeting and teach us how to build a fire.  To stop off the event we made . . . s’mores.  What else!!  You can’t have a campfire without them.  Even Ben got involved.

Last week I gave out candy to everyone who wore their uniforms to school that day, so Ben came up to me after the meeting and asked for his candy because he wore his Girl Scout uniform today.  His tshirt says “Brother of a Girl Scout.”  Got to love Ben!!!

The pumpkin to the left is Ben’s from his kindergarten class.  The pumpkin to the right is Madie’s entry into the library’s book character contest.  Madie decorated her pumpkin as Molly in the Victory Dance from The American Girl Doll: Molly.  I can’t remember the exact title of the story right now.  But she was so excited.  Madie, Ben and I went to the craft store and she planned what she needed to make her character.  She was so proud of her project until she went to school.  Most of the kids at school were not child created.  I didn’t realize the professionalism that would go into creating these pumpkins.  I thought that this was suppose to be your child’s creation without mom and dad intervening.  Wrong!  I spent the rest of the week consoling Madie that I thought her pumpkin was awesome.  And that no I wouldn’t do her pumpkin for her next year.  I was talking to some of the moms at one of Ben’s class parties and I found out that this contest was pretty competitive and a lot of the parents had a “heavy” hand in what was done.    I had told the kids when we got started that the goal was to have a good time so matter what happened in the contest.  We had an awesome  time doing the whole project.  So our goal was met.

After an afternoon spent at the doctor, the children and I decided to find something to decorate the house with.  At Garden Ridge we found this very scary cat, who made us think of Rosie, and we decided to put her in our front yard.  There were many days when we would come home from school to find the cat “eating” grass in the front yard.  The cat wasn’t very good at standing upright, but she sure was a lot of fun for us to put up.  The pumpkin was the creation of Dad and company (which included the neighborhood kids).  They had the pumpkin scooped and carved before I could make it outside with the camera.  Everyone had fun!

The cat and pumpkin are down now.  The kids assured me that next year when we put our cat back up we needed to find a nice cat to put next to her too.