Tubal Reversal surgery Recovery Day 16

I did it!
I took all the butterfly tape off last night. It was scary. I'm going to be careful the next few days. I'm really sore tonight. My scar is going to look ugly. I don't mind though. I added all the pictures to yesterdays Christmas blog. The snow is starting to melt and will be gone by the end of next week because the temps will be in the 40's all week. Boo, Hoo.

Daniel and Laura came over tonight and had dinner with us. We gave Ben and Isaac their Christmas presents. They were so cute. We will be going to my Dad and Moms tomorrow to celebrate Christmas with the whole family. Here are some pictures of tonight with the grand kids.

Laura helping Ben With a present.

Ben's first View Master. He really liked it.

Mommy helping

Ben REALLY liked it!

We just played with the View Master for awhile.

Ben helping Isaac open his big present.

Wow! It makes sounds and lights up. They both liked it.

He sure knows how to open the presents now!

A race track!

Ben wants to play with Isaac's toy some more.

Ben trying to open the chalk. This is a little travel chalk board that you can fold up and bring with you in the diaper bag. We will try it out at church this Sunday. We go to a church where the children stay with us during the whole service so having activities for the kids to do is helpful.

Eating Grandmas home made pizza. He had three pieces!

holding his little brother and giving him a kiss.

My little cutie pies.

Merry Christmas to all!! Tubal Reversal Surgery Recovery Day 15

Happy Birthday to Jesus!!

I'm feeling better today. Last night I was so wiped out. I couldn't wrap any presents. Loy did it all! I handed him the tape and that's it. I talked to my friend Laura today who has had about 7 surgery's and she said I may be allergic to the butterfly tape. My incision seems to be better where I have taken the tape off. If I take all the tape off I'll have to be careful and not do to much physical activity. I am thinking of taking it all off tonight after my shower. If I'm brave enough. I was hurting so much last night that I have stayed on 600 mg of ibuprofen all day Today. I may have done alittle too much today too. I made some cookies that took me all day to make. I also made a ham, with mashed potato's and gravy and corn and rolls for dinner. Loy did the corn, potato's and gravy. I'm going to rest for the rest of the night. I have pictures but I need Loy's help finding them hopefully I didn't lose them.

Loy found my pictures. I was looking at them and noticed Loy really needs a hair cut and a shave! Here they are, we had a nice day.

Good morning Christmas snow.

My Christmas miracle... Valarie gave ME a Christmas present. It smells really good. She knows I like lavender. When I first looked at it I thought it said "pagan" organics. I thought she was trying to be funny getting me, a "Jesus freak" in her opinion, "pagan" soap. But she was actually being sweet. Shame on me for thinking that.

Wrapping presents at midnight.

Me handing Loy the tape. This is the first year he wrapped all the presents. He got really tired at the end, and we didn't even have very much to wrap this year. It's a allot of work.

Isn't he a sweetheart! Here's more tape Love.

All done and ready to go to bed.

Loy got gloves and a scarf from his Dad and Ingrid. I also got gloves and a scarf form them but alas I am the camera holder so there are no pictures of me in them. Sorry.

The kids are teenagers but they still love the stockings.

Davids stocking contents, Joeys was the same.

Valarie got a hold of my camera.

Valarie's stocking contents.

Vala happy with her gifts.

Don't know why she made this face she really was happy. Maybe it's a TEENAGER thing, I don't know.

My beautiful girl. I realized this is the last Christmas we will have with her living at home...sniff, sniff, ....

Joey in his new leather jacket. I can NEVER get a good picture of him!

David happy with his piano. He played with it all day and made up a song. We are going to get him piano lessons too.

This is the tea set Loy got me for Christmas. Isn't it beautiful!

Bonny, a lady at our new church made this calligraphy picture and handed them out to everyone at church. I framed it for Loy for Christmas. He had been telling me for months and months he wants scripture to put on the walls. He was very happy with it. I'm going to ask her to do more for us and pay her for them, she does beautiful work!

The snow was a gift to me from God for Christmas. I really wanted snow this year for Christmas. We rarely get snow here at Christmas time. I was so thankful for it! It is so wonderful and peaceful and beautiful.

My silly Kitty Bunny went outside when I had the back door open to take a picture of the snow! She LOVED it out there. She tried to get the snow flakes as they dropped. She was getting all wet and looks unsure in the pictures but when she finally came back inside all she did was meow at me and scratch at the door to go back out!

Can you believe this! I got a great shot of her licking the snow, she is just too cute!

Tubal Reversal Surgery Recovery Day 14

If anyone is wondering, this surgery recovery blogging will go on about 30 days. That's when the Doctor said I should be recovered. So, I am at day 14 and I'm a hurtin'! It's my fault though. We went Christmas shopping today. Yes, the day before Christmas. I know it's crazy, but with the surgery and all the snow, this is the first time we have been able to do some real shopping. We left around 9:00 am and got home around 4:00pm. We even went to Costco and did some Winco grocery shopping, too. My incision is sore, but more than that, my back is really tired, weak, and all achy. The worst thing though is that my insides hurt. I got sharp stabbing pains and also it feels like I have a headache in my belly. I did too much today. I'm going to sit around all night and blog, and watch a movie with the kids. We still have to wrap the presents we got the kids, though. I'm not sure if I can. I may have to hand Loy the tape while he wraps! We'll be up late tonight. Maybe I should have some of that Kona coffee.

Last night I went through some Christmas boxes that Loy took down for me. I got a tree up. Well, kind of, I still haven't put all the ornaments on it and the kids don't consider it a real tree. They call it the freaky 50's tin foil thing. I hadn't done any Christmas decorating because of the surgery and because I'm also trying to figure what traditions we want to keep and what we want to throw out. Santa has been out for a long time, but I need to do some research about the tree and where the tradition came from and what it means and all. I want to worship Christ my Savior on Christmas, not a tree with presents. I want Christmas to be memorable and special but I want to do it differently. I like the lights and stars because of the star of Bethlehem, and nativities are perfect. Presents are of course wonderful because giving is kind and loving just as God gave His Son for us to save us. Music of course is also great, even music about the season which brings good feelings like - "I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas" and songs like that. Good food and cookies are super, too. So, I guess it's just the tree and the stockings I'm rethinking. I love my little retro tree, though. Does anyone know where the tradition of the tree came from? Is it pagan? Does anyone have any traditions that are Christ honoring? I only have 4-5 years left with my boys and I don't want to change things so much that they feel shocked and sad at Christmas. If God does give us more children by birth or adoption I need to think of these things now and start practicing them. We read a wonderful advent book that I absolutely love called "The Advent Book" by Jack and Kathy Stockman. Other than the book, we don't do anything unique. The Advent book tells the story of the birth of Jesus and each day has a door you open like a pop up book. I have been trying to get more copies of this book for years but I can't find it. Amazon is always out of it and eBay sells them for $40-$60 dollars, it's ridiculous! Hey, I just now found their web site and they sell it on there! It's still expensive though. I originally bought the book years ago for only about $25.00 at Costco. Here it is if you want to see the book. http://adventbook.com/thestockmans.html . They also have a blog and ideas for traditions!!! I'll be reading that after I'm done posting this!

Adam and Shellee came over last night to give the boys their Christmas presents early. They got the boys neoprene gloves so they can play in the snow and stay dry. Shellee brought some food over and we made tacos and played cards it was fun.

Here is last night and today in pictures...

I got some candles up.

I love this Christmas decoration. It's me and Loy.

Shellee getting her tacos.

The "freaky 50's tin foil tree". It's not even all the way decorated yet.

Does anyone else have a TEENAGER that looks at them like this?

My niece Renee standing by the retro tree.

I got my Nativity up. The most important Christmas decoration!

Valarie playing with Renee while we played cards with Shellee and Adam.

I could not for the life of me get a good picture of Joey!

I like old things. These are the retro cards we played cribbage with last night. Adam and I won by the way.

Joey, let me get a picture of you!

Urrgghhh! Joey!

Adam showing something to Loy.

Shellee working on a brain puzzler puzzle thingie.

Diaper and wipes drop for our grandchildren. It was good to see Daniel.

This is Oregon, can you believe it! 1968 was the last time it snowed this much.

Crazy Oregonians getting their Starbucks in chains!!

Mt. Hood

Mini-me Mt. Hood

Doesn't this look like Mt. Hood? It's a pile of snow in the parkin lot at the bank.

Look how high the snow pile is next to this van and ON this van!

The hill by our house.

Look how high the snow is!