Life

This is how our life has been lately, how about yours? (photo taken at 1 a.m. on unpacking day 1). 

Catch up list

From January to now: 

1. Matt went to San Diego for the Annual AOA Meeting and had a wonderful time. 

2. Porter turned 7. He is getting so big and helpful. He loves to make breakfast for us and will usually have it done before I ever get into the kitchen. 

3. I ran a 1/2 marathon trail run, decided 13.1 wasn't long enough, got lost, had to retrace my steps and add an extra 1/3 of a mile. Go me. 

4. I had a birthday. Man, I am getting old. 

5. Abbie had a birthday. She is quite the nine year old. She is artistic and really enjoys nature. So much so that she catches fish with her own hands. If we are ever starving I'm sending her to find food. 

6. Abbie has been through the rounds with doctors. Good news is she does NOT have: Turners, Shox, and a whole slew of other really not fun syndromes, diseases, and deformities. Bad news is she has what is called Madelong's deformity. Basically she was born with extra ligaments in her wrists and those ligaments pull on her growth plate and deform her arms. Good news: She is under Shriners hospital for care and Dr. Kozin is the really the best Ortho Peds. doc there is. Right now we are not doing surgery, probably will have to have surgery on both wrists in the next year or so. We will see. 

7. Abbie is growing! We are really excited that at age nine she is finally into size seven clothes (well mostly, she can still fit in size 6 but we are hopeful). 

8. We have spent several weekends traveling back to Richmond to find a rental as well as make permanent home decisions. 

9. We had an architect draw a schematic for us and it is PRETTY!! 

10. Matt is doing well in surgery and is anxious to be in charge of his own time. We are excited for that as well. 

11. We have loved Philly and all of the great things here, and we are very excited to leave Philly and all of it's busyness. 

12. Makelle lost her first tooth. NOT they way they usually come. She hit her tooth really hard about two years ago and it died. Finally last month because of lack of blood supply became infected and had to be pulled out. The tooth fairy was very nice to her! 

13. Chase is continues to be the funny man. Right now his favorite is to imitate the aliens off of Toy Story. Go figure. What is even funnier is that he does it so he can laugh at himself. It cracks us up. 

14. That brings us to now. Matt's birthday is this week and then he will be an old fogie like me. Lucky him. He is the number one hardest person on the planet to shop for. I have to start thinking at Christmas for his birthday and I still have come up pretty blank. I do have to say though last year I did pretty well (bought him an ipad).

Chase

Me: (Trying to get Chase to eat sprouts in his salad) Chase, see, it's a baby. He is saying, "eat me, eat me."

Chase: No Mommy. I think he wants to stay here.

Learning

So I am slowly, very slowly learning about photography. My subjects, poor them, happen to be my kiddos. Last week I was learning about lighting and snapped these two of the girls. I was really excited that they turned out good (for me anyway) and they are not even touched up. I love my girls' eyes!




p.s. don't mind the out of focus parts. So not liking my camera and waiting for my new one. . .

My promise

So I am posting as a promise I have made to my dear, wonderful friend Kim. I will and should update this more often and so I will attempt to catch up over the next few days. Though, I doubt I will go in order.

That being said. As most of you know that we have moved to Philadelphia, atleast temporarily. Matt is doing his fellowship here. He, of course, is doing fabulous. He has learned a ton and feels confident in his abilities. I have the best husband ever. I am so glad that he has a job that he loves. I fear that many, many people do not get to get up everyday and do the job that they love.

What has been interesting about our move up here is that Matt has always loved living in the city and has been excited to move to bigger ones. However, last week he said, "I'm done with big cities." Um, what, could you please repeat that? Yeah, that is what he said. Yea! I grew up on a farm, I have not really enjoyed the whole city life. Don't get me wrong, it is a fun adventure, but people are just too close together.

I looked for a picture of Matt in his surgical garb. But I don't have one. I'll have to have someone take one for me. In the mean time you can enjoy this picture of the most handsome husband ever!

The darndest things. . .

Matt was telling the kids about his trip to South Africa when he was a teenager.

Matt: Guess what animals I saw, but we didn't see them in the zoo?

Abbie: I know, a Platypus!

Of all the animals in the world or that you would even see at a zoo and she chooses the platypus.

It's too DANGEROUS!

So tonight Matt was putting the boys to bed. Porter was trying to weasel a drink of water from Matt before bedtime. Chase pipes in "No Dad, it's TOO DANGEROUS! He'll pee the bed!" You also have to understand that they share a bed and he is the culprit of wet beds half of the time. Even though Chase is only three he cracks me up on a daily basis.