B’s blog

Evan has finally gotten a personality. He’s a very happy baby with lots of smiles. His eyes light up when he hears a familiar voice. He is growing out of the “bobble-head” stage too. He still has a hard time controlling his head when he’s tired but for the most part he is really pretty steady. You should see him when Erik talks to him. He laughs but holds it inside. It’s like he is turning inside out with excitement. He saw another baby at church yesterday and started “talking to the baby”. It was too cute! I wondered what they were saying to one another.

I finished school clothes shopping yesterday. Hit Old Navy with Avery. Once I got home I noticed The Children’s Place had all their jeans on sale this week for $9.99 a pair. I am debating taking the Old Navy jeans back to save some money and buy from The Children’s Place or to just be done with it. I’ll most likely pick the last option. Avery told me, “Mom, this is fun getting to pick out my school clothes.” That put a smile on my face because so many times he’s busy doing his own thing and I’m busy with one of the other kids that we don’t get any one on one time together. He did ask me on the way home if I could take him to the movies, just him and me someday. I would love that! It’s the thought of telling Erik he can’t come with us that would be tough as Erik LOVES to goto the movies too. I did end up buying Jaelyn some clothes too. So we are set. I can’t think of anything else they need before school starts except maybe Jaelyn could use some new shorts for the hotter months. Poor Braden says to me when I got home, “Mommy where are my school clothes?” I’m not ready for him to goto school in 2 years. He’ll always be my baby I think. Maybe because for so long I thought he really was my last. I treat him like the baby and really need to remind myself that he’s growing up. In fact, we are hopefully signing him up for baseball this fall. Avery wants to play too and then Jaelyn is signing up for cheerleading through our church at the flag football games. Should make for a busy but entertaining fall.

Today, it’s not raining…yet. My lawn guy better come finish what’s he’s started. I still have weeds to pull up and mulch and rock to lay down. Once it’s done, the yard will look beautiful again. I just want it done so we can tackle another project. Erik’s getting new tires on the old van as one of them is starting to shred. We have to baby that van since it’s paid off and has low miles. I want to drive it to the ground! We actually COULD still drive it for another 80,000+ miles if we took care of it. So as far as I’m concerned we are going to drive it only to work and back, not on any big trips.

I got to talk to my friends Megan and Sarah, from Iowa yesterday! I was so excited. I haven’t heard from Sarah in at least 3 1/2-4 years. She moved to Minnesota and we lost touch. I sent an email to her ex-husband and he sent me her new email. I didn’t even know she had gotten divorced. We spent about 2 hours last night on the phone catching up. Good thing for free long distance! We had lots to talk about! It’s so good to hear familiar voices.

Our coed softball league was cancelled because Mother Nature never cooperated with us. We really wanted to be able to play ball together again like we did when Avery was the only Sheldon baby. That was a long time ago! It’s probably God’s way of looking out for Erik and his back problems. I kept nagging for him to stop playing and let his back rest so it can heal. God must be agreeing with this RN, huh Erik?

Erik got a speeding ticket about a month ago and Texas has a way for him to get it off his driving record. Once a year, you can take a class called Defensive Driving which is a 6 hr course but it erases the blemish of the ticket on your record. You still play the ticket and also have to pay for this 6 hr class. But it’s worth it if it means your insurance rates will stay down. So last night he watched the first 3 out of 6 parts of this video and tested. I better learn to slow down because it was torture for me to listen to the video without having to actually watch it and test.

I have a list of things to do today so we’ll see if Evan cooperates and lets me work or not. Most of it has to do with organizing rooms and closets. If only I could be as productive as my mind thinks I should be.

Tonight is the 25th Anniversary concert for KSBJ. We won back stage passes to meet Mandisa (from American Idol), and Toby Mac. I think we will be meeting Mercy Me too but I’m not sure. They will be playing Erik’s video he directed with the KSBJ staff lip syncing The Newsboy’s song, “That’s Where the Party’s At.” The kids get to come too. Evan will be staying at a friend of mine because the concert will be too loud for him. It’s thundering and gonna pour in about 3 minutes so I hope it’s nice for the concert tonight. The seats we have are under that roof of the Pavillion so we will stay dry. Our lawn guy just came over and said he’ll get to the yard as soon as he can. With this weather being the way it is, it’ll take him another week to finish up at this rate. My parents said there are no mosquitos in Minnesota because they are suffering from it being so dry. That’s because the south is hogging all the rain! And for Minnesota to not have a mosquito is unheard of since it’s their state bird! The kids are at vacation bible school all week and are loving it! We went to see what they are doing this week there and I have to say that this church makes it so much fun for the kids! We bought the VBS cd for the van and both kids rock out to the music. It’s amazing to see how God works in these kids! Even Evan was watching the show last night! We still haven’t had our first softball game yet. Our coed church league was suppose to start 3 weeks ago but with the rain, the fields have been too wet. So in the next 3 weeks we play on Sundays and Fridays. We even have one Friday night game starting at 9pm! I’m not playing in that game because that’s too late to get a sitter or have the kids out with us. Work has been busy. And Care For Women hasn’t announced yet that they are officially coming. I don’t know how we can handle more until we get the staff and beds to do it. That’s all I’ll say on that topic. My uncle Randy is riding his motorcycle cross-country! He started in Dakota Dunes where he lives and has made it to Alaska! He’s seeing bears, moose, salmon, and he camps out wherever he goes. What an adventure! Erik and I think it’d be fun to see the sites of Alaska someday too. My friend Ann and her fiance Peter just got back from Alaska and the photos they shared with us are gorgeous! Like postcards! Evan is 18 lbs at 13 weeks old. He’s really tall too and the 6-9 month clothes are getting too snug in the crotch. So some of his one piece outfits are 12 months already! He is sleeping through the night now which this mommy is very appreciative of! He isn’t sleeping at grandma’s though and that makes for a long day for her. I think he just knows it isn’t his house and isn’t fully relaxed. Different smells, different sounds. He’ll figure it out soon I hope for everyone’s sake. Kids go back to school in a month. August 27th is the first day. They have all their school supplies already and we started buying clothes. Avery tried on some jeans from just a few months back and they are too short and too tight in the waist. Summertime is the time to grow and these kids are growing like weeds.

That’s all the updates I have for now. Gotta get to walmart for some toilet paper and to pick up the shorties at church.

I got an extention on our “flower bed situation” until Aug. 19th. It’s been raining nonstop for 2 months it seems so if I can get a nice day, then the lawn guy can come. It’s suppose to happen Monday and Tuesday. I just found out Avery’s friends’ dad is starting a lawn care business so he’s gonna come over to give me a quote. If he can beat out this high school kid I hired, then I’ll contract him. We decided it would be easier to just put down mulch again and then put back the rock around the edge of the beds.

Work has been a little stressful lately. Ok, let me start from the beginning and try to make a long story short and understandable. KW (Kingwood) used to have group of OB/GYN md’s called Care for Women practice at the facility. Well, a few years ago CFW (Care for Women) pulled out and moved all their business to Northeast Hospital just down the road. NE was bought out by Memorial Herman and there was talk about Memorial Herman buying a surgery center and letting CFW use that to do all their gynecology surgeries there. Well, MH (Memorial Herman) didn’t follow through just yet with their promise and haven’t bought the surgery center just yet, upsetting all the CFW md’s. So now CFW wants to come back to KW, where I work. We are not equiped to double or triple the load of patients they would be bringing to us, nor do we have the staff. So this week our CEO went to propose a plan to the bank so that we could redesign and extend out neonatal nursery and also revamp a vacant unit for all of the gyne patients. We would have to rebuild another OB surgery suite for our c-sections and add more labor rooms as well. So much rides on if we can get the funding and remember, KW is just finishing up a multimillion dollar 3 story addition. No funding=No CFW. IF all goes through however, we will need to double our staff and until we do that, no vacation requests will be approved. That is where I’m most upset. I don’t care that I’ll have to work on a different wing separate from L&D from time to time (the post partum nurses will rotate between gyn and post partum). But I do care that I can’t even go back to see my family over the holidays. My boss says KW has a policy that no one can take vacation between Thanksgiving and New Year’s. I don’t know how true that really is but it’s not right and I’m upset about it. So that’s what going down at KW. There have been rumors that NE DID purchase the surgery center so CFW may back out from coming to KW again too. Alot rides on alot of different things. One hour we hear one thing and the next we hear another. I don’t know what to believe but everyone higher up is stressed over it.

I LOVE the look of a nicely landscaped yard. Do I have one? I did when we moved in but after that, it’s gone down hill. I have NO gardening ability nor desire in any inch of my body. I’ll mow the yard but forget about edging or trimming. I HATE picking weeds and since I was pregnant for 9 months of the last year and then recovering from surgery for 6 weeks after that, my flowerbeds look HORRIBLE! So horrible that the homeowners association, who I’ll refer to as Satan’s spies, sent us a letter in the mail stating we have 10 days to get our flower beds in order or else we’ll get fined. These are the same people that send us letters for leaving our garbage can out a day too long on that ONE day out of the year we happen to do it. Do you know how many people I know in our subdivision that leave their garbage cans out? So Tuesday at noon, I have a college student with a lawn care business coming out to the house to give us an estimate. Makes me sort of feel like Gabriella Solis on Desperate Housewives with a college yard boy! I’m actually having this kid come over to tell me what needs to be done to make it look decent and tell me how much it’ll cost and then I’ll decide if I’ll just try to get an extention on my time frame I was given to get it done, or if I’ll hire my brother in law, Ben, to do it for half the cost. Either way, I’m paying for the mulch and whatever else we want. It’s the cost of the manual labor that will determine who I hire. We have these stupid rocks in our flowerbeds, not pebbles, but rocks about the size of your fist. To remove these is the only way we can put down vinyl and then plastic to keep the weeds at bay longer. (got that suggestion over the phone when talking to the college lawn boy) I may have to hire my neighhood boys to pull up all these rocks and then just do it all myself on a day off. Bad thing is, Erik and I don’t have many days when we are both home all day together and we can’t leave the baby unattended. Anyways, long story short, I hate keeping up with the yard. It’s expensive, time consuming, and I’m really bad at it.

I got to work at 6:30 and they have 2 patients who will be discharged home today and the scheduled c-section wanted to try to VBAC instead so she was sent home. Ok…I was recently 37 weeks pregnant and would have sold my soul to have Evan out of my body but to be 39 weeks and opting to change your mind and go home? I don’t get that. Oh well, not my body. It just kills me that all along this lady had planned with her doctor that today was the day they were having a c-section and at the last minute, literally only minutes away from the actually first cut, she changes her mind. Is that just nerves or insanity?

So I’m now home and the AC guy is coming between 12 and 4p. Which as anyone knows means he’ll be here at 3:55p so I can’t go anywhere all day. Not that I need to but it’s the fact I now can’t. Good news is when we called they said it was only going to cost us $39.99 for the house call since we have a contract with our electric company. Now that doesn’t cover the repairs but we found a coupon online so we may shave a little more off the final cost. Erik is being Mr. Dad today. He is taking Avery back to the doctor this morning to get his TB test read. Then he’s got a huge list of things to buy at Lowe’s; new vent filters, fridge water filters, 2 new window screens, weed wacker line, etc. Oh, and he has to goto work. What a great husband!