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Ben and I met in 1996, began dating in 1999 and married in 2001. Now 20 years and 2 children later, we have returned to where our life together began. Ben works for the Federal Reserve and I have the privilege of staying home with our two precious boys.

Thursday, February 28, 2013

Rockin' to the 80's

Months ago, Ben bought great seats to see Bon Jovi. So last night we went on a wonderful date night and rocked out with a crowd of people ranging from their teens to their 70's! Bon Jovi has a huge following of young and old.

Before the concert, he made reservations for us to eat at Red which is a restaurant inside Phillips Arena. We sat next to the railing that overlooked the concert venue. It was so cool that we got to arrive early and didn't have to battle our way through the concert crowd!

After dinner, we headed to our seats and waited to watch these amazing guys perform.

 I have to admit that had I been in charge of buying the tickets, we most likely would have have had a better view from watching the screen above us :-). But since Ben is such a huge 80's buff, he made sure that we had the best experience outside of VIP passes.

During the show

It was a great night, but I'm thankful that these nights are few and far between because we could have gone away for a nice weekend and sent the boys to Mimi's with what we spent on tickets, dinner, and childcare :-)

Monday, February 11, 2013

Caden's Surgery


It's done! Caden got tubes last week and we are VERY hopeful for a season of happy days! We are praying now that every virus that he picks up will no longer turn into a secondary bacterial infection and that this normally happy little boy will have even more smiles on his face. AND...now Mommy doesn't have to feel guilty about taking the paci away or working on getting rid of the thumb sucking addiction. 

Up until a few days before surgery, he only got to use his paci at naptime and bedtime, but the day of surgery I let him have it as much as he wanted. Therefore, the paci wound up in all of the pictures :-( He did not care for the gown at all and kept pulling on it saying, "Off!" but other than that, he had a great time playing with all of the new toys and entertaining himself with games on Mommy's phone.


Daddy getting some cuddle time in pre-op


I was able to go with him to the OR and stay until he was asleep which I have to admit was not easy to see. But I made it without tears until I walked out of the operating room and into the post-op room. Ben and I waited in the post-op room a total of 3, yes 3!, minutes until Dr. Herrmann came out to tell us that everything went great and they would be sending him in momentarily. When he did come in, he was still asleep. As soon as they started checking vitals he began to wake up, though. And, Oh My, was I unprepared! The nurses had informed us that he would wake up fussy and irritable. I was prepared for fussy and irritable, not angry and violent. My sweet little baby woke up hitting and yelling. As I held him, trying to calm him down, he continued to hit and scream. I did everything I knew to soothe and distract him and after about 15 minutes he eventually calmed down enough to drink something and eat a snack. Throughout this, I somehow didn't lose it, but was on the verge of tears the entire time simply because I was at a loss as to how to console him and I hated seeing him so upset. Every time the nurses walked by, they kept telling us that this was normal behavior and not to be concerned, but the emotional Mommy in me had a difficult time reminding myself of that in the midst of it all. Thankfully, as soon as he ate something, we were able to leave and by the time we got down to the car, my normal little boy had returned. As we were leaving, the nurses complimented us on the way we handled Caden throughout his episode. Ha! If they only knew what had been going through my mind, they wouldn't have said that. But it was nice to know that I appeared to have been keeping it together. Whew, what an experience! Hopefully, Caden will not have to go under anesthesia again, but if there is a next time I will at least know what to expect.

Now, maybe we can get back to regular life again! Here's to hoping for lots of fun new posts!

Night at the Fox

A couple of weeks ago, Ben and I finally had a night out! Since the boys have been sick for so long, there hasn't been any time for us to have a date night. But this was a night that we had been looking forward to for the better part of a year, though, so we made it happen! 

Last May, Ethan's Mother's Morning Out program did a silent auction and one of the items that we bid on and won were for 4 tickets to The Producer's at the fabulous Fox Theatre. The show was supposed to have been last summer but the actors they wanted for the production weren't available at that time so it was rescheduled for the end of January. Either way, we were thrilled to actually get dressed and get out of the house! We took some sweet friends from church and had a wonderful time but somehow missed getting a picture of the four of us together :-(


Woo Hoo for a long overdue night on the town!