Quick update

Taydem- She seems to be doing better with her hearing and talking. She's still a night owl! She never meets a stranger, just so friendly! We were up at my volleyball tournament this past weekend and she made so many new friends! And I think she's finally getting taller! And she's counting to 50, although the other day I heard her say ONE HUNDRED! Still loves to dance and sing! And is seriously the sweetest girl I have ever met. She's so thankful....

Trever- Hit his first HOMERUN last week! It hit the scoreboard. Today he will play with the JV and will get to suit up with the Varisty. Not sure if he will play, but he's still pumped! And so are we! He as well is growing more and more! I think he's about 5'10" right now. He eats us out of our home. I have never seen a kid eat as much as Trever!

Leven- He is getting so excited about volleyball starting back up. That's all he talks about. He is still having poker night every week with all the coaches and loves it! Track season is going on right now plus watching Trever play baseball two nights a week. He is counting down until school is out!

Devin- I have one more tournament left with club volleyball and it's this Saturday. I can't believe we started this in December and it's already over! I loved coaching these girls and I hope I get to coach them again next year! I am trying to find some more ladies that are interested in selling Willow House! Any takers?? This is my last week of bootcamp before it starts back up again. TIME FLIES!!!

Family and Friends

Last weekend we made a last minute trip to Mexia to see Leven's family and some of our friends. We got into town around 1 and made a few stops before making it to his mom's house. Mike and Ann had been having some trouble with a HOG around their house all last week. He was tearing up their place. So they were determined to get that sucker. One night they both stayed up waiting and waiting on him to come out of the woods, but they missed him. The very next night, Mike sat on a bucket for 4 hours until FINALLY he and that nasty ole' hog met face to face (literally, they were like 10 feet from each other)! And the rest is history! This hog was HUGE!

After seeing the hog we headed over to Fort Parker (http://www.oldfortparker.org/). Ann's place is right inside this park! Taydem rode on the four wheeler with Mike and Leven and I rode on the tailgate in Ann's truck!



Ann's horse!



Tailgating!

That night Tay stayed with Ann and Mike while we headed to Waco to meet up with some friends at the one and only George's. If you love Pat Green then you know all about George's (http://georgesrestaurant.com/). I love the atmosphere plus their CRAZY WINGS! Although, now that we are getting older and sitting in a room filled with young, hot Baylor college students doesn't make it as fun, ha! But we loved getting to visit with our friends. The two girls that were with me were both preggo!

The next day, before heading home, we met with Leven's dad and Gwen and had some lunch. I had volleyball practice that afternoon so we had to get home pretty early. I hate that our trip was sooooooo short, but it's another one in the memory book! And Taydem had a blast. She's still talking about it!

Ping Pong

We bought our pool table a few months ago and by far it's the best thing we've every bought for ourselves! Once a week (since December) we have a huge poker game and it's played on the pool table. It's perfect. Of course Leven and Trever both play pool all the time and every now and then we get out the ping pong table. Last night we played and it was so much fun! It took me awhile to warm up. BUT Trever can really play. He's pretty dang good!

Spring Break pretty much sucks! I hate it worse than the Christmas holidays. That is the one and only thing I miss about being a teacher. Last night we had some friends over (playing ping pong) and I had to go to be early like I little child, ha! Ugh. Today Leven and Aric are playing golf all day until our BIG poker game tonight. There are soooo many more people coming over tonight. The majority of these folks will be coaches so there's no telling how loud they will get or how late they will stay up. I'm going to try and hang as long as I can. Last week I was the big winner! I think I won $110 in 2 hours. They love it. A fun friendly game...with a lot of trash talking!

Never skipped a beat....

Taydem's surgery went very well last Friday. We got up to the hospital bright and early for pre-op and she was in good spirits the whole time. See picture...

After surgery not so much. See picture:

After post-op, WE were all ready to get home. See picture:

After 3 1/2 years I have now come to a conclusion that this child really is tough! Her pain tolerance is not normal. Wednesday I took her in for pre-registration and they needed to draw blood. I was so nervous about the whole blood thing. I don't even do well when I have to get blood taken. I'm not sure if I was more nervous for her, or for me. We sit down and the nurse tells me where to hold on to Taydem (hold her down in other words). Taydem with her big bright eyes was watching that nurse's every move. The nurse tells me to get ready bc Taydem is going to "buck." As the nurse sticks her in the arm, Taydem never moved!! I couldn't believe it. She just sat there wondering what the heck this lady was doing. Of course, the nurse couldn't find the vein. So the needle was just sitting under her skin while she moved it around trying to find the vein. Ugh. I couldn't watch. Taydem started getting upset, but she was terrified to even move one bit. I swear it took her about 2 minutes to find it! I was starting to get upset myself and if she pulled that needle out, she wasn't gonna try again. Finally, BLOOD! Once Taydem saw the blood, she stopped wining! Wow!

After surgery on Friday they also had to take her IV out and again, she just sat there! I couldn't watch.

That afternoon (i'm guessing after the morphine wore off) she was back to her normal fun self! Running around, singing, dancing, doing toe touches, playing Momma to all her babies, and eating! I figured her throat would be a little sore from having the adenoids removed, but guess not!

Busy as a Bee

Work has been so busy this week. Half of my office is out with the flu! Tomorrow is Tay's surgery so thank goodness I won't be around this place.

I have sooooo many people asking me what I do exactly at my job. And I also have people ask me (and Leven) if I even work since I try and keep up with this blog. So here ya go....take a look at some of my work...ha!

I draw these maps for reports that we create for our clients! I am still learning every day on all this stuff! But I find it pretty interesting.

The one below is one I'm working on now. It's a pipeline that runs through about 3 counties! We have field guys that will go walk this pipeline counting houses that are within 220 yards of it. They will bring me back their data and I will put it on a map. The yellow crosses are buildings, the red line is the pipeline of course and the black line shows the 220 yard buffer around the pipeline. Sound fun?? It took me 3 hours just to download the aerials!

Headed to STATE!

You all know I'm a huge sports fanatic. I got to see the Tatum boys basketball team play all their playoff games these past couple of weeks! Wow! These boys are FAST. They don't have much height so they have learned to run the ball the entire game and play outstanding defense. Which usually puts them in foul trouble because they are constantly trying to steal the ball, but oh are they fun to watch. Up and down, down the court...quick as lightning!! We went Saturday over to Nacogdoches (SFA) to watch the final game that sent them to STATE! By far, the best high school game I have ever witnessed. Incrediable!! Three of our starters fouled out of the game bc the refs were the worst refs EVER. They were calling everything. Not just on Tatum but on Crockett too. It was bad. But our boys didn't give up. They played with so much heart. It just makes you proud to be apart of this small town. The JV point guard (got moved up for playoffs) got put in the game with less than a minute left in the game. We were down by three. Time was ticking down fast and at the last second (I really mean the last second), the JV point guard hit a three at the buzzer! The crowd went absolutely crazy! I was jumping up and down like I had just won the lottery or something. I really thought my sister was going to pass out! So we went into overtime. AND won again at the last second! I think I even had a tear after the game. I know this sounds cheesy....but it makes me proud to be an EAGLE!

Not only is Tatum going to state in 2A, but the Mexia "Runnin" Blackcats are also going to State for class 3A! So proud of those boys as well! And that makes Leven proud to be a Blackcat! I wish them so much luck this week! I wish we could make the trip to Austin, but we will be dealing with Taydem's surgery.

It's always something...

Just when I thought Leven and I were doing pretty good financially, something always comes up. Last week we had to get 4 new tires put on the Yukon! Which I KNOW that's a must, but still. This week Taydem went back to the ENT doctor to see if the fluid behind her ears had gone away. And guess what? The fluid is still behind her ears and that's causing the poor child not to hear.

She had tubes put in her ears when she was 14 months old to help drain the fluid. She had 8 ear infections before she turned 1 so yes, she needed tubes. Now she's 3 1/2 and everytime we have ever gone to the doctor he tells us that the tubes are still in and have not fallen out yet. So I'm thinking the tubes are still doing their job. But here recently, she is now telling me that she can't hear me when I'm talking to her so that's the main reason for visiting the ENT. He tells me that the tubes tried to fall out, but her ear canal is so tiny that the tubes are stuck in the ear canal. So yes, the tubes are still in, but they are out of the ear drum and not doing their job. That's why she has fluid backed up behind the eardrum. He tells me she needs surgery once again to have the old tubes removed and new ones put back in. He also tells me that she needs to have her Adenoids removed. These are located close to the tonsils and are usually removed when your tonsils are removed. He says that Taydem's are rather large. Once they are removed, she won't snore anymore and it will help with all the drainage. So....like I said....we think we are doing well and then this happens. Surgery is NOT CHEAP! It's just really frustrating and upsets me. Insurance sucks! I hate that we struggle every day and work our butts off to make a living and half of America is sitting on their butts doing NOTHING, but yet they can go in and have this type of surgery done for FREE! WHY?

Sorry I needed to vent. I KNOW this surgery is a must for our sweet Taytay. She's going to be so surprised after it's said and done and she will be able to hear again. I pray that her talking improves 100%!!

Please keep Taydem (and us!) in your prayers next week. This surgery will last about 45 minutes.