Current update

I'll let this post be without pictures even though it's against my usual trend. I really don't think anybody would want to see the top news of the day- My Foot!

For anyone who hasn't already heard, I had surgery on my foot Thursday. I've had a bone spur on the top of my foot for the last few years and recently it's started to really cause me some issues. When I went in to the doctor to see if there was anything to be done he said that it was actually causing some arthritis and I needed to have it shaved down and possibly fused. I opted out of the fusing for now but we went ahead with the exostetimy (big word right? I have no idea if that's spelled right) The hope is that without the spur I'll be able to wear foot inserts and prevent the arthritis from getting any worse and I'll be able to avoid more pain and suffering.

I was nervous about the recovery but it wasn't until Wednesday night that I realized how freaked out I was about the surgery itself. The last time I had surgery was when I was just a kid and I had my tonsils out. I was pretty sure I was going to die.

So when I got to the hospital Jason told the nurse I was nervoust so they gave me some versed (again, spelling?) They said it would calm me down. Apparently it did, Jason said I got super mellow and he got a good kick out of it. Then they came and gave me a little bit more and I don't remember a thing past it. I think that's the weirdest part of the whole thing. I was totally conscious, awake, aware of everything going on around me but I don't remember one bit of it! It's a bit unnerving to not know what you did or said. I can't imagine how people can get drunk and have the same sort of experience ON PURPOSE! Ya, I'll pass.

Anyway, now I'm recovering. I'm doing really well, I'm just going crazy. I sit and look around me at all the things that I think need to be done and I just can't do them. See, I'm really not very good with crutches. I've never used them before! My pits are SO sore. I haven't figured out how to carry stuff around while using them and so I've been trying to just hop. That is pretty exhausting, let me tell you. Hopefully these next few weeks will go quickly and I'll heal well.

Jason has been so helpful though. He has been really patient with my nagging and worrying. I sure got lucky with that one! He's been off work this week so he's been my personal slave. Great vacation right? I'm going to be pretty bummed when he has to go back in on Monday.

Little Artists

Here's some more pics from our Christmas Vacation at Grandma Gundersen's

Zach had so much fun with his cousins while at Grandma's house. Even now that we've come back to Illinois I can ask him who his friends are and he will list off all of his cousins without even a pause. He especially loved painting with Sarah. We've tried painting at home in the past but I think watching Sarah meticulously painting her "girl kitties" inspired him.

You can tell they were both deep in thought.

The finished product:

*Actually, he ended up going back to it and painting until every last bit was coated in a thick green goo. The next day he was inspecting their various creations and found that Sara's had actually accidentally gotten some bits of green paint on them. He very carefully picked out the correct paints and touched up her kitties to cover the green so that she wouldn't be upset. I thought it was pretty thoughtful of him.

Happy Birthday Zach!

Since I'm still playing catchup I'm just going to keep working backwards. Here's some pictures from Zach's birthday party at Grandma's house in Idaho. Since Jason was already back in Illinois we turned to modern technology so that he could still be a part of the celebrations. I hope that Zach enjoyed his day and that all of his wishes come true.

We started with Norwegian pancakes for breakfast as usual and then brought out some presents. Zach got just what he was asking for, Team Geo-Trax! Specifically, Samuel and Steamer.
Kyle promptly ate one of the train drivers and went on playing as if there wasn't a small toy guy hanging out of his mouth.
Kyle makes a pretty good present himself.
Grandma decorated a fancy schmancy train cake. I'm not sure it could have been more perfect. Zach LOVED it.

Especially the coal tender, complete with coal!

It was fun to be able to celebrate with all of his cousins.
Kyle was a bit apprehensive about the cake at first.
But he polished off his first piece pretty quickly.
And then dug into another.

Sledding

Our boys' first sled ride.

Jason had Saturday off so we headed to the "slopes" to give the boys their first sledding experience. Kyle was NOT impressed and this picture is the only moment he spent on the sled. Immediately after snapping the shot he insisted on being carried and remained so for the rest of the outing.

Zach thought riding in the sled was great fun as we hiked toward the sledding hills. He ended up going down a couple of times before nervously requesting that I accompany him. We had one good run and then our second time down my lack of sledding experience got the best of us and we took a pretty good tumble. Zach was a bit shaken up, having been clobbered by his own mother crashing down the hill. He was a good sport though and did go down one more time, on a slightly smaller hill. I felt pretty awful about our crash but thankfully, Zach was very forgiving and seems to have completely forgotten the entire incident. We all look forward to our next sledding adventure, that will probably just end up being in our own backyard where the daddy made hills are a bit less treacherous.

Another update on the state of my Kitchen

What do you think? Should we keep it this way?
If your wondering what in the heck we are thinking with this awful paint job, don't worry. It's not paint.

It's actually patch. Our walls were terribly textured. I'm not sure I can even describe it. There was texture in some spots and not others. There were holes that had been roughly filled. There were big bumps along every seam in the drywall. We knew that when we painted over the poopy green with a nice soft color these bumps would stick out terribly so we decided to smooth it all out. In the case of the far wall, we actually ended up tearing it down completely and re-drywalling it. The rest of the walls we are just going to coat in patch and sand down to make them nice and smooth. It might look terrible now but I'm actually starting to get excited. I can already tell how much brighter the whole area is with the green covered up. It is slow going though and until we can get it all done I'm afraid I'm going to have to deal with a constant coating of dust throughout the house. Yuck! Hopefully this goes quickly.

Roller Skates

Over the summer I was a regular on the garage sale circuit. I managed to get some pretty great finds and one of those were these roller skates. I had some just like them when I was a kid so when I saw them for a buck I had to snag them. Sadly, they were tucked away and never used... until NOW!

Zach started out a bit cautious,

But before long he was cruising the halls. (or I guess in this case, "hall" singular)

I'm pretty sure he thought falling was just as much fun as the actual skating.
Kyle observed the fun from his usual perch on the stairs. He sits like this daily. It's his favorite place to be.

They're calling it "Snowmageddon"

We had a tiny bit of a storm last night. HA! It was actually a bit of a doozy. Last night we had had roughly 11 and a half inches dumped on us and it continued into this morning a bit. I wish I could tell you the grand total but at this point I'm just not in the loop. Sorry.

Jason was sent home around four last night with the great news that he wouldn't have to go in this morning. So, we all watched cartoons in bed this morning until he got the unfortunate call that he would have to go in. Apparently, he's the only one with a truck big enough to make it to the hospital. We were pretty bummed since we had hoped to enjoy some sledding this afternoon. So, he trucked it outside and did some speed shoveling to get his truck to where he could pull out. As he opened the door this is what we found.

See the truck in the background? It can pretty much make it through anything, handy... unless you were hoping for an excuse to miss work. It's a bit misleading though because his truck isn't buried as deep as the other cars. Here's the story:

Jason misses Idaho. He misses driving through massive amounts of snow. SO he thought it would be "fun" to go out driving last night. I sat at home with the boys gnawing my fingernails in nervousness while he played around driving through snowdrifts. While he was out and about he stopped by SAMs for some odds and ends and when he walked in the lady at the customer service desk looked at him in surprise and turned to her walkie talkie to say, "Ummmmm... there's a customer in the store?". They were open, so he didn't see why they were so shocked. SO, that's why his truck isn't completely covered in snow.
I know there was a driveway there somewhere....

Our front porch, I doubt any birds would want to stay there now.

Zach was pretty excited about it.
Here's a good pic to give you an idea of how deep it was.
Awwwwww.... father son moment.
We still haven't quite been able to shovel ourselves out. Jason did what he could this morning to just get his truck mobile. I spent another hour while the boys were napping but there's at least a few more hours to go. Boy, I'm sure wishing we'd splurged on a snowblower about now!