Dancing with the Stars and Brinley

Brinley has become obsessed with watching Dancing with the Stars. I have never seen an episode until this year when I accidentally stopped on the station when getting up to answer the phone. Brinley LOVED it from the second she started watching it! Now every Monday night she watches and imitates each move the dancers do. It is quite funny to watch. I guess we will have to sign her up for dance next fall! Sorry for the shaky cell phone video, but I still haven't figured out how to get our camera videos small enough to put on here!

Pumpkins, rain and family from Switzerland

We have been very busy this week with all sorts of fall festivities. We started out the week by going to our church bazaar. Even though it was very humid and did not feel like fall at all, we enjoyed ourselves. Brinley especially loved the big blow up slide. She climbed her way to the top and slid down for about 30 minutes. She kept telling the girl, "no help" as she was trying to help her climb up. She is a little monkey and got her way up to the very top, even as 3 year olds were needing help getting up there!
Wednesday, my sister in law, Vickie, and nephew, Wyatt came into town for a visit. They are currently living in Switzerland but will be moving back to the US next year. Brinley and Wyatt were born only 2 days apart, although you can't tell since he is 2 inches taller than her and outweighs her by 10 pounds (BTW, she is older!!) We started the day by heading out to a pumpkin farm and animal ranch, but torrential downpours stopped us right as we got there. Instead, we headed to the new outlet mall they opened right by the ranch. It wasn't as much for the kids, but we enjoyed it! The kids had a great time playing on their playground and running through the stores chasing each other.

Since Thursday was a rainy day as well, Vickie and Wyatt came over and the cousins played at our house. Friday we went and did the hospital tour where I will be having Clayton. My doctor switched hospitals so we will not be having him at the same hospital I had Brinley. After the tour, I realized how good I had it at the other hospital. But I guess that is the difference between a private and regional hospital!


Saturday morning, we went to Chloe's first birthday party. It was a costume party, but Brinley didn't wear her Halloween costume. I decided it would be too hard to clean after cake, ice cream and juice, so instead she wore a precious outfit I bought her when I was in Canton a few weeks ago.
After a nice afternoon nap, we met up with my mother in law, brother in law and nephew Wyatt. We took them to a pumpkin patch right by my house and let them terrorize the place. They ran around picking up pumpkins and chasing each other for an hour!



Sunday for lunch we met up with Jason's family to say goodbye to Vickie and Wyatt. We really enjoyed spending time with them. Brinley and Wyatt had so much fun this trip and really bonded as cousins. Hopefully they will get to make a trip down here this winter so they can play together again!

Good bye my beautiful trees

The arborist finally came out this week to murder...I mean trim our trees from the damage done during hurricane Ike. It was determined that both trees needed to be topped off in order to save them since the "heart" of the trees were damaged. If we didn't do this they would slowly die....kinda dramatic huh?? He did tell me that they should grow new branches in the spring and eventually get back to normal size. So on Tuesday, they got started. It scared me to watch them as one guy climbed all the way to the top with just a rope tied around his waist and saw in hand while another guy held the rope on the ground. I was wondering how this would save him? If he fell, how is the guy on the ground going to stop him from plummeting to his death with just a rope? So I only watched a few minutes and spent the rest of day listening for blood curdling screams...which there weren't. The backyard tree had 50% taken off due to branches being broken all over the place in order to make it even. So now we have no shade and it makes our living room and bedroom much brighter in the morning without that coverage!

before the trimming

after the trimming


After seeing the backyard tree, I asked about just trimming the front instead of topping it. I was almost in tears thinking about my gorgeous tree being reduced to stubs. He said they could trim it to try and raise the canopy and see if that would work. I am very pleased with how it turned out and hopefully the tree will bounce back so we won't have to top it. I wish I had a picture of the tree before the storm because it covered the entire front yard (we never had to water in the summer)

before the trimming
after the trimming

On another note, I am feeling much better and slowly getting my strength back from my kidney infection. I have just realized I am going to have to really slow down these next 10-12 weeks since my body doesn't seem to be able to catch up with me. Brinley has enjoyed having a mom who can't chase her and can tear up the house as much as possible! Here is how she came out of her playroom yesterday.....

24 hour hospital stay

I woke up Saturday morning cramping really badly. Fearing something was wrong with the baby, I called my doctor and she told me to head to the hospital to get on the fetal monitor to make sure I wasn't having contractions. Once we got to the hospital, my lower back was hurting so badly, I could hardly sit up. Thankfully, the baby was fine and I wasn't having contractions. Here comes the fun part, figuring out what was wrong with me... after many hours of sitting, laying, giving blood, two IV attempts and a ultrasound of my kidneys, it turns out I have a severe kidney infection. The doctors decided to keep me overnight so they could monitor me and see if I have stones (which I didn't...thank goodness!)

I must say that pain was very intense and became very nauseous several times due to the pain. I was thankful I had no stones (which I heard hurt worse than giving birth). I got home this afternoon and now have to take it easy this week, drink lots of water and take my antibiotics. The only positive was I got to listen to Clayton's (we FINALLY picked a name) heartbeat, moving and hiccuping for several hours!