welcome 31st year....

turning 31 is definately much more exciting when 2 little girls are just jumping with excitement to sing "Happy Birthday", help blow out candles, and help open presents.
Work was busy, as anticipated. It started out fairly reasonably. Oddly enough the cesarean section was not complicated by scar tissue, it was complicated by the fact that the patient's rings were stuck on and WOULD NOT come off. We stood in the O.R., all scrubbed and ready to go, for over 30 minutes with the ring ordeal. We borrowed the E.R.'s ring cutter, which was really just a Dremmel tool, and it was like trying to knaw through 14K gold with plastic cutlery. it would have been entertaining if i was unaware that there were 15 patients who had checked into the walk in clinic to be seen. Ahhhhh, the walkin clinic. It is supposed to be an emergency clinic for pregnant and postop patients. and yet, my first patient was a lady who wanted her IUD out because she was ready to get pregnant. i was like, ummmmm.....did you realize this is our Acute Care Clinic? we handle emergencies, pregnancies, and postoperative patients. Yes, she did know it was an emergency clinic, but our next available appt is 3 weeks away, and she has had this IUD for 5 years and needs to get rollling with this pregnancy thing. stat. i have found it is faster to just do it, rather than try to figure out a way not to do it. so i did the emergency IUD removal and moved on with my life.

I finally made it home, and was greeted by two smiling, excited little faces. we had a lovely dinner, and then busted out the strawberry shortcake. i was so excited to see strawberries have arrived at Costco this weekend, and we have been enjoying getting back into our berry addiction this week. I layered this vanilla cake with some cream cheese/strawberry frosting, then topped it with fresh strawberries and fresh whipped cream, and it was delicious! :) Of course Jbug and NovaJo had gotten a little present to open in the mail along with Mommy's presents.
Cris definately approved of the Ohio State gear i'll be sporting around the house.

We finished off the evening by watching some cartoons in our little bed on the floor. the girls think this is just about the most fun you can have.

finally, some bad news in the sleep department. Nova has always been an amazing sleeper. she loves sleep, just like her mama. when we say bedtime, she takes off for the stairs and heads straight up to her crib. The first 2 nights after we got back from Hawaii Nova did her usual superstar sleep marathons. On the 3rd night, something changed, and she FREAKED OUT! she started crying and screaming and arching her back. We thought "this kid must be sick or something!" so we let her sleep in bed with us. repeat experience the next day at nap, so we rocked her to sleep, still thinking she was sick. But then it just continued. If we even said "sleep" she had a spaz attack. A couple of nights ago we left her in her crib to throw a fit for awhile, and when we peeked in to check on her she had thrown every blanklet, pillow, toy, and even her diaper and pants out of the crib.

We came up with what we believe to be the "master solution". A variation of the "Sissy Bed" from our Hotel Room. Cris has created a "Sissy Crib". It has not solved the problem, but it has made it a little better. there is still crying at bedtime, but it is less, so hopefully over the next week or so things will start to go back to normal.

fondue

my husband does not like to cook his own food at restaurants. it actually cracks me up a little bit. There is a restaurant in hawaii that all of our friends love, Shorebird, but you cook your own food at this big communal grill. cris hates that restaurant. Tonight i selected Mona Lisa Fondue for my birthday dinner (or actually pre-birthday dinner, since my actual birthday is tomorrow) . This, of course, involves cooking your own food. The restaurant was adorable and romantic. It is in the little artsy town of Manitou Springs, in an old victorian house, with all the rooms decorated with little twinkle lights. Perfect. really perfect. Made even more perfect by the fact that cris grumbled the whole meal (in a comedic way, of course) about cooking his own food at a restaurant. and he grumbled about the ridiculousness of dipping a strawberry in cheese fondue. His tune changed a bit when they brought out the "Flaming Turtle" for dessert. Chocolate fondue with caramel and walnuts swirled in. Into this Flaming Turtle we dipped everything from bananas to cheescake. it was fabulous.
and we got to just enjoy dinner, baby free, and talk about whatever we wanted. No interruptions to wipe pizza out of Nova's hair, or cut food into bite sized pieces. In fact, we even left the restaurant without spending several minutes picking up pieces of half chewed food off the floor. it was a perfect 31st birthday dinner.
when we came home cris revealed what my present was *supposed* to be. He had truly tried his very hardest, but due to circumstances out of his control, was unable to completely pull it off just yet. We have a hot tub in the backyard that hasn't been up and running since we moved in. Cris spent the week scrubbing it out, and doing maintenance to get it working. He was putting on the finishing touches when he discovered that the previous owners had let it freeze with water in the pipes, which completely destroyed the mechanism of the hot tub. it is going to take a whole lot of work to get it up an running at this point, so i will just have to wait a little longer for my totally awesome present. i really had no idea cris was working on this, and it is going to be awesome when it is up and running.
my actual birthday probably isn't going to be that awesome, only because my work schedule is really terrible tomorrow. I am the "walkin" doc (formerly referred to on my blog as Dr. Death) this week. Mondays are always crazy busy due to all the pending issues from the weekend, along with all the weekend ER visits that will end up in the GYN walkin clinic tomorrow. On top of that i have 2 "add-on" surgeries to squeeze in between seeing patients, as well as assisting the L&D doc with a cesarean section on a lady who has had 3 prior c/sections and is going to have a belly full of scar tissue. needless to say, i am probably going to be running around like a partially crazy person tomorrow, and that is definately not my favorite scenario. oh well, hopefully it will all work out and go smoothly and i can keep up a smile all day :)

Egg Hunt

the weekend started off a little rocky. Friday after work we decided to head up to the north end of town for some shopping/play and dinner. I am the "Backup" person this week, which basically means i am on call from home. I knew I had a surgery pending, but i thought it wouldn't start until 10 p.m. (she had eaten lunch and we had to wait 6-8 hours). We had been at the mall about 30 minutes when the O.R. called to say they were ready for me. they had decided to do the surgery at 7 instead of 10. so we had to load the whole gang back up in the car and head to the hospital. Cris dropped me at the hospital, then he and the girls just waited out in the car for 2 hours (i didn't think it would take taht long or i would have just sent him on home) until the surgery was over, which ended up being a real doozy and taking longer than i expected. I am constantly amazed at cris' patience when my job disrupts ALL of our lives on a very regular basis. I'm not sure i would be so patient if the roles were reversed, but i am so thankful that Cris accepts the fact that not only are we constantly moving all over the country due to the Army, but that i am always working longer than i planned and getting called in at weird hours. Friday night made me even more thankful than usual that i married such an awesome husband, who didn't complain a bit about sitting in the car for 2 hours with 2 toddlers.

anyway, this morning things started looking up quickly. The hospital hosted an Easter Egg hunt for the kids, and we all had a great time! I have a ton of pictures to post, and some of them are a little random (i was clearing off the memory card)...

The girls got these super sweet dollhouses for Christmas. They love them, although they don't always play with them in the traditional fashion.

Nova loves her elmo doll. She also loves backpacks. Here her favorite combo of the two.
and then back to some leftover hawaii pictures. I saw this pink tutu swimsuit for nova and i just had to have it. Cris was NOT in favor of the pink tutu swimsuit. He likes when the girls wear Board Shorts and a Rash Guard :) Anyway, i had abandoned the idea of the pink tutu swimsuit until the top of Nova's two-piece suit mysteriously dissapeared while in hawaii, and i certainly couldn't let the girl go topless. so i headed straight to old navy and bought the pink tutu. i softened the blow for cris by adding the Ohio State hat to the ensemble.

getting ready to head to the pool

jumping on the hotel bed

And this is what we returned to after the hawaii vacation. snowstorm in colorado. Sherpa does have a beautiful doghouse (with a heater!), and yet she prefers to lie out in the snow. we love our Snow Dogs!

As you can see, Denali is now sherpa's size. he just turned 6 months, and is still growing fast! I know he looks a little mean in this picture, but he is such a sweetheart. A little too sweet for Nova's taste, as she really HATES when he licks her face.

Cris captured this shot of our little princess in time-out. Pitiful, right?

ahhhhh....we are finally to the Easter Egg Hunt pictures.

The morning started out with a little craft session. The girls decorated Bunny masks.

Then we sat out in the lobby and had a few snacks.

and finally, the hunt was on! If there was ever a child genetically predispositioned for an Easter Egg Hunt, Nova is that child. 300 eggs dispersed about the pediatric clinic for her to collect in her little bag...The ultimate "Project!" The kids were divided up by age group and dispersed throughout the hospital.

Juneau loved it as well, but became rather distracted when she discovered that the eggs were filled with candy. she was more interested in opening each of them than actually collecting them.

No egg escaped Nova's sharp eye!

They both loved getting to eat the candy they collected

Hanging out in Mommy's office and eating up The Loot!

after they thorougly coated themselves in chocolate, they took a bath, and then enjoyed some wild tackle/play time with daddy. Nova found these sunglasses and wore them around the house all afternoon....

Favorite post-bath activity - Daddy Nail Trimming Time

These sisters love eachother - at least most of the time!

Tomorrow night we have a babysitter! :) Cris is taking me out to a little fondue restaurant for my 31st birthday (which is monday!) The girls love birthdays. they don't care whose birthday it is. if it involves, cake, "Happy Birthday to You", candles, and presents, they are all about it. they are already excited for Mommy's birthday. Cris has been sneaking around the house wiht some sort of little surprise brewing, which i am of course dying to figure out. stay tuned for more on that!

more pictures :)

Our cousin Beth saved the day when she brought her camera to the zoo! I was busy chasing after my two wild things, and thankfully Beth was actually able to take some pictures of the girls with their cousin Melody! We were so happy this trip to get to hang out with our Hawaii cousins on several occasions. It was sooooo cute to see Juneau interacting with Melody now that she is a bit older and really likes to play with friends! Since we have been home she has seen a couple of little things that remind her of Melody, and she always says..."Like Melody?!"

The first day i underestimated the time it would take me to get the girls out of the pool, dressed, and down to the zoo, so we actually missed getting there before the zoo closed. No worries, though. we had a great time just playing outside!

Her the girls were playing "ring around the rosy" around a big metal pole they found.

Nova looking forlorn

and back to her happy-self
tickle time!

sisters

i think this is the closest we came to everyone looking at the camera at the same time. Juneau is looking to the right, nova has her tongue out, and Melody is about to tickle us!

the girls loved this cement hippo....go figure!

and my VERY FAVORITE THING OF ALL TIME - holding hands! I love when the little girls want to hold hands. they are soooo cute! Juneau and Melody walked/ran all over the zoo like this

more holding hands :)

just because she's so adorable :) and don't you love that hair?!

Melody came up with the idea of putting on a play...The girls took turns playing the pretend instruments, being the singer, and being the dancer. they all got into it and put on a show anytime we came to a flat surface that could serve as a "stage"

ummm....yes.....more holding hands. Just because i can't get enough of the cuteness!

JBug and Nova are still wearing the little dresses of Alex and Lyndey's! Although the dresses are only 12 months i've been putting them over a pair of leggings to get some extra use out of them because they are so cute!

everyone wanted to play drums on the milk can :)

we are settling back in to a nice routine! we arrived in colorado to be subjected to a snowstorm! We woke up to several inches of snow, and in fact, all of Fort Carson was completely shut down due to the weather conditions! Well, except for "essential personnel". I'm not down with all the Army lingo, but apparently that means doctors still have to go to work. i voted that we should get "hazard pay" since we had to brave the roads. no such luck though. Anyway, we are supposed to get more snow tonight, and it makes us miss sweet, sweet Hawaii so much more!

The girls are doing great! They slept until 10 Oclock (as in T-E-N oclock!) yesterday. i think that is the first time cris has slept past 9 a.m. in 2 years. This morning they slept in until 9:30. I think i am liking the effect of Jet lag when coming home from Hawaii!

We are busy gearing up for a very eventful spring/summer. I want to spend our free weekends exploring Colorado since this may be our last summer here. I am just waiting for the snow to stop falling in order to give us a chance to get outside and enjoy it!

the rest of vacation!

Well, we are officially back from Hawaii. Ill try to recap a bit of our week, but i will tell you, it was a whirlwind! By about Tuesday i had abandoned the idea of carrying around my nikon. in fact, i didn't even have it in me to carrry a point and shoot, so this post is all cell phone shots! In case you hadn't heard, i turned in my old Saved By the Bell Cell phone, and joined the era of camera, internet, and facebook by cell. My last phone was truly "old school". It didn't flip, or slide, or anything, had no camera, and still had an actual antenna that you could raise and lower. i actually adored that phone, but i am happy to have all the cool features on my new phone.

anyway, our cousin took a bunch of pictures with an actual camera, so hopefullyi can post some of those soon!

anyway, we basically spent our mornings at the park, beach, or pool, then took a nap in the hotel, and then cris was home from work and we headed out for some dinner. simple and wonderful days with the girls all week.
here the girls are sharing their own ColdStone ice cream in Waikiki at the Koi Pond in the Ala Moana Mall

We stopped by Cris office one morning to say hi, and we were happy to see he still has an office with his name on the door :) Cris had a great week at the university, and is really anxious to get back.

Juneau chilling out one morning at the pool

The girls at the playground

i have more pictures i will be uploading later this week. Overall we had a really great trip. It was so nice to be back in Hawaii, and it definately still feels like "home". The weather was beautiful. The girls, of course, think hawaii is the greatest place ever! they got to play with mommy all day, every day. They went to the beach/pool every single day, and ate a whole lot of ice cream. There is no better place on earth to these two little girls :)

the flight home went fine. The girls are really great little travelers. we had an overnight flight out of honolulu, and they slept through that. Nova woke up a bit grouchy when i tried to put her in the Ergo, and protested quite loudly "no backpack, no backpack. no thank you please. no thank you please". the only other trip dilemma was in our "perfect planning" we somehow ended up with only 1 diaper each at the start of the 12 hour trip, and no back ups. as in zero. Juneau completely un-potty trained herself this trip, and was going through diapers like a newborn baby. In our infinite parental wisdom we decided we would try to find some at the airport, and in the meantime we would just do a little "fluid restriction" to keep them from going through their only diapers. well, the honolulu airport does not carry diapers. Juneau, our psychogenic water drinker, was not too happy with our little plan, and fortunately we were able to find a diaper at the portland airport. So, we all got to see what a $3.oo diaper looks like, and the girls got to have their juice back :)

we have a busy week ahead, i have a really full work schedule this week, and we have alot of cleaning/laundry/unpacking/schedule adjusting to do :)

aloooooha

We are back in Hawaii, and loving it! the girls have been a little fixated on naming where everybody was born. They go through the whole list...Daddy was born in Ohio, Mommy was born in West Virgina, Juneau was born in Vietnam, Nova was born in Hawaii! so now that we have actually arrived in Hawaii, it comes up several times a day that "Nova was born in Hawaii!". We are all sooooo happy to be in the nice 70 degree sunshine. Oh, also, while on the topic of all things hawaii, the girls both love spam. gross, I know. Cris ordered the Rice and Eggs plate this a.m. for breakfast at McDonalds, and it also comes with two big slices of fried spam, and Nova and Juneau made some quick work of that spam.

Nova, the day before the trip. Excited! random photograph of the girls daily breakfast. They eat this exact same breakfast. Every. Single. Day. Juneau likes her apples/bananas with cherrios, nova prefers hers without :) They eat this in the car on the way to taking me to work every day.
The plane trip to Hawaii certainly fell into the category of "things that aren't fun". Airfare has not been cheap lately, and we ended up paying more for our tickets than we would have liked. And in spite of that, our travel itinerary was not ideal from the start. We had a 3hour45min layover in seattle. Unfortunately that got extended to a 6 hour layover when our plane was delayed. Thank goodness for portable DVD players!

We FINALLY arrived in honolulu at 1:00 a.m. (4:00 a.m. coloradado time!). Fortunately the girls went back to sleep for a few hours after making it to the hotel. Of course, Juneau had to try out the hotel bathtub first thing in the morning.

the girls are really, really good about sleeping in their cribs at home. They think it is just the coolest thing ever that they get to sleep in a "big girl bed" at the hotel. and to top it off, they get to sleep together! they call this their "sissy bed"

we headed out to the beach the day we arrived, and we had a blast. Juneau LOVED the ocean, and Nova has really reconciled herself with the sand. She had a great time digging with her little shovels and buckets. Juneau was, of course, fearless in the water. Later in the day we had the pleasure of enjoying the "awesomeness" that was the Honolulu Festival Parade. Honolulu is certainly a diverse place, and this parade empahsized that! My personal favorite was the Japanese Cheerleading squad "The Rabbits". A close second, though, was the Hula Troop with the average age of 82. It was quite impressive to see these ladies hula while keeping up with the fast paced parade.

after the parade we met up with our Hawaii family (cousins Tim, Beth, and Melody) for some delicious dinner and catch-up time. Little Miss Melody has really grown into quite the little pre-schooler. She kept Nova and Juneau entertained by teaching them all about the cool stuff her dad's i-phone can do. Juneau was particularly fascinated!

not quite sure what these two were doing in this picture, but it sure looks fun!

This morning the girls woke up, looked out the window onto the balcony, and Juneau said "Look, it's Hawaii out there!"

Juneau kept herself entertained by putting pull-ups on all of her Little Einsteins and then tucking them into bed

This is where i will take a minute for the nova-is-a-mushy-gushy-daddy's girl pictures. Nova has gotten UNBELIEVABLE with her daddy obsession. last week we were walking in to a restaurant and I was holding her as we were walking. she said "stop, mom, stop. i need to give dad a big kiss". seriously? so of course we stopped, she gave cris a humongous kiss, and then said "big hug, big hug". she loves loves loves her daddy, and gives him the biggest hugs and kisses all the time.

big hug, big hug

Nova got her first bloody nose today while jumping on the bed. pitiful, right?

today we dropped cris off at the university, and then headed over to check out the Sea Life Park. We had never been to the sea life park during our time living in hawaii, but i thought the girls might like it. Plus, i want to take advantage of all the stuff that they both get into for free while they are under 3! We enjoyed the park, although it is certainly not on my Top Hawaii Attractions list. In fact, i think i would have been very dissapointed if it had cost more than $20 for the 3 of us to get in. Even so, the girls enjoyed the fish, turtles, and sea lions. well, that is all for now. We have been doubly exhausted the last few nights! catching up from a long travel day, and chasing 2 very excited little girls all over oahu makes for a very tired momma and daddy!