A Much Better Week and Weekend!

I mean, it wasn't going to take much to top last weekend, was it? :) I'm not complaining, though. Miss Autumn is doing great and I'm soooooo glad. She babied her left arm a bit but by Tuesday she was completely back to normal. Pretty awesome! I think something that helped was having stuff to do to distract her. I didn't take any pics this week with my regular camera but I got a few with my camera phone. Sunday, my mom and sister came over with Roxie. My mom was a little uncertain about playing with Autumn but I told her to pretend nothing happened and play normally and I think that really helped. By the way, apologies for the flashy eyes in some of these.


Monday was a work day for us since it was rainy. I just didn't feel up to running errands in the rain. Autumn decided to pretend that she was at the park with her sheep and they had a picnic in our still-furniture-less living room.


On the day we finally did make it to the store, Autumn dressed herself in this. :)


She's gotten rather opinionated on her clothes. I don't really mind unless it's a day where the weather's just not going to work with what she's got her heart set on. Thursday she decided to wear her octopus shirt to school. We had aikido on Thursday. I watched her to see how she'd do with her elbow and everything went really smoothly. No problems, no babying the elbow, nothing. She was too excited about her octopus. :)


Another thing that was kind of neat about Thursday is that Autumn took her change to school to donate to the school's change drive. She has a little money in this mickey bank she got for her birthday, mostly change she finds or my mom gives her. But she also has some coins she carries around in this tiny teakettle--this teakettle also houses a stuffed heart and two buttons. Pretty cute, huh? Anyway, they made coin banks and she was soooo excited about it that she got her coins out of her teakettle and put them in her new coin bank to take her change to school. I made sure she knew that she was giving the money away permanently and when she stayed certain, I gave her all my change, too.


Friday was another day of fun and distraction. I can't believe I forgot my camera for this, but we went over to Penny's house and had a ton of fun playing with her two dogs. Autumn loves her Aunt Penny and loves the dogs, too. So much so that she drew Ace and Conan some pictures. I wish you could have seen her telling Conan to "sit!" and "let go!" :) We also fed some geese and walked about their neighborhood's lake. By the end of the visit, both kid and dogs were totally exhausted. I did get one Friday picture--I finally got Autumn to do some ponytails without immediately taking them out.


To round out our week, Autumn and I did some gardening. Kurt, who landscaped Mike's parents house and came to do the trees we can't do ourselves had suggested we remove some bushes that had died in one corner of our yard and put in some blueberry bushes. So that's what I did this weekend! It was exhausting, haha. Mike was trying to do yard work at this house and our house that hasn't sold yet so I didn't want to ask him to do it. I got all but one bush out. The last was just too big so he finished that up. Autumn spent the whole time I was clearing space yesterday and the time today that I planted the new bushes and the strawberries (I have a strawberry patch in another spot!) digging holes, cleaning up, and fetching things for me.

After we were done and cleaned up yesterday, Mike and I were in the hallway talking about what still needed to be done. When I called out for Autumn, asking where she was, she called back, "I'm being comfy." We tracked her to her room and found her sitting in her stuffed animal box with her pillow. Definitely comfy.


And that's pretty much it! One week after our Great Elbow Drama, things are going pretty well so I guess I'll sign off with our first official sign of spring: a pink, smocked dress for church this morning. :)

Another weekend adventure

Does anybody know what that picture is up above? Yes that's right, it's a hospital ID bracelet.

Does anybody know why I'm posting a picture of a hospital ID bracelet with Autumn's name on it? Yes that's right, it's because we got to visit the hospital ER this weekend!

So the story begins on Saturday night when I was being a good Papa and was out hunting down food for my family (getting a pizza) and the little miss was upstairs playing. This was no ordinary playing though. This was playing that involved doing silly things like jumping over her toy chair and generally ignoring the Momma telling her not do that. Sure enough like every tale you've heard that ends with "You'll listen next time..." the little lady takes a very bad fall and somehow manages to hurt her arm.

After much wailing and gnashing of teeth we realized that something was seriously wrong as she kept holding her left arm tight to her body and wouldn't let us move it or hold anything with it. After some calls to family and friends, we decided a doctor was in order so we packed up and headed to the ER about 8pm.

Fast forward 5 hours and we're finally heading home at 1am.

1AM!!

It seems that in her tumble (and possibly hitting her play table) that Autumn managed to dislocate her elbow.

The whole process involved having to get her arm up onto a small table to have it x-rayed for fractures(screaming and tears involved); one failed attempt by the doctor to push the bones back into place (more screaming and tears involved); and a final successful attempt by the doc to force the bones back into place (still with the screaming and tears involved). I had the pleasure of holding her in my arms while he was wrenching her elbow around trying to fix it. (*Almost* involving tears from me!)

Anyway, things are better now and she's sore but all better. At least it wasn't broken and no weeks of dealing with that kind of drama. But man it couldn't have been much worse it seems. So here's a parting picture of the sad little monkey with her momma post-elbow joint resocketed:

Celebrations, Part 2

This is catch up, haha. I meant to get this posted this week but obviously that didn't happen. It was a good week, though! I'm feeling pretty decent which is nice. Just tired. I've been slowly getting onto a normal schedule again. I've gradually gone from just making it through the days, to making dinner most nights and cleaning up the kitchen, to actually getting back on a pretty normal cleaning/calling people/errands schedule. It's nice! Anyway, I have a couple pictures from Angelee's birthday party. Angelee is one of Autumn's best friends and they have a lot of fun together.


It was funny, though, she declined a chair and took her princess tea sitting on a ball.


Angelee is also Stephan's goddaughter which is a neat coincidence--they became friends before I knew Angelee's connection to Stephan. He got pretty into the party theme.



The next party was Ella's. Annalise sent out some cute thank you cards. Autumn got a postcard thank you and the picture was of her and Ella.


At the party, Autumn played pin the princess on the castle.


And pretty much just had a great time.


I think everyone at the party had a good time.


Although there was one funny thing. After the party was over, all the little girls went into Ella's room. I think it was too much for Autumn because she came out and declared, "there are TOO MANY people in there!" And she sat with me until another little girl came out and played with her in the play area. :)

That's it for the parties! Next week I should have some pictures of our trip to Birmingham where we got to meet the very cute Mr. Hudson!

Celebrations, Part 1

This week, Autumn and her papa celebrated her upcoming little brother together!


:D Not really, but she looks so happy! Also, here's a blast from the past...Mike appears to enjoy photographing our daughter with his vices:


:D

Anyway, last week we had one baby shower and two birthday parties! The shower was at our house and it turned out really great. It was for one of our community group members. Elyse is having a baby girl and has one little boy named Micah who is just the sweetest little kid.


I got to decorate the house (with some help from Cheri!). It turned out a litttttle pinker than I intended but it's so happy and spring-like that I have left all the decor on the tables.


Inside each lantern, I put a nest and an egg. Dede brought some cute birds and I added those to the mix.


Even the cupcakes were pink! Tara did the cupcakes and I made the toppers from the invitation I ordered on Etsy.


Here's the breakfast room table.


And here we are! This is my community group. The husbands are in Mike's group. We meet on the same night which is nice. Also, ignore my hair. It's being crazy in this picture. And you can't really tell because of the black, but I'm definitely showing. It was funny, today at church I had a couple of people people go, "are you....???" I think no one is ready to be like OMG YOU'RE PREGNANT because I am still a little at that "pregnant? or donuts?" stage, to use a phrase from a blog I like.


Ok, I just realized that if I post my pics from the two birthday parties, this post will be just ridiculously long. So I better wait and do a part two later. I hope everyone is doing well!

SO MUCH NEWS

First! Welcome to baby Hudson!!! Hudson was born yesterday and has a full head of hair. Congratulations to Ryan and Leah and Tyler!

(totally stole this pic from Lindsay's facebook)

Second! We knowwww what we are having! :D Any guesses? Well, let me tell you by sharing Autumn's prayer tonight:

Dear God, thank you for Lainey and P.D. and for mama and papa and for my new baby brother and for tyler's baby brother and for give a pig a pancake. Amen.

Yep! It's a boy! Autumn's reign as Colley Family Princess remains supreme. :D Here's one of the ultrasound pics:


The ultrasound was a lot of fun. He was super active, just like Autumn was at her 20 week ultrasound. Everything looks great--no cord problems, no visible issues, just bouncy baby-ness.

Autumn is excited about her new baby brother--she says he's going to be the prince, she's going to be Belle, Aunt Penny is going to be Cinderella, and mama and papa are going to be pirates. So, apparently, we are just one big play in Autumn's mind. :P I'm glad she's taking it so well because she was totally convinced she was going to have a sister named Cinderella and she'd call her Ella. Hahaha. Funny kid.

Anyway, that's it for now! I have a ton of picture from THREE different parties over the last four days so I am going to try to get those up before Sunday.

Zombie Post

I am soooo tired. Nothing new there, huh? Haha. Things are moving along for me pregnancy-wise. Week 18! A week from Tuesday, we find out if we've got a new little miss or a new little mister. :D Craziness, huh? Everyone has kind of assumed we're hoping for a boy but, really, we're happy either way. Another little girl would be so fun, plus we have a TON of girl stuff. And if we have a boy, it'll be cool to see what it's like to have one of each. So we're pretty chill either way.

I have some fun pics to post soon. Our aikido class had our yearly peacejam workshop this weekend. It was a ton of fun and the main reason I'm so wiped out this weekend. But first I want to get caught up with...these!


A couple weekends back we went to Birmingham. Autumn and Tyler had a blast together. They got to do the carousel.


And they played like crazy at Ryan and Leah's house. Before we had to leave, they even got to play on Tyler's little gym.


Mike had some fun, too.


I'm not really sure how she managed it but by the time we went in, Autumn was covered in dirt like a little urchin, haha. (I just realized that this photo does not do justice to how dirty her face was.)


And, after the trip, Molly was overjoyed to see us home again!


Not really.

You know what's crazy? The next time we go to Birmingham, there will be a new LittleColley! And, Mike and I will know what gender our LittleColley will be so we can "discuss" (read: disagree, hahaha) on names the whoooole way down!

Celebrations, both happy and bittersweet

We've had kind of a strange week filled with goodbyes and celebrations. before I get to some other photos, I'd like to ask you guys to say a quick prayer for the family of my Uncle Rex who passed away last Saturday. To tell you a little about Uncle Rex, he was one of those people who "looked like they swallowed Jesus," to steal a phrase from a friend. Quick with a smile and always with a joke or a song on hand, I deeply regret not spending more time with Uncle Rex. He was my dad's uncle, the brother of my biological grandfather who my grandmother divorced when my dad was a baby. She put us in touch with Uncle Rex when I had a middle school family tree project and we realized I had almost nothing to fill in for my dad's side. He totally embraced us, filled in some blanks, and became the uncle I'd never had. We visited him through my high school years, even going to a couple family reunions with him where we met a bunch of people who looked exactly like my dad. Uncle Rex was at my wedding and my first Christmas parties and he was there when we lost my grandmother and then my dad. And it wasn't just me and my family he affected--when we came to his visitation, the line was almost out the door. Anyway, I could go on but for now just: thank you Uncle Rex and I will miss you (but I'm sure I'll see you again someday).


So, that was the sad part of our week. Kind of in an odd exact opposite, Mike's birthday was this week. We didn't really do anything big. We went to Birmingham last week to celebrate Family Birthday Week and I have photos to come of that later. I need to go through them. Thursday we went out to eat on Mike's actual birthday and Friday I began preparations for Mike's Annual Birthday Fajita Dinner Extravaganza. I did the shopping and made the filling for his fried apple pies so that could cool overnight. I finished up the apple pies after aikido Saturday and, man. These are probably the best ones I've ever made:


The actual dinner was...laborious, haha. I did all the prep work after making the pies so that the cooking phase wouldn't be too bad. I've learned from making this meal that if I clean up after each phase, it isn't nearly as bad. But it's still an entire day production because it's all fresh ingredients that have to be chopped, sliced, pureed, and all that fun stuff. For those of you who like to cook, I made:
Mexican Rice from Cook's Illustrated: rice sauteed with fresh garlic and jalapenos and then finished in the oven with chicken broth and a puree of fresh onions and tomatoes.
Classic Fajitas, also from Cook's: Flank steak sprinkled with lime juice, salt and pepper and seared to medium rare served with grilled onion and red bell peppers.
Mexican Creamed Corn: Corn, jalapenos, and, oddly but deliciously, cream cheese.
Looking at it that way, the dinner doesn't seem like such a big deal to make, haha. It ended up like this:


Mike was a happy 34 year old. :D


It was sweet, he put on jeans and a nice sweater in honor of all my hard work. I had on my workout clothes from aikido. Autumn? She had a pajama day because she loooooooves her panda pajamas.


Oh, speaking of Autumn, this is for Liz:


:D I hope this outfit was everything you hope it would be. Liz got this shirt, picturing it with the striped tights and a poofy skirt...lucky for us, I happened to have all of these things on hand for Autumn. I should have had her put on her black boots because, man. They made the outfit.

Anyway, I'm tired and I think I am going to bed. haha. Yes. At 8:54pm. I think I did a little too much yesterday with the food prep and aikido. I probably should have skipped aikido although I had a great time in class. I've been just wiped out all day today so I've been taking it pretty easy. Happy birthday, Mike! Thanks for being a good papa and a great husband. :) I wish I had a more creative blog post for your birthday but I hope that a meal made with much effort makes up for it.