Surgery

I (Mettina) will be having surgery on the 6th of Sept.  I could just tell you what it is for but then you would ask why?  So, I'll start at the beginning...

WARNING ~ LOTS OF PERSONAL INFO!!

For 2+ years now we have been trying to get pregnant.  We never had any trouble before so we wondered why it wasn't working this time.  A couple of months ago I woke up to contractions.  I didn't really think I was pregnant but I never find out until I'm at least 8 weeks.  We decided that I might be having a miscarriage.  It was a Sunday so Patrick took the kids to church and I stayed home.  At one point I thought I had miscarried so I called Patrick.  He came home, we called my parents, they came over and we went to the hospital.  They did LOTS of tests while we were there and figured out that I didn't miscarry, but that I had fibroid tumors.  He asked if we had kids, we said yes.  He said good because we were done!  The next day I called my OB and made an appointment.  While there we talked about different options and decided that the best one would be to have a hysterectomy.   Patrick and I were kind of sad but we knew with all the pain I've been in for years, that it was the best thing.  The next thing we talked about was my bladder.  For those that don't know, I've have bladder issues since I was 14!!  Back then they said they wouldn't do anything for it until I was done having kids...well now is that time :)  My OB then sent me to a urologist.   There they did multiple tests and found out that I have 3 things:  overactive bladder, sneeze couch laugh, and a descending bladder.  2 of these things are able to be fixed with surgery, one is not, the overactive bladder.  Honestly I did not know that I had all of these.  I thought I just had the leaking stuff.  She put me on some meds to see if that would help the overactive bladder.  Come to find out, it doesn't.  Now we are getting ready for surgery. Patrick's mom is going to help with the kids while my mom and I are at the hospital.  Patrick can only get one day off of work so we are VERY grateful to have family around.  I will be out of commission for at least 2 weeks and then who knows after that.  Once I am all healed from surgery, I'll go back to the urologist and they will do x-rays and maybe an MRI of my spine to see if there is any nerve damage that could be causing the overactive bladder.  They wanted to make sure I knew that everything would not be perfect after the surgery.  Better, but not the best.  At this point Patrick and I are just glad that these two great doctors are finally figuring out my problems.  In advance I want to thank everyone for helping out.  We couldn't do it without you guys.  :)

10%

This post is all about me!(Mettina)  My whole life I have struggled with weight.  I've tried working out and going on diets.  Nothing seems to work.  I have a good friend that went on weight watchers a few years ago and she has lost a ton of weight and has kept it off.  We started talking around Christmas time about the program and I decided to give it a try.  I started Jan 3rd and to this day have lost 25lbs, or 10% of myself!  I have retrained myself how to eat.  I'm not starving all the time, and I don't feel like I have to eat everything all the time. I realized that I would eat a lot at night just because I was bored.  I would also eat whatever left overs the kids had on their plates.  I'm eating better foods and the right portions.  My clothes are not fitting at all, as most of you know, which is a good thing!  I'm even bringing out boxes of 9 year old clothes that are too big!!  The best part is that I feel good about myself.  I'm not so tired all the time.  I get out with my kids more now too.  I plan to keep going at least another 30lbs so I'm almost half way there.  I should put pix on here so that I can look back later, but I'm not that brave yet ;)  Thanks for all the support from family and friends, you know who you are.  I wouldn't be able to do it without you guys!!

Mettina :)

Growing kids and fun times

I never thought I would let me girls color their hair pink...well...I didn't, but they did get hot pink "extensions" when they got their hair cut.  Samantha's fell out within a 2 days and Nellie's has been in for over a month!

 Samantha has been WAITING and WAITING and WAITING for her first tooth to come out.  It finally happened a couple of weeks ago!!  The crazy thing is that her new tooth was already out behind it.  That was weird to me because Nellie looses teeth and the new ones don't grow in for months.

 Owen is becoming quite the little ham.  It's hard even for me to believe that he is only 2.  He's as big, if not bigger, than most 4 year olds that I know!  He totally has the 2 turning 3 attitude though!

New clothes for church...size 5!!

 We went to the Mountain for spring break and had a blast!  It was just us, our friends and one other family!  I've never been there with practically no one there, it was great!

 Patrick turned 31 on St. Patrick's Day.  We all dressed up and had a fun day together.  That night a group of friends went bowling with us.  It was the most fun we have had in a long time.  It's always nice to hang with good friends :)  Thanks to everyone who came and made it a great birthday!

Patrick and I

Tyson and Dev

Casey and Corina

Jason and Jenny, not technically a couple ;)

James and Jen

The men

Some of the ladies

Casey and Corina got him a pogo stick.  It was pretty funny to watch him try it out.  He finally did and this picture is actually air born!!

The whole group :)
~Thanks again guys~

Life

As most of you know, I have deleted my facebook page.  The drama of it all was too much, I was hardly on anymore and I've found much better things to do in it's place.  The only bad part is that I have no where to put cute pictures or share funny stories.  So now I'll be posting more on here to make up for that.  I don't have the pictures to go with these yet...but I will ;)


Owen is officially potty trained!!  I have tried a few times but he never seemed interested.  I finally gave up and said when he was ready, it would happen.  On a Sunday he just came up to me and said poop mommy!  I said ok, let's change it (the diaper)  and he said NO, the potty!  So I got right up and we went to the potty.  He did go poop and hasn't gone back to diapers since.  I was so stunned I didn't know what to do!  Neither of the girls were that easy.  He has had a few little accidents, mostly on the way to the potty, but overall has been great!  WOOHOO!! NO MORE DIAPERS!!!


Samantha has her first ever loose tooth.  She has been so excited about it that she HAS to show everyone!  She is totally different than Nellie was with her loose teeth.  It's only been a week or so and she has it ready to come out!  Nellie's took months, no joke!  Samantha has had her hands in there wiggling it any chance she gets.  She can't wait for it to come out and get the special box from Papa to put it in and get $$ from the tooth fairy.  Totally putting pictures when that happens :)

Debate...

I was watching the Dr Oz show the other day.  He was talking about food and whether it was addictive or just emotional.  As I've been thinking about this for a couple of days, I can to this conclusion.  I think it's both!  I think we eat because of different emotional things...stress, lonely, nervous, happy, whatever.  But I think the foods we eat during those times can be addictive.  I have always had a problem with eating the wrong foods when I have those emotions. I don't go to the fruits or veggies, I go to the chips and chocolate!!  I am however now changing that and reprogramming my brain to go to the better foods.  It is very hard! I went through 3 days of head aches, and being tired.  I didn't understand why at first but then I realized it was the lack of fatty, sweet foods.  Now don't get me wrong, I still have the occasional yummy just not all the time.  I've been feeling so much better and loosing weight too! 

Now to branch off a little bit.  Because I've ALWAYS had this "issue" with food I've never had to deal with the other side of it.  Not eating and being too skinny.  As most of you know, Nellie has ADHD and is on meds.  She has been on them for almost 2 years now.  They have helped her so much! She is able to concentrate at school and is doing great!  The only down side is that the meds make you not hungry.  Now Nellie is a smaller girl anyway, and with this she is very thin.  We go to the dc every 2 months to have her checked and she is doing ok... mostly.  Until this last time.  She has lost 2 lbs and isn't growing.  This is partially because she doesn't sleep much, and you grow when you sleep.  She has been on different sleep aids but still she stays awake.  

When talking with her dc he said that anything I wouldn't eat, give it to her! Give her the fat stuff, peanut butter, milk shakes, butter.  Just not fatty sugary foods (she doesn't need the sugar :) )  The problem is that I can't get her to even eat that!  Last night I sat with her at the table for 2 1/2 hours just for her to eat a very small amount of spaghetti.  We talked about eating and how important it was.  She says she's never hungry.  The dc told me to literally make her eat the food. It's so hard when people say, don't force her to eat or if you give her that she'll be fat.   I'm doing what the dc has told me to do and what I feel is right for her.  I feel like you can't have a middle.  You're either too skinny and people judge you for that, or you're too fat and people judge you for that.  No one knows what the other person is going through, or why they are doing what they are doing.  We are all at different stages in life.  

I didn't want to go on a tangent, I just wanted to put it out there and see how other people feel on this subject.  

Last year ;)

 All Samantha wanted was a pillow pet.  

 Nellie finally got her cash register!

 Hopefully Patrick won't get lost anymore with his new GPS

 I got a Kindle so now I can read in style...and everyone can play games and watch movies on it.

 Girls in their Mrs. Clause dresses and Owen in his NEW suite.  The top is too small and the bottoms were too big!!

 Owen's new toy for his cars

 Last year on Thanksgiving we attempted to make our first turkey.  Needless to say it didn't turn out at all! Cooking it at 180 degrees for 9 hours doesn't cook it!  Anyway, we tried again this year for Christmas and it turned out GREAT!!

Nellie's 2 front teeth have been loose for about 4 months now.  She's been too scared to have us pull them out.  The wed before Christmas we went to the dentist for a regular check up and he said they can come out any time.  She said she wanted to wait until Christmas eve so that the tooth fairy and santa would come together.  So on Christmas eve we got one out and then she was afraid to pull the other one out.

Christmas eve...one down!!

The day after New Years she had gymnastics and was helping a friend with a flip.  The friend kicked her in the face on accident and made the tooth even worse.  I told her it needed to come out!  So that night we got it out. She feels so much better now that they are gone.  

Now we get to wait for the new ones to come.  The dentist had me look at the x-rays and her new teeth are so huge! They are twice the size of her baby ones!  He doesn't even think they will fit in that huge hole in her mouth.  We'll see...;)

Polar Express!!

 This past summer Patrick and I decided that it would be fun to go on the polar express.  So back in June we bought the tickets.  We never told the kids until the day of.  The girls were very excited and Owen didn't understand except that we were going on a train.  The train itself was slow and really bumpy, but the kids had so much fun! They even talked to Santa!  

 I'm so mad! I only got a picture of Samantha with Santa :(  Oh well, I got video of the rest

 Waiting for the train to come

 Cookie and Cocoa station