It's a wonderful life!

I am still amazed at how my life has changed over the last few months. College is wonderful no matter how old you are! I am in a Music Appreciation class this semester and we are required to go to 2 musical performances and write a report about each. There are many free shows that I could have gone to but I wanted to take full advantage of the opportunity. Chas and I loaded up and went to the new symphony hall in Nashville and what a sight it was! It is called the Schermerhorn and the designers went all over the world looking for the best and worst of these concert halls and put all the best parts into one building. There isn't a bad seat in the house! We saw the Wizard of Oz but it isn't what you are thinking. The movie was played on a big screen and the Nashville Symphony played all the music to the movie live. It was awesome. I love the Wizard of Oz and to hear the score played live and not all old and scratchy was amazing. Sunday, Dad and Em and I went to TPAC (Tennessee performing arts center) and saw "Rain: A tribute to the Beatles". What a show! Dad sat between Em and myself and the look on his face when the show opened was one I will never forget. There were these 5 guys that all had this amazing ability to play and sing and look like the Beatles. The guy who played Ringo bobbed his head just like the real Ringo and the guy who played John Lennon went so far as to stand bow-legged just like Lennon used to do. They had the same accents and if you closed your eyes you would think you were seeing the actual Beatles. The funny thing was that all these guys were from Brooklyn! They played so many great songs and I watched my dad tap his foot and smile and he would lean over and tell me what was about to happen. " They just put a mic out for Ringo, he is going to sing A little help from my friends" or " Paul just got an acoustic guitar, he is going to sing yesterday" and best of all was the trivia questions at the beginning that he knew all the answers to. It was a fun day and I am so glad we had that time together.

Last week my friend Brandi came over and we cleaned out my kitchen and hall closet. It is so easy for us to be together and we have the same sense of humor and taste in music and we laugh non-stop. I am so grateful for her help and it came at the perfect time. I am even more grateful for her friendship.

Max has the croup and is in a pissy mood. While at the Dr this morning, Charlie projectile vomited all over the exam room. I left the office covered in puke and snot. Ahhhh.....fun times.

I am back to my homework. I have a number of projects hanging over my head and want them done!

Free Time??

Soccer is over. While I am very sad, I made a ton a friends, I am also relieved. This means that I now have Thursdays and Saturday mornings free. That is 6 extra hours in my week for homework and home and the gym and my kids!! I have been so stressed out that I have not been to the gym and my weight is so out of control. Luckily I get a month off between semesters at school and maybe I can have some mental health days. I do know that during my break I will be getting the household ready for this next semester.
I did not realize how much time school would take up and did nothing to prepare. Our house is a wreck and everything is behind. I need to do menu planning and get a grocery list system going and get a chore book for each child. Maybe I will start a household notebook with things that need to be done daily. Right now it is all out of control. I might even put my computer away for that month as well. Because I am blessed to be able to take most of my classes online, I find myself on this laptop all the time. It goes with me all the time and I am always checking my school work and schedule.
Everything is so stressful right now but I know that the end result will be well worth the work and maybe, just maybe, my kids will see how hard it is to survive without an education and how much harder it is to go to college with 3 children and a life. I hope it inspires them to go straight to college after high school. I think being an inspiration to our children is so important and I want my kids to be so very proud of me!

Must Love Fridays!

Chas only works the 3rd Friday of the month and is home the other 3 Fridays. I LOVE IT!! We went to have Max's pictures taken today at JCPenny. Oh what fun that was. Max hates to have his picture taken. He did pretty well today and it was easy to choose which poses to buy, there weren't that many that were any good. He didn't cooperate the whole time. They asked if we wanted to take off his shirt to do a "muscle-man" pose and we jumped at the opportunity! It was amazing to have his picture taken with no tube sticking out of his belly. The hole is totally closed up and looks amazing. I am shocked it closed to fast. It should have taken a month. I guess it was time! We had a fun time going around Providence and loved the good sales at Old Navy. The boys got matching shirts that said something about being monsters! Well I am done with my homework for the whole weekend and get to go to bed now. Tomorrow is the last soccer game and I have school and after that I am headed to Emily's for the night. It will be fun times!! We love our "sissy nights"!!

All better!

Max had his feeding tube taken out yesterday. It is all gone and he is officially in remission!! We are so excited and can't believe this day has finally come. They told us the hole in his tummy would close up within the next month but this morning when I went to change the bandages, it was all closed up!! I was expecting to see an oozing hole....YUCK.....instead it looks like a little belly button and if it looks this good after 12 hours I can't imagine what it will look like in a month. Max is so excited to have his tube out and the sound of him going from crying because they were taking out the tube and then the realization that it was out for good and his laughter that followed made me cry. Every time I think about how far we have come, I start to cry again. I really never thought this day would come. I finally feel like I can breathe.



.