Easter at school

Yep.

My kids' school celebrates Easter too. 

Love it!

Once again, I have to lament about Sammy's Kindergarten experience and how lame it was. Not only did he have the notoriously worst Kindergarten teacher, but they only had one party the entire year. A Hanukkah party, which I have absolutely no problem with as it was a good introduction about the other December holidays besides Christmas, but they never had another party for the rest of the year. 

Not Halloween. Or Valentine's Day. Or Easter. I mean come on....it's KINDERGARTEN!!!! Ugh.

So, imagine my surprise to find out that Hannah's Kindergarten class was not only having an Easter egg hunt....but every child in her class was supposed to bring in a dozen hard boiled eggs to dye and 4 dozen plastic eggs filled with candy for the egg hunt. And they welcomed younger siblings to participate too which was awesome for Helene.

Sammy was disappointed that he wasn't having a hunt too and I explained that as you get in the older grades, you'll have less parties, but I would make sure H&h shared their candy with him.

It was crazy. There were more eggs than kids could fit into their baskets. 

Group shot before the hunt

Egg hunt!

 

 How awesome are these two shots? 

The quintessential big-sister-not-happy-little-sister-is-in-the-photo face. And both Hannah and Helene's body language and face are priceless in picture #2. 

Love it!

 

Hannah Surgery

Hannah has now had four, yes four, surgeries on her neck. You can read about the first one here and second one here. And apparently, I didn't blog about the third one. Bad mom.

Long story short: The cyst keeps coming back. While we loved Dr. Mintz (Hannah's ENT at Good Samaritan) she said this was something that needed to be referred to Children's Hospital. 

My favorite place. 

(Sarcasm is coming through, right?)

So we met with Dr. Lin (great doctor if you ever need an ENT--and he has an office in Glendale so you don't have to suffer through the CHLA experience) and he requested a CT scan to see where the cyst was originating. Apparently, it starts in her ear and the tract goes down to her neck.

It's been a PITA trying to do all this from Vegas, and while there are specialists here that could also do it, our HMO is strictly SoCal only....and so we drive back and forth and back and forth....more times than I can even count between Sammy and Hannah's doctor visits. Ugh.

Regardless, we got all the pre-op tests done and were scheduled for surgery at CHLA on December 28th. Samuel had Sammy and Helene for a few days while I stayed with Hannah at the hospital. 

Our experience at CHLA was a nightmare. Was there any doubt?  I tried to have a good attitude...I really did. But after making her fast (from both food and liquid) since 8pm the night before, and surgery was scheduled for 9am....and we sat in pre-op for 6 hours--and then she didn't ever get into the OR until about 4pm, it would be an understatement to say I was livid.

Pre-op

She was so bored and so hungry and so thirsty and kept begging for something to drink...it made me so sad. And I didn't want to eat or drink in front of her, so I was suffering right along with her. A big thank you to Krista for hanging out with us in pre-op and keeping us company!

Apparently, they were waiting for a machine that is supposed to monitor her facial nerve in case they had to cut into her jawline and ear area (like a standard facelift cut) to remove the cyst. Turns out, no one ordered the machine in advance (of course), so it had to be ordered and they also had to call for technician to run the machine. I still have no idea why that takes 7 hours to do all that. Ugh.

She finally went in. Surgery went well--better than expected. They were able get everything they needed by going in through her neck area only and they didn't need to mess with her facial nerve after all. Recovery was smooth and they took her upstairs to keep her under observation for a few days.

Post-op

When Sammy was here for his surgeries, they were building a new hospital wing. It was finally open and Hannah was lucky enough to stay in one of the rooms.  

They were a m a z i n g.

Touch screen TVs to watch on-demand movies, internet access, and you could even order your meals (apparently as many times as you wanted, whenever you wanted from 7am-8pm). 

It was awesome. I only wish wish they had all this when he was here.

Krista and Ally came for a visit and the girls did crafts and played in one of the play rooms.

Yay for friends! <3

She was released 3 days later and was doing great until about a month ago, when I noticed her neck swelling up.

Again. 

Ugh. 

I called Dr. Lin, who was incredulous that it had returned--especially so quickly after removing it. We're going to wait until school gets out in June before we start up all the driving to Los Angeles and back for doctor appointments and what is sure to be another surgery. 

Remind me again why I don't have my own plane?

Just hanging out in the backseat

I don't frequent the back seat of the van a whole lot...and it's been about two weeks since I've really made notice of the condition of it. Apparently I need to be frequenting it more often.

Yep. That's pen AND marker.

Guess we're keeping this van until it dies. While I think I can get the pen off the side area--I'm pretty sure that pen and marker on the upholstery isn't coming off.

I should really do another post documenting the walls in Hannah's room and her personalization of the sheets and pillows too. The girl loves to mark her territory--that's for sure.

a little summer preview

So..it's been in the 80s for the past few days. I'm definitely not complaining (well, maybe I did just a teeny tiny bit today when my phone said it was 87 while we were at the park this afternoon...and we were in direct sunshine, so it was probably hotter than that) because who doesn't want to wear capris and flip flops in the middle of January?

Since the kids were off of school for the MLK holiday, Samuel took Sammy to the Clippers game this afternoon and I took Hannah and Helene to In-N-Out for lunch (big surprise, I know) and then off to the park to ride bikes.

Quick side story:
I got Hannah a new bike on Saturday. She and Sammy wanted to ride their bikes since the weather was so nice. So we got the bikes out from the back--only for Hannah to discover she was too tall for her Dora Big Wheel. Her knees kept hitting the handlebars and she was in tears that she didn't have a bike to ride.

(And here is why I LOVE living in the future...)

So we went inside and looked on Craigs List. I found a bike in Pasadena (no picture though), texted the seller to see if we could come by and see it, she replied with address and a picture--it was purple and had Disney Princesses (SCORE!)...and she lived about a mile away. We drove over, picked it up and she even included a purple helmet--all for $20!!! And the same bike is currently selling at Target for $70. YAY ME!! Love it!

You know when we were kids, we would have had to go to garage sale after garage sale to find a used bike and it would have been a week or more to find the right one. So yay for technology!!

Here is my awesome Craigs List find.
Hannah picked out her outfit today knowing that we were going to ride bikes at the park--I LOVE that she color coordinated her outfit with her bike.
Totally something I would do. :)

And Helene inherited the Dora Big Wheel. Her legs aren't long enough for it yet, but she's completely content to just sit there and push all the buttons that play music and make noise.

Uhhhh....yeah....that's an In-N-Out cup in the basket.
She took it and put it in there all by herself.

What can I say? She's clearly a mini me.

She was pretty proud of herself...smart girl.

Krista and Ally met us at the park and Helene traded Ally the big wheel for her scooter.

I'm thoroughly enjoying the summer temps--although I'm hoping I get a chance to wear sweaters and my new scarves (my new fave accessory!) again soon.

Ice Skating with Dad

On Friday, KTLA, one of our local TV stations, was doing a live broadcast all morning from Pershing Square in downtown LA. As a result, they provided free ice skating and skate rentals to anyone who came down between 5am-10am.

Samuel wanted to take Hannah ice skating since he had taken Sammy to a few Clippers games without the girls, and he wanted to take her to do something fun.

Hannah LOVED it and had a great time.
The free ice cream probably helped too.
They stopped for hot chocolate at Starbucks to warm up on the way home (thus creating a little hot chocolate monster. She asks all the time to go to Starbucks now).
She's already asking when she can do it again, so I'd like to take her and try a little skating myself. I wonder if my ice skating lessons from when I was 7 will be any benefit to me at all...probably not.

Sanity restored!

i.e. Hannah is back in preschool.

I won't lie to you. It's been a looooooong 5 weeks and 1 day.

Since we were out of town for most of summer and I wasn't sure what our plans for fall were, I made the mistake of not re-enrolling Hannah in her Pre-K class from last year over the summer. We never had a problem getting in at the last minute before with Sammy and I guess I kind of just took it for granted that somehow it would work out that way again.

BIG MISTAKE.

When I finally went to enroll her the week before school started, we were #7 on the waiting list.

Uh oh. Not a good sign.

I gave it a few weeks figuring people would drop out like they do every year, so I would occasionally call to get a status, but it was never good news.

Meanwhile, I began to panic.

What if she didn't get in?

Where else am I going to send her at this late in game?

Most importantly, how am I going to not go absolutely insane having her around all day with the endless amounts of energy and need for structure (so not my thing, as you know) and socializing.

She was so disappointed that Sammy got to go to school and she didn't. We tried to fill in the time doing fun things and hanging out with friends, but she really missed school.

I will spare you all the details of the bureaucratic crap...I mean red tape...that I had to deal with to get her back in. Especially considering the open spot she finally got had been available since the first day of school! But long story short--she started on Wednesday.

And everyone is thrilled.

(Picture is blurry because she wouldn't stand still.)
Her teachers were so happy to have her back in class and her friends from last year who are also in the class were jumping with joy. It was really really sweet.

Hannah and her friend Jasmine, who was in class with her last year
I'm just happy to (finally) have three hours of peace and quiet...and a little one-on-one time with Helene.

School update, a brief grammar lesson, and some fun

Has anyone else noticed that the days of me updating the blog three times a week are gone?

So, what am I doing with my time now that I don't document every moment of our lives on the blog?

Being a mom?

Updating my FB?

Oh, who knows.

Well, I guess some people know if they chat with me often enough, but really, the poor blog has had some serious neglect. Time for an update.

Let's start with Sammy's school situation.
His permanent teacher started this week, just in time for Back to School Night. Literally.
And if you were keeping track, that's 3 weeks after school started.
Nice.

She's seems...fine.

I know, I know...have a little more enthusiasm. Show that positive attitude you've been working on, right? What happened to "no more complaining"?

It's just hard to have a good first impression of someone who sends home a letter to the parents introducing herself--and it has a glaring grammatical error on it.

Yes, I will admit that I have a tendency to judge people when they use poor grammar. And I'm certainly no grammar queen myself, just look at all my run-on sentences and all the "--" and "....." I use. (Although I do have very strong feelings about the Oxford Comma. Yeah, I'm a big fan.) But, I'm not a teacher, so I can run-on all I want...right? Anyway, I digress.

IMO, when you are a teacher. And your job is to educate on such things as grammar and spelling and the like, I would expect you to know the difference between plural and possessive.

And clearly that is asking too much.

I'm just saying. There is a big difference between coaching "lady's basketball" and "ladies basketball".

Guess which one she used to coach? (HINT: she wrote lady's basketball)

See my problem?

Ummm, yeah..."oh my" would be the correct reaction to that. sigh.

It really is not that hard people. Use an apostrophe to show possession. Use an "es" or "s" to indicate plural. And yet, that's too much to ask of a 1st grade teacher apparently.

(Aaannnndd.....rant...OVER. Thanks for listening.)

So, yeah, he has a permanent teacher. Yay.

Moving on.
Here are a few random pictures of what the girls and I did recently while Sammy was at school.

One day I had to go to Nordstrom (yes, had to...I was almost out of lipstick!!), so after shopping I decided to let the girls ride the train. Hannah loved it. Helene cried the entire time. In fact, they had to stop the train so I could take her off it, she was that upset. Mom of the year, I know.

Another day we met up with my friend Laura for lunch, where Helene proceeded to eat two cups of ketchup. I don't know where she gets it from. I don't eat the stuff.

Friday we made Halloween cookies at Krista's house. The girls were really excited about the entire process.

But I think frosting was their favorite part.

Look at that concentration.

There were A LOT of sprinkles on those cookies!

I'm not sure which I love more in this picture: Hannah's close up face with the big smile or Ally's black teeth from all the sprinkles.
When the little ones got up from their naps, they had a few cookies too. Despite their looks of disdain--I think they enjoyed them.
So that's my update.
I know it doesn't totally make up for all the blog neglect (and there's been a lot the past few months), but I'm trying to get back into my blogging groove--because I need more chips and salsa too. :)

Hannah's 4th Birthday!

Hannah turned 4 on July 7th. I have a hard time remembering that she is only 4 considering her size and how smart she is, but yep...only 4. People ask me all the time if she and Sammy are twins, and I when I tell them they are 2.5 years apart--they almost don't believe it. Poor Sammy...hope he has a growth spurt soon.

Anyway, when I asked Hannah what she wanted to do for her birthday, she replied "Eat cupcakes at the park."

Easy enough.

So here we are eating cupcakes at the park with some friends to celebrate Hannah's 4th birthday.
(Thanks to Krista for being the designated photographer!)

Baby Tate and Big Brother Max

Cutest frosting mustache ever!

I decided a cupcake without frosting would be less messy for Helene.

Didn't miss it at all!

Beautiful Sienna

Hannah and her buddy Ally

She couldn't wait until we got home to play with her presents.
And the blog post wouldn't be complete without yet another picture of me neglecting my child(ren) to Droid (i.e. text on my phone).

Happy Birthday my precocious, exuberant, sweet and loving, totally-out-of-control-crazy-most-of-the-time little girl.
I love you!