Cousin Time

Danielle has been graciously watching my girls while I grocery shop on Thursdays. One day I left her my camera to get some pictures of the cousins.

Micah and Anna playing in the dirt

The boys just got a new playset in their backyard and they love it!

Ethan with his best grin

The other morning Lily giggled at the table for no reason. I asked her what was funny, and she said, "Ethan! He will say 'hi' to me!"

The Micah Man

My Anna Boo

This was such a cute picture. Anna wouldn't cooperate to stand with them though.

After outside time, it was DVD time.

I think these two cousins look remarkably similar.

A Bryan Get-Together

This was just a random picture of both girls in David's future nursery

We had the Bryans and Sanders over for a game night the other Friday. James wanted to get together on Labor Day, but everyone was too busy then, so we rescheduled to Friday.

Preparing supper

James got to practice with baby John. James has to get ready to have a son in December!

Nate helped his boys clean up the toys

John won the Catan game. A good time was had by all!

One morning while breakfast was baking, I let the girls use the Starfell website to practice the alphabet. Lily is learning how to use the wireless mouse to click on things

Lily and Anna love to push the chairs over to watch me cook.

Just random cuteness

Anna loves to try on Lily's shoes. I think she is all girl!

The girls love watching a DVD while I do errands in our new van. It makes for a much quieter ride!

I finished sewing both girls' dresses out of fabric that I have had since I married that was inherited from Mom Joyner. I have no idea how long she had it. :-) Lily said her favorite color was yellow, so I thought she'd like it.

Home Life

The girls love playing in their sandbox. For selfish reasons, I don't allow it every day. I don't want to clean up the sand they would drag in!

Lily asked to have her blankie around her head and Anna wanted to do it too.

Watching a video

I was mopping the other week, and Lily wanted to do it too. After I finished, I shortened the handle and let her go for it. I love the FlyLady mop! It uses microfiber pads that you can take off and wash.

Lily would mop for a few minutes, walk to the Living Room and say, "All finished!" Then a couple of seconds later she would start again. The floor was thoroughly mopped for at least 40 minutes.

We bought pink flower bedding for the new bunk bed. Lily can't decide which bed she likes better. She alternates between the upper and lower bunk.

Anna is doing pretty well with her toddler bed. She doesn't always stay in bed for naps, but she is learning.

Our Crazy Four Days

After we got home from NC we really hit the ground running.

The highlights include the birthday party at Danielle's house, I taught Sunday School, played a violin solo, led children's choir, we unpacked, did some grocery shopping, drove to Ruthie's Notions in Baker, FL to get embroidery thread for the next tile scene, had a hematology appointment to check my pregnancy blood platelet level (doing great!), picked up Mom Bryan from an eye appointment, cleaned the house, taught violin lessons, and took my car to the shop to fix the air conditioner.

The car air conditioning was going to be very expensive to fix, so we looked for a van instead. We will need it by December and the summer is a good time to have air conditioning! My car's windows didn't roll down either. We looked online for a van Tuesday night and drove to several dealerships Wednesday morning. We found a 2012 Kia Sedona minivan at Sandy Sansing Motors in Pensacola. It has 37,000 miles on it. We barely had time to finish the paperwork before James had to leave for work. In fact he had to leave and I waited to drive it home with the girls. I love it!

We had borrowed Emily and Steve's Kia Sedona to drive to NC last year, so we knew we liked it. We either wanted a Honda Odyssey or Kia Sedona. The Hondas were crazy expensive so this is the best option for us.

I like the color, the air conditioning, the luggage space, and the audio system is very advanced. It plays DVDs on the touch screen in the dashboard. If my phone is plugged in, it plays through the system and can be controlled on the screen. It has a GPS, and has hands-free phone capability. We haven't figured out how to operate the phone part yet. :-)

I enjoyed driving it to Wednesday night church.

Thursday morning I got to take it grocery shopping while James watched the girls. It was a hot day, but I didn't mind in my new van!

Thursday night I went to Ladies' Fellowship while Dad Bryan watched my girls.

Friday I took it easy!  Saturday morning we went to visitation as a family in our van, then bought a sheet set for the girls' beds at Bed, Bath and Beyond.

My lower back has been hurting since Monday. Either I pulled in traveling, or doing the stuff we did after I got home. It got worse over the weekend so I went to the chiropractor that Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday. It is starting to feel better now.

NC Trip Part Four of Four

Since Mom was safely at home, I did a couple of errands on Thursday. I took the girls to World Wide's office where I used to work before I married, then to the YMCA playground.

After Becca got off work we went to Mary Jo's Cloth Store. I had been looking forward to that trip for a month! We got fabric for the next tile scene, some upholstery fabric to recover our kitchen chairs and some other cloth.

At 2:30am Lily came up to my bed where we slept in the same room and said she wanted to get in bed with me. I told her to sleep on her mattress on the floor. She said, "I want a tall bed!" I was able to tell her that she would get her wish after we got home - the top bunk of a bunkbed!

Friday was packing day for going home! Mom and Becca gave me some fabric from their stash and I was going to ship it home, but it was too expensive. We decided to do a check-in suitcase instead.

James was busy while we were gone. He put together the bunkbed by himself! It was helpful that the girls weren't there to scatter the screws and step on the boards during construction.

All finished except for the stairs with their drawers. He said that was the most complicated part.

Saturday morning we flew from Charlotte to Pensacola! We were super early because of the adventures the last time, but everything went smoothly.

Waiting in Charlotte at our gate. I didn't get any pictures during the flight this time.

Anna was super fussy as we boarded until I could give her some food. We didn't get lunch and she was hungry. During this flight we descended so fast that my sinuses hurt badly. Lily only complained about her ears once and seemed okay. Anna was fussy as we de-planed, but we made it! We got our gate-checked bag and I told Lily we were going to see Daddy. She wanted to run, and I did too! We sprinted the last few gates and we finally got reunited. I didn't realize how much I missed him. I kind of lost it. Our checked suitcase arrived safely and we got to go home!

The girls on their new bed! Anna will eventually sleep on the bottom bunk, but for now she is using the toddler bed. Lily sleeps on her tall bed.

We only had an hour or so at home to eat lunch before going to Ethan and Micah's birthday party. That was fun! No pictures were taken on my camera though.

Trip to NC Part Three

That weekend while Mom Joyner recovered in the hospital was spent getting the girls ready for the day, passing them off to babysitters, driving to the hospital, visiting with Mom, driving home getting them ready for bed, and repeating. Rebecca and I took the girls to see Mom a few times and then took them home for naps while we returned to Charlotte.

A picture of the girls eating breakfast to send to Mom Joyner.

Dad took Mom to the hospital in this car, and someone scraped the bumper trying to park. They left a note of apology.

Someone else keyed the back left door on Mom's Honda CRV while it was in the parking deck too. They did not leave a note. :-) 

It was not a good time for the poor cars! 

I took the girls to morning church services at Emmanuel Baptist Church, then left them with babysitters again to visit Mom that afternoon.

Monday Becca had to work so I took the girls to the hospital that morning then stayed home with them. We had run out of babysitters. :-)

Tuesday Dad Joyner needed a break from living at the hospital and a shower, so I took the girls and he drove them home while I stayed with Mom in her recovery room. Mom felt super nauseous and couldn't eat much of anything, but she was able to get up and use the restroom.

Wednesday I planned to stay with Mom while Dad fulfilled his obligation to act in a skit at church, but they released Mom at noon on Wednesday instead. I spent the morning cleaning up the house and replacing their vacuum cleaner belt and putting sheets on the hospital bed that was delivered and put in the Living Room.

I don't have any pictures of Mom, but she didn't feel up to a photo shoot! She continued to feel horribly sick until Saturday when the nausea eased up.

 We swept the front porch for Mom's arrival and the girls enjoyed the rocking chairs.

Dad was "Dr. Wrong" in the summer-long skits for Master's Club about evolutionism versus creation. That Wednesday night was the climax of the skit when he got "saved" and saw that evolutionism is wrong. He was all dressed and looking scientific.

I stayed with Mom until he finished his skit then I went to church. 

Trip to NC Part Two

I got up at 3:30am and we left the house around 4:30am. The girls weren't quite as fresh as they were the afternoon before, but we made it through the day!

There was an emergency with Lily's favorite blankie though. James dropped us off and we got all the way up to the front of the security line when I realized that I didn't have Lily's favorite blankie. I couldn't imagine going a week without it in NC. I called James and he turned around and drove back to the airport to bring it to us. Lily had left in in the car beside her carseat. I am glad we allowed extra time before our flight and that James was early enough for work to be able to drive back to the airport. The next try through security the line was much longer, but we made it to the gate early enough to actually sit down this time.

Eating a bagel breakfast at the gate.

We boarded and found our seats in row eleven this time. It seemed that they upgraded our tickets since they bumped our flight, so we had more leg room. That was nice!

This time we actually flew to NC. The flight was really short with barely enough time to reach cruising altitude before descending again. Lily liked going fast for takeoff, but was a little nervous about going fast at landing. She wasn't as interested in looking outside as I thought she'd be. She wanted the window closed. :-)

Rebecca picked us up at the airport since Mom and Dad were already on their way to Pre-Operation check-in at the hospital. 

We met Mom and Dad at the hospital so she could see the girls before taking them to the house to be babysat while I returned to the hospital with Becca to wait out the prep and surgery. It was an hour drive each way from Kings Mountain to Carolinas Medical Center in Charlotte where Mom had her surgery. 

We arrived and got to go sit with Mom while she waited to be taken to surgery. It was a nerve-wracking time for her, but we chatted and managed to pass the time. After they took her away, Dad, Becca and I went to the family waiting room for the next few hours.

They had assigned a number to each patient in surgery with screens giving you their progress through the surgery process. The doctor that performed her hysterectomy gave us a personal update as the doctor that did her plastic surgery closed the incision. It took 45 minutes to close her abdomen since it was an incision from one side to the other. Dr. Hall said that they seemed to have removed all of the endrometrial cancer and that it went well.

We waited some more, then noticed that Mom's patient number disappeared from the screens. She vanished! After asking them, they told us that she went to the ICU instead of recovery and we could go right up. That was nice, since we were told she couldn't have visitors for several hours if she was in a normal recovery room.

She looked so incredibly pitiful recovering in the ICU. It kind of choked me up when I hadn't been by the process before that. Her first words to the nurse after being awakened were, "I changed my mind, I don't want to have surgery." The nurse had to inform her that it was a little too late and the surgery was already done.

They brought some pain medicine and Mom got more and more aware. She woke up faster than I thought she would and didn't have the memory lapses that I expected. Pastor and Mrs. Ogle came to see her in the ICU and she joked with them and seemed as sharp as ever. After getting morphine, she was really sleepy.

I needed to help the girls go to bed for the night, so Rebecca and I left at 7:30 to go "home" and relieve the babysitter. The house was much emptier than our normal NC vacations. We were three people short - Mom, Dad, and James.