A really long fat post...

I'm back...and I know, it's about time.

So a lot has happened since my last post and I have a lot of catching up to do for you. We've moved (which makes us happy), LOST ended (which makes us sad), and a bunch of other stuff in between (with a little bit of happy and sad). While it's great to be able to afford a house that we love so much it is also very sad to leave a house that was our first. We learned a lot about ourselves in that house. We learned how to scrimp and save to be able to afford our first house, we learned how to REALLY work together to remodel the first house, we got our fist dog in that house and we brought home our beautiful little girl to that house. I get teary eyed every time I have to go back over there. Our neighbors were so sweet and supportive. And while we love our new house and all of our neighbors seem wonderful it's hard not to miss the others and wonder if we could ever have neighbors that great again. On with the good news...we have a contract on the house and we are set to close on June 14th. That will be a sad and happy day. Sad that it will officially be someone elses and happy because we really don't enjoy two mortgage payments a month.

Well when we moved I got sick, then after a couple of weeks I got better and then my world was rocked when I thought I had pulled a neck muscle. It started hurting on a Sunday and by Tuesday was still getting worse (this is where working for a spine surgeon comes in handy). I asked him what to do for a really bad pulled muscle, he gave me his opinion and of course it was stuff that I was already doing because it's what I told patients to do everyday for three years of my life. Then he asked if he could touch it, I said sure. Well he pushed on what he thought was a pressure point and I nearly hit the floor! I couldn't quit crying, I could barely breathe, this was the most/worst pain I had ever felt (aside from natural child birth and I'm not going there at the moment). By the end of the day I had given in and agreed to some trigger point injections. I didn't want to do them because obviously I've talked to many many patients about them. Some of them said it feels like demons being released and some say it hurts like hell and doesn't do anything for their pain. But I was desperate. I got the injections, I felt better almost immediately but then by the next morning I was worse. Worse than I could ever imagine. I called in to work and told them I couldn't make it. I called Dr. Choudhri out of desperation. While we know each other very well and I consider him a great friend I didn't want to bother him with my problems. He was concerned that I had a herniated disc and order an emergent MRI. I was terrified! Chris was at work so I called my brother and he came to my rescue. He came and picked me up and took me to the hospital for the scan...seriously I felt like my head was a bowling ball and I was balancing it on a tooth pick. The MRI looked good and they said if I did have a small herniated disc it was indeed very small. I was put in a neck brace which helped for a couple of days but then seemed to only make things worse. I tried to work and I couldn't, I tried to be a Mom and wife and I couldn't. I was in so much pain that I couldn't function. Dr. Choudhri talked to his wife (who happens to specialize in trigger point injections....thank God). She told him a couple of places to try and I agreed. Turns out I was just having one hell of a muscle spasm that didn't want to give in. The second round of injections helped. I felt human the next day although I was very sore and after a few days of rest I was able to go back to work and resume somewhat of a normal life. It took a couple of weeks to get back to 100% but I got there. Whew!

We moved Easter weekend so we don't have a lot of pictures. Ivy missed out and dying Easter eggs because I couldn't get my act together to do it in the midst of moving. So there was no Easter egg hunt either. Seriously this bothers me! Next year we will dye a bunch of eggs and have the best egg hunt ever! I will have to post pictures of her in her Easter dress later, cause once she got home from church she grabbed a blackberry from a bowl and well lets just say the dress got the raw end of that deal. It is really beautiful! It is blue with a white collar that had her initials on it and this girl looks good in blue. Of course Grammie made it for her. But here are a few to look at.

Ivy's Easter basket. Some of you may remember that Madagascar was Ivy's favorite movie for the longest time. So she got the "Penguins of Madagascar" and she started saying "Move It Move It!" She was so excited!

As you can see she made her own bib and it's a little hard to keep it up while setting out the silverware. Notice she still has on her church shoes and socks because she loves those shoes (warning - never try to take shoes off of Ivy unless it's her idea).

Hanging out with Maw before lunch.

Getting her Easter basket from Grammie. She got a couple of outfits, some stuff for the tub that makes a big mess of course and some beautiful handmade pajama's. I'll definitely be taking pictures of her in them and posting them later.

Something SUPER FUN that I got to do in April was meet up with some of my old friends from middle school! Yes the old LMS gang got together again! It was great, I hadn't seen these girls in years! Natasha lives in Idaho and got to come home for the Masters so Barbara took advantage of trying to get us all together!

Here's and old picture of us (go ahead and smile...I know you want too! My bangs were rockin')
From left to right (back row) Ashley (I think), Natasha, Adrienne, Nicole, Dawn, Fernanda.Front row - Me, Barbara

Now the our main gang was Natasha, Nicole, Dawn, Fernanda, Me, and Barbie (and Samantha, not pictured above). Everyone but Nicole and Samantha made it to the get together.

Updated - Dawn, Fernanda, Natasha, Barbara, Me
Now with our babies - Connor, Izzy, and Ivy
Ivy loved playing with Izzy, although she wanted to share her milk and didn't quite understand why we wouldn't let Izzy drink it.

We also took Ivy to her first school carnival. She had a blast playing all the games, doing the crafts, jumping in the inflatables, and having her first snow cone. It was lots of fun for me and Chris too! This school has been so great for Ivy! They really promote creativity and Ivy has developed so well while going there. She learned her entire alphabet and can count to 20 and she knows so many songs. She is definitely not a shy child. She is very outgoing and loves to perform or be creative. She tells us all about school and the kids in her class and her teachers.

Acting cool and taking it all in.

Playing some games and winning prizes with her Daddy.

Getting her spider tattoo. She knows that I hate spiders and she kept saying "Look Mommy!" and I would scream and she would crack up and say "Ha Ha Daddy, Mommy's scared!"
Showing off her new tattoo to one of her teachers, Mrs. Mo. Yes that's me in the back ground in my wonderful fashion statement of a neck brace attempting to take video.

Jumping with her pal Lena.

Loving her some Daddy!
And loving her some snow cone!

Ivy also had a small music program at her school. It was the cutest thing I've ever seen! They all walked in with their class and teachers and they had the biggest smiles on there faces. I was a little worried that Ivy would get shy and not do anything up there on the stage but she was a star! I wish she had been a little closer to the front but oh well. It was Ivy's class (the chicks) and another class called the puppies (which are young 3 year olds). They all got up there and sat down and sang a "Hello" song and waved and did other hand motions and then it was time for the fun. We had been told to have the kids dressed in there pj's for the show because of a song they were doing. The all laid down like they were a sleep and the music started...it was "In the jungle" and you could see all the kids beginning to smile and when it got to the loud "ah-weem-ah-wah" part they all started dancing and singing and they would lay back down and go to sleep again. All of us parents were of course about to die laughing! Then at the end they all sat back down and did a "Good-bye" song.

That's all for now. I promise not to take as long for another post.