Six Years Later

Who knew that 6 years later I would be so abundantly blessed. Logan would be such a great brother to these two beautiful girls.

When we walked over to Logan's grave, Olivia told me that she had something to tell him. She proceeded to say:

I'll love you forever.
I'll like you for always.
As long as I'm living
My brother you'll be.

I could never have come up with anything so amazing and so perfect if I tried.

I love you Olivia, Logan and Abigail. . .all three of my amazing gifts from God!




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Logan William 8-27-07 o 09-28-07

September 28th is the hardest day of the year for me.  I mourn, but I know Logan is celebrating 6 years in heaven.  Every year I usually make him a new video, but this year I just didn't get it done.  So, here is the video that I made him last year.  Love you sweet boy!

The Curse Of September

If you have read my blog for awhile now, you know that September is never good to me.

September 3, 1993: My friends and I were robbed at gunpoint in my best friend's driveway.

September 30, 1993: I lost a lifelong friend in a car accident

September 28, 2007: I lost my son, Logan.

The worst things in my life have happened in September. There have been other bad (minor) things that have happened in the month of September ( I was broken up with quite a few times.)

Every year on September 1st, I hold my breath and pray that I make it through the month unscathed. Honestly, for the first time in 20 years, I didn't even think of it until last week. I made it almost all month without giving it a second thought. Then, I learned about Tobey and remembered it was September.

Tonight, my grandma was rushed by ambulance to the hospital because of what they believed was a pulmonary embolism. At this time, I don't think it was. She has had a high heart rate and an atrial fibrillation. She is currently in critical care and on medication to bring her heart rate down. Please keep her and my family in your prayers. 'Tis the month of September.

Here are some pictures to remember the good things about this month. And happy anniversary tomorrow to my parents!! ( Good things do happen in September as well.)


















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Tobey Update

So, here are the facts about our furry four legged friend, Tobey.



He has some kind of rare disorder that doesn't allow his permanent teeth to erupt. Instead they become impacted in his jaw.

He currently has a life threatening bone infection that we are dealing with in addition to recovering from major surgery.



I have to take him into the vet daily for a laser treatment. We are then being referred to a dental specialist for additional surgery. And that will cost a pretty penny. A very pretty penny. But, what do you do?

On the outside looking in, you would think,"I'd never go in debt over a cat!" But, he is only three years old! He is as good as gold around my girls. He actually enjoys being around Abigail who sometimes pulls his tail and is still learning about "gentle." He used to have tea parties with Olivia and they would take turns sliding down the slide. He can sometimes be annoying but only because he thinks he has to be with you every second of every day. He acts more like a dog than a cat.

It's not as if this will be a long term problem. He will basically end up without many teeth, but I've heard cats do fine with that. He lapped up the puréed food I made him tonight. It's not even a quality of life issue. He is still the happiest, sweetest cat ever, which blows my mind! It just boils down to cost and how much an animal's life is worth. And that is tough because every person has a different threshold. Mine is probably a bit more than most as I've always been a bit more sensitive to stuff like this. But it just plain sucks. For now, we are going to hopefully get rid of the infection and meet with the specialist to get more information. And I'll get busy putting together a slideshow of Tobey to a Sarah McLachlan song and begin asking for donations. Haha! Not really. . .well. . .hmm. :-)


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Tobey Update

When your vet begins by saying, "I've never seen this in a cat before and rarely in dogs" you know you are in trouble. :-( Tobey had three baby teeth plus the permanent impacted teeth plus part of his JAW bone removed!! He is having a hard time coming out of anesthesia, so they are keeping him overnight. He will most likely end up eventually losing all but his canine teeth. :-( Leave it to Tobey to end up in a veterinarian medical book. Poor guy. He should be able to come home tomorrow afternoon.


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Monday, September 23, 2013

Olivia has been wearing her toothless grin proudly today. :-) Look at those gorgeous, straight baby teeth.






Also, an update on our cat, Tobey: He has one messed up mouth. It seems his back baby teeth never fell out which caused his permanent teeth to become impacted. Thus, causing all kinds of problems. So, he is in surgery having teeth pulled and repairing his exposed jaw bone. Poor guy. Who knows how much pain he has been in and you'd never know it as he is the sweetest thing ever! Olivia was concerned about him and asked if the tooth fairy could visit him tonight. So, I helped her write this letter.



How priceless is this? So, really, if the tooth fairy could show up that would be great as we have no new cat toys around here. It may have to be canned food instead as that will be all he eats for awhile.

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Out With The Old. . .

In with the new!

Olivia lost her first baby tooth. She cried a bit. Not because it hurt, but because she was sad to lose her first baby tooth. (Honestly I felt like crying too wondering how these gigantic teeth are going to fit in her itty bitty mouth. Her perfectly straight beautiful baby teeth have NO space between them.) But. . .nonetheless. . .it was an exciting night in our house tonight!!


And now we wait for the tooth fairy to visit our house for the first time!

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Tobey Cole

Sometimes even cats need prayers. (And, yes, my cats have middle names.) Tobey went into the vet today and they found a large lesion/open sore in his mouth. It is so bad that it is exposing a large portion of his jaw bone. We don't know anymore at this point. He goes in Monday for further testing.



This is the same cat that had diskospondylitis and almost had to have his tail amputated. He also retained 5 of his baby teeth, which caused him to have too many teeth and one punctured the roof of his mouth. He had to have his teeth pulled and surgery to repair it. And now this. All rare. All things our vet rarely sees. And he is not even 4 years old!

All I know is. . .I would have two extremely heartbroken girls if something happened to him. He has many annoying habits, but he is the best cat you could ever have for young children. Olivia and Abigail adore him (as do Ryan and I, of course.) Praying it is something easily treatable and that he is not in too much pain.

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Fall Festival

It was gorgeous outside so we headed to a nearby town's fall festival. It was a bit nostalgic for me because I grew up going to school there and went to the fall festival every year. Olivia loved it as much as I used to.

She was so excited to ride the rooster on the carousel!







Abigail was an absolute angel the entire time. She always is!



Olivia loved the tilt a whirl and was thrilled to also go on her favorite ride ever. . .the Octopus (although it was actually the spider today.)


And here we are at the top of Olivia's first Ferris wheel ride.


What a great, great time! Add to that a sleepover last night at grandpa and grandma Glunt's house and Olivia is having "the best weekend ever!"

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10 Months

Where did the time go? I can't believe she is 10 months old! Crazy. She is such a joy! Abigail probably weighs about 19.5 lbs. She pulls up to a stand and can open cabinet doors now. She still loves food, electronics and baths. She still army crawls everywhere. We always call her our little Abigator and as Ryan pointed out. . .of course she crawls on her belly like an alligator too. Haha! She dances, claps, waves, has four teeth and captures the hearts of everyone she meets.




*Update: Well, today, Abigail decided to start crawling on her knees. :-)
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Big News LOL

Olivia has given up her lifelong dream to be a butterfly.

"Mom, I wasn't born a caterpillar so I don't think I can be a butterfly. I want to be a teacher! A kindergarten teacher!"

As you can tell, she loves school!
And her teacher.


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School Picture

Official kindergarten picture.  Awwww.  She looks so grown up! 

And here is Olivia’s 3 yr old picture and 6 yr old picture. 

New Park

We finally got a new playground in our town!! The playground equipment opened this past week, so I'm sure we will be here a lot. Olivia is so excited. I'm hoping they add some baby swings for Abigail.
















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Abigail Pictures

My camera is overflowing with Abigail pictures. LOL! She is at that perfect picture taking age where you just lift a camera and she smiles. I took some of the best pics of Olivia at that age. :-) Olivia is not always that fond of pictures anymore unless she is the one taking them.

Here is Abigail when she got stuck under a chair. She crawled under there and couldn't figure out how to get back out. It was so funny!



We went to the park this afternoon. Pure joy!







Enjoying a refreshing drink!







Just being cute! And, yes, she really is this happy most of the time.




Now I've got to get some good pictures of Olivia. She counts the pictures on my phone to make sure there are equal numbers of both girls. They are counting a lot at school. I don't know whether to be frustrated or proud. Haha!

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State Fair

We headed to the state fair today. I remember when we went last year and I thought,"Next year we will be taking Abigail." Seems like just yesterday. And by going to the fair, I mean we went, rode a few rides, saw some adorable 3 day old piglets, ate a funnel cake and went home. LOL! That is how we roll.




I felt bad for Olivia because two of the rides that she loved at Worlds Of Fun, she couldn't go on here because you had to be 48". You only had to be 42" there. But, at least we didn't spend as much money on rides because there wasn't as much she could go on. But, we still had fun.



And it was worth the trip to get this adorable picture.



Both girls were asleep before we hardly left the fairgrounds and I'm falling asleep as I write this post. :-)

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My Beautiful Girls

Here is Olivia off to kindergarten. She loves it!


As soon as she leaves, Abigail heads straight to her room to play with her toys. Yikes! Don't tell big sister!


Abigail loves picking her up at the bus stop, though.



And it's always nice to be home!



And help mama cook dinner! Olivia helped from start to finish and then even ate some herself!!



Love my girls!!


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Abigail Dancing

Abigail's Growing Up

I don't know if I'm ready. Today for lunch she ate Spaghetti Os along with her sister. And loved them.



She pulled up to a stand while trying to get into the bath tub with Olivia. Abigail LOVES baths!



She just seems to be growing up before my eyes! She already has 4 teeth! And her hair is even growing! LOL!




She is one of the happiest, sweetest babies ever!




Our cat, Tobey, even thinks so. He hides behind the curtain until Abigail is asleep and I leave the room. Then, he gets in her crib with her. I think Abigail enjoys his company as much as he enjoys hers. Tobey loves everyone, but he has really latched onto her. She is pretty loveable! :-)


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Monday, September 9, 2013

I am so so proud of Olivia. She has matured so much in the last few weeks. It used to feel like pulling teeth to get her to sit down and work on anything that resembled learning. Now she sits at the table every night and works incredibly hard! I just learned not to do it until after Abigail is in bed. She is the most receptive after 7:30. Olivia is writing all of her letters and is reading all of her sight words! She comes to the table every night excited about what we are going to do.

And this impressed me! Yes, she knows her shapes and is pretty good with patterns, but she had to read what color to color each shape. And she did it perfectly.




And speaking of pulling teeth, her first loose tooth is barely hanging on! She doesn't want us to pull it and instead wants it to come out on its own. According to her, it may want to stay with its baby teeth friends a little longer. She is very excited about a visit from the tooth fairy, however. She's losing teeth, Abigail's getting teeth. We talk about teeth in our house a lot. LOL!




This doesn't have anything to do with teeth, but check out the train that Olivia drew today!



It's better than my trains! My goodness! And she needed OT for 5 years!


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