Viva Las Vegas!

We were lucky enough to get to go to Vegas and meet up with John’s parents and his Aunt Debbie and Uncle John.  It was my first time back since I went with my mom and dad for my 21st birthday. We stayed at the Cosmopolitan and it was awesome… the view from our room was spectacular, overlooking the Bellagio fountains. 

We walked the strip and checked out all the hotels and even met up with Optimus Prime and Bumblebee along the way (it sure made the boys jealous!)…

Got dressed up and went to fancy dinners to celebrate our anniversary and Gus’s 60th birthday…

Danced to ELVIS in old town!!…

Hung out in the casinos (John even won some money!)…

Saw BRITNEY!!!…

… and ate way too much.  In this picture you can see my ginormous burger and fries.  Across the way you can see John’s bite-sized girl burgers.  I ate my whole plate.  What can I say? All that walking got me hungry.  Don’t act like you’re not impressed. 

Oh – and this was my dessert ;)

We had a great time.  I know this because we were exhausted when we got home and I even got a cold and had to go to the doctor the morning after we got back.  Haha, now THAT’S when you know you did it right!

Our First Sleepover

We held our first official sleepover in May!  Our friends Chris and Emily had a wedding to attend so we watched Julia and Lucas for the evening.  It was really a lot of fun – they were great.  We ate dinner, watched Frozen and had dessert.  The enthusiasm they all displayed while singing ‘Let It Go’ was off the charts.  By the end of the movie, all the boys (including John) were upstairs singing karoke while Julia and I were planted in front of the TV to watch the end of the movie.  I made her promise that she would let me braid her hair in the morning (these boys and their short hair!) and she was so sweet, the next morning she brought me her brush and hair clips so I could do her hair. I think I got my fix for the next few months :)

John even dusted off the old Goose hand puppet…

Poor Polly was still all doped up on her pain meds, but she tried hard to keep watch over this unruly bunch…

If they could have all fit in Sean’s bed, they would have slept there for sure. But we ended up with Dylan in is own crib, and the other 3 in Sean’s bed…

The morning after – not so bad, they weren’t up until 7!

It’s a pretty far cry from the first picture we have of the 4 of them, when Dylan was only 3 weeks old (but don’t ask me why he was so red?!)…

Changes in Attitudes, Changes in Latitudes…

I’m not quite sure what to write about this, but I wanted to make sure I had it captured on our blog given the significance to me and our family. 

I decided to quit my career with Deloitte in April after 12 years.  I’d known in my heart for a while that I was fighting a losing battle.  I have to say that Deloitte was always extremely supportive of me – I was actually on track for promotion to Director this year – but when it came right down to it, my heart wasn’t in it. I tried everything there… maternity leave, working full time, part time, dialed up, dialed down… you name it.  But something always had to give and in the end, I just couldn’t keep all the balls in the air.  And quite frankly, I just didn’t see myself as serious as work wanted (and needed) me to be all the time. Isn’t that a funny thing?  But it’s the honest truth.  I realized part of the decision I needed to make was deciding what kind of person I wanted to be everyday.  When I really thought about it, I wanted to be the one to clean off a skinned knee, sing songs at nap time, meet the teachers at school, make meals, dance in the kitchen for no reason at all, organize our family calendar, and sing songs at the top of my lungs at lunchtime in the car with my boys. Some of these things I was already doing, but it was on the weekend or while I was muted on a conference call. I just wanted to be more present all the time.

It’s such a taboo topic – should you work or stay home?  What’s better for you? For your kids? Will you sentence them to a life of misery if you make the wrong choice?  My two cents is that there is no wrong choice, and every person and every family is different.  Kids are resilient and all they need to know is that you’re there for them and that they are loved.  I think you can do that if you’re working or staying at home.  But what works for you today might not work for you tomorrow – be open to change.  I’m certain that you always know in your heart what the right choice is for you and your family.  You just have to trust it and who cares what other people think.  Just be resolved in your decision and make peace with it. 

I now have this hanging in our house.  I think if the boys could have bought it for me, they would have.

Here’s the farewell email I sent on my last day.  I was sad and a little scared to leave what had been my life since I was fresh out of college…  I met my husband at Deloitte and had two babies while I was working there.  But I’m learning that change is good.  The hardest part is just making the first leap.

Friends,

As most of you know, tomorrow will be my last day with the firm.  Thank you for a wonderful 12 years.  The friends, experiences, and lessons learned have shaped me into who I am today and I will be forever grateful.  I sincerely hope to keep in touch with all of you.  Thank you for your time, wisdom, smiles, support and encouragement.  You’re awesome.

Best wishes,

Corinne

Random April Pics

Acting all cool wearing Mommy’s heels around the house…

Sean got some new kicks (that match his shirt!)…

Enjoying the morning sun with Polly…

Having a very serious discussion about something that must have been very interesting…

Helping Daddy with the grill…

Seeing who can jump the highest off the ledge…

Celebrating Daddy’s birthday with Mexican food!…

We created our very own dinosaur habitat while Dylan was sleeping…

Who loves Superman??…

Not Again?!

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so here you go:

Yes folks, Polly is laying more eggs.

Very similar to what happened last year, poor Polly got another – even worse – case of bladder stones.  She had so many and they were so big that our only option was have another surgery to get them removed.  I asked to have one of the stones after they removed them (is that gross?) just to have an idea of what they looked like and Holy Stonehenge, Batman! they’re like real stones.Naturally, surgery isn’t something we can (or want to) keep doing so we elected to have a second procedure that would hopefully end her bladder infections which are the cause of her stones in the first place.  Most dogs get stones based on diet so a diet change is all that’s necessary but Polly is, well, unique in many ways.  So, they performed a vulvoplasty.  Go ahead and Google it if you want, but consider yourself warned.

Last year, after surgery Polly had a rough day but was back to herself very quickly. This time around was agonizing for her and the rest of our household.  I just felt so bad for her – she had a really rough week.  I did my best to keep her medicated and as comfortable as possible but it wasn’t easy.

I can say that she has made a full recovery since all of this trauma (I cannot, however, say the same for me and John yet).  Now I have to test her urine monthly to make sure her pH levels remain normal.  Fingers crossed there are not more stones.

But really, we love you Polly, for better or worse.

Dylan’s First Trip to the Dentist

I had it all planned out… I scheduled Dylan’s first dentist appointment on the same day as Sean’s regular checkup.  Sean would go first while Dylan watched so he wouldn’t be scared and could work up to his turn in the chair.  But of course, they decided to take both kids at the same time, in different rooms.  A mother’s worst nightmare – what kid do you choose?  So I did my best to hop between rooms, but I should have known that Dylan would start gabbing it up with the hygienist right away, not a fear in sight.  He was more than happy when I left him to go check on Sean.  We did learn that Dylan’s finger sucking (gee – wonder who he gets that from??) is causing his teeth to shift so that’s something we need to keep an eye on but all in all both boys were great.

A Lizard Family

I decided last year that I was not getting flower pots for the back deck.  For the past few years we’ve had birds build a nest in the flowers (I’ve even blogged about it) but last year one of the baby birds didn’t make it and I felt so horrible for the poor thing that I swore off real flowers forever.

So you can imagine my surprise when I realized we had a family of lizards on the deck (and on the chairs, fake plants, side of the house… you get the point).

Maybe next year I should go with the birds??

My First DIY

I’ve been looking for new office furniture for at least 6 months.  Everything I liked was sooooo expensive (imagine that) or just didn’t look right.  One day I was looking at the desk and filing cabinet my parents bought me at Costco the first day I moved to Charlotte and got to thinking… it really isn’t that bad, aside from just being kind of plain.  So I decided to YouTube how to repaint and distress old furniture and found one particular video that was awesome – this woman showed each step, explained the materials used and everything.  I watched it a few times, wrote down the list of stuff to get at Lowes, and off I went.  It took a weekend from start to finish and I’m pretty happy with how it turned out.  The only bummer is that my computer tower is just a hair too tall for the desk so it doesn’t fit, but we can live with it.  I learned some things along the way that will make the next time (will there be a next time? I’ve been eyeing up my kitchen table…) even easier.

This is what I started with:

Step 1 – Sand (while begging husband, dog and kids to please just let me do this for a minute)

Step 2 – Two coats of white paint (while pleading with dogs and kids to please stay away from the furniture… attempt to make a barricade with wagon, coolers and the John Deere… laugh at self for thinking that would ever work…)

Step 3 – Distress (I only did a little around the edges)

Step 4 – Chocolate Glaze (afterwards, Step 5 which isn’t shown was 2 coats of polyurethane)

Step 6 - Put in office and enjoy!

Step 7 – Decorate office.  This has not been done yet.  Maybe by Christmas.  Am I being to optimistic??

One more look at the final products:

Sean & Dylan

Sean had school pictures taken in February and we were also able to get some pictures of him with Dylan. They had so much fun together – it was so exciting to watch!