20 Birthday Questions for the 6 Year Old

favorite color - Red
favorite toy - Rosie the monkey
favorite fruit - granny smith apple
favorite TV Show - My Little Pony
favorite thing to eat for lunch - Mac n Cheese
favorite outfit - black ballerina leotard and skirt
favorite game - Quest Keeper
favorite snack - Peanut butter sandwich
favorite animal - leopard
favorite song - Have you Ever Seen the Rain
favorite book - Where's My Mummy
best friend - Ava
favorite cereal - Crave
favorite thing to do outside - ride my bike
favorite drink - Crystal Lite Lemonade
favorite holiday - Christmas
What I like to take to bed with me at night - Rose the monkey
My favorite thing to eat for breakfast - Crave Cereal
My birthday dinner is - BJ's Mac n Cheese with Smiley Fries
When I grow up I want to be -Swim instructor

I asked this girl these questions and she didn't know the answer to most of them. She's just throwing answers out and I'm just shaking my head and rubbing my eyes. She changes her opinion on things moment to moment. She's very frivolous and loves everything. When I asked her what she wants to be when she gets old she replied, " I want to live in Hawaii." To her credit I think it was because we watched the movie "Aloha" last night and she saw the hula dancing scene at the end and she was in love. I can see this girl living in Hawaii and teaching people how to hula...and loving her life. As long as she loved her life, that would make me perfectly happy.
Wiggy loves to wear skirts and dresses. I love to buy dresses for her and coincidentally she has a lot of them. She will wear it once or twice and think it's reached it's shelf life....and I have to tell her we are not that wealthy as to only wear clothes twice before discarding it. 
Wiggy Biscuit is a free spirit. Every time we play the game of Life, she is the only one who doesn't choose the college career path. It cracks me up because in 12-13 years I can see her moving to Portland and dancing around the Farmer's Market to music on her boom. She is always dancing around, singing to herself. She is quite the entertainer. Hard to believe she is six. The years really do pass us by so quickly. 
Happy birthday Wiggy girl.

First Day of School - 2015

This year school started on a Wednesday. I am not sure I am a big fan, but there were some upsides to it. Wednesdays are always minimum days too, so the first day wasn't too shabby. The first day of school was also Wiggy-Biscuit's birthday...so it was a doozy. 
Tuesday night Bubba and Tubbs couldn't fall asleep. I was a bit surprised. I think they were both excited, because they didn't express any nervousness. 
Wednesday morning they were up and getting themselves ready before Luke and I got up. They were motivated! 

We dropped off Bubba first. Chicago Bears was his must wear first-day-attire.

I parked and walked Tubbs and Wiggy to their classrooms. Thankfully I was able to park nearby and their classrooms aren't too far apart. Wiggy asked to go to her classroom first. In her class she has three friends from church and her best friend Ava. She was happy as punch. My friend Amberly sent me a picture of her and Zach since they got to the room after I had left. They were in class together last year too.

Tubbs held my hand across the playground. I guess he does love his mama. :)

Can you tell he is a fan of the Seattle Seahawks. Yes...those are Seahawks socks as well. 

 Tubbs has a prescription to wear a hat and sunglasses when he's outside because of his headaches. Hopefully they help.

Another first day on the book. I guess this will be my last year of walking Tubbs to his class. Of course Honeybadger Hogue doesn't have to know if I walk Tubbs to first period in Jr. high next year. Haha. I remember last year he told me not to walk Bubba to his first class because kids just don't do that in 7th grade. It was VERY tough to let my big-little bug out into the world of junior high.
Anyways...we are off to a great start and the kids are loving school. Hopefully this attitude remains throughout the school year.
 

Birthday Girl Turns Six

Our first grader had a birthday the first day of school. Talk about a crazy morning. I was exhausted from getting school stuff ready to go the night before and stayed up way later than I wanted to. On top of that, I was trying to make sure I was doing a few of the birthday rituals we normally do on birthday mornings. I had asked Wiggy what she wanted for birthday breakfast and thankfully she said powdered donuts. Hallalujah. Powdered donuts and milk I can do. I even threw in a Lean breakfast Pocket for good measure...and protein. :) Luke had to leave early in the morning for work, so he got to give her birthday kisses when she woke up and he was out the door.

 Birthday balloons hanging from her bedroom doorway. Each of the six balloons has $1 inside. She popped the balloons before leaving for school.

 Birthday greetings from cousins Natalie and Holden.

Birthday crown she made in class. Does it get any cuter than this?!

 After school we picked up Wiggy's friend Carlin and she spent the evening celebrating with us. They go to church together and they are in the same class at school again this year. The boys filled up water balloons for the girls and they swam.

 After Luke got home from work we went to BJ's for dinner. 

Macaroni and Cheese was birthday dinner.

 After dinner we came back to the house and had some churro cake from "Large Marge Cakes." 

It was sooooo good. It was worth the drive to LA to pick it up!

We had to drop off Carlin at home before 7:30. After getting back home we opened presents from the family.

 The pug "JJ" she was wanting. More electronic animals to add to her collection. :)

 After dinner daddy made her a princess bubble bath complete with candle, cheese and crackers. Lucky little girl. She doesn't have daddy wrapped around her pinky at all.

Wiggy showing off her dog JJ and a birthday card from Grandma and Grandpa Baer. With their birthday money she decided to take her and Tubbs to Color me Mine.

 

Wiggy celebrated her birthday with Grandma and Grandpa Hogue three weeks before her birthday, because they were headed out camping. 

She chose Red Robin for that birthday meal.

We made a strawberry cake and a chocolate caramel cake with milky way bars on top. 
Don't ask me why we made so much cake. We did end up throwing 90% of them away. :) Grandpa made homemade vanilla ice cream to go with it.

 Opening up some handmade gifts that Grandma made. 

Wiggy loves them.

10 days after her birthday she has a birthday party at the house. Let me tell you that this girl's birthday celebration has lasted a little too long. 

I am partied out. 

We had planned the swim party for noon, but two days before the party we find out her first soccer game of the season is at 11:45 am...so we move it to 3pm. 

 A homemade 6-inch (three layer) vanilla rainbow dots cake with vanilla frosting.

 The party crew

Happy sixth birthday baby cakes. 

You are truly one of a kind. You do your own thing and you do it well. 

We love you and thank Heavenly Father for you everyday. 

 

Mom's Latest

After we got back from our week long getaway to Las Vegas I returned back to work for a few days. On that Wednesday I drove down to my pre-op exam in Marina Del Rey, which took much longer than anticipated. Not only was the drive almost three hours, I was in the office for two hours. I finally got back on the road around noon. I didn't know the time of the procedure for Thursday until this pre-op and we were relieved that it wasn't very early in the morning, so we didn't have to stay the night down here that night.
Thursday morning we are up and on the road by 5:45am. Traffic was much better than anticipated, so we left extra early for nothing. I am sure if we would've left later, we would be stuck in traffic. Anyways, we had an hour to burn, so we went to Panera across the street and fed the kids. I of course couldn't eat or drink anything, so I just watched and took pictures. :)

 I found this cartoon app that's pretty fun.

I get checked in and ready to go after 9am and they tell me the procedure isn't happening until noon. WHAT?! Wishing we all knew this before we got up EARLY this morning. We were all tired and the day was just starting.

Luke and the kids left the room around 11 and by noon they were taking me into surgery. It's really weird because this was the first surgery where I wasn't situated on the operating table BEFORE they put me under. Instead they wheeled me in, put me under and then they were going to move me to the table and situate me themselves. Talk about awkward. I didn't have any clothing on under that lovely gown, so I hope my butt wasn't flying around as they laid me over the table and positioned me. :) I asked about it a few times, so I think they knew I was a little concerned about my modesty. Haha.

Luke and the kids finally got to come in and see me around 4pm. I was still waking up. They had put Vaseline over my eyes and covered them for the procedure, so as I am trying to wake up it's blurry and I can hardly see. The kids were in the room and I am sure I was a real treat to witness. Thank goodness no one captured that on video. 
Within the hour I became more alert and I was able to talk with Luke and the kids. Luke left around 5:30 to drop the boys off camping at Pyramid Lake with the Scouts. This was a good distraction for them, since they'd be gone for two nights. 

My day nurse was amazing. My night nurse was not. I wasn't in love. I began vomiting around 8pm and she didn't seem to care too much. Thankfully the day nurse had left me something on my bed just in case, or I would've made quite a mess all over myself. Luke was gone much longer than anticipated because of traffic. He ended up getting to the room to see me around 10pm. I was so happy to see him and Wiggy. They were staying in a hotel about 10 minutes away. They stayed in the room until close to 11. 
That night I had to use the bathroom every 2 hours because of all the IV fluids. The call button wasn't working, so at one point I sat on the bed crying because I couldn't get up to use the bathroom. I was ready to scream for the stupid nurse. I finally was able to unplug the IV machine from the wall and open the door to tell the nurses I needed some help. I am pretty sure this was the longest night of my life. 
The next morning, my day nurse was back from the day before. I was HAPPY, HAPPY, HAPPY. I was unable to eat anything the day of surgery, but I had to have something to eat before I could be discharged. Luke and Wiggy had breakfast and then headed over to the hospital to wait with me.

 Finally around 1pm I was discharged and we headed back home. We stopped in Valencia so I could use the bathroom and walk for a few minutes. It was nice to be home!
On Saturday I received a fruit basket from grandma and grandpa Baer. We were all very excited and devoured that. It was a nice surprise! My co-workers sent a flower arrangement too. It was very nice to be thought of.

My husband was a wonderful nurse. He brought all of my meals to me in bed because I couldn't sit at the table. I had to capture all of his little notes.

I even got a Sonic delivery one afternoon. I watched a lot of TV and I am not much of a TV watcher. On Netflix I watched the entire series of Arrested Development. It was so lame it was funny. 
Midweek, my friend Terry from church brought us some swig cookies. These were amazing.

My smallest nurse took very good care of me and kept me entertained. She always came running back promptly when I called her. I would have her snuggle up with me and I'd watch Disney channel with her. 

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 A few photos from Pyramid Lake....not sure where Bubba was when the photo below was taken.