I'll see you soon, Grandma

My Grandma passed away early this morning.  She's been very sick for a couple of months now, and this past Wednesday, she was admitted to the hospital.  We were told that she wouldn't be coming home - that she only had days left.
So we were "expecting it" but in all reality, how can you really be prepared for someone you love to leave this world?  God has given our family so much peace through this whole thing.  This peace that passes all understanding, the peace that only comes from our great God is unbelievable.  It truly is.  Jehovah-Shalom is who we are clinging to right now.
I love my Grandma so much.   She has lived with my mom for over 40 years.  When I was younger, having my grandma living with us was all I ever knew.  She would be sitting on the couch and I would sit on the floor at her feet and lay my head in her lap and she would rub my head.  I remember laying on the kitchen counter and her washing my hair in the sink.  I would ask her to do that often, I loved it!  She would go mall-walking with her boyfriend John (who has also passed) a few times a week, and since she watched me while my mom worked, she would always take me with her.  I cherish so much the time I got to spend with her.  Time that a lot of kids don't get with their grandparents, as a lot of kids don't live with their grandparents.
She was a legend on the piano - and she played by ear!  Rumor has it that she played piano in a mob bar back in her day...and that's where she met her husband (my grandpa) Bill.  He came in and told her he was taking her out of there.  Apparently the mob boss didn't like him and told him not to come around anymore.  He didn't listen though, he kept coming back for her...which is a risky move, if you ask me.  My grandma fell in love with him and eventually he did get her out of there.  The boss told my grandma that she was the only reason Bill was alive! :)   She had her wild days, for sure! 
I'm forever grateful that my kids got to know her and got to make memories with her!  On a weekly basis, sometimes daily, my mom would call me and tell me that my Grandma was asking if the kids could come over.  She loved them so much, and they loved her!
She was truly an amazing lady!  Feisty and stubborn, but so loving!  She loved her family something fierce!
We are confident that she knew Christ, so now that she's gone, it's peaceful to think that she's seen Jesus and she's walking those streets of gold, no longer limited by her earthly body!  I'm sure she's having an awesome family reunion with all her loved ones that have gone before her.  Thank you, Jesus for the confidence we have only in You!! I'm so happy knowing that I will see her again!
I already miss her like crazy, though! 
I love you so much, Grandma!  Thank you for all you've done for me throughout my life!  You were the best Grandma I could ever have!
I can't wait till I can see you again!

My Grandma in her element :)

Dancing at my cousin's wedding - Sept. 2012

We love you, Grandma!

 

Family pictures

We FINALLY took some pictures as an entire family! 

When a nurse says she's giving your 3 year old cocaine

I swear, that happened.
Jett was jumping on the bed and like Elijah did just 6 short months ago, landed on his back and hit his head on the corner of a table and needed to go to the hospital.
We dropped the two older boys off at my mom's (the girls were already there) because I didn't want to take him by myself because, well, for one thing I'm a baby and for another, I knew I'd need help holding him down while they fixed him up.  Mike was on call at work, so we wanted to stay fairly close to our house in case he got called in.  We went to the hospital where Jett was born instead of going to the children's hospital downtown. 
We drive by this particular hospital frequently since it's so close to our house and Jett knows he was born there.  The weirdo loves this hospital, for some reason.  He was completely fine, you know, other than having a gigantic gash in his head so he was totally acting normal.  As we're driving into the parking lot, he says "Mommy, can I come out of your tummy again?"  Really.  Really?  No, dude.  That's a one time deal.
He wouldn't let me get near his head.  Not to look at it, for sure not to touch it. So anyway, he was so excited to be at the hospital even though he knows that the doctor is gonna have to touch his head.  We get back to the exam room and everything was going swimmingly until the nurse tells me and Mike that she's gonna be putting a medication on his head to numb it before they put the staples in.  Okay, that's normal.  No worries from either one of us.  Until she tells us that the medication contains ^something I can't remember^ and cocaine.  She tapes the cotton ball to his head and leaves the room, as Mike and I stand there completely dumbfounded.  I know I probably should have asked her if it really was cocaine that she was putting on my child's open wound, but I was just confused.  I looked at Mike and said "Did she just say cocaine?"  His "Uh, yeah" answer led me to believe that he was just as confused as I was.  They came back in the room 10 minutes later and put 3 staples in...he cried worse than I've ever heard him cry...and we were done.  
That happened on Saturday night.  Today, my sister-in-law, who's a nurse, told me that she probably meant lidocaine.* Which is kind of what I assumed she meant all along.  But really?  How in the world do you get the two confused?  I'm not a nurse, and I wouldn't confuse lidocaine with cocaine. ?? 
Jett's fine, by the way.  It takes a whole lot more than 3 staples in his head to stop him. 
If he did in fact get high, we didn't know it.  He was acting the exact same way he always does. :/
After we left, I asked him if he still liked the hospital.  His answer was, "No! My teacher kept hurting me!"   I don't know.  The only place he has teachers is at church.  He doesn't like going in his Sunday school class.  And if he didn't like Sunday School before, now he's really gonna hate it!

* Blogger, you are wrong.  I did not misspell lidocaine, so you can remove your stupid red "you can't spell, you moron" squiggles.  Thank you very much.

A getaway for 2

The first and only time Mike and I had been on a vacation with just the two of us was on our honeymoon.  We've been married for 12 years, and our kids are getting older (as in, they no longer need nourishment from me), so we decided that it was time for a kid-free vacation.  Just us.

We both wanted to go somewhere tropical, so deciding the destination was pretty easy.  Somewhere in the Caribbean!  I literally researched for months and months before we made our decision to go to the Mayan Riviera, more specifically, the city of Tulum, Mexico.  My oldest sister has been to Riviera Maya a couple of times, and she always comes back with the most amazing pictures!  She said that we must check out the Mayan ruins in Tulum, so we just decided to stay at a resort in that same city!  We stayed at Dreams Tulum and it was fantastic!!   

The coast of Mexico as we were flying in

The main lobby of the resort

This was where we ate our first meal!  The view was amazing! :)

Just more of the resort's landscaping...

A cenote (which is a natural sink-hole...something like that) that was on their property

The activity pool

The quiet pool

One of the bars where we tried a variety of drinks ;)

Look how precious the workers are in their fancy little hats :)

They stamped these designs into all the ashtrays.  Pointless in my opinion, but whatever.  They really do strive to make the place as pretty and relaxing as possible!  So that's nice. 

 

The ocean was incredible!!  Really, that was one of my main must-haves, a nice turquoise ocean, and it definitely delivered!

We took a cab to the Mayan ruins, which were only about 5 minutes away.  It was beautiful!  The buildings were incredible and the view of the ocean was breathtaking.  Seriously!!!  It was gorgeous!

By the way, I didn't change the color or anything on these pictures at all. They are completely unedited.  The water really is that blue!

These sweet little lizards were everywhere!  Here in the ruins and all over our resort as well.

The walk through this jungle was probably the most peaceful walk I've ever taken! :)

We decided to wake up early one morning so that we could watch the sunrise together.  It was just as beautiful as I'd hoped it would be! :) 

This was the most relaxing vacation ever!  I had so much fun with the love of my life, my best friend, my sweetie!  I'm so happy he talked me into doing this!  We had such an amazing time together!

 

To say I was extremely nervous about leaving the kids would be the understatement of the year.  Not because I thought that they wouldn't be taken care of, but because I've never been away from them for more than a day!  I didn't want them to think that we weren't coming back (mostly Jett...I knew the older kids would get it).   Not having ever worked since Laney was born, I am not used to being away from them or them from me for so long!  In fact, the morning we left, I woke up about an hour early...you know how it's hard to sleep the night before a trip?  I woke Mike up and told him that, even though we would get to the airport way earlier than we needed to be there, we had to leave immediately, because the longer I laid there thinking about how much I would miss them was just making me anxious.  I had to get out of there!  ha!  I know that it was good to get a little independence (for them and for me!), so I'm glad we went.  But man, was I ready to see them when it was time to come home!   They did awesome and didn't cry for us at all, which was such a relief to me!  I'm so happy they did so well!

My amazing mother-in-law stayed at our house for the 6 days we were gone and took amazing care of them.  I don't know how we will ever make this up to her, but we are so thankful for a Mom and a Ma-Maw who was willing to do this for us!!!   My mom took the boys a couple of days, so a big thanks to her, too!!!  My mom and my mother-in-law are pretty much rockstars!!  We literally could not have done this without them!!!  I love both of them so much!

I miss the beach.  Can we go back now?