Did I remember to pack the.....

I'm packing right now and thought I'd take a few moments out and sit my achy back down and update one last time before we leave. We are at T minus 14 hours till blast off...give or take a few minutes. I am just about to start actually putting things in suitcases, tubs, and containers and once they go in, it's the real deal. There is SOOOO much to remember when you have a child and when your pregnant (at least if you want to be somewhat comfy). Check out the pic of how much stuff I'm packing just for me and Elle and that's not even all of it! Pray for us as we travel all day tomorrow. Enjoy the random pics of Elle that we took today. I think she enjoyed her "pullin" (pudding) quite a bit!

In Memory

This morning Leo was put down. I was brushing him and noticed another gaping wound at the base of his tail. I could tell by looking that it was going to be something where they would have to put him to sleep again, clean it out, and staple it together. This would be the 3rd time in a year that they would do this. It's about $150 each time they do and then you have to keep the wound clean and give him antibiotics for 2 weeks. We leave Saturday for Blue Haven for 2 weeks. Because we don't have the money to continue getting him fixed every time he gets in a fight, this was my only option. You may wonder how it gets so bad without me noticing...he has so much fur and it's so thick that you can't tell until a wound starts getting really infected so I wasn't noticing until it was really bad. Anyways, I'm okay I guess. Elle doesn't know yet, but I'll just try to explain that he went to Kitty Heaven. I don't want to tell her that he got sick or had to go to the doctor because I'm afraid that she'll then be scared when I go to the doctor for Ava. I'll be fine, but please don't call and ask if I'm okay because I'm okay as long as you don't ask. This is probably my last post before CBH. Sorry it's so depressing but it's my life. I'm okay :)

He got me

Last night after church, Shawn and I had to stop by our friends business where I sell my invitations. She has her son's birthday coming up and wanted to give me an order for invitations and needed me to see her sketch and idea and get working on it. So we head over there after church and I bound up the steps and knock and the door opens and about 35 people yell SURPRISE!!!! and then break into Happy Birthday to You. I almost fell over. I immediately had the hot flash of my life. I could not believe he had pulled this off without even a slight hint! I was blindsided. So all Shawn cared about was showing me the cake that he was so so proud of. Isn't it a lovely picture and very flattering of me? He didn't blacken that tooth for the cake picture because I had eaten cake and stuck it on my tooth and had a picture taken about 1 1/2 years ago. All people could say to me throughout the whole party was "I have never seen a face be that red in my entire life!" Well NO KIDDING!!!

By the grace of God

Yep, by the grace of God, Elle is still alive this week and so am I. :) Shawn comes home today and then will only be gone next Thursday all day and then one weekend in August and that's it! Of course everything was just starting to get into a groove and settle down so go figure that now he's coming home! It will be nice to not be "on" 24 hours a day though. I have a few little updates that you may or may not need to know about so here goes:
1. Went to the Dr. yesterday. Everything looks wonderful, I'm right on schedule, healthy, and Ava's in a head down position.
2. We will be at Camp Blue Haven for 2 weeks starting July 1st and returning July 14th. No blogs during that time. We love mail though and I know you all already know this and have wrapped my giftS but my birthday (#28) falls on July 13th which is during camp. So, you have 2 options....either send the $$$ and gifts to camp, or have my party after camp :) Either is ok with me. But truly, whether you get me anything or not, please write shawn, me and elle. WE LOVE MAIL WHILE AT CAMP! Here's the address:
Shawn, Emma and Elle Montandon
c/o Camp Blue Haven
HC 81 Box 304
Las Vegas, NM 87701
Mail runs slow so get going because if you send it late, we prob. won't get it!
3. It's raining, it's pouring, I'm havin a baby shower and it won't be boring! he he he
Here's my official baby shower date if you can/want to come:
August 13th 2-4 pm in the fellowship hall at Johnson St. church of Christ here in Greenville.
There will be free cake and punch and air conditioning, mostly for my sake, so at least you get something for all your travels.
4. Many of you have asked what I'm doing to make a nursery since I have a lot lot lot of scrapbook stuff and a room that was holding it all. We moved all crafting stuff to our room and put my sewing machine behind our door in our room. Here's a pic of what our room looks like. I will do another post eventually on the nursery before and after but here's our room. I LOVE THE WAY IT'S SET UP.....blessing in disguise.

Now this is heaven on earth!!!

Help me!!!

I have tremendous and I mean tremendous respect for people who stay at home with a two year old and have no help ever! I am so exhausted with Elle and it's only been 3 days since Shawn left on his mission trip. I'm sure it doesn't help that I'm 27 weeks pregnant (6 months) and it's 149 degrees outside. Here's an example of Elle's wonderful 2's behavior just this afternoon. After she awoke from her nap, she wanted to paint and I had planned on doing that anyway since we don't do it more than once a week. So, it's kind of a special thing that she really likes. I had even bought some sponge shapes for her to play with in the paint. I don't mind her painting but it's a big process to get it all out and then when she's done clean it all up. Anyway, about 45 seconds into it she decides she doesn't want to do it anymore which would have been annoying and okay except that she decided to tell me by freaking out and bawling as if she was being forced to do it. So there's one example. The other was that I have had a recipe for chocolate chip cookies from scratch that I've been saving to do with Elle. She loves helping make stuff in the kitchen so I thought this would make her happy and be something else we don't get to do all that often. Well we had a great time making all the cookies and she loved mixing and pouring and all that. So I put a batch in the oven and I start cleaning up our mess and she's on the floor smiling and I look loving at her (are you picturing a sweet mother/daughter moment?) and say rhetorically "Was that fun Elle?" She looked loving at me and said "No." I thought some very nasty thoughts and all I could come up with to say was "God doesn't like it when you lie." "If you say you didn't have fun again when you know you did, you will get a spanking." How do you explain to a 2 year old???? Thinking of what I said sort of makes me chuckle now....which is easier to do now that she's been in bed for 30 minutes! :)

Recycling

Shawn and I have always loved being able to recycle things and get every penny out of our stuff. That was never more apparent than last night when Shawn was cleaning up his side of the closet. He found his box of HotWheels from when he was a little boy and got them down for Elle. Well, she LOVES them! She lined them all up and called it her parking lot. Her favorite is the motorcycle...which I believe Shawn planted in her head. In these pictures I am reminded a lot of myself as a little girl. Besides looking very similar, I was always surrounded by "boy" toys. Of course also notice in the picture that she had her hot pink flip flops right in the middle of her cars.

Then what are you?

Shawn and Elle were talking today and Shawn said "Are you a cutie pie?" Elle said "No!" so Shawn said, "Then what are you?" She responded the only way she knew how....she said "Gorgeous!"

The Discovery Science Place

Having a pretend meal in a restaurant...it was pizza and coke if you wanted to know.

Elle telling the news

Her favorite part...rocking the baby in the pretend hospital nursery.

Checking out the human body....this was kind of hard to explain to her!

Running the ship

The Brookshire's Museum and the Zoo

With the flamingos at the Zoo

Up close and personal with a rattler at the Brookshire's Museum

Riding a pair of turtles at the playground outside the museum

Elle's not too sure of what's behind us...a lion about to devour a little gazelle

Heading to the zebras which is all she was interested in until we got there and then she didn't want to see them anymore....go figure.

Here come the pictures

Playing "tent" with cousin Hiney and Laura

Playing at Gramme's house

Elle and Hiney

Playing piano at Papaw and Carolyn's

Rolling her hair with Grandma

Soaking my feet

As I write this, I am soaking my feet in a big bowl of hot water. I have been home from Tyler for 7 hours. Elle and I took a "vacation" and I use that word lightly because I don't feel more rested! We went to Tyler from Monday until today because Shawn was headed to a camp in Oklahoma that wasn't too kid friendly. Anyway, we had ourselves a time like no other. I took over 100 pictures in just those few days. Since our alone time is getting closer to ending for a while, I wanted to spend time just with Elle letting her experience new things or things maybe she doesn't get to do too often. Here's a run-down of how our week went. We went to the zoo, to her cousin Hiney's house numerous times to play, the Brookshires museum and playground, Papaw and Carolyn's house to play piano, the Discovery Place, the mall, worship and Bible class(her teacher was brave...she had about 10 or more kids and finger painted with them...all on a Wednesday nite!) Dairy Queen to play, Toys R' Us, a few other stores to shop, and of course Gramme's house to play with Gramme, Grandma, and "Mack" (Max the Chihuahua).....all in 3 1/2 days. We are both exhausted, but we had a wonderful time and I was so glad I got to do that with her. In the next few blogs you will find loads of pictures. It's either that or burn 20 copies of all the pics and send them to you all....no thanks! Pray for me that I recover from this adventure before September 18th! I have not felt this tired in a long time!!!

A very wet morning

Have you ever heard the sound of running water during a sermon? Well Shawn and I can now answer yes. With about 10 minutes to go, Elle looked at us and whispered " I need to pee pee." She then whispered it again as I was rounding up the bag and all needed supplies to take her to the bathroom. Then all the sudden I hear running water....well sort of a fast trickle. She is looking at Shawn with a weird look and Shawn is looking at me with an even weirder one. Shawn, as usual when it comes to any unexpected bodily fluid, freezes in place and loses the ability to solve a problem. So, I dive in. First, off come the drippy shoes, next the soaking wet bloomers and panties. The bib comes out for clean up on aisle 6 and then with her cute white bootie out for the world to see, a pull up is pulled up. All wet items are put under the pew, the bib is put over the wet spot, and I sit back up and look straight ahead as if nothing has happened and also I unpause Shawn. Elle, you can tell feels bad about it but still asks for gum. So that's the 1st interesting event of wetness. Then, to startle all the folks at our local italian food place, a waiter spills Shawn's water all over me, and to the untrained observer, they see a pregnant woman with a wet substance all over her dress and on the floor under her seat.....I'm sure it was an interesting site for the lunch time crowd. Hope this gave you a little giggle for the day. I'm headed to dry off and do some laundry.

Finally more space!

Okay, so it's not more space in our house, but it's a house with more space. We were over at our friends house last night and they asked if Elle wanted a doll house. Of course I never say no to something free so we went home with a doll house. Elle told me before she went to bed that she wanted it up on the kitchen table the next morning. So 10:30 last night I had the thing out on the driveway scrubbing away taking off 10 years of dirt so that it could be on the table this morning. The first thing she said when she woke up this morning was "doll house on table!" She loves her doll house and the plan is to buy a few accessories while in Tyler next week so that it's not just the house. Right now it has a Barbie car, a Dora baby and a plastic girl doll that works at McDonalds. Also the thing on her nose in one of the pictures is a sticker she refused to take off for the picture.