I give you Rascal.....

Dax and I have totally lost our minds!!



Kirsten decided that she did indeed want a dog. Since the other three all have their own dogs it was either get her a dog or pay for years of therapy because we wouldn't let her have one.



Up until she decided this, she had been our favorite child. We told them all that now that title is back up for grabs.



I'm just kidding about the favorite thing.



Kinda'



No, really I'm just kidding.



Anyway, we went to the shelter on the 26th and left with Rascal.









As you can see, he photographs as delightfully as Kuddles did.


But, we may still have to pay for therapy.




For Dax & I!!!


What is wrong with us?



Seriously! We must have lost our minds.

I wonder who

Someone has been playing with my camera when I wasn't paying attention.












I won't give any names here but I'm pretty sure her initials are Addison Noel Verleye!

Merry Christmas!!

Wishing you all a Merry Christmas!


We had a delightful day at our house.


The kids woke up quite early but had mercy on their father and I and waited patiently until around 7-7:30 before they woke us up.

The tree and presents after Santa's visit.

Opening of the presents.

When Abigail first got home from the hospital I made the other children wear masks until Abigail was feeling better. Addison wears hers all the time now.

I hope your Christmas celebration was a joy as well.

An angel's voice

Earlier in the evening on the night that Abigail wound up in the hospital, Kirsten had her choir concert at Emily Ann Theatre. The kids all did a really good job -- but it was COLD out there.

Kirsten is the second from the left in the front row.



I think she's really enjoyed being in the choir and not having her brother or sisters participate. It's been HER thing. And that's good.

Too tired to care

I spent the day on Sunday running around like a crazy person trying to get the last of the Christmas shopping done.


As I walked out of the last store I caught my reflection in the car window.



*Gasp!*



No wonder the cashier kept looking at me all weird like.





In some stores the lights cause a terrible glare on my glasses. I had pushed them up onto my head and then just used them when I needed to see the price. Obviously my hair got stuck in them at some point and I didn't even notice.


By this time I was so tired that I didn't even care that I had been walking around the store for who knows how long with my hair looking ever so awesome.

This was never in my plans for the weekend.






Abigail started feeling bad and running a fever on Wednesday night so we kept her home from school on Thursday. By Thursday evening she was much worse so we took her to the clinic in town.


They took her vitals and then wouldn't even see her. They sent us straight to the emergency room so that she could have a chest x-ray done right away.


The doctor at that hospital didn't think much of it and was going to send us home until her oxygen level kept dropping. He decided that without a staff pediatrician that they weren't prepared to treat her. He put her in an ambulance and sent us to the children's hospital in Austin.


That makes for a very scary night. Especially since about 5 years ago we went through a very similar scenario with Abigail and she wound up having to have emergency surgery and being in the hospital for 2 weeks.


Fortunately we caught it earlier this time (I think we would have been in the same boat as before if we had waited until Friday morning to go to the doctor) and she was able to come home on Saturday afternoon.


She scared us for sure, but we're thankful that she's home and doing better every day.


Even her brother and sisters were worried (not that all of them would admit to it!)

Silly girl

So Addison walks into the kitchen the other night and says, "What's up? My mother from another mother."




Huh?

Better than a dog sled

Since we live in a relatively warm climate and don't have much chance of snow we don't ever get the joy of having a ride on a dog sled. I think Abigail's found the answer to this problem.




(Did you notice Abigail's socks? She matched them all by herself.....we're so proud of her. LOL)


In all reality, I don't think he even notices her there. When she's trying to get him to stay beside her and holding onto his collar he just drags her off to do whatever it is he wants to do. Often times she's lying down while he does it.

He's just so goofy!


He had been dragging her around for quite some time but when I got the camera out Abigail was trying not to let him do it anymore. She stops whatever she's doing every time she sees me get the camera out. She's afraid it will end up on my blog.







Where would she ever get that idea?

Vegas, Baby!!

Dax and I have been gone the past week to Las Vegas.


It's strictly for educational purposes.


No, really. It is!


We attend an accounting conference there every year. I guess it doubles as our vacation too.

Here's the view from our room.

My cousin happened to be in town on a weekend trip so we met him and his wife and had dinner with them too. It was really nice to see him. It had been a long time.

We had a really good time and went to see a few shows. I think one of the funniest things that we saw, though was the 'talent' in the kareoke bar in the casino next door. Some of these people were just too much.

I think this guy thinks he's Edward Cullen.

You would never guess but this guy could wrap like nobody's business.

Elvis was in the building. (I couldn't believe that people actually dressed the part and showed up with props, too.)

He was even working the crowd on his way out!!

This lady was about 80 and had the Good Witch cut out. After she took of the Bad Witch costume, under it she's dressed as Dorothy and had a whole little dance routine to go with her song. It was sooooo funny!

I wanted to actually record the whole Dorothy routine but while I was trying to get my camera to the right setting a man (a very drunk man) in a Captain America suit came over to see if I wanted my picture taken with him. By the time he finally went away, Dorothy was already done with her performance.

What I found really interesting was that in this casino they wouldn't let any bad words be said if they were in the song. Hmm....let's see. You have to be 21+ to be in there, people are gambling, as long as they're gambling free booze abounds, and 10 feet out the door there are people handing out 'hooker trading cards'. But bad words is where they draw the line?! Really? That's what's too much. Gambling, booze, naked women....just the norm. Cursing......No freaking way!! Too funny.

Here are some of the people that we just saw out on the street.


I thought it was funny that they actually had to put up a sign to tell people not to try to sit on the fake hedge bike. You know they did it because they had so many people trying.
This iguana was huge. The poor thing was probably freezing to death though because it was only in the 40's out there.


There were people dressed up as all kinds of characters and they were everywhere. I think they do it for tips to take your picture with them.


It was interesting to say the least.

Giving Thanks

We had a great Thanksgiving Day.


It was at our house again this year, and as usual there was an insane amount of food to eat.


There was a lot of family with us and this year we invited some friends over too.


We all had a good time with lots of chatting and laughing. One of the high lights of the day was when I asked Dax to see if he could get the chocolate fountain going. I had already poured chocolate in there but it wouldn't move it to the top. So he pulled the cover off to see if he could get the mechanism spinning. Well, he did get it spinning if only long enough to splatter everything in the vicinity with chocolate. It was like something out of the movies with the chocolate getting slung everywhere.


Aaahhh, good times. Good times.



Unfortunatel I didn't think to take pictures!!


Hope yours was a joy too.

11th Birthday

Okay, so now you know the story of the day they were born. So here's some pictures from their party this year.


We just had a party at home with family this time. I thought it would be easier that way, but I don't really think it was.

Some of the enthusiastic party goers.

Even the paparazzi were there.

All in all it was a good day and I think everyone had a good time.

11 years ago today

I woke up in the morning not feeling well. I had been up several times during the night to give myself another bolus from the terbutalene pump.

I had been going over my allowed four contractions per hour for much of the night.


To make matters worse, every square inch of my body was itchy. And it wasn't an itch that I could scratch and make it feel better. It's like I itched on the inside where I couldn't get to it.


But, it was a Saturday and there were errands that needed to be taken care of so I sent Dax (although he was reluctant) off to take care of them. (I had been confined to bed in the hospital for seven weeks at this point.)


Anyway, Dax left and took care of the must-do errands and got back to the hospital as quickly as he could. I still didn't feel well, though.


Sometime after lunch my parents dropped by the hospital to visit. As they did more days than not.


Then a short time later my brother and sister-in-law stopped by to visit too. My parents were still there.


Dax was starting to get a little upset because people were showing up to visit and I still wasn't feeling well.


Then, to upset him even further, my in-laws stopped by with my sister-in-laws boyfriend in tow.


Dax was about to lose his mind by then.


I still didn't feel well. All of the medications had been unable to get my contractions back in line. They had put in a catheter because my bladder was full, causing more contractions, and I couldn't get it empty on my own.


They finally made the decision to move me up to labor and delivery with the assurances that they would get the contractions stopped and get me back down to my regular room.


When they got me to labor and delivery the nurse gave me a shot of Demerol.


Then the doctor on call came in to check on me and again assured us that everything would be fine. They'd get things under control and back to my room in not time at all. She said that we would probably go through this whole process several times before we actually made it to delivery.


Then she actually checked my cervix.


That's when things really felt like they got crazy!!


I was already feeling the effects of the Demerol and then she told us that I was dilated to 8 cm already and that the babies were coming. And sooner rather than later.


They called my regular doctor (she wanted to do the delivery), whisked me off to the operating room, and gave Dax some scrubs to change into.


When my doctor arrived I had already gotten the epidural so that she could come right in and get the job taken care of.


(I thought it was pretty funny that because I had been in bed so long and because one of the babies was being pushed so far down into the birth canal that my legs wouldn't both stay on the operating table. Every time they put one leg on the table, the other leg fell off of it. They finally tied them together with towels. lol)


The babies were delivered at 9:30, 9:31, 9:31, and 9:32 p.m. The nurses showed them to me as they whisked them away to the NICU.


Everyone was healthy and it was kismet that everyone had shown up at the hospital when they did. When we found out that they were coming, nobody would have been able to get to the hospital before they were born. God works in mysterious ways.

Cupcakes for school

The girls wanted cupcakes to take to their classes at school to celebrate their birthday.


Wyatt has decided that he's too cool for just about everything these days. (eye roll here)


Abigail took these. They're supposed to be like dreamsicles.




Kirstens have star shaped sugar cookies on top of cupcakes.




Addison's looked like little hamburgers. I'll have to find a picture of them.


Now I just have to make some for their party. Don't think they'll be all cute, though. I'm tired. :0)

Curls

How is it that I have such curly hair and none of my children do?


Abigail has tragically straight hair and she longs for curls.



This is the only way to get curl into her hair.




While her hair is wet I take little strips of fabric and roll the hair around it and tie it up.


Then, in the morning when I take it out her hair will be curly.


Unfortunately, by the time she gets home from school it will be almost completely gone again.

That's Officer Verleye to you.

Dax has been attending the Sheriff's Citizens Academy classes.


Last night was his ride along with one of the officers.


He took his own badge with him.





(it's the Marshall's badge that the kids got when we went to Dodge City)


I'm sure the officer thought Dax was nuts. When he got in the car Dax asked him when he would get to drive, what kind of gun he would be issued, if he should go ahead and put his badge on, etc.


He had a great time and was like a kid at Christmas. He was still so geeked up about it when he got home that he had trouble going to sleep even though he had been up all night.

Thankfulness

Is that even a word?


Guess it is now.




To celebrate Thanksgiving this year I put up a paper tree in our entryway.







Each night (in theory it's each night) we each add a new leaf with something we are thankful for.


Here's my first leaf.




In case you can't read it, it says 'I'm thankful to be married to a stud like Dax.'


Now stop laughing.


That's been what I've been thankful for since we got married. Before then I was thankful to be with a stud like Dax.


There's a story behind it.


The firm he worked for way back then did a lot of medical practice management. After Dax had been out to one of the doctor's offices several of the women working there asked their boss to enquire as to his relationship status.


Of course when his boss told him about it, Dax couldn't wait to get home to tell me just how lucky I was to be the one with him.


It was close to Thanksgiving when it happened so since then I've always said that I was so thankful to be with a stud like him. (use sarcastic tone here)

Bodies in the trash

The dogs got into a box that was sitting out by the trash cans waiting for garbage day. I asked (what other people may refer to as 'told') the kids to pick up the mess and put it in the trash cans.



Wonder of wonder, they actually did it. And without thirty minutes of them whining and me yelling.




But then, the next morning when we headed out to the car to leave I saw this....




Hmmmm.....


I asked the kids, 'Did you find any bodies in the yard that you forgot to tell me about?'



They, of course, all thought I was nuts.



When I pointed to the reason for my question more than one child may have told me that yes they did.


After further investigation it turns out it was just a doll.


Whew!

-------------------------------------------------------------

On another note I would like to take the opportunity to thank all of those that have and do serve in the military to protect us and our country. We appreciate you more than you'll ever know.


I especially thank (and love) my two favorite veterans.

Introduction

One day a couple of weeks ago Dax had only one thing to handle for the day. (See here.)


Well, he decided to leave the house with the kids and forgot to take his brain with him. I'm certain that he had lost his mind, that's the only explanation there is.



When I got home from the office Kirsten and Abigail were climbing the fence out front so they could be the first to tell me.




'Dad got a dog! Dad got a dog!'




Huh? They can't be serious!!




Oh......they were.




Meet Kuddles. I wanted to take a picture of her to post here and she cooperated beautifully so I thought I would post them all.











Wonderful, aren't they?


If you look closely you can see that I even had to chase her around the house.


I looked at all of her paperwork from the shelter and it all has 'FOSTER' written across the top of it. What I find really interesting about that is that they collected the adoption fee when Dax decided to 'foster' her. And, nobody has called at all to check on her or to say that they found a home. Oh, and her picture disappeared from their website right away.



Yeah, foster. Whatever!!



Actually, she's been a pretty good dog so far. She's still too skinny though.