It's been a rough past few weeks.  My grandma passed away and we had her funeral and I was pretty out of it for a while.  She was 91 and in bad health and we all knew it was a matter of time, but that doesn't stop it from being very painful when they do pass.  I don't have much time because Elyssa is hungry...so I'll share a few quick pics and then be off again.

Elyssa all dressed up to go to the funeral.  Unfortunately she messed the dress on the way over and ended up wearing a sweatsuit for the service.  She was very good though.  Ethan went to preschool and stayed with Mom because I didn't think he would handle it well.  She only stands like this when leaning against the wall behind her changing table...but she does it for a long time!

Paybacks Bubby...Paybacks!

Oh look...I can pull myself up and play with my feet now...YUMMY!

   I just realized it's been over a month since the last time that I blogged.  Holy Mackeral that went fast!  Things have been busy and when I have had some free time I've been writing.  I'll never make any money at it, but I find it very enjoyable.  I have a ton of stories stuck in my head, things I come up with after reading books or watching movies, so I've started writing them down.  It's something that makes me happy and it's a nice creative outlet for me.  I was beginning to feel so bogged down with day to day stuff and I wasn't really doing anything for me, so now while the kids are napping or at night when Bob's home to help out I sit down and write.  Who knows, maybe some day I'll come up with something that could actually be publishable or something, but I'm not sure I would even want to go there because doing it for a living with pressure would take all of the fun out of it. 

    Other than that I'm feeling pretty good physically finally.  We've passed a really nasty bug back and forth between the four of us over the past couple of weeks.  I've also been losing more weight and without even actually trying.  I just haven't been craving alot of the sweets and things that I generally go for.  Even at Thanksgiving I didn't have any pie or anything.  Just didn't appeal to me.  Now if I could only grow an apathy to Dr.Pepper and Pepsi I'd be all set!  LOL!

    The kids are doing good.  Ethan's been pushing his limits with me big time.  I'll be glad when he outgrows this stage.  Elyssa is doing great, almost sitting up and holds her head up extremely well.  She's also very vocal and smiley.  She's a very patient baby which is really nice since there are lots of times where I have to leave her behind to go help Ethan and stuff and most times she takes it all in stride. 

    In the way of bad and stressful things, My Grandma was admitted to the hospital this week with a really bad respiratory infection and urniary tract infection.  She's really not doing well and the doctors say that she's showing signs of organ failure now.  I think I'm living in denial though.  I know she's 91 and she has all of these other health issues, but when we went to see her yesterday she looked so much better than she had when I went to see her the day before.  She had more color and to me her cough seemed better, but it's the things you can't see that are really hitting her hardest.  I guess that UTI has her kidneys shutting down and she was diagnosed a couple of years ago with Congestive heart failure, so I know that recovery isn't as plausible as I'd like.  I just don't think I can deal with it now, so I'm hiding.  Anyway, please keep both her an my family in your prayers please.

    Okay, well I need to get going taking Ethan to preschool.  I want to add a few quick pics and I'll try to add more later.

   I know, I know...my lack of blogging has gotten worse instead of better.  I have no really "good" excuse for it either.  I find when I have the ambition that Elyssa is in a want to be held mood and when she's down for a nap or willing to have some alone time I'm usually wrapped up in doing something else. 

      To top it all off, I found a new book series last week that I got totally into.  It's called the Twilight Saga by Stephenie Meyer.  I've heard of it before, but never really took the time to read it and then I saw the preview for the movie coming out and it got me a little more interested and I usually like to read the book first, so I picked it and the second book in the series up thinking that since they were over 500 pages each that it would take me quite a while to read.  I was taken by a great surprise to find that I got so wrapped up in them that I had completed the first two books in less than 48 hours and ended up dragging my poor babies out into the rain that second evening to pick up the last two books of the series...and then managed to finish those in about 36 hours!  Yes...they were that good.....no...my house did not get cleaned, the laundry did not get done, my TV never turned on (and for those that know what a TV addict I am that is REALLY saying something), and Ethan got three and a half days to watch as many cartoons and play as many video games as he wanted.  I know, I'm horrible, but I just couldn't pull myself away for longer than the amount of time it took to take care of the kids, change diapers, make meals and scarf them down!  I really got into the Harry Potter books, but nothing like I did with these books....and then after I finished the books I went online and read more about the author and the coming movie and found that she had started on a rewrite of the first book from the point of view of the male lead, but that a rough draft of the manuscript was leaked online so she posted it so her fans wouldn't run out and download it illegally and read the 270 page manuscript online in 7 hours and then went back and reread the first book again and am slowly working on the last book again (they were my favorites). 

        Then, after my week of ignoring all of my responibilities I finally woke up to reality on Saturday and started doing laundry and when I went back to the basement to get my first load out of the washer I walked down to find that one of our copper pipes in the basement had sprung a high pressure pinhole leak and soaked the floor and destroyed three of our celiing tiles.  We then had a three day saga of trying to get the pipe fixed.  We had to call the water company to shut off the water because our main shutoff didn't shut it down completely, replaced the leaking joint, called them back the next day to turn it back on when a DIFFERENT joint decided to let go...had to have them shut it back off....Bob went to the hardware store and was suggested to use a different joint, but he didn't do it quite right and so the next time they came to turn on it didn't work....so then his Dad helped him fix it and then we finally had water again Tuesday morning.  It was fun...let me tell ya!

     Tuesday was a good day too though....it was Ethan's first program at school.  They had a quick ten minute program where they sang songs about halloween and fall...it was really cute.  Ethan was one of the most energetic of the kids up there.  He was so excited that he was literally bouncing...but I'm sure having both Daddy and Papa and Grandma Harris there added to that too!  He was really cute.  The video is really, really dark, but I'm going to try to add one of them on here if I can...as well as a couple of pics.

Ethan's in the middle of the back row...he's the one who screams "Halloween"  when they sing "Because it's Halloween"....they all did it in practice when I would watch them before we had to pick him up the past few weeks...but he was the only one to do it...repeatedly....during the program.  I have a feeling that he's one of the more energetic and challenging ones in his class.  He is learning alot though.  The other day he took a toy that sounded like a bell and started walking around the house shaking saying "Times up Boys, Times up Girls, time to line up!"  He's learning, but I'm sure there are times that they get frustrated with him...I can't blame them....he's definitely hitting that lets see how far I can push the limits age.  I hope he gets past the worst of it soon because it's definitely tiring.  We didn't notice until we watched the video afterward that he was also a wee bit pushy during the dancing part at the end.  He got into quite a bit of trouble for that one...and we had video proof to back it up!