Getting ready for the holidays and cleaning house

I am trying to take advantage of Emily being home from the hospital to get our house cleaned up. It is absolutely embarassing what it looks like right now. We had some friends over last weekend (hi Lacey!) and I realized after they left how horrible my house looks right now. It seems like we are never home long enough to complete a project. Mainly what I do is just organize the crap wherever it is, and try to keep the house functioning. What I am going to start this week is really CLEANING. Not just putting things in neater piles, but finding a home or organizing system for the things. Taking more stuff to Goodwill. Giving more things away. Selling some things we don't need anymore, to make a little extra holiday money.

While doing that, I am soaking up Emily. She is doing pretty good this week! KNOCK ON WOOD she has done well since we came home from the hospital this last stay. She is still on TPN 100%, gets medications in her j-tube, and her g-tube drains to gravity 24 hours. It's actually a gj-tube, although we are discussing with the GI putting in a seperate j-tube sometime in the near future. She relies on a LOT of medications to get through the day happily and without retching and crying all day, but it is what it is. When she is happy and smiles at you and wants to cuddle, it makes every rough moment disappear.

Jacob is doing great as well. We get his grades via email each week, and I can always keep tabs on him. His lowest grade right now is a B+. That makes my mommy heart so happy. He is such a well adjusted, smart, amazing little man. He still takes tennis lessons twice a week and is getting really good at it. It's like watching a real tennis game when they play!

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving at my parents house. The food was all delicious, and I am eating leftover Oreo cheesecake as I type this. Yum! It was great to be out of the hospital and surrounded by family and love. We took the kids to Legoland yesterday, and it was so much fun. Emily was able to go on almost every single ride, including the roller coasters! It was a great family day. Hopefully we will continue to be HOME and celebrate the rest of the holiday season here. We pulled down all the Christmas boxes this evening, and will start decorating tomorrow. I love Christmas decorations!

I hope everyone is doing good. I am behind on reading blogs and commenting and catching up. Hopefully I will have time to do that this week, in between laundry/cleaning/Emily. :)

Thankful for Thanksgiving

We are home now, and so thankful to be here! The good days more than make up for the not-so-good days. Emily is sleeping a lot lately, but when she's awake she's happy. She is always in and out and in and out of the hospital, so we love the out times. This weekend we got to spend a day at Disneyland with a bunch of friends. Emily did great! She loves going on rides, especially Small World. The girl is so happy being pushed around for hours in her wheelchair. :) We are getting ready for Thanksgiving. Cooking, cleaning, doing laundry in my brand new washing machine. It's the little things in life that make me happy sometimes. Thanks for checking in on my Princess. Things are about the same, but at least we're home. Happy for home!

The Tostinos/redbox winner is ...

The Enriquez Family!! Sorry I don't have a picture of Jacob drawing the name from a pink hospital wash bin but my camera is missing. :( Anyway, congratulations to the Enriquez Family! Please email your mailing address to me at waffle1313 @ gmail. com. :)

Totino's Pizza Rolls and Redbox Giveaway

You all know how often our family is home together and has time to relax. Just about never. So when we are all home and no one is at the hospital and everyone is feeling good, the last thing I want to worry about is making dinner! Thankfully there are many options for frozen dinners and treats that are easy and delicious. Right now there is a great deal going on! Look for specially-marked packages of Totino’s Pizza Rolls and Party Pizzas to stock up on everything you need for a Fun Friday Night: purchase 4 Totino’s Party Pizzas or 2 Totino’s 40 count Pizza Rolls to receive a free one-day redbox DVD promo code. With more than 27,800 locations, and available nationally at Walmart, there’s always a redbox kiosk nearby! Find the closest redbox kiosk by checking redbox.com/locations. If you haven't tried redbox for movies yet, you have got to! There is a huge variety of movies from all categories, even Blu-Ray and video games. We always find something we want to watch. There is no easier way to rent movies - you can return the movie at any redbox, it doesn't have to be the same one you got it from! By us there are redbox kiosks everywhere - Walmart, Walgreens, Stater Bros. I was lucky enough to get a special package from MyBlogSpark, thanks to Totino's! I the package was a coupon for Totino's products - and can I tell you that Jacob is now in love with Pizza Rolls? There was also a coupon for a free redbox movie, two cute pizza slice plates, a great new pizza roller, and a popcorn bucket. One of YOU reading this post can receive the same package!

Here's how to enter - simply reply to this post by tomorrow, Friday November 18th, at 5:00pm. In your reply, tell me if you have ever used redbox and how you like it. One winner will be drawn at random by Jacob (the Pizza Roll eating boy). Disclosure: The VIP coupons, prize pack, information, and giveaway have been provided by Totino’s through MyBlogSpark