First Haircut

Sydney had her first haircut today.  She was very excited about it!

Or so we thought.  Sydney has a way with expressions when she is unsure of a situation.  The change inevitably occurs when she is being photographed by professional daycare photographers or, as evidenced today, when she is getting her first haircut.

Even so, she was very brave.  She sat on my lap so that she was high enough for Miss Kim to cut the back.  Kim doesn't normally cut kids' hair, but she does cut mine and I didn't want anyone else to touch Sydney's hair. At least not the first time.

Sydney helped count my fingers while she was supposed to keep her chin down.

She was a little unsure about the whole situation, but she was very brave and didn't make a peep the entire time.

She didn't need to make a peep -- the face says it all, don't you think?

In any case, she looks very cute.  Her hair is still curly and just slightly changed.  No more McGruber mullet, just a cute girly bob.

And you know what? As soon as we got home the expression-filled Sydney was back in a flash.

 (I was waiting for the "speak no evil" pose.  It never happened.)  

(Coincidence??? I'm not so sure!)

I love Sydney's new haircut.  Still nice and curly with a hint of crazy.  Very fitting for my sweet-with-a-side-of-crazy little girl!

Vacation = Good

Mark and I went to Aruba for a long weekend vacation.

It was fantastic, as we knew it would be!

Vacations are good for the soul.

And good for the marriage. 

Not so good for the skin; unless of course you are channelling your inner lobster...

Hi my name is Erin

And I have been a huge messy ball of negativity lately, none of which looks very good on me. Thankfully, I've been given good news in the past two days and I am now ready to shed some negative pounds!  (Too bad those don't equate into actual pounds, because judging from the amount of candy wrappers in my office garbage can, I could stand to shed a couple of those, too.)

(If we are friends on Facebook then you can just ignore all of this because it's old news to "you's guys" as my Dad would say)

My dad had his surgery on Monday and it went very well! For four hours, robots worked to take out his prostate.  Robots!! For four hours!!  The Dr. was very pleased with what his robot helpers took out.  When you think robots, do you think of transformers doing the surgery? No? Yeah, me neither.

Ahem. 

The Dr. stated that he saw exactly what he thought he would see, and his prostate is now sitting in the hands of a pathologist that will analyze it to be sure that's truly the case, and from what my dad told me he will simply need to go in for testing periodically to be monitored and be certain that the "C" word is never a part of his vocabulary again.

Speaking of the "C" word, I'm happy to announce that it's not a part of my vocabulary either!  The results of my biopsy came back with a beautiful "Non-Suspicious" label slapped on them.  We still don't know why that big ball of fluff of a lymph node is there but we do know that we've ruled out the scary stuff.  I'm going to take antibiotics and we will see if that brings it down, and I will go back to the ENT in 3 or 4 weeks.

It's been a while since I've felt this light! A huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders (again, I wish the scale showed it) and I have a renewed spring in my step, which is so refreshing.   I'm sure you guys were getting sick of hearing my "woe is me" crap anyways.

So now I will show you some Easter photos, which are much cuter than negativity.

(FYI, a whisk makes a perfect egg holder when coloring Easter eggs!)

So long, negativity!

Thanks for all of the warm thoughts and the prayers while we've (okay mostly "I've") been struggling.  We are so lucky to have all of you in our lives!

Love,
Erin

Update

Just an update to tell you that I'm still alive (haha, I know).  The ENT walked Mark and I through the CT results, and one of the lymph nodes looked like a solid jelly bean and although it looked small to us was supposedly large. The other even larger one looked like a big ball of fluff. The ENT swears it's a lymph node. He's the smart one, so I guess we'll believe him!  I have a needle biopsy on Thursday afternoon and should know the results by Monday.

My dad is having his prostate removed on Monday.  Please pray that all goes well for my dad and for me.

Although she still has them, Elisabeth has been doing better with the accidents! I sure hope we are on the right track!

Elisabeth also lost her first tooth the day before Easter!  She was so so SO mad when her grandpa pulled it out, but fortunately all has been forgiven. 

The tooth fairy was nice enough to leave 5 singles under Elisabeth's pillow when we returned home late Sunday night from Grandma and Grandpa's house.  Word on the street is that each subsequent tooth gives less than the first lost tooth.  Thank goodness, or that tooth fairy would be broke!

In other unrelated news, it appears that $5 is missing from Sydney's piggy bank. No word on who may have taken it, but they did leave an IOU speckled with what appears to be fairy dust glitter.

Pray it's nothing.

I had a contrast CT scan last week to take a look at the lump in my neck. 

First of all, let me just say that if I wasn't claustrophobic before, I certainly am now! A CT scan is not the scary MRI tube - it's just a donut that they pass you though while laying on a table to look at whatever they need to look at.  I didn't think it would be bad, until they stuck my head inside of it and turned it on.  I thought I might have my head stuck inside the engine on a jet plane. It was crazy! But also done in about 5 seconds.  The iodine passing through my body also left me a little off feeling but all in all not so bad.

I got the results today.  I have two enlarged lymph nodes and since I last saw my physician last week they are starting to hurt.  I am going in to see an ENT on Friday.  If you don't mind, can you just pray that this is nothing?