Oh my oh my! We had a CRAZY weekend! Friday as soon as Gary got home I finished getting things together and we went over to visit his mom who we had not seen all week (FIL was out of town on buisness). We decided to go to Dougs Dinner for supper (which I love) and so off we went. Tyler did really well in a booster seat (I preferr high chairs but he's old enough and big enough to start practicing in the beltless boosters...) and ate almost all his fries and about half of his chicken :) My carb boy! Then we went back to thier house and soon after Gary left for "Band Practice". He was SO excited. We are now going to his parents church 'part time' and he's playing drums. Well, he's played two times now and so when Brian T Donahue (recording artist, lives out of town now, used to go to the church, playing for the weekend with his CD debut band) needed a drummer Gary was recommended and so of course I told gary he could do it. So Gary goes off to a real recording studio at one of the guy's houses (which must be SO cool!) and they all practiced together for Sunday's service which was also the church's 4 year anniversary. Gary had SO much fun and called me at 9 to say he was not going to make it back to get me by 9 (duh) so I had Steph take me home. Thankfully Tyler was worn out enough that he went straight to bed with little fuss. I was very glad since he did not nap well (if at all) on Friday and I was worried that he would be overtired. Gary got home a little after 11 and was on a music high and it was just so cool to see him so excited about something. You all know how he's mr humble right? So he goes on and on about how great all these musicians are (I can attest that this is true) and how he just can't belive they are letting someone like him play... Of course I think he's freaking brilliant but I'm his wife and while I do know a lot about music, percussion is not exactly my area of expertise... I do know that if the percussion is wrong it's really bad and let me tell you- with Gary it's never wrong! :) So anyways, we got up Saturday morning at 7 to get the car loaded to head over to Mansfield to work on the house. We painted the master bedroom ceiling (AGAIN), painted the walls in the basement and washed the floor, did some weeding and mulching and painted the garage door. Gary's parents met us over there about the same time since we had to run to Lowes and get all the paint. To be honest, MIL, FIL and Gary did all the work. I was pretty much useless. I swept out a few rooms and the attic and helped wash basement walls but with all the dust and fumes I was not much help. After a lunch of Gyros from the Greek restaurant in town (YUM YUM YUM!!!) I took off with Tyler to visit Bethany and her baby. Cohen is two weeks old now and he's just sweet as can be!! I got to hold him for like an hour and he cuddled up with me and feel right asleep... it made me super excited for my own baby, and also scared to death with the reality of a new baby coming and there being nothing I can (nor would want to do) to stop it! It was really nice to get to visit with Bethany. I went intending on doing all kinds of stuff to help her but of course she's super mom and had all her dishes done, every room in the house picked up, organized and cleand adn didn't even have any laundry to do! You really could not tell that a 2 week old lived there! Tyler took a decent nap and played well and then I left to go back to get Gary so we could go to Amy's house for supper. Gary's parents had gone by then and so we went and got gas and then went off to Amy's. I walked in and gave her a hug and noticed not just Jodi also being there but someone else. I was confused for a moment but figured someone else was just around which is not unusual at the Stauffer house. SO then Amy says "Surprise! This is a time to celebrate you!" so I was like "aww! Thanks!" Thinking maybe she invited a few more of the ladies over and that's who I saw in the kitchen (I could not see the person so I had no idea who was in there) so then I turn around to put Tyler's diaper bag down and I look into the living room and there are pink streamers, girly gift bags and ballons everywhere and I like screamed a little Ithink! They threw me a surprise shower!!! So then THREE people came out of the kitchen and one came in the door behind us and it all started to register and to be honest I was shocked! I have not seen any of these ladies since November, several of them since September and I wrongly had it in myhead that they had moved on with life and kind of forgotten about me. I could not have been more wrong. We enoyed Pizza, catching up and they ALL got me VERY NICE gifts! I mean like REALLY nice stuff!!! I was just in total shock the whole evening. I was very tired and a little out of it but the whole time I just kept thinking about how wrong I had been in thinking they would forget about me. I just felt so overwhelmed with blessings! This and a few other things that happened last week made me realize that just because you don't hear from someone for a long time, does not mean that you are not in thier hearts, thoughts and prayers. I was very wrong to think that they didn't think about me and I feel very badly about that! It was wrong on me to take lessons learned from other situations and just assume that the same is always true. If you are reading this ladies= Thank you from the bottom of my heart and I love you all dearly and I'm so sorry!!! We left late from Mansfield and since it was windy and snowing/sleeting/raining it took us longer to get home than usual and I was really stressed and tense because we actually slid a few times and I saw a pretty bad accident involving a van not too far into the trip. Gary was so tired from all the work he had done and being up late the night before I felt very badly for him. He's a really good driver and we got home just fine. Sunday morning when gary had to get up to get to church early for set up I knew Tyler would not be able to get up (he stayed awke in the car the entire ride home and did not go to bed until after 11) to go in with him so we decided to take two cars. Gary's parents also took two cars so the four of us had four cars there. sad. We were supposed to bring something for the potluck lunch after service and of course that was the last thing on my mind when we got home the night before so I sent Gary off early with instructions to get something at Walmart and let his mom know I'd meet her at church rather than meeting her at her house and going with her. Miracle of miracles I actually made it to church and IN the door a full 5 minutes before service started! Gary (and the rest of the band) did an AWESOME job and it was just amazing. Part way through Gary dropped one of his sticks and even playing with one stick for awhile he was SO good! He's just amazing. We satyed for lunch and midway through lunch Dale came over and asked gary what we had planned for the rest of the day. You know me, I'm thinking SLEEP!!! Well... turns out they do occasional coffee house/open house jam nights and that was one of them and Brian and his band were going to play and did Gary want to go play? Gary's face IMMEDIATELY looked like you told him he won the lottery adn then he hid it as he looked over at me for 'permission'. LIke I"m going to tell him no? Come on! So we got the details adn it worked out that we could get Tyler (and me) home for a nap and still make it back in time and Tyler and I were welcome so we agreed. I know for a fact that in his heart Gary was jumping up and down like a little kid waiting for a cookie. We went off to the new church to see the progress (my first visit) and write a verse on the floor. Tyler got crabby and we could not think of a verse so we stayed awhile and then left. Tyler napped about 2 hours, I did not nap at all but rested, then we repacked the diaper bag and off we went! The coffee house thing was really fun and it reminded me some of college. Seeing Gary play drums again really takes me back to our band days and falling in love and then the coffee house on top of it was just neat. We enjoyed so many back in college together... of course it was so different this time with him IN the band and me chasing around our 2 year old and being roughly the size of a modular home. Melissa and her mom helped me and actually several of the high school kids that were there and the guitar player from the band played with Tyler so it ended up being a pretty relaxing time! Tyler decided when we got home that he was not remotely interested in calming down or rest of any sort including bed. We let him play extra long in the bathtub because neither of us really wanted to have to wash him but he was filthy from running around the church mid-construction and being all over the floor. We got him into bed around 9:30 and he proceeded to use every trick in the book to get us back in there entertaining him until he finally went to sleep around 11. At about 10:30 I decided that it was not worth letting him keep crying when I knew he had to be tired so I gave him some Tylenol and rocked him some. That did the trick. I got to thinking that he was probably as tired as the two of us and I know I often, when overstimulated, get a headache or am so tired I can't relax and I take Tylenol before bed so why not do the same for him? I also knew Gary needed his rest for work today. :) So that's it! Now we get to start the week! I"m due in LESS than 6 weeks now and if I induce we are talking less than 5 which translates to 4 and a few days and so there is much to be done! Hope you all had more relaxing weekends than us! I must say though, I"d rather be busy with FUN stuff like this weekend than busy with work!!! LOVE YOU ALL!!!! (and thanks for reading my novel!)

IRRITATED!!!!! I know these things happen to everyone and in the grand scheme of life it's not a big deal but I'm so IRRITATED right now!!!! We took a house key with us to California so that when we got home we could get in. I"m still not sure why b/c Gary's parents picked us up and they have a key to our house (). Somehow the key got misplaced. It's either in the depths of one of Gary's pants pockets or it's at my brother's or it's down in the bottom of a seat on an airplane somewhere. We took our car to a friends this wek to get our brakes fixed which meant moving the carseat into Gary's car. In the hustle and bustle of the week somehow the one key we have got moved from my keyring to Gary's keyring and the carseat never got moved back to my car from Gary's car. SO this morning I got up, showered, got myself all made up and dressed in 'real' clothes, got Tyler up, fed him and got us all ready to to to MOPS. When I realized I had no key I called Gary to see if he had it (for awhile it was floating around with no ring- thus my panic that it was gone forever) and he said no, then checked his ring and said yes, he did have it. Well, no biggy- I can run by his work on my way home and get it then I'll have the key to get back in and don't have to leave the house open. So, I'm on the phone with him, i lock the door from the inside, hold Tyler's hand, lead him to the front porch, shut the door, turn and look at the car and say OH SHIT. There is no carseat in the car. It's in Gary's car. I can't drive to get the key wihtout a carseat (i'm no britney!) but neither can I get back into the house without a key!!!! Had I looked at the car a nanosecond earlier, I'd have not shut the door but alas... I did... so Gary's freaking out b/c the school was without power last night so things are all haywire and anything that plugs into an outlet is magically his responsability when it breaks b/c it's "technology" so he was in the middle of 4 things and could not come bring me the carseat or key so I had to call the landlady. Thankfully she was home and said she'd be over in a few minutes. Of course this morning had to be the morning she got about a zillion calls so she came tearing over here 45 minutes later apologizing and asking if I thought she forgot about me. (I was deciding in my head how long to go before calling her back to check on her!) It was not too big of a deal b/c I got the garage more than half organized and Tyler's summer toys were stored in there so he had something to entertain him. It was embarassing the first 20 minutes though standing on the porch- in the rain- wondering what people thought of me... hopefully the people who are still home between 9 and 10 are not doing much looking out thier windows. I kept thinking that if I went to the garage she'd show up right away so I kept waiting on the porch and then figured it didn't matter b/c I was cold and getting wet- not to mention poor Tyler! Gary called a few minutes before she got here and said things were calming down and he could come bring me the seat so I could still go to mops if I wanted. I told him it started at 9:30, not 10 and even if he left that second I could not get there till close to 10:30 when it was half over. I told him not to worry about it. It's not his fault, it's not my fault... it's just one of those things that happens ... but boy was it irritating! So, folks, that was my fun morning. Now I'm all dolled up and not only do I have nowhere to go- I CANT go anywhere (legally anyways!)

Photobucket Album

More California Pictures

Photobucket Album

Photo's with Uncle Joshua in California

ack to life, back to reality, back from a fantasy, yeah.... ugh. Welcome back to ohio with SNOW!?!?! It was colder and whiter here yesterday than Christmas day! Grr!!! Friday- Shorts at Disneyland Sunday- coats, hats and gloves to go to church!! And i"m not talking suit coats and pretty Easter hat/glove sets either! So I had a Dr. Appt this morning. She's totally willing to have me induced so that I'm sure to get her and she can do what she can to make sure I don't tear badly again or just ship me off to C-section b/c she's not quite as "pro section" as the last doctor I saw. So I've decided not to do an elective C section because frankly, I'm chicken and it scares the crap out of me. I'm very tempted by the induction option b/c I can know who my doctor is going to be, however, I also know that a lot of women who are induced end up in C sections for one reason or another. The planning of it would be nice but that's really not a main reason to do it- it would be for the peace of mind to have the doctor I want and who knows my situation. Thoughts? Thanks for all your messages and prayers while we were gone! We had a WONDERFUL time and I'm so sad to be back. Glad to be in my own bed but nto ready for reality... Especially knowing I have 6-7 weeks before the baby comes!!! ahhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!! I purposly held off doing stuff to get ready for the baby until after this vacation so i could focus on it and also not be focusing too much on the baby's room and clothes... but now I feel like I have so much to do!! I want to read a bunch of books, take naps and watch movies b/c I know the time is coming FAST where I will be so busy and get so little sleep and relax time! I also want to get to see all my friends "one last time" and of course the house needs a complete spring clean, all the baby stuff needs to be washed and sorted and put back together and put away... furniture might need to be moved to make room for things... Most of all I'm sad because I feel like this vacation was my last chance to really spend time with just Tyler and so special things for just him. Such an odd feeling being so excited for this baby and loving her already, but sad to think of how things will change for me and Tyler...not to mention me and Gary!! yea, Back to life!

My grandfather passed away this morning. I wanted to get online quickly and let those of you who have been following this know, and to thank you all for your prayers. It has meant a lot to me to have friends who care about me, and my family who have supported and encouraged me through the past several months as we've watched him die. Cancer is an illness that is just impossible to explain, and this has been a very hard process for our family - especially me in my hormonal state- so thank you. Thank you for your emails, your messages, comments, prayers, and most of all love. I ask you continue to pray for my grandma who's lost the love of her life, her sould mate, her best friend. She has wonderful family and will never be alone, but a piece of her will be missing and that breaks my heart more than anything. I love you all.