Thanksgiving

Thankful and Blessed!!!!!

Computer time

So while I'm blogging, checking emails, and ordering Scentsy,

this is what my puppy love Charlie does.

He always has to be in someone's lap!

Teeth

Finally that snaggle tooth came out!

FIVE TEETH LOST!

I just noticed that she has a boogie in her nose, haha!!



Austin

Just cause he's a cutie! 

My knee

An update on my knee.

Really, my right knee is on it's way to being just like the left knee,

 but for now, we work on the left one.

 I've started my old people vitamins...kidding on the "old people" part!

The vitamins are to repair cartilage, joints, and tendons. And lubricate them as well.

HOPEFULLY!

 I take FOUR a day.

 and would ya look at the easy open cap on the bottle?! Ha!

I go to physical therapy twice a week.

I have a love/hate relationship with therapy.

I DO however love when I leave with this great tape on my knee!

I get such relief with it.

It lifts my crooked knee cap and moves it just a hair over away from the underside so that there is no bone on bone rubbing (Since there is not much cartilage there to cushion it).

I also like that at the end of each session, I get to use the compression ice machine on my whole leg!

It definitely helps with the pain and swelling.

Powder Puff Football

Tyler's choir had a powder puff football game this past weekend.

It was the upper class men girls against the under class men girls.

The boys were the cheerleaders.

The upper class men always win...

not this year!

Tyler cheered his girls on to V-I-C-T-O-R-Y!

Look at my lil' cheerleader!

 

 I have to say I was surprised at how good the girls were!

Not so much of the "puff", there were some tackles out there!

Nathan and Tyler 

 Half time performance!
Tiny pic, but can you spot Tyler?!

ALL of the guys did a great job!
They had us rolling with laughter!
I have an awesome video of them doing this dance, but it's not loading on here.
 I will for sure keep working on it, cause you've got to see it!

 Austin and Carli thought it was funny to watch too!

I even caught Carli doing some cheering of her own!

What a FUN time!



Thanksgiving School Lunch

Today was Carli's Thanksgiving lunch at school.

It was really good!

I eat lunch with her every Friday,

but it was a little more special today being that it was for Thanksgiving.

There were paper leaves on the table that the the kids could write on what they were thankful for. They were so cute.

 She just loves this turkey clip and wears it every single year!

And look at that front tooth...it is SO loose, crooked and sticking out! ICK! It's gross!

She will not pull it! It's her sixth one she'll lose.

Veteran's Day Choir Concert

What a wonderful way to spend honoring our Veterans.

Tyler's high school choir did a concert honoring our service men and women.

It was, in one word, MOVING!

It was held at a church in a nearby town.

The church was packed.

It was only our high school choir.

 A professional orchestra accompanied them and they were awesome.

 At one point they performed the musical motto for each branch of service, in which they asked for veterans and current military persons to stand during their branch's song.

I think we were all taken back to see so many veterans stand up.

Even the students had tears in their eyes.

 Afterwards, there was a very nice reception.

 I think the kids enjoyed the veterans as much as the veterans enjoyed them.

They stood around all talking to each of other.

I was so proud of Tyler and the choir.

 

Click these links to go to their You Tube Channel to hear most of the songs from the conert!

National Anthem- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9FP3r_uWck&feature=plcp

Salute to the Armed Fores- http://www.youtube.com/watchv=zLtN3LyrcC8&feature=endscreen&NR=1

Battle Hym of the Republic

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6tfTJfrh_E&feature=endscreen&NR=1

Awakening

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMZS_q0DiCw&feature=plcp

Literacy Night

The day of Carli's field trip, that night, her school held a Literacy Night.

They could wear their pj's.

They went to their own grade level to either have story time or something else.

Carli's was a writing workshop.

Helping them become more detailed writers.

Afterwards, they met in the cafeteria for milk and cookies and got a free Dr. Seuss book.

Carli also visited the book fair where she got to buy a new book.

It was a hard decision...Barbies The Princess and The Pop Star or Justin Beiber. She chose Barbie, only because her other friend

"picked Beiber and I can always switch with her!"

 I caught her dancing in our driveway!

Her story.

1st grade field trip

Carli had her 1st grade field trip today.

 They went to the Houston's Children's Museum and had a blast!

Tuxedo Man

Tyler picked up his tuxedo for choir.

 The first time he will wear it will be for a Veteran's Day Concert at a church on Sunday.

You can tell he was excited!

 I can't wait to see him it!

Waaaa :(

I would like to think I have a pretty high tolerance for pain.
Deyanira may disagree with me, since she was in the room when Carli was born. BUT I'm not talking baby deliveries.
I'm talking my knee. Well, knees actually. The past several months I've been tripping and falling. My left knee has been pretty painful. No medicine will relieve the pain. At night, I could cry. First thing in the morning or after I've sit for a while, my knee stiffens up and it's hard to move it. I have a hard time lifting my leg, like to put on my pants,socks and shoes, step into the shower, climb in my car, etc. I can walk only because I don't bend my leg and I use more of my right knee.
I can not bend my leg and can't fully straighten my leg.
Finally I decided I should go to the doctor.
I had an MRI.
My left knee showed that I have severe osteo arthritis, severe swelling, and a cyst formed from joint leakage.
My right knee is now hurting more, and the doctor says that's just a given. It's because I've used that right knee more now, causing more joint damage than what was already there.
I had an orthopedic doctor appointment on Halloween. She said that on a scale of 1-4, 4 being severe, bone on bone-no cartilage, I'm at a 3 on my left knee and right knee is about a 2. She said, "no wonder you're in so much pain and have not come sooner".
We went over my options. For now, we do what we can to relieve the pain and put off surgery as long as possible. Basically, we are "coating or putting a band aid over the problems, to buy us time." and we hope it works. She doesn't want surgery for me now. She thinks I'm too young to have this (YES, almost 39 is no spring chicken, BUT I'm NOT OLD! Ha!) and that would put me out of commission for a long time, kind of hard for me when I'm a mom to three and my oldest is mentally disabled with seizures. No time for surgery.
So, this is what we try for now. I start taking Bio Flex Ultra vitamins to help my joints. We may end up going toward injections. I will begin physical therapy, twice a week, for an hour each time. This will help with my range of motion. More importantly, they will tape my knee. What this means is that they will tape it so that the knee cap (which is crooked) is lifted off of the other bone, to relieve the rubbing and severe edema. We will re-evaluate in six weeks.
I thought back in the summer, what started this knee pain, was when I trip and fell during moving, landing on my knee. The doctor said no. When I fell, I did hurt my knee, but that it was a good thing, it just let me know that this was already happening. She said that my knees have always been bad to start out with. That the ligament in my thigh that connects to my knee, to make it bend, was working over time. It was having to stretch more to the side instead of straight down, since my knee cap was crooked and to the side. This is what has caused the arthritis.

 
Waaaa :(

Crazy stuff! I surely didn't think any of this when I went to my first doctor appointment.

Halloween

Carli "designed her own outfit"

I believe she was a fairy.

Everything came from her closet except she got new wings.

 I took Carli on a couple of streets, while the guys stayed home and handed out candy.

We had a nice set up that evening.

We decided instead of rushing through dinner so that we can trick or treat and hand out candy, that we would order pizza and wings and eat outside!

This way, we could eat, hand out candy, watch all of the trick or treaters, all night long.

It was GREAT!