and then this happened...

you would've thought that having a newborn would be enough excitement for one family to handle, but apparently not in the McCool house. just 12 days after Miss Pink exploded out of my belly, i started to notice a stiffness in my elbow. i just assumed it was part of the new "mom arm" i was acquiring from the constant feeding and carrying, but once the pain started and the swelling...yikes! i like to think i'm pretty tough, but after letting it go for a few days, it was obvious i had to do something other than popping the leftover pain meds from the c-section.

after a call to a friend (who just happens to be family with an orthopedist) we were immediately on our way to get some answers. the first diagnosis was severe arthritis (aka tennis elbow), but even the doctor wasn't 100% on that. he knew it didn't look right, and just having had a baby just complicated things. i was sent home with instructions for ice and ibuprofen. well, a couple days later the swelling and pain just got immensely worse. it was to the point where i couldn't hold Miss Pink, i couldn't burp her, i couldn't change a diaper, i couldn't even get myself dressed. my arm was so jacked up, and did i forget to mention that on top of the pain and swelling, my arm was pretty much immobile. so, after another call to the doctor, we were off for an x-ray (which didn't see much) and then for a MRI. i'm going to skip over the MRI description, because it was by far the most painfully horrific experience i have ever endured. still with no answers to what was going on, we headed to an E-care place to get some blood work done. well, i guess i looked pretty bad, because after 3 hours at the E-care place i was put in an ambulance and shipped off to the closest hospital.

i'm not going to lie, i was pretty damn scared at this point. not knowing what's going on with your body is pretty scary, especially when you have a 2 week old baby at home. the first night in the hospital wasn't so bad, except for the constant monitoring from the nurses, having to get up and pump & dump (just another painful thing to do with a 2 week old) every couple hours, and the constant beeping from machines. i was seen by 3 different doctors, an internal medicine doc, an orthopedic surgeon, and the infectious disease guy. talk about fun times. the consensus was that i had some kind of infection, but no one knew what kind or from what. i stayed on IV antibiotics for the next 4 days. by the end of the week, the surgeon said they were going in to surgically drain the fluid from my arm and remove and infected areas. what the what?! exactly what i said.

let's just say that surgery went extremely well. they removed the bursa from my elbow, which was the most infected area. i was told it was septic bursitis and cellulitis, but still no clue how i got it. after a few more days of IV antibiotics, the swelling finally went down. i spent 7 days in the hospital from some freak unknown infection. i was away from my family for a week, and it wasn't even a vacation. you know you've been in a hospital too long when the food there actually starts to taste decent. i will say that i was lucky to have the best family a girl could ask for. my mom was here, my mother-in-law came, and my sister left her own family to come take care of mine. and i can't forget the awesome group of friends who also helped take care of my family. i might have been eating some fabulous watered down mashed potatoes, but the rest of my gang was happily eating some well prepared meals from some very caring friends. 

i've been home for a couple weeks now, but it's been tough getting back into the swing of things. surgery alone is tough to recover from (and don't forget i just had a c-section a couple weeks before this), but then throw in a newborn and 3 active boys...WTF?! wonder what the rest of the year has to offer...

it was a surprise birthday...

it was a Friday, the Friday after Christmas. the boys were home and bored, so what else do you do on a Friday afternoon, you head on down to Target wasting time "finding something for dinner". we didn't stay very  long, which is unusual for a normal trip to Target, so, we then headed on over to Chick-fil-A for a little snack (mommy wanted french fries and sweet tea). i'm a mom, i should've known something wasn't just right that day. i felt weird all day. and by weird i mean i was having contractions all day. contractions are nothing new for me. i have them all the time, but when i noticed they were 4 minutes apart and not stopping, i probably should have called someone (like a doctor).

by 3pm i decided to lay down and watch a movie (The Descendants to be exact) thinking this would be relaxing. it should have been. C was the only one home with me. the other 2 yahoos were over at P & E's house, so taking a nap should have been a no-brainer. i probably got up to pee 3 or 4 times in between the contractions, but i never really had to pee. actually watching the movie became difficult, and guess what? i never finished that movie. during one of the sappy hospital scenes where everyone is mad and crying, i felt something like a karate kick to my hoo-haw (from the inside!). i actually managed to pause the movie right before the giant explosion. and yes, it was an explosion, like 5 water balloons had just popped and i was the one popping them (you get the idea). it was barely 5pm and at this time no one was in the house. i remember rolling off the bed and scurrying to the bathroom while trying to undress at the same time all while screaming for someone (that someone would be baby daddy) to come help me. luckily C came in the bedroom while i was hunched over the floor barely covered with a wet towel. surprisingly he stayed calm and i gently (with a mad squirrel look on my face) asked him to go find Daddy. i could here him running to the garage telling The Husband he had to come inside, where he was told, "i'll be there in a minute." and then i hear, "NO, DADDY, NOW!"

my ever so calm baby daddy then helped me finish undressing, shower, redress, and get in the car all while talking to the hospital in less than 10 minutes. if you've ever seen The Husband drive, you would know that making it to the hospital in record time is no miracle. the next hour or so was pretty much a blur. i was lucky enough to have my best friend there (in the room) taking pictures the entire time and The Husband so graciously recorded the entire delivery for me to watch (that video will not be posted to the interwebs btw - gross!). all i know is that my water broke around 5pm and Miss Pink made her appearance at 7:16pm. i'll let the pictures tell the rest of the delivery story...

let's just say things got a little out of hand...

i'm going to make this as quick as possible. considering i haven't posted anything in the last 3 months, there's just too much that has happened to write it all down in one post. i last left off back in October (that was last year!) with a birthday, homecoming, and getting ready for baby. well, since then we've had Halloween, a trip to San Francisco, Thanksgiving, another birthday, Christmas, and a BABY!! so, yeah, things got a little out of hand. we'll just skip over November (but i'll include a couple photos of our surprise trip to San Fran) and move on to Christmas...

ok, now on to December...

the month of December is always busy. it's that way for everyone i'm sure. with holiday parties, birthdays, soccer tournaments, basketball season starting, and of course Christmas, it's no wonder there's usually tons of drinking involved (well, for everyone but me that is). for us Christmas is pretty low key. we stay at home by ourselves, open presents, and laze around the house all day. we did get a surprise snowfall this year that was an added bonus for the boys. like i said before, this is going to be quick and dirty (we all know what's about to happen a few days after Christmas  so i'll skip to that as soon as SHE stops screaming at me from the other room)...

September (oh crap, it's October) recap...

i'm absolutely horrible at this. this blogging thing. it's been more than a month since i've posted anything, and of course a lot has happened in the last 6 weeks. once school starts it's a mass chaos of scheduling conflicts bombarding our household (and put on top of that, having a baby?!) so, let's make this kind of quick...

we started off September by celebrating P-Donculous birthday. i'm pretty sure that every year i have the same photo of the the 3 of them shirtless behind a cake. the only differences might be the kind of cake and that those buggers keep getting bigger.

the same weekend we celebrated a birthday, we also had our opening weekend of sports. this year we now have all 3 boys playing soccer, and P-Donculous also plays football, so, that means just about every Saturday we have 4 games to juggle. i have yet been able to make it to all 4 games. scheduling is a nightmare and 98% of the time there are at least 2 games scheduled for the same time, which means The Husband and i have to split our sideline cheering time between the boys. i don't know what we're going to do once Miss Pink starts participating in sports and we have the possibility of 6 different events in one day. 

anyway, back to this week's big event...NoNo's very first soccer game! he surprised us and actually played a great game, considering he spent the last practice before the game crying for the first 30 minutes. so proud of little dude. look how cute he is in his replica Barcelona uniform. he's also the youngest kid on the team by  2 years, so, he's doing pretty good at holding his own. it only took him 5 games before he scored his first goal, but you would have thought he scored the winning goal in the last second of the game the way i was screaming on the sidelines.

of course, we can't leave out the beginning of football...our Longhorn team has gone undefeated so far this season, which means we get lots of criticism from other teams that we're cheaters and we play dirty. seriously?! it's 1st grade flag football people, how in the world are we cheating? this is the biggest problem with small town sports and the way parents expect every team to win, each kid to score, and everyone gets a trophy. wake-up parents. those participation trophies your kids are getting are not going to get them into college. sorry, i was up on that soap box thing. what was i talking about? oh, my own kids...yes, so i managed to get pictures of 2 of the games that day, but because of scheduling i haven't been able to get P-Donculous or C playing soccer this season. (i still have a few more weeks before the season is already over) 

move up a couple weeks and we now have Homecoming week. i didn't get the best pictures this year, but i can blame that on the fact that C had to be taken to the ER clinic right as the parade was starting, because he busted his chin open (leave it to C to walk under a sign and slice his chin wide open). for being in such a small town, we have the longest parade ever! it took almost 2 hours, and they have this thing on a Wednesday night, so the kids then have to get up for school the next morning...lame

NoNo's PreK class went on their first field trip. for most kids it's the first time any of them have ridden on a bus, but since my kids take the bus every morning to school, nothing new for him. and they went to the pumpkin patch, the same one we've been going to for the last 5 years, so, not so new and exciting for NoNo. 

on top of all of our other activities, we've been trying to get Miss Pink's room put together. you would've thought that the years of waiting for her arrival would have given me plenty of time to know what i wanted in a little girl nursery, but nope, i was at a complete loss of creativity. we finally had the room painted, which of course makes the rest of the house look like crap, but at least her room is all new and shiny. i painted some of the furniture. trying to make it different, since it's the same baby furniture we've had since C was a baby (10 years ago!). i tried my hand at some abstract art and i'm in the process of putting together some mismatched frames for the wall. this crafting thing is for the birds. i would much rather find someone on etsy to make it for me. eventually we'll have everything in place, i'm hoping before she gets here...