"Egg"cellent Easter!!

He is risen!  We had a fabulous Easter!  Liam and Lilah were really into hunting eggs this year and Caroline had SO much fun showing them how to do it! The kids had an Easter egg hunt at school on Thursday and then an Easter egg hunt at Mom and Dad's church on Saturday morning!  Robert was working like crazy during this time because of the tornadoes in Arlington, so we missed him at the Easter egg hunt, but loved having him with us on Easter morning!

The Easter egg hunt at church! (Liam did NOT want to sit for pictures with the girls!)



We got up Easter morning and went to church with Mom and Dad and Mer, Randy, and Nolan!  We spent the rainy day at Mom and Dad's and had a great time hanging out and hunting Easter eggs in the house!  We must have been having a really great time because I only have one picture from Easter morning before church!

The kids (and Mommy and Daddy) have been having SO much fun in the bounce house that Ms. Jenny gave us! 

This Easter post is SO late because we have ALL been sick with a yucky fever/cough/flu yuckiness that is lasting FOREVER!!!  I am really hoping that this is the last week of sickness and we can start enjoying the great weather soon!!!





Spring Has Sprung!

It seems like Spring is SO busy, but SO fun around the Cochran casa!  We have been busy enjoying every minute of it!

Everyone (even Daddy!) was dressed so cute in their red spring clothes one day so I tried (tried being the operative word!!) to get a group picture!  This is how just about every group picture in our house goes!

On Spring Break we set out on the great Tour of Texas!!  We spent the first part of Spring Break in San Antonio!  We had a great time hanging out with Grandma Evie, Grandpa Don, Aunt Sara, Uncle Jack, and Jacob!  We took all the kids on their first trip to the zoo!  They all LOVED it!  I am sure they felt very at home because our house is usually very similar to a zoo!  Ha!

Caroline got to go have a sleep over at Cayah and Ike's house!  She asked to stay for "20 days", but for Mom and Dad's sake I went and picked her up after one night!  She also managed to convince her Cayah that her tennis shoes were too small and she needed new ones, so all three kiddos scored new shoes!  They were very excited to show them off!! Thank you Cayah and Ike!!

Now that we seem to have gotten sweet Caroline feeling better (Knock on wood and PRAY PRAY PRAY that she continues to stay so healthy!), we signed her up for gymnastics!  She LOVED her first class on Saturday!  She did tell them that a few of the things they asked her to do were "too dangerous"!  She has a long way to go before the Olympics (HA!), but she's having a blast, so that's what's important!

February Fun!!

I can't believe February will be over in a couple of days!!  We have been doing so many fun things!

First of all - this little cutie is feeling SO much better!!!!  WOOHOOO!  We have our follow up with Dr. Ehmer this afternoon, but are expecting a good report!  I am SO thrilled that she seems to feel SO much better!

We had Pink Day at school!  The girls were SO adorable in their pink t-shirts and tutus!  Liam was looking very studly in his polo shirt that had a pink stripe!  The morning rush before school is not the best time to get pictures, but we did the best we could!

This picture is blurry, but I just had to add it!!  I think it is the CUTEST picture ever of my sweet girls hugging each other in their matching tutus!!  LOVE LOVE LOVE!!!

My parents church does a Fish Fry (or French Fry as Caroline calls it!) every other Friday during Lent.  Ike is in charge of frying the fish and Cayah makes the awesome tartar sauce and coleslaw!  We tell Caroline its chicken because she doesn't like trying new things, so she is really confused when she talks about eating chicken at the French Fry, but we go with it!  The babies sat like big kids at the table and everyone had a great time!

My dear friend from college Monica came in town to visit this weekend with her daughter Jillian! We LOVE hanging out with them and miss them terribly since Matt's job moved them to Houston!  It was great to get to spend time with them on Saturday!  Robert was working so Monica and I loaded all the kids in the car, had lunch, went home for naps, got them up, went to the mall and got dinner!  It was a crazy day, but the kids did great!  We had them all piled in the car and I felt like I was driving a school bus!  Monica and I kept reminicing about how different this day was than many Saturdays we spent in college together, but we wouldn't change a thing!  Caroline and Jillian got matching Tinkerbell nightgowns and Tinkerbell dolls!!  They were SO excited!!

We are busy getting ready for Spring Program this week!  My class will be in it and Caroline's class is in it as well!!  She will be playing a cow!  She was a cow last year in the 2 year-old Christmas musical, so she has expirence in the roll!  I know she will rock it!!  Pictures to come!!







LOVE!! (and some more surgery!)

The last few weeks have been filled with time at home (which you would think would mean I would have gotten a lot accomplished, but really just means that I must provide constant entertainment!) so Caroline could recover and lots of LOVE!!!  Lots of random stuff! 

On Feb. 9 it was CRAZY HAT DAY at school!  Sweet Caroline was at home for the morning with her daddy and spent the afternoon with her Cayah and Ike because she wasn't quite up to a whole exciting day at school, so the babies and I headed off to show off some crazy hats! Te be clear - Liam and Lilah wore these hats for a total of 3 seconds.  Thank goodness I took a picture!

Now I know this probably isn't a "good mother" milestone to post, but I was SO excited the other day that - for the FIRST TIME EVER - all three kids sat down and watched part of a show on Disney Jr.!!!  Oh the heavenly peace that came over our house for that 15 minutes!!! It was a beautiful thing!  Here's hoping for more times like this in the future - for mommy's sanity!!

 



Liam and Lilah have just been SO sweet together lately!  The other day, Liam was tired before lunch so he laid down on the floor with his blankie.  Lilah walked right over, sat down on the floor next to him, and started patting and rubbing his back!  It was so stinkin' cute!  It also make me feel so great about all of the love I know they get from school!  We don't pat them at home at night, so I know they have gotten that sweetness from being loved on at school!  They have SUCH loving teachers!

Valentine's Day was pretty low key here!  Caroline made it back to school to celebrate and everyone had a great day at their parties!  Daddy surprised everyone with Valentine treats that night and we had a tasty Chick fil A dinner!  I attempted to get the kids picture after school, but as you can see, everyone was too sugared up to cooperate!

Caroline had her fifth (and hopefully final for a LONG time!!) surgery yesterday!  Daddy stayed home to get the babies off to school, so Cayah and Ike came to the surgery center for moral support!  She was so brave and had lots of fun playing Dr. Caroline and "checking patients" while we waited!  The surgery went well and Dr. Ehmer was very impressed with how she is healing!  She's had some pain since she's been home and is pretty worn out, but Motrin and lots of rest seem to be helping!  We cannot express how much all of the prayers and love that have been shared with us through this time has meant to us!  We are so truly blessed to be so loved!

Hope everyone is having a fabulous February!! 







Getting Better!

Seeing this sweet girl smiling again makes my day!!!  She's still a little swollen and puffy in her face, but she is being such a trooper!  Today is her first day to have no narcotic pain meds and just have motrin.  She has complained of a headache a few times, but usually its time for another dose of motrin when she does!  She's still having some bleeding, so she won't be at school at all this week.  We see Dr. Ehmer on Friday, so hopefully he will be happy with her recovery!  We have had pretty low key week around here.  Lots of staying around the house and snuggling!  The babies have enjoyed snuggles too!

SO many people have been so sweet and helpful this week!  My sweet friend Jenny at work made us dinner last night and my dear dear friend Blythe made us banana bread!  My kids are OBSESSED with bananas (especially Liam and Lilah!), so they thought they had died and gone to heaven when they got banana bread (or as Caroline informed me - "Its not banana BREAD - its banana CAKE!").  We are so blessed to have such caring friends in our lives!  YUMMY banana cake!

We also have a new favorite game over here at the Cochran casa!  That's what being cooped up in the house for several days will create!  New games!  Caroline calls it parade! ( I call it a mix between bumper cars and WWE Death Match! )   Everyone gets on a different riding toy and they ride from the front of the house - turn around - and ride to the back of the house!  Over and over and over and over and over again!  Sometimes they switch vehicles with each other - sometimes voluntarily and other times not so much!  This keeps them entertained for a good 30 minutes at a time!  Gotta love it!

*Please ignore the mess in these pictures!  That's also what being cooped up in the house for several days will do!!

On your mark - get set - GO!!!!!



Love these crazy kiddos!!



Surgery!

First I want to thank everyone SO much for all of the sweet notes, prayers, and love that have been showered on Caroline and our family the last few days!  We feel SO loved and supported and cannot express our appreciation enough!

Friday morning we headed off to the Surgery Center for Caroline's surgery.  She got a little cranky because she couldn't have anything to eat or drink, but Cayah and Ike brought cute balloons, new movies, and new "people" to play with while we waited (as well as taking the munchkins so we could be full-time nurses to Miss C!), so she did ok!  The "happy juice" they finally brought her helped the most though! :)  She was SO excited to wear her Tinkerbell hospital gown that my great friend Keri made her!  (You have GOT to check out her fabulous organization that brings smiles to sick kiddos everyday!  Truly inspirational!! Heartfelt Couture)  She also LOVES Dr. Ehmer so she was excited to see him too!

After the surgery she woke up pretty well.  She definitely has more pain this surgery than she has had with previous ones.  They said this was a much more invasive and intense surgery than her previous ones, so that is to be expected.  When we took her home that afternoon, she ended up sleeping most of the day.  Around 9:00 that night the anesthesia wore off and the steroid they had given her in the surgery kicked in!  She was up most of the night and she was very WIRED on Saturday.  She can't hear out of one ear so she has no interest in movies or tv.  She'll play for a little bit but really just seems to want us to read her book after book after book after book!  She spent most of Saturday running from room to room of our house and trying to stand on her head about a thousand times!  I thought MY head was going to explode!  The child just had surgery and she was trying to stand on her head!  She had quite a bit of bleeding on Saturday (probably due to the head standing and running around!).  Thank goodness a visit from Cayah and Ike to bring the babies home and have lunch kept a tired mommy and daddy halfway sane!  The steroid finally wore off and she slept Saturday night (THANK YOU JESUS!) except for being woken up for pain meds.  Today she is much more puny.  She's pretty much just laying around and not feeling so great.  However, because she is resting more she isn't having as much bleeding.  We are laying low, reading books, and keeping up with the pain meds.  She still can't hear well, but she is feeling so yucky that she is sitting still for some movies and tv. She is happy her brother and sissy are home!

 

Sweet Liam is just trying to play with his cars and stay out of the way of all the craziness!



We are praying her pain gets better, her ear will unclog so she can hear, and she will continue to rest well and heal!  We are so thankful for all of the loving calls, texts, messages, and emails!!  I apologize to everyone I have not gotten back to yet!  I am working on it!  I promise!  Happy Superbowl Sunday!