parties and my mommy

So I thought it would be a good time to give another update on my moms condition. On Sunday evening, she was released from the hospital to spend the 4-6 week recovery time recommended by the doctors at home. It seemed that everyday something different was planned. First she was going to have the surgery, then she was going to be transferred to another hospital for the surgery, then she was going to stay put and finally it was cancelled all together. She had another MRI performed on Wednesday (or was it Thursday? I can't get my days straight...) and it was shown that she in fact did have a stroke. It was located in the back of her brain and it didn't show up on the first MRI. Because of the stroke, she has brain swelling and the doctors don't want to go in there to remove the tumor until her brain has had sometime to recover. So for now, we just wait.

While it's always wonderful when someone goes home from the hospital, I was on the nervous side about it. Thankfully things seem to be going smooth for the most part aside from the fact that my dad is very stressed and gets emotional quite often. As I mentioned before, she was found to have developed diabetes so she is now required to be on insulin. The nurses taught my mom and dad how to administer it and how to test her blood sugar levels and they seem to be doing as best they can considering it's new ground they're walking on, so to speak (man that was a major run-on sentence! ha!). I'm thinking it would be a good idea to learn it myself so that I'm able to help if need be.

This afternoon my mom called and she needed my help because she had fallen and couldn't get herself back up. My dad had run out for an hour or so to get some paperwork and such completed so my mom could get set up with the doctor for her surgery in a few weeks. I packed Evan up real quick in the car and jetted over there. I found her on the floor on her back right in front of the step that goes up into the dining room/kitchen area. She had knocked over a bunch of stuff including a floor lamp and a bunch of CD's. Unfortunately I was only able to get her onto her bottom and nothing more. She doesn't have enough strength on her right side to help aid me in the momentum to bring her to her feet so I eventually had to call my dad to come home and help me. Thankfully once he got there we were able to get her up and into a chair. So it's becoming clear that she's in need of help for most anything right now. I told her to call me if she needs anything whenever my dads out, hopefully she'll listen. She's quite stubborn sometimes! Like taking a shower all by herself on Sunday night when my dad went out for a few minutes. She's crazy!

Anywho, thank you all again for your prayers. Obviously she'll be needing them over the next several weeks and my dad as well. We had lunch this afternoon and he spent most of it in tears. I hate seeing him like this. It hurts me because I never see him crying. So if you feel lead, please remember my dad in your prayers as well.

In other (happier) news, Evan's 3rd birthday is right around the corner and I've really got to get my stuff together and start planning his party already! I'm kinda stuck between two different themes and maybe you all could give me your thoughts and input in deciding which way to go. When I think of parties, I think of original themes and decorations. For some reason, I'm not that drawn to cartoon/movie characters. I'm not sure why but I like to build parties from a simple theme and make then unique and personalized. So this is my dilemma. Evan's been really really into Toy Story over the past few months and I know he'd love a Toy Story party. Everything's been about Woody and Buzz so it would just make his day if I did that. The problem? I don't want to do a Toy Story party. It just seems cheesy to me, no offense to anyone else who's done a party like this, but I just don't find them that fun. The theme that I was thinking and that would be so fun to put together was a pirate theme. I got the idea from Evan himself one day when he was talking about pirates. I could just see he and all his friends running around wearing their eye patches! That would be so cute! And then having some kind of treasure chest where the kiddos could search for their treasure, wearing bandanas on their heads and other fun pirate related things.

So what do you think? I know Evan would have fun with either of the parties but I also know he really loves Toy Story. I just can't pick one and go with it! I'd love to hear your thoughts!

On April 2nd my MIL turned the big 6-0 and my SIL put together a fabulous surprise party for her! It was so much fun! I thought I'd share a few photos from the big day!

The favor table! The favors where homemade marshmallows dipped in chocolate and wrapped up in these adorable little boxes! They had this pretty damask pattern printed on the top and they were ordered from a woman who makes them out of her home and they were so yummy!

The birthday banner that I made with my Cricut!



The fabulous burnt almond birthday cake! We have a local bakery called Peter's Bakery that makes these amazing cakes! Very good!



And the birthday girl! Boy was she surprised! A family member sent her this 60th birthday tiara. She looked so cute in it!



After everyone left, all the family stayed and visited for awhile and then had a pizza dinner. Evan seemed to enjoy meeting everyone and even walked around talking to a lot of them! ha! I'm not too sure he said anything anyone could actually understand though! hehe!

Anyway, that's about it for today! I hope your Tuesday turned out to be a good one!