Life at WillisLand

As requested, here is a picture of Mitzi doing what she loves best (or as we normally see her)…

I don’t remember an antenna poking from her ear when she was born….

My final exam for the EMT-basic class is tomorrow! I am taking a brief break from studying. Once class is done, we get to wait until April 5th to take the state certification exam. I am not real pleased over the five week delay. Nothing I can do about it, though. I am looking forward to being home on Monday and Thursday evenings (I put myself on call). At least I do not have to worry about driving to Pontiac.

Now for the announcement most of you know, Dan and Ashley are expecting a baby. Ashley is due August 21st (yep, ten days before Lynn and Liz’s fifth birthday). Yes, that will give Michael and I the title of “Grandparents”. And Yes, we realize they are young and so on… They have made their decision to keep the baby and be the best parents they can be. Dan goes to all of Ashley’s prenatal appointments. We will think positive and will be supportive. We will be putting updates and pictures out here of the baby’s progress and appointments.

Introducing…Baby McConnell…taken 2/2/08

We’re off to the frigid outdoors to check out the Lunar Eclipse. Liz came in after our last trip out saying “that was awesome!”.

We only worked with her a few times and she got it. She’ll now do it over and over. Then, she tried teaching Lynn, but she gets so frustrated.

We have been socked with colds here. It has been very cold. We may actually hit thirty degrees tomorrow and have a low tonight above zero.

Mitzi is recovering. She was able to take her packing out of the dry sockets Wednesday. Today is her 14th birthday. It was very cold January 1994!

It has been over a month since I posted last. Christmas was busy and it has not seemed to let up since. Lynn and Liz spent a week over New Years in Wisconsin. Mitzi spent all Christmas break in Wisconsin.

I don’t know if I mentioned it (was probably during one of my posting hiatus’), but Mitzi had a consult with an oral surgeon late October to have her wisdom teeth removed (two were impacted and the other two were going to shift her teeth). We held off until the new year for deductible and flex spending reasons, since it was going to be around $400 out of pocket after insurance. I called the office last tuesday (the 15th) and was notified that the oral surgeon we consulted with was retiring and last week was his last week practicing. After the initial shock, they said they could do it at 10 am Wednesday (the next day). We accepted and had to do some schedule shifting and for Michael to take the day off. It seemed to work out since Liz ended up waking at 4:30 am with the flu. Mitzi’s surgery went ok. Even with anti nausea meds, she still had issues with the anesthetic and popped out her bottom clots. We went in for the post op appointment Friday to find out she had dry socket on those bottom two. So, she had to get them packed and we get to make several visits to get the packing changed. We hope she’ll be good as new by her birthday Sunday.

It seems that we’re all getting over the sickies (knock on wood). Lynn and Michael ended up with the flu.

Lynn and Liz went in for their 4/5 year old checkups, which included the kindergarten physical. They’re still little things. Lynn is a whopping 27 pounds (1 percentile), and 38 inches (5 percentile). Liz is 29 pounds (3 percentile) and 39.25 inches (18 percentile). We had the honors of getting these two to pee in a cup (oh boy). They had their fingers poked and 3 shots. With the exception of them being small and Lynn’s speech, everything else checked out great. We’ll probably continue these mid year appointments since these two probably don’t want to go to the doctor on their birthday (besides, the office is usually busier because of all the back to school stuff).

That is all I have time for…I did not know I was going to spend 45 minutes upgrading WordPress (and a new theme) before I posted. I’ll probably tweak the theme tomorrow, since I’m off to class in 10 minutes.

We received about 8 inches of snow Saturday. As pretty as it may be, I still don’t like it. Here are a few pictures…One is of the snow blowing off the garage roof. The van is there somewhere… The last picture shows our new lights. I made all those little trees (another use for tomato cages). Our snowman looks depressed again.

Pictures are not lining up correctly…I apologize…

Here are some pictures. We sent the girls to clean their room Saturday afternoon. After about an hour, it was way too quiet…

They broke their first wishbone. Lynn wished for new shoes…

Here is our depressed snowman. He is not a big fan of all this ice…

Michael showing off a chunk of ice off his windshield…

Dan’s new car…

Animal pictures…yes, that’s Baby Kitty laying with Buddie and Odie…

For the second weekend in a row, we are dealing with ice. This weekend is worse than last. We’ve had close to a half inch ice/sleet accumulation since 1:00 AM today. At this rate, we’ll be sick of winter before winter’s official start. We already have a winter storm watch for tomorrow night and Tuesday with more ice accumulation.

Michael and I did get out for a bit last night. We typically go bowling. It makes for a cheap date since we have balls and shoes. We made it home just before it got bad out. Michael was shocked to hit three strikes in a row (called a Turkey in bowling terms). He scored a 155 that game. I’m happy to break 100 :).

Off to watch the Packer’s game!!!

We were at the mall last night and decided to visit Santa. This was the best picture out of the three they took…Evalynn’s smile now consists of sticking out her bottom chin. I’m not real happy with the pictures, but we did get one for each of the grandparents. (click the picture to enlarge)

I finally downloaded the pictures off the girls’ cameras today and have sifted through them. Here are a few of the interesting/good ones. Any guess who our model will be?

There’s a couple videos they’ve done. I’ll see if I can get them out here.

Enjoy!

I’ve decided to change the title from Evalynn & Elizabeth’s Journal to Life at WillisLand and along with that focus on the entire family, not just Lynn and Liz. I don’t see too much being different. We’ll still post the favorite pictures and the only ones really being photogenic are the girls and dogs.

We’re in the process of receiving our first real snow! It ought to make life/at least the roads pleasant. We’re waiting for that first ambulance call out to the interstate!