Look who is BACK, with a horrible back!

Sorry for the lack of posting. I have been having a horrendous situation with my back and I will only blog from my personal computer. I'm not so great at typing so much on the ipad. I have a giant herniated disk at l5 (the lowest disk in your back ) that is compressing or squashing my L1 nerve which is otherwise known as the sciatic nerve. The pain shoots from my lower back down the back of my lower leg and into my toes. It has been completely debilitating to say the least. Driving is impossible, cooking is non existant and so on and so forth. I have every pain killer prescribed to man and was even offered morphine which I declined. Isn't that for dying people? Sheesh. Thankfully, my momma is the worlds best caretaker and flew here for 7 weeks to help out in Sept. Her original plan was to help with our big move...yes, we finally bought a house! More on that in a second. She went home for 5 weeks and came back for Christmas, along with my brother who flew in from LA. I finally have surgery scheduled for Jan. 10. I saw 3 surgeons for opinions and will be having a discectomy/laminectomy. It's been a long while since I've had any type of surgery so I'm freaked to say the least! We'll be driving 3 hours away to Indianapolis to a surgeon who comes highly recommended in this area. He reminds of Niles Crane, which means he's got tiny hands. Perfect for a surgeon right?? I'm hoping this does the trick but of course if you consult Dr. Google (I know,shame on me) there are so many horror stories it's unreal. I also have the back of a 90 year old woman and have so much more wrong with me than this problem. So reherniating the same disk is very likely. I'm also a candidate for spinal fusion. This is a MAJOR surgery that involves putting rods, pins, cages and screws in your lower spine. The first surgeon I saw said this was my only option and I was really really scared. Thank goodness we got 2 other opinions. They think I could definitely need it down the road but insisted that they wouldn't jump into a fusion right away. I may need one in a year, 5 years or 10. Who knows. One thing I've learned from this is that people are good. Here we are, brand new to the state of Indiana and I had at least 20 meals brought to my house. I've been prayed for, people have taken my kids to school, overnight even while we drove to Indianapolis for the appointment...it's unreal. It's mind blowing the goodness that I've seen in people. Complete strangers even. Perhaps I'll never know the lesson God has been trying to teach me but one thing goes through my mind continuously. "BE STILL"...one of my favorite verses. Psalm 46:10 "Be still and know that I am God". It's amazing the things that go through your head when you have no control over your life and have no choice but to "be still". You let go of your idea of the perfect clean house. Heck, we MOVED while I layed on a matress on the floor. I had the doorbell ringing all day it seemed. Here we are in our brand new house, after having been in an apartment all summer..and heck a literal barn in CO before that! I had envisioned all the wonderful dinner parties to be had, all the remodeling that we needed to do....how I probably wouldn't invite too many people over until it was all finished and show home worthy. WRONG. I was answering the door in my jammies at 2pm on percocet while friends I"ve known for only 3 months unpacked boxes and saw the underwear strewn about the house. It became comical. You have to laugh right? The house we chose is in Mishawaka, IN...basically just an extension of South Bend/Granger. You don't know where one town starts and the other begins.Ideally, we fudged on our location because we liked the house so much. Almost all of our friends live in Granger..however we are still in the coveted PHM school district which is huge. We were only searching in this district. However the "best" elementary schools are going to be a good 20 minute drive or more for me starting next year. There is a river that runs through the town and our neighborhood is perched right on the St. Joseph river. We are right at the end of a cozy cul de sac on .5 acre lot (that we still need to fence.) The house had a ton of charm. We were kind of over "new" houses...since that last few we have lived in have been brand new. We wanted some character this time. After living here though now for almost 3 months we've realized that when you go for "older and charming" you gain things like electrical issues and the loss of the whole wide open concept we were so used to. Don't get me wrong, we love a lot about this darling house but it's very compartmentalized feeling. And we have yet to do anything to it except hang new lighting. We want to put leopard carpet on the stairs, redo the entire kitchen and paint basically every single room. And the powder bath downstairs needs a face lift. So, needless ot say, when my back gets better I'll be BUSY with this place! It's fun to have something that is "ours" again though. A really great feeling. Erik is loving his job. He's travling a bit but nothing too crazy that we can't handle. I'm hoping to go with him to some places when my back gets better. Claire was the first child a couple of weeks ago to get stitches. She decided to cut an apple by herself with a gigantic serrated bread knife. 9 stitches later....Let's just say that little darling learned her lesson. She and Erik even wrote a book about the experience..it's darling. She drew pictures and dictated to Erik what to say. He had them color printed and bound and it's the cutest thing ever! He thinks he should get her a Linkedin profile as a "childrens book author". Too funny. Now for some photos:)!! These few were taken from the listing, before it was ours.

And for some of our family pics from our fall shoot we do every year! I was pleased with our photographer.

Tons more pics but those are a few highlights! I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas! We were so thankful this year to be in our new home that we could hardly stand it:) I'll post a few Christmas pics soon...I really didn't take too many, it was so chaotic. All I can say is that having a 3 and 5 year old make Christmas truly full of magic. I could have cared less if I got anything and actually for the first year ever didn't ask for a thing. Obviously, I got things...I have a husband who goes overboard with gifts every year but really....the best gift was just watching the kids eyes and see their excitement:) Blessed bliss.