The mouse had babies!

Okay, so I guess we didn't really have a plan about the mouse we caught. A few times a day we would go check on it in the garage. Well last night we found a BIG surprise... 5 little mice! They have no hair, just look like little fetuses. We thing we saw one of them trying to nurse. They can move all around and roll over and everything. Still don't know exactly what to do with them, but seeing as they were born in the garage I feel like we have to at least let them grow some fur before we let them out into the chilly world. If they had a nest or something I wouldn't feel so bad. Our friend Josh said he'll feed one or more to his lizard :(




Ben cut up some paper towels and put them in there so they can hide and have a soft place. I don't know anything about this so I'm just following along!

There's a mouse in the Garage!

Ben found a mouse in the garage this morning, in a box. I thought we should tape up the box and be done with it. But once I saw how little, yet fat, he was... I just couldn't. Got to be quick. Here are the pics.

I can't really think of anything special about last week so I guess we didn't do anything exciting. I got over my stomach bug in about 24 hours so my Sunday night at work wasn't as bad as my Saturday night had been. This week has been more fun and its only Wednesday!

Monday was my 25th birthday, and when I came home from work in the morning Ben had presents wrapped for me (candles and a paper cutter for card making). They were taped with blue painters tape because we were out of scotch tape. It was very Ben of him; he loves that tape. My wonderful friend Danielle took Hailey until after 3 so I got to sleep all day. It was such a nice treat because Monday's I am usually up from the day before for about 30 hours. After she came home we went to Chili's and had a delicious dinner, then started our Christmas shopping. I realized that you can shop for a toddler while she's in the cart and she has no idea about it later! Fun times...

On Tuesday after the gym I took HB for her follow up with the dentist. He said to continue keeping an eye on it, but that it looks good for now. Since the tooth that was pushed up into her gum came back down into almost the same place that it was and it didn't wiggle they opted not to do another xray. Thank goodness because she screamed for the whole 2 minutes the dentist was in the room.

After that we went to the Marbles Kids Museum in Raleigh with Danielle and her daughters Olivia (just turned 4 on 11/9) and Rosalina (of the previous cupcake eating video). They had so much fun! Hailey's favorite part was the water tables. She always gets told "No, No" when she plays with the dog's water dish. This time I put on her waterproof smock and told her to splash!








There were so many things to do there. We got a family membership, and if anyone wants to come along some time it would be a lot of fun!

Today we're getting some organization done and trying to find things for our yard sale with Stefanie and Josh a week from Saturday. Ben's got a bunch of schoolwork to do and I need to really get cracking on this GRE thing. Hope all is well with my friends out there.

Happy Veterans Day - thank a military man or woman!

Halloween and Grandpa Barnhill's birthday

Friday night we drove to Raleigh for Ben's grandpa's 93rd birthday. We were really happy to be able to see family we haven't seen in a while. I was really proud of the card I made for him. When Ben handed him the card his Grandpa said "I hope there's a check in here." Haha - I can only hope to still have that sense of humor when I am his age!



We like talking to his mom and her sisters because they have so many old stories not only from their lives, but from the lives of their parents and grandparents. Who knew that people's lives were so upset by carpetbaggers just a couple of generations ago... Another thing that I was introduced to was "Granny Cake." Ben's Aunt Sarah made it - a recipe that was her grandmother's. I could not believe my mouth! It was so good that we came home and made one yesterday. I baked the cake and made the frosting, and while I was at work after Hailey went to bed Ben assembled and frosted the cake. Its even more impressive to see that he frosted this cake if you compare it to my birthday cake last year which was quite a disaster :(





I didn't think that we would do anything for Halloween this year because Hailey's too young to appreciate trick or treating, so I signed up to work that night. If I had known that she would have as much fun as she did and be so cute in the costume her dad made for her I would never have wanted to work! Ben made her a robot costume out of cardboard spray painted silver, duct tape, and dryer vent tubing. I made the buttons from punched out circles of paint samples from Lowes. While Hailey napped yesterday I made the cakes and Ben made the costume. Because I missed most of the fun, Ben surprised me with a robot visit at work last night! I got to walk her all around the unit hallways and let my friends see her :)






I have been feeling sick since around 3 this morning and not feeling much better. Hopefully it goes away while I work tonight because I have to stay awake in the AM to take care of the kiddo while Ben goes to work and school. Have a great Sunday everyone!

October in a nutshell

Ben and I had a wonderful time on our cruise. We stopped in Key West and Cozumel. We mostly walked around Key West, but we did visit one of the oldest aquariums in America. I could have just reached my hand right into the shark tank!

In Cozumel we went to a beach, rented a jet ski, and played on these giant inflatables in the water. I don't have pictures because I didn't want to risk losing or ruining my camera at the beach, but it was a lot of fun! Our dinner placement was a little strange; we requested to be with another couple that we were traveling with at a 4 person table. I was told they would do their best to accommodate the request, but if they couldn't we would maybe be sat with one more young couple. Well, we ended up at a ten person table with three elderly couples! It made for interesting conversation. My favorite part was the eldest couple who had been on 14 cruises, always ordering escargot when it was available. Only after eating it again this time did the wife find out that she has been eating snails for years! I could have died laughing!



It was nice to get back home to our normal life after a few days of fun. Hailey did great staying with her Grandma Coyle for the long weekend... I think it was harder on Grandma than it was on HB! She may still be recovering :)

We've been working on a lot of thing with Hailey at home, she can point to the fan, the dog, show us her feet and her belly button whenever we ask. And rather than bark when we ask "what does the dog say" or "what does Lily say" she grunts. Its adorable!

We went out last week to pick a pumpkin and she loved it. She just toddled from pumpkin to pumpkin, slapping them and laughing. Ben commented that she liked it better than the park, which is so true.

Ben is still doing great with school, and I am still happy with my work. I am going to have to work half days and half nights starting in December, which is going to be a bit of a change. But I guess I will find the best and roll with it. It will take the flexibility out of the already not so flexible weekend schedule I work, and it will require me to work extra to combat the cut in pay from night shift to dayshift. The good thing is that all of this has made me get serious about going back to school while I am still just working weekends. I am applying to the Family Nurse Practitioner program at East Carolina University (where Ben goes) for the fall of 2010. Applications are due January 2nd, but I have no idea when they send out acceptance/rejection letters. There are only 30 spots per YEAR so its really competitive. I take the GRE (its like the SAT's for graduate school) on December 1st. Wish me luck!! Actually - wish me the concentration and motivation to study every night until then!

I realize now why people have to blog almost daily... even when you think there's nothing going on in your life - there is. I will try to keep up better so that you can keep up with the Rivenbarks!

On my way out - this is an adorable of video of Hailey's friend Rosalina at her first birthday party tearing into her cupcakes. I have never seen anything like it!

The Big Fall

Hailey had her first "big fall" this week; actually her first two. On Saturday evening I was packing my dinner for work and looking in the pantry. She was standing next to me, then all of the sudden she hit the tile floor and started screaming and bleeding. She had two cuts on her lip and it started getting swollen. I couldn't wiggle her teeth so I thought they were okay. Ben kept her busy playing until bedtime and she went down great. In the morning when I got home from work Hailey woke up so I changed her diaper and checked her mouth. It was obvious that her right front tooth was pushed back up into her gum and her gum was very swollen and bruised. I called the on-call nurse... who called the pediatrician... who referred us to a pediatric dentist. On Monday morning we went to the dentist, had an xray, and got a balloon :) The dentist said that her tooth is obviously moved but hopes that it will bring itself back into place. We won't know until she loses her baby teeth if it messed up her adult teeth. We'll have a check up in 6 weeks to see if its come down at all.

In other news... Ben's car is in the shop and we are both looking forward to having to cars!! We leave for our cruise in one week and are trying to get our legal affairs in order. It's strange thinking about a will. There are some changes happening at work about when and how our schedules are going to change with the economy being bad and not being able to hire more nurses. Pray that I know what to do! I love my job and want to stay, but I have to do whats best for my family so I am pretty stressed about it. Maybe if I ignore it, it will just go away.

Hailey just went down for a nap and I am crying watching the biggest loser so I guess thats all for now!

Trying again

So I'm going to try again with this blogging thing... I read Laci's and love it! Maybe this will be a way to actually keep up with our family everywhere because lets face it... Greenville isn't really Home to either of us!

So for now the basic updates:

1- Ben's still in school and working toward his concentration in mechanical engineering.
He's joined a couple of professional groups and starts working on building a car soon :)

2- I'm working weekends and extra when I can in the NICU - I love those little babies! But not as much as my not so little baby.

3- Hailey's walking, making a LOT of noise but not exactly talking yet. But she definately says "dad dad dad" and not "mom mom mom" at all so I am trying to work with her on that. She's officially off formula now and her appetite is changing some. And I learned that she LOVES to eat raisins but can't digest them... that was quite a diaper!

I really need to get to bed but I wanted to start now before I lost my drive. Hope all is good. I plan on adding pictures with the rest of my updates when I learn how and have more time!