It's been a Looooong Month which equals a LONG post!

So first of all I wanted to say that I'm so sorry I haven't been keeping up with my posts. August was a SUPER DUPER busy month for us. It always has and it always will. Its my birthday, Sam and Parker's birthday, We go to Cleveland for a week to visit family and NOW we have a new reason to celebrate August. My new Nephew was born yesterday. Taylor David Holdwick was born August 29th. He was 9lbs 8 oz's and 22 1/2 inches long. He is a LINEBACKER! Kim (Nate's twin sister) is doing great! We went down yesterday to Kalamazoo only a few hours after he was born to visit. Sam and Parker were THRILLED to say the least. They are so excited to have a little boy cousin. They only have two first cousins ya know. Sam has always said that he thought it was going to be a boy. Even when she first told us the news back in February Sam called it. Kim and Jeff did not want to know the sex of their baby so we were all kept in suspense and it has been so hard not to know. Holding Taylor and watching Sam and Parker with him has given me a WHOLE lotta baby fever let me tell you!

I have a TON of pictures to upload to the blog but I thought I would fill you in on what we have been up to the past month.

I had a birthday:( I'm now 34 years old which has been ROUGH for me to accept! Ha! Sam and Parker both had birthdays and are now 4 years old which makes me feel like time is going by wayyyyyy to fast. Nate is the only one not getting a cake with candles on it right now! ha! For my birthday we spent the day at the beach in Ludington. Sam and Parker got me a pink monster truck and a new Barbie. Parker picked me out a super cute BUT way to small pink headband and was so proud of it that I tried to wear it but it almost made my head explode! Nate got me some of my favorite things from Sephora. He sure knows me! Ha!

Two days after my birthday was S & P's big day. We opened presents on their birthday and then spent a while playing with all the new toys. We went out to lunch, went to Toys R Us and then just chilled out on their actual birthday. The following day was a Sunday and we had their party with all the Grandma and Grandpa's and a few other relatives. Tuesday of that week we went up to Gary and Keri's new houseboat and celebrated with them and Auntie Beryl and then Thursday that week we met up with Dana and Logan at Chuck E Cheese to celebrate AGAIN. They had a whole birthday extravaganza week. Logan turned 4 only three days after Sam and Parks so Dana and I started a new tradition of just getting together to celebrate our 3 awesome little guys. They had a BLAST playing together and Dana got them cupcakes and we sang to them. It was really cute.

A week later we went to Cleveland. I have two aunts and an uncle that live there. I also have gosh, like 20 cousins ranging in age from 50 to 2 years old. We always have a blast when we go there. People always laugh at us when we tell them we are going to Cleveland for a weeks vacation but I have to tell you that there is a lot of fun stuff for kids there. The best part is catching up with some of my most favorite people in the world. My Mom's Two sisters, Aunt Ginny Ginny Cocoa Pop and Aunt Joy are amazing women. They are so great to not just Nate and I but also to our kids. Sam and Parker LOVE spending time with them. Plus they take such good care of us while we are there. Entertaining us and cooking us amazing food. We got to spend a lot of time also with my cousin Vicki and her husband Mike. They are seriously the most generous, loving and caring people on this earth. SERIOUSLY! Vicki is a minister and Mike is a certified Genius who runs some sort of software computer company that I cannot even begin to understand about! ha! They are incredibly loving to our boys!! I love spending time with them and am always so inspired to be a better person afterwards. And we got to see my cousin Todd and his wife Wendy who also are amazing people. They have 5 children who are all so sweet and well behaved and they had us over for dinner one night and instantly my boys became idolized by the older kids. They even had legos there so of course Parker was mesmerized! Ha! One of the best things about our trip was that my niece Kylie got to go with us. Last year it was just us, the boys and my Mom that drove down. Everyone was asking about Kylie so we decided that this year we would try and bring her with us. Luckily Gary and Keri were OK with us borrowing their little girl for almost an entire week. So me, Nate, Sam, Parker, Kylie and Grandma ALL drove 5 hours to Cleveland. It was so much fun though and we created so many wonderful memories!!! I'll have more info with the pictures later.

This has been a very challenging month for me. I have been struggling with some shoulder pain for quite a while now. I have been seeing a specialist who then sent me to Physical Therapy which made it worse:( Back again to the specialist who sent me to a neurologist who took almost 2 months to get an appointment with. FINALLY this past week I met with the Neurologist. Turns out I have some major nerve damage in my long thoracic nerve which is causing my Scapula (Shoulder blade) to wing out. It has been VERY painful!!! I have been on a lot of pain pills which is causing other issues like depression, insomnia and weight gain. FABULOUS huh! And the bad thing is that unless they find something in the MRI that I have scheduled for Thursday that is causing it (like a tumor or growth) then there really isn't much to "Fix" the problem. They will send me to a pain clinic that will work on Non-Narcotic pain control, like injections or nerve blocks. So there is a part of me that is hoping that on Thursday they will find a NON cancerous tumor or SOMETHING that is causing this pain. It is pretty much a constant pain but gets worse at times. I have been having a lot of deep burning pain lately and my whole arm has been going numb which of course is never a good thing. Hopefully after my MRI I will have some more answers. I'm trying to be as positive as I can. I am trying to be thankful for the fact that it is a non-life threatening medical issue and there are people who have it much worse. But pain is pain and when you are in pain its NOT FUN!!!

Sam and Parker will be starting school in about two weeks. They are going to 4 year old pre-school. We are choosing to only do 2 days a week again. If the teachers feel its necessary we will probably do 3 days a week after the first of the year. They are both very excited to start up again. They have missed their school and teachers a lot over the summer. I'm kind of looking forward to a couple of hours during the week to run errands, get coffee and shop:) Ha!

Nate's job is going great and he continues to love what he does. He hasn't had to travel that much this summer which has been a blessing. I am still working at the salon 2 days a week totally a whopping 10 hours a week. It's not much but it gives me time away in a girlie environment. I love all the girls that I work with and it really is just a fun place to be. Plus it keeps me from shopping all the time. Even though I don't bring in very much $$ it's more about the interaction with adults and the little cash that it does bring in is nice for fun things to do with the family.

Hopefully there are some of you that actually still read this blog! Ha! I'll be posting a TON of pictures over the next couple of days so get your glasses ready and enjoy:)