Tyler's birthday and the worst month of residency so far

Back in the summer when we had just started residency there was a blog circulating around facebook and the resident wives group I hang out with here. It basically made residency sound like the worst thing that could happen to a person and that your life is over and you will never see your husband for the duration of his residency. I have been expecting long hours, but I felt the blog post was a little dramatic. Plenty of people have jobs that demand long hours and busy schedules. And after the first couple months of residency I was totally confident that we were going to survive residency just fine and the blog post was overly dramatic, just like I thought. Tyler worked long hours, but we still saw him and I figured that's how it would be.

And then he started his surgery rotation. 

Ok, wow. Everything in that blog article is completely true. Tyler's hours are completely insane. He usually has to be at the hospital at 5am and frequently doesn't get home until 9pm. And he has 4 days off the entire month of October. A lot of days the girls don't even get to see him at all. It totally feels like I am single parent most of the time and I pretty much plan my life accordingly. If Tyler happens to be around it's a lucky bonus.

But from what I hear this is one of his worst rotations so hopefully we will get back to normal busy at the end of this month. 

Despite all of this, we've had some highlights this month. Tyler turned 28 and Kendall started walking! Proof that time is actually passing even though it feels like we are stuck in this never ending rotation.

Kendall snuck into the fridge before it had a chance to close all the way.

Avery's little buddy, Charlotte. They are each wearing one of Charlotte's shoes.

Avery sharing a "poop-sicle" with Kendall.

(I give her popsicles so she'll sit on the toilet for longer than 30 seconds.)

Tyler's birthday!

He got home at 3pm that day. It was a birthday miracle!

We were able to open presents and spend the rest of the day with Daddy. I took Tyler out to eat at a Mexican restaurant while the girls stayed with a sitter.

Let's be honest, that was probably more of a present for me than for him.

I took Avery to the dollar store and let her pick out anything she wanted to give to Daddy for his birthday. She chose this alligator that grows when you put it in water. She calls it a dinosaur and she was sooo excited to give it to him. She talked about it for the 3 days we got it before his birthday.

Avery was super into the whole birthday present opening.

Kendall is always good for a snuggle. She loves her Daddy.

Avery sharing her banana bread with Kendall.

Kendall exploring.

Our friends from Galveston, the Cardozas, came to visit us for a couple hours on their drive home from visiting family. It was so fun to see them again and made me home sick for Galveston all over again.

Avery snuggling Daddy.

We've been having movie night with Daddy if Tyler gets home soon enough. Avery won't go to sleep before 10 anyway so we figure she might as well spend some time with Daddy since he's never around.

I took the girls to a Pumpkin Patch with our friends, the Shannons.

It had bouncing castles, a hayride, a maze, a playground, and of course pumpkins. If it wasn't so far away I would go ever week of October!

Ethan and Avery were fearless on the big slides.

Kendall and Audrey hung out in the wagon.

Pumpkins!

They had a maze and Avery was a little freaked out by it, but luckily Ethan was there to help her figure out where to go. It was fun to watch them from the outside and try and give them directions when they got stuck in a corner. They are two so... "turn left" doesn't really cut it. We had to get creative.

If you make it through the maze you get to go down a slide at the end!

Sitting in the airplane.

They had characters from practically every show/movie. Avery couldn't get enough of Anna and Elsa.

The hayride!

Tyler's new Patagonia coat with his name on it.

Avery had her 2.5 year check up. The dr tried to gave me a plan to get her to quit holding her poop in, but we're not out of the woods yet. Will this misery ever end???

We had lunch at the hospital with Daddy one day.

I had Ethan and Sadie over for preschool. We made Halloween snack foods. The kids had a blast.

This is Avery's spider cracker. I love how many legs she put on him.