Preggo Belly Saves The Day

It's been one of those weeks where some kind of sickness gets ahold of me and just won't let go. After struggling to breath, blowing my nose like crazy, and wiping my watery eyes, I decided to head to the clinic for some meds. I was second in line, so this made it seem like it would be a great day after all. The doctor came in so fast, that I was really impressed. He looked in my ears, nose, throat, and listened to my chest. He never said what it was that I had but just told me it was going around. He prescribed me an antibiotic and a cough medicine, and I was on my way out the door in less than fifteen minutes. Pretty amazing, huh? On my way out, apparently the doctor took a good look at me and noticed I was carrying a little extra weight up front. He glanced over at the paper the nurse had filled out and saw where it said I was 24 weeks pregnant and have gestational diabetes. How could he have missed these two very important pieces of information? He called me back so that he could change my prescriptions to something that was safer for Emerson and me. I'm just glad he noticed me as I walked out or I would have been taking something that is not meant for pregnant women.

I decided it was too cold to get out again and wait for the prescriptions to be filled, so I just headed back home to get in my warm bed. I text Chris to see if he would pick my medicine up before he came home for lunch. He agreed, of course. A little after noon, I got a call from him asking me if I was suppose to have three medications. No, it was only one. Apparently the doctor had not canceled the first two out when he sent in the correct one. Here Chris was being asked to pay $115, after insurance, for two meds I didn't even need. The pharmacist did not know for sure which of the two antibiotics was the correct one, so I ended up not getting the medicine until later that afternoon when Chris got off work because the pharmacy was waiting to confirm the correct medicine with the doctor. It ended up only costing us $15 for the medicine, but that was the only good thing to come out of this whole mess.

So here I am, back at work. I'm still not feeling so hot, but at least I've got some medication that won't harm my unborn child, right? Let's hope so.

Kolie Renee

After a long hard day, Morgan smoothly delivered a sweet baby girl at 3:53 pm. Kolie Renee weighed in at 7 lbs. 4 ozs. and was 20.5 inches long. She is just amazing. It was a really blessed time with our family and friends all gathered together awaiting her arrival and then celebrating when the moment finally came. Morgan looked like her normal thin, energetic self right after delivery. She was definitely all baby. She was so brave and amazing all through the day. I hate having to be here at work today and can't wait to get off and go see my sweet little niece and my amazing sister.

Kaylee and I will definitely be fighting over the role of favorite aunt.

Morgan was a beaming new mommy and Olivia was
super thrilled about her cousin, hence the cheesy grin.

Oh, Baby

Tomorrow's the day. Kolie Ann will come on out to meet and greet us. Our family is so excited to have a new little member. Morgan is ready to pop and just can't wait to meet her sweet little girl. I am super excited about being an aunt. After all these years that my sisters have been spoiling my kids, I get to take part in a little spoiling of my own. I can't wait to post pics of baby Kolie and the rest of our family loving on her. Please pray for Morgan throughout the day today and tomorrow. She goes in tonight to be monitored so they will know how to proceed tomorrow morning. There have been some minor complications with her cervix closing up and Kolie flipping back around to the breech position, but we are praying that this will be fixed and everything will go smoothly. Thanks for all your thoughts and prayers for my little sis throughout these past few months, and I will be updating you guys as soon as I can peel myself away from my cute little niece.

Morgan and her high school besties

The shower cake

One of many adorable outfits
Morgan opened at her shower

That Didn't Take Long

I got to see my Nanny last night at a 50th birthday party. It really wasn't too surprising that she was up and at 'em after having a lumpectomy yesterday. She's always so tough, but what did surprise us was that the doctor tried to give her some pain medication for the next few days, and she told him she had no use for it. All day yesterday she said she had no pain whatsoever. She was back to her old self again less than twenty four hours after her surgery. So far, it looks like she's cancer free! Praise the Lord!!!

Our First Upward Experience

Carson has been begging to play basketball for the past two years, but the only league he was old enough for was LCAA. Our previous experiences with them were not great, so we decided to make him wait. Now the time had come for him to play Upward. He was counting down the days from sign-up to his first practice to his first game. He was super excited. Olivia had just finished Fall soccer, but Upward also has cheerleading available starting with four year olds. We decided to go ahead and sign her up as well thinking it would give her something to do during his games. After a few practices and being frustrated with her coach, we got a schedule for both of them. To our surprise, Olivia does not cheer at one of Carson's games the whole season. The cheer teams rotate cheering for girls and boys at each of the two gyms. Now our Saturdays consist of basketball in the morning and cheer in the afternoon or vise versa. Carson's first game was Saturday at 8:30 am, and Olivia didn't cheer until 5:30 that afternoon. What a mess, but boy was it fun to watch.

Carson hustled pretty well, but all the boys had a hard time with offense and defense because they normally practice on a fourth of the court. Games are played on half of the court, so they got confused quite often when their team got the ball. You can't press either, so when the other team would get the ball, they'd have to stop the game, get the defense to the other end of the floor, and then proceed from there. It was quite hilarious to watch the action. Carson had a very hard time on offense. The boys are matched up according to how they scored in their tryouts. They are given a colored wristband that matches the boy they have to guard the entire time. He would find his yellow guy and guard him the entire time, on defense and offense. It was hysterical. He would be down in defensive position with his back to the ball whenever his team was bringing it down the floor. He had a ton of fun though, so we can work out the rest of the details later.

This was his position the entire game Passing the ball in He got a little bored on the bench

Olivia looked super cute in her cheer uniform. She was also very excited about her first game. She kept asking on the way to and at Carson's game if we brought her megaphone, pom poms, and cheer suit. We had to explain over and over again that it wasn't her turn yet, but once her game arrived, we couldn't calm her down. She did so good yelling and saying the cheers, but it was sort of hard to put it all together with the motions. The boys who were actually playing ball were in like 5th grade or so. They were HUGE compared to these tiny 4-6 year old girls who were cheering for them, but the girls were not deterred. They yelled their loudest and put on a great show. It was also a lot of fun to watch.





Although the scheduling makes for a long and full Saturday, it's so worth it to see my kids out there doing what they love to do.

A Legacy of Faith

My sweet sweet grandma, June, has been plagued with physical difficulties for the past twenty years. My grandpa has been told numerous times that she won't make it through surgery or illness, but every time we have prayed for her healing, and she has recovered. She was diagnosed with pancreatitis in 1992. Her dead pancreas was rotting inside of her and infecting her entire body. After 52 days in the hospital, my grandpa was told that she would not make it through surgery if they removed the pancreas, but if they left it, she would die of infection. That night, my grandpa laid hands on her and prayed for her complete and total healing. The next morning, she was sitting up in bed (which she had not done in almost two months.) When Papa asked if she was alright, she said that she felt fine but her colostomy bag was really heavy. Upon inspection, they found that her dead pancreas had come out during the night and was stuck in the tube just above the bag. The doctors were amazed that this even took place, but were even more astonished at her recovery. She should not have been able to live without a pancreas, but with the help from insulin shots, she has lived almost seventeen years. Shortly before this, she and my grandpa survived a roll down a 40 foot embankment in a motorhome. All that was left of the motorhome was the chassis, but all four people inside walked away with scratches and bruises. About six months ago, she had surgery to untangle her intestines. She suffered infections and other drawbacks after the surgery. She is still recovering and is definitely not back to her old self, but just to be alive is a miracle because of the mess her bowels were in.

A couple months ago, she found a lump on her breast and had a biopsy done. Last Monday, her doctor called to tell her it was breast cancer. She told me later on that afternoon, but she seemed unphased by the news. I hugged her and told her I was sorry and that we would pray for another miracle, but once the kids and I got in the car, I lost it. This is the first time a family member has been diagnosed with cancer, so we are really blessed in that aspect, but our very dear friend, Kenny, died three short years ago from colon cancer. He was only 47. Cancer really sucks! It brings the strongest grown-ups to a level of sickness and weakness that is devastatingly painful to bear and to watch your loved one go through. It takes over every aspect of their lives, and there's really nothing that anyone can do about it but pray.

After an MRI, they discovered that it has not spread anywhere else so they gave the option of a lumpectomy, only removing the lump with a chance that it will grow back, or a total mastectomy, removing her whole breast so there's no chance of regrowth. My grandma didn't have to think twice about her decision. She told them to just remove the lump because, "by the time it were to grow back, I'll be dead and in heaven anyway." She is so strong and in no way fearful of what will happen. She fully trusts in the Lord and His faithfulness to heal her once again. This is the legacy that she will leave with us once it finally is her time to go, but more than anything, I hope to be so strong and so unwavering in my faith no matter what the enemy throws my way.

Please pray for my Nanny today as she is having this procedure done. The power of prayer never ceases to amaze me. Hopefully it won't be too long before I have a follow-up with testimony of this very thing.

Pregnancy Brain Strikes Again

I was nominated to be in charge of Morgan's baby shower, so obviously I would be doing the invitations considering making event invites is a small side job I have. I made a cute little layout on her favorite green colored paper, found a sweet little poem about the baby, and added all the info. I printed out fifty or so invites, picked out backgroud paper and ribbon, and started creating. After trying to coordinate with ten other hostesses, we changed the time only once from 1-3pm to 3-4:30. No big deal, right? Well, I hand delivered the hostesses' to them on Saturday at another baby shower I attended. When I got home later that afternoon, I received a call from my cousin informing me that her invite said 3-4:30 and her sister's said 1-3. When I looked back at my left over print outs, I discovered that I only changed the time on one half of the layout, so half the invites went out with the wrong time. I could not believe that I did this. Out of all the invitations I have made over the years, I have never made a mistake like this. I spent yesterday making postcards to mail out to everyone with the correct time. So instead of saving money by hand delivering the hostesses' invitations, I had to spend 27 cents to mail out each of the thirty something cards with the right time. This pregnancy brain thing is really causing me some trouble. What is it about having a baby in your tummy and not being able to focus and use common sense?

Baby Ladybug

A month or so ago, Olivia told me that she wanted to have a baby sister and she wanted her name to be Baby Ladybug. She later told me that if it was a boy, it should be named Baby Grasshopper. I told her they were cute names and just sort of played along with it thinking it would change by the end of my pregnancy or even by the time we found out the baby's sex. A couple of weeks later, we were on our way home from church and were talking about baby names. I asked the kids if they liked the name Emerson for a girl. Olivia turned up her nose and said that she didn't like the name at all. When I told her that if the baby was a sister, her name would be Emerson, she started crying. I couldn't believe her little heart was broken. She cried and cried saying that she wanted the baby's name to be Baby Ladybug. When I suggested that maybe she get a new baby doll for Christmas and name her Baby Ladybug, she told me that that was going to be her baby sister's name. I then tried to ease her pain by suggesting she could call the baby Baby Ladybug but her name would be Emerson (If you know me well enough, you might have heard me on my soap box about baby names. It's one of my biggest pet peeves- naming your child one thing and calling them something else.) Chris has definitely heard this argument several times, so he was surprised that I would even mention this. Despite my ideas, Olivia didn't buy any of my suggestions. She just cried and kept crying that her sister's name would be Baby Ladybug. She eventually stopped crying, but it took some time.

It seems like we had to wait forever, but my ultrasound appointment finally came. We went ahead and took Carson and Olivia with us so they could see the baby. They did really good behavior wise. The baby just moved around so much that it took the technician a really long time to get all the proper measurements, so by the time she revealed the sex, both kids had long checked out of the appointment and were playing with their toys. Chris finally got their attention and told them that it was a baby girl. Carson stomped his foot and said, "Oh man. Ugh. I want to go live somewhere else." He would have left the room if we would have let him. He was not wanting to hear he was having another sister. It was quite funny.

The next morning, Carson and I were the first ones up. He hopped in the chair with me and said, "Mommy, I'm okay now about having a sister." I said, "Oh good. What was wrong yesterday that you didn't want another sister?" He looked at me so seriously and told me, "I was just tired. I hadn't had a nap, so I was tired, but I had a good night's rest and I'm alright now." I couldn't believe that my almost six year old was saying such a grown up thing.

Now we are all four super excited about our baby girl who will be arriving in early May. Every night, both Carson and Olivia kiss my tummy goodnight and say, "I love you Emerson Lou," so I think hearts are mended and well rested. It's all good now.
Here's a 3D of our Emerson Lou- a.k.a. Baby Ladybug

Lou is after Chris's grandmother, Betty Lou and his mom, Shirley Louise

My 6 Boy

On December 27th, Carson turned six years old. It's so hard to believe, but he's really growing up right before our eyes. He's been telling us to call him "6 boy" whenever we see him. He told my mom yesterday, "Grancie, you haven't said 'hey, 6 boy' to me in a while." It's just so cute, but also so grown up sounding. It's hard to believe he's in kindergarten now, reading and adding and subtracting. I never thought this time would come at all. It seems like just yesterday he was crawling and then walking and then running and now he's playing basketball, Nintendo DS, and putting together model dinosaurs. I wouldn't trade this time for those baby moments though. It's so fun to ride in the car and hear him reading signs and other things he sees around and having to return pants to the store because the size that fit him the week before are now several inches too short. It's just so amazing how time flies by.

On Saturday, his actual birthday, we let him pick where he wanted to eat lunch and then we went to Main Event to play Glow Golf. It was so much fun to watch both Carson and Olivia try their hardest to put the ball in the hole and not wanting any help to accomplish their goal. Then, they heard their favorite song "Move It, Move It" from Madagascar. They were so adorable dancing and singing without a care in the world. It really was a great day.

On Sunday, we invited some friends and family to have lunch at 50th Street Caboose. We had cookie cake and opened presents, but the biggest gift he got was a $300 mini dirt bike from my mom and dad and Chris and I. You know it was not my idea, for sure. My dad came across it and really wanted to get it for Carson. I was a bit apprehensive, but Dad, Chris and my brother in law, Stephen, were all assuring me it was safe and they would supervise at all times. Carson and Olivia both loved the bike and were ready to head home and ride it. Of course, we still don't have a helmet yet, so it has not even been turned on. I think I'm hoping everyone forgets about it for a while, or at least til he's a little bigger.

He does not like to have everyone looking at and singing to him,
so he gets all shy and embarrassed every time it's "Happy Birthday" time