To be thankful..

Thanksgiving is a fun holiday for us every year. We either get to sleep in and head to Jeff's family for lunch or get up early and drive to Fort Worth for my family. We rotate every other year and this year was our turn to go to Fort Worth. I think this worked out well since I am not sure how thrilling it would be to drive to Fort Worth next year with a 9 month old, 5 year and 3 year old. The year after.. I think I can handle it.. Ha!
Anyways, Thanksgiving was extra cold this year so we bundled like eskimos and headed East. We made it just in time for lunch and left early enough to make it back before it hit 20 degrees that night. My cousin, Allison, and her husband were there with their two sweet girls. McKinley is 5 and Meredith is 2, only 2 weeks younger then Happy, so the four girls had a lot of fun playing (and destroying the play room.. Sorry, Aunt Bev :)

Jeff and I having lunch conversation with my Granny and Papa. I work in insurance so don't get me started on health care "reform". That is what this picture is all about. My Papa and I could discuss all day long.. and Jeff probably was about to fall asleep LOL Can you see Brittyn in the picture? She is making a large appearance these days :)

 My cousin, Allison, with her husband, Brett and cousin, Jarrett, with his new wife, Crystal

 McKinley, Braelyn, Happy and Meredith in the playroom. This was the beginning of their destruction.. :)

 Granny and Papa with four of their great-granddaughters..

Granny, Meredith, McKinley, Papa, Braelyn and Happy.

They have 6 great granddaughters (Bailey, Peyton, McKinley, Braelyn, Brylee and Meredith) and 3 great-grandsons (Hayden, Hutton and Dylan). Miss Brittyn will be their 10th great-grandchild. Papa told me thanks for evening it out for him :)

Braelyn and McKinley cheesing!!

It was a great holiday! We have so much to be thankful for!!

Welcome Back! :)

Well I had no intentions of fully neglecting my blog and facebook pictures for a FULL 3 weeks but it happened. In fact, I was just thinking the other day that I was going to try to get more posts than the previous month and look at me.. Here I am with my first post of the month on the 14th of the month! Whoops! But I am back. I just always get the feeling when I get behind on my blog that it is going to take me so long to get caught up so I keep pushing it off.. do yall get the same feeling? Dang blog with its guilt! :) So now I am playing catch up again and picking and choosing which life events to document on here LOL Here goes..

Hmm.. it's probably been three weeks now but we went to the Hot Air Balloon Festival here in Abilene. It was a good time. We went during the day once so the kids could do all the rides and games and then went back at night because they do the big balloon glow. It's pretty cool... it's really cool for Abilene, ha!

And we had to play peek-a-boo in the car on the ride home.. :)

Just a couple days after that Braelyn wanted to make brownies.. how could I argue with that?!? We got the brownies all ready and as I was about to pour them in when Little Happy just reached over and stuck her hand in the bowl. Braelyn was shocked.. she looked up at me waiting for my reaction. I couldn't help it.. it was so funny and they persued to make this mess below. This is sooo Happy's personality.. to be daring and not care but reach out and grab what she wants... and Braelyn would never do such a thing. She is sweet and gently, always obeying the rules. I love them both so much!

This is THE MOST RANDOM POST EVER!! One night we went bowling LOL Here are the pictures.. :)

Dylan is such a character!!!

And finally one of Jeff's favorite nights of all year.. Abilene Cruise Night! This really is a cool event.. it is SO Abilene, so small town and people love it! Show up with your cars and cruise and afterwards there is a car show, dance and other fun stuff. The people here look forward to it all year long and thousands of people line the streets on the cruise route to watch!

I LOVE THIS ONE OF DYLAN'S FACE!!

OUR FRIEND CODY'S BABY BOY, TRENTON! HE IS SUCH A HAPPY LITTLE GUY AND SOO CUTE! LOOK AT THOSE BABY BLUES!!

Oh my goodness, are you up to date on the most random things in my life ever? I think so :) I had to pick and choose topics and photos just so I could get my blog back up to speed but here we are!

You might remember this post asking for prayers for Braelyn. Things have progressed the past few weeks and we have made (or been forced to make) the decision to go ahead with her third surgery.. more tubes in her ears. You can read the summary of Braelyn's medical history on that previous post but after much discussion and prayers, Jeff and I knew thats what we had to do for Braelyn. There is no way she can make it through all winter without tubes in her ears and we cannot let her run the risk of hearing damage or eardrum damage so I am begging you to pray for us FRIDAY MORNING as we send our precious firstborn in for her third surgery in her teeny, tiny life. We are confident in our doctor and the decision he has made but it is still very worrisome, even the third time around.  Braelyn is the epitomy of strength and I know she will do great, better than me crying in the waiting room, but I appreciate, in advance, the prayers sent up on her behalf. She is a priceless jewel! Friday morning early.. boo!

In good news, my grandmother has finally made it home from the hospital and rehab after many months of worry and stress. She is home and is still awaiting a couple procedures but vastly improving and we are so grateful!!

If you read all of this, you are a trooper, too! :)

Lots of things

It's been a fun and crazy week at our house. Monday we got results from Braelyn's kidney tests and everything was perfect! I am so thankful, I appreciate the many prayers that were sent up on Braelyn's behalf. We are so blessed.

Here is Dylan and James skating at the Bassetti Elementary skate night :)

My grandmother, who I shared before was having some health problems and in the hospital, has had a minor set back. She has been through weeks of rehab to build her strength back and is finally walking again on her own and then last night she fell and hurt herself again. I talked to my Papa today and she didn't break any bones (thank God) but she has a pretty bruised up hip and is very sore so she won't get to go home on Tuesday, which was the plan. I know she is pretty sad about that and I'm sure she is feeling pretty set back so if you would pray for her and my Papa, I would appreciate it so much. My Papa is Superman and handling all this like a champ. He is a great caretaker and he keeps those nurses and rehab people on their toes making sure my grandma is taken care of so pray for his strength.. I know he is exhausted and ready for her to come home!

Wednesday we went to look at a Suburban to trade my Equinox in on. After much debating and dealing, we picked one that we loved and got the most amazing deal ever! It is not brand new.. just new to us! :) The Equinox, although I loved her, had a hard life with the kids and was, quite frankly, falling apart so we decided her time with us was done! Haha! I am loving the new suburban because it has SO much room! Three rows and we needed it! Since I have Dylan most of the time, 3 kids was pretty packed in my old car. Plus the suburban is fully loaded and I am thankful for the leather seats.. the cloth ones on the Equinox were destroyed by three sweet little kids! :) Leather seats should be a requirement with toddlers! And to be honest, I have never owned a big, long car so I am really trying to not smash anything anytime soon :)

In other news, this weekend is the MDA Telethon and I would like to personally encourage you to make a donation to an organization that is very close to my heart. MDA, as most of you know, is one of the leading sources of funding for ALS research. My mother passed away from ALS in May 1999 and I can not begin to tell you how much MDA means to my family. So sit at home, enjoy your family and watch the marathon on tv while you make a donation. Here is the link to MDA-ALS and here is the link to the MDA Telethon website. So many of us are blessed with our health and we can help out even just a little to those who aren't so fortunate. It's all in God's plan.

This weekend we are having some friends, Chris and Kristie, over who are in town and Braelyn is beside herself waiting for them to get here! We can't wait! Looks like we are going to get some rain too so hopefully we can still squeeze in a Labor Day Weekend Cookout. Saturday, Jeff and I are watching his two neices and my nephew again for the tonight so wish me luck with 5 kids again! :) We are going to have a blast! Can I just tell you that being an aunt is sometime more fun than "mom".. I can spoil them rotten and send them home! :)

Is that enough updates for you? Sorry to write a long blog but I had to get it all out! :) Donate to MDA and pray for my Granny and Papa.. that is your homework for the weekend :)

Pray

Surprisingly, there has not been much to blog about lately, which sometimes, is a good thing! Not that it's been calm around here or anything crazy like that :) but we have mostly just been hanging out. I am all caught up on my blogs just in time for our mini-vacay this weekend to San Antonio. We are spending Saturday doing fun things around San Antonio and Sunday we are taking the kids to Sea World. I haven't been since I was really little so I might be more excited than my children :) I am mostly excited about staying in a hotel.. haha.. I LOVE hotels! :)

I do need to ask (beg) you to pray for my precious Granny (the one who just celebrated her 60th anniversary with my sweet Papa). She has been in the hospital since Friday night and is doing better but still needs your prayers. She had surgery yesterday to correct a small problem and probably will require a second surgery in a couple weeks. I won't go in to details but please pray for her fast recovery and regaining of her strength. She is very weak right now. Once she is released from the hospital (hopefully tomorrow or the next day) she will have to spend another week in a rehab center to get lots of help building her strength back. She and my Papa (who has been back and forth from the hospital with her) could really use some prayers right. Thankfully, my aunt is back in town now to help them out because me dragging the kids back and forth from the hospital to help is just not really possible and it breaks my heart to not be able to help!!
I appreciate all you out in the blog world who keep up with us and would spend some time on your knees for my family today!

Sorry, no pictures.. we have been full of activities that don't require photography.. example: doctor's appointments! BOO! However, Braelyn does start back to gymnastics tomorrow morning.. the big girl class sans Mommy... :-/ So, okay, pictures tomorrow of gymnastics class! :)

Granny and Papa's 60th Anniversary!!

Last week while we were on our trip to Fort Worth we got to share in a very cool party! My grandparents have been married for SIXTY years! They are so cute! Anyways, I had been staying with them all week so Wednesday morning, I got up, packed up all my stuff, loaded the car, loaded the kids and kissed them goodbye. Granny and Papa are always sad to see us go and we are sad too but not this time.. we knew a little secret that they didn't. We told them we were heading back to Abilene but really we headed up the road to Nana's house in Keller :) We spent the day there (see swimming pictures below) and got all the kids ready just in time to make it to Granny and Papa's surprise birthday dinner at Abuelo's. They walked in to me and all my cousins and all our kids waiting! They were shocked and so happy! I had already called Papa a few hours before to let them know that we were safe and had made it back to Abilene.. whoops.. just a small lie for the sake of fun, right? :) Needless to say, they were thrilled and I apologized for lying :) We had a great dinner and were so happy to see everyone and got to take lots of pictures :) Between me, my brother and my 3 cousins we have 9 kids so it's always a good time!

Granny and Papa.. how cute are they?! 60 years together!!

Brylee and Meredith are two weeks apart in age :)McKinley and Braelyn are almost exactly one year apart :)Kids watching there balloon fly awayMy Uncle Jack, Granny, Papa, and Aunt Beverly All the great-grandkids plus me and Brett holding babies :)Papa and his grandson (my cousin), JarrettSweet MeredithBraelyn and MommyMiss Happy Hayden, McKinley and BaileyPeyton and HuttonMy cousins.. Angie, Jarrett and Allison with Granny and PapaPapa got a new Bible with his name on itAunt Bev and Granny :)Happy 60th Anniversary!!