December recap :)

Happy New Year!! I am more than excited about 2011 because we get to meet Brittyn Hope!! We celebrated New Year's Eve very low key at Jeff's parents house. Seeing as how I am 34 weeks pregnant, we have two toddlers and I was recovering from the last 24 hours with food poisioning, our plans weren't wild and crazy, ha! But we had a great time and I had fun trying to explain to Braelyn what New Year's was.. :)

I have to do some catching up from December cause we did some really fun things, always a good month!

One of Jeff's closest friends is a Marine that is stationed in Japan. Him, his wife and daughter got to come in town for the the begninning of December and we had a lot of fun. It was soo good to meet Chiaki and sweet little Arize!

 One of my favorite events of the year is the Abilene Christmas Parade! It was really cold this year and the parade is really long but we had so much fun! The kids loved every second of it and I did, too! :)

   

The girls and I had a major mission the first week of December.. Christmas cookies! We do lots of baking at our house but making the cookies was a lot of fun! We even did homemade icing.. it was soo good! I love these memories with them!!

 Also, the first week of December.. on the 7th, I turned 27 year old! I had a fun birthday and decided to make myself a birthday cake because it was a recipe I had been wanting to try for over a year. I made myself a Rainbow Cake.. it turned out soo pretty but honestly, I am not a fan of white cake so I didn't like the taste that much. No worries, I think Jeff ate the whole thing!!! :)

 Just for documentation purposes, our black tree was back for year number 2 and I still love it! I can't do clear lights, by the way. It just doesn't feel like Christmas to me unless there are pretty colored lights on my tree!!

And just because my two year old is so cute.. Here is Happy Faith! :)

Our second project in December was a gingerbread house. I totally cheated and bought a kit. We did not make gingerbread from scratch and assemble a house. I bought a kit and iced it together, which by the way was still a pain in the rear! It's not as easy to assemble or decorate as the box looks, ha! Luckily, between me, Aunt Kristie, Braelyn and Happy.. we ended up with this beauty of a gingerbread house.. don't laugh :) Anyways, we had fun and displayed it for December and then I trashed it :)

Braelyn's preschool class had a Christmas party the day before Christmas break and we brought the whole fam! Braelyn was so excited to show off her baby sister, Happy, to all her friends. They are just too cute to each other!

 The girls Christmas tree in their room.. I love it! I bought it for Braelyn's first Christmas back in 2006..

 Here are the pictures I took of the girls before we went to Jeff's parents house on Christmas Eve! They are just so sweet.. I am pretty lucky to be their Mommy!!

  

 Sweet angel, Braelyn and my bitty princess, Happy (she wasn't feeling it to take any more pictures :)

 Then we went to Jeff's parent's house and had Christmas with his family. We had a great dinner and time with his family. The girls got waaay too many presents but it was precious! This year was fun because they are both perfect age for Christmas and had great expressions while opening presents! (See Braelyn's faces below, ha!)

  

  

The next morning we did Christmas at our house after Santa came so I will have to blog about that next!

Over all, the holiday were blessed for us. I am so excited to know that 2011 holds another precious miracle for our family and I can not wait to meet her! Next year Christmas will be even more full and blessed!!!

Christmas Cards 2010

Now that Christmas cards have been sent out in the mail and given time to be delivered to the precious recipients.. I can show you our Christmas cards 2010!!!

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!!

Bringing up girls..

Add this to my Christmas list :)

Another miracle..Braelyn

As if we didn't have enough things to be grateful for this Thanksgiving, God has added to our list!

Last week, Braelyn had a little bit of a runny nose but nothing serious going on. Both of our girls have pretty bad asthma so when anything happens, even runny noses, I start watching for any other symptoms that this virus is going to move to thier chest and lungs. She was good on Wednesday. Thursday morning, I woke them up, got them ready, headed out the door to work and Jeff headed in the opposite direction to take Braelyn to school.

On my lunch break I had a call from a number I didn't know so I answered. It was the nurse at Braelyn's school saying that Braelyn was in her office and was not feeling very well. Her teacher said she didn't eat lunch and had been crying all morning, which was very un-Braelyn. I had Jeff on his way to the school to pick her up within 30 minutes, although there was no big rush at this point. He picked her up and said she was doing okay, probably just getting a cold and was resting on the couch watching tv. I was relieved.

By 3 that afternoon, he was calling me back that she was burning hot with fever and having a lot of trouble breathing. He made the decision to rush her to her pediatrician's office to be checked and I left work early to meet him there since I could tell Jeff was pretty worried. I was assuming they would give her a breathing treatment, a prescription for her steroid and we would be going home. As soon as I walked in the doctor's office and saw Braelyn I knew this was not good. Jeff's judgment was dead on. Her oxygen level was at 85% (which he normally sends her to the hospital at about 94% and kids go on oxygen around 92%). She was in danger, even after a treatment in his office, and her fever was around 103 degrees.

We rushed her over to the hospital to be admitted and spent the next four days there. They had her on IV antibiotics, constant O2 level monitoring and oxygen for almost 3 days. By the third day, they could get her breathing well off oxygen but when she was asleep her oxygen levels would drop low and the oxygen would go back on. It took 3 nights of trying to get her to sleep without needing supplemental oxygen before she made it all night.

It wasn't fun. It was heartbreaking to see her like her.. connected with so many wires and the awful sight of those oxygen tubes going in her little nose.

It all hit her fast and we were lucky that she was able to get stabilized. Chest xrays showed pneumonia in her lungs, which was really making her struggle with her asthma. Her body was fighting so hard that she literally was throwing up the first day and slept 15 hours, almost straight through.

 Because she is so loved, she had lots of friends and family stop by to see her bring her toys. She spent four days doing puzzles, playing with playdough, coloring, painting, watching movies and playing on her Nintendo DS. I actually think she might have enjoyed the little break, once she was feeling better, because she got great one-on-one time with Mommy and Daddy but we were all missing Happy alot!

Balloons from Nana and Papaw... these pictures were on her third day when she got to wear her own pajamas. That made her a happy girl! :)

 

And finally on Sunday, after a bad long weekend, my little angel was free from all the junk connecting her to that bed, breathing steady and on her way home! Jampa got her a Toy Story shirt for her trip home. It was a good day and we were so excited to see Happy, who had been with Jamom, Jampa and Shanna the past four days. We missed her so much!! It was really hard to be away from one baby but I knew my focus had to be on Braelyn, at that moment, and focusing on getting her well and home!!

And while we are talking about sweet little Braelyn.. look at these cute pictures she draws me everyday on her magna doodle. She is just so smart and I couldn't be more proud of either one of my babies.

Braelyn is obsessed with the idea of baby Brittyn coming and even Happy is coming around to the idea, too!

Thanking you all for covering our family, especially Braelyn, with prayers the past couple weeks. God is good in taking care of our sweet children.

I am counting my blessings this Thanksgiving and every day!!