Ice Ice Baby

Brrr.  It is cold.  Thursday night/Friday morning we got hit with an ice storm.  Everything is covered in a few inches of ice.  School was canceled on Friday, and of course Jeremy couldn't go to any of his appointments, so we all hung out at home.  The girls couldn't wait to go outside and play, even though we kept telling them it wasn't snow, it was ice. 

 

I love that we used a cardboard box to sled down the driveway.  Haha!  Today we were a little bored so I figured we might as well get dressed and attempt some kind of picture for a Christmas card.  You know...since it's already December 7th and all.  Why do my kids (and husband) make taking pictures so difficult?!  You'd think someone was stabbing them the way they moan and groan when it's picture time!

"Joey, look at the camera."

"JOEY, look at the CAMERA!"

"JOEY!"

"Really, Joey?"

"Did Joey teach you not to look at the camera?"


Ok, so maybe a lot of the problems came from Joey.  That girl...

 

Afterwards, we heard a truck in front of our house.  They were just sliding and spinning in the road, so Jeremy went out and poured some sand and the guys were able to get their truck off to the side of the road where they abandoned it and walked home.  In the process of all that, a cop drove by and stopped to help.  He told Jeremy that the main roads weren't terrible, just the subdivisions were bad.  So a little while later we decided to go to Walmart, just to get out of the house.  Bad move.  It took 15 minutes and tons of prayers to get out of the subdivision.  Once on the main road we went about 15 mph because although there were trenches from other cars that we could follow, the ice was so thick that there were many places that were just really slick.  The Walmart parking lot was literally just one huge ice rink.  It was actually kind of fun holding on to the cart and skating in.  On our way home a truck in front of us slid and went into the ditch.  Joey thought the whole ride was fun.  Poor Shelby was praying the whole time.  She asked everyone about 100 times if we were all buckled in, asked Jeremy if the headlights were on, etc.  At one point we kind of spun out and I gasped and Shelby said, "Take a deep breath mom, just take a deep breath."  It took Jeremy 3 or 4 tries to get back up the driveway, even though we had poured sand.  Church is canceled tomorrow and I am thankful for that.  Now I don't have to feel guilty about missing church because after driving through that today there was no way I was going to drive across the bridge to get to church tomorrow.  Hopefully things will warm up enough for the roads to thaw out by Monday morning.  I think we'll all be a tad stir crazy by then!



Catch Up

November came and went in the blink of an eye.  It was by far the busiest month of my life.  Between three kids, a full time job, and a calling that takes up as much time as a full time job, life was chaotic.  The week before Thanksgiving my mom and dad moved about 45 minutes away from us!  Woohoo!  The night they got here though, I woke up at 3:30 am shaking uncontrollably.  I thought something had happened to the heater.  Jeremy checked and it was 70 degrees.  So then we took my temperature.  Yep, 104.  And then I couldn't lift my left arm without being in extreme pain.  It was mastitis.  I ended up in the ER both Tuesday and Wednesday.  It was awful.  I was on morphine and was sent home with a cocktail of drugs to take.  So miserable.  The most frustrating part of it all was that although I had been trying to introduce Lucy to bottles, I hadn't been giving up any feedings.  My doctor said it came on so suddenly because of exhaustion.  The only positive about it is that Lucy is now fully weaned.  It is nice to not have to worry about that anymore.  Oh, and I lost 3 pounds.  So two positives.

First off, this girl turned 10 months old:

 

She finally cut some teeth- first her bottom right, then her bottom left about a week later.  And now her top left canine has broken through...which is weird.  Who cuts canines before their front teeth?!  Lol.  She looks like a little vampire.  She looooves food.  Obviously.  We used to squeeze her food from the pouches onto a spoon but that wasn't fast enough for her.  Now we just give her a pouch and she sucks it down in about 30 seconds and cries for more.  She will eat anything we give her.  She says "mama", "dada", "hi", "baby" (sort of), and tried to say "papaw" while we were in Hattiesburg.  She cruises along all the furniture and will take an occasional step.  She naps and sleeps pretty well.  The other day it was nap time and she grabbed her blanket and crawled to me and put her arms up.  So I picked her up and took her to hew crib and she laid down immediately and went to sleep without a peep.  Nice.



The Monday before Thanksgiving we decided to get a jump on Christmas and took the girls to Ice! at the Gaylord.  This year the theme was The Nutcracker.  The girls have seen the Barbie Nutcracker movie a hundred times, and were really into a live ballet version on tv, so when we went they were really excited to see all of the characters.  I am also taking them to a local production next week so it was fun to see them excited about it. 

Thanksgiving was great and tiring as always.  Lucy doesn't love the car so much, so that was a bit rough.  But the girls loooooooved being at Papaw's  house.  Lucy loved people feeding her sweet potato casserole and banana pudding.

 

 

 

 

 

We left Hattiesburg (or "Daddy's-burg, as Joey calls it) on Saturday morning and made it to Beaumont in time for my nephew, Cole's, baptism.  It was so fun to have lots of cousins to play with for a few hours. 

 

 

 

Buddy came to see us on Sunday.  The girls were so excited to see him (and the treat he brought them).  (By the way, I am so tired of seeing all the FB commentary on how bad Elf on the Shelf is.  Get over it.  No one ever said they had to be mischievous.  In fact, no where in the explanation in the book does it say they are evil or mischievous.  They are what you make them.  End rant.)  We also decorated the tree, and then the girls decorated the "memory tree"- the Christmas tree that has all the sentimental ornaments on it.  I listened to Christmas music all day.  Love it. 

 

 

 

Monday night I helped mom unpack til almost midnight.  When I woke up Tuesday morning I had the WORST migraine ever.  And then I started throwing up.  Like every 5 minutes.  It was like the mastitis all over again but without the mastitis.  Ugh.  Another 4 pounds lost. 

 

I am declaring myself now done with being sick.  It's someone else's turn.  And we have way too many fun Christmas activities coming up for me to be sick!  In fact, we have lots planned for this weekend, but we might ice/snow.  Either way we'll have fun!  It's the most wonderful time of the year!!





Ever After

Joey just had story time with Lucy.  This is what she said:

"Once upon a time there was a golden harp in the happy valley. And then a dark shadow came over happy valley, and then the harp was gone. And they lived happily ever after. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen."

Trunk or Treat 2013

A few months ago (and I mean probably back in January), as I was browsing Etsy, I saw a really cute parrot tutu costume for babies.  I saved the picture on my phone and knew right then what our costumes would be for Halloween.  The only problem was that when I went looking for pirate costumes for the girls, they were either super cheaply made or looked like they belonged on...well...not on little girls.  So I decided to make their outfits.  Well, their skirts anyway.  I was so proud of the outcome.  They aren't perfect, but I thought they came out pretty cute, especially since I am terrible with a sewing machine.  Lucy's tutu was easy, of course, but I was proud of myself for having the vision to use two different blues in a double layer to make it super fluffy.  I wish you could see the back better- I did some longer layers of dark blue, red, and yellow like the parrot's tail.

This year's trunk or treat was much less chaotic than last year.  I was not in charge of anything and we didn't have any sick kids!  The weather was perfect and the girls all looked so cute in their costumes.

 

 

 

 

Little Pumpkin

Today we headed out to a nearby pumpkin patch.  The girls had so much fun going down the bouncy slides, crawling through the tunnels in the hay maze, and checking out all the wooden cut-out characters. 

 

The Duck Dynasty Crew!

 

 

Also, this little pumpkin turned 9 MONTHS OLD today!!

 

 





 

Someone was just asking me the other day how much Lucy weighed and for some reason I said, "Oh she's like 25 or 26 pounds."  I have no idea why I thought she weighed so much!  When I took her in to her 9 month appointment today she weighed 20 pounds!  I can't remember her height except that I know she was between 75th and 90th percentile for both height and weight.

 

Lucy is so much fun right now.  She loves to mimic us and "sing" "Barbara Ann", blow raspberries, and sing like Ariel.  She is clapping and beginning to wave and say "ba ba" for bye.  She loves baby food, except for the combos with meat in them.  She still doesn't like that, maybe because of the texture.  But she loves fruits, veggies, puffs, crunchies, and yogurt melts. 

 

Music already seems to be a big part of Lucy's life.  As I said, she likes to sing "Barbara Ann" and like Ariel when we do it.  She also loves to dance whenever she hears music playing.  Girl has some moves.  When she was first beginning to crawl, she would get frustrated after one or two steps and lay on the ground and start to cry and we would start singing the chorus of "Pretty Pink Baby Blue" by Outkast and she would instantly start crawling again.  It got to the point where if she wanted a toy all I had to do was start singing that and she would start crawling to it.  Lucy also sleeps with a sound machine in her room.  She falls asleep to "Twinkle, Twinkle" at nap time and for bed.  It is so nice to be able to turn her music on, lay her in her bed, and walk out of the room.  When she gets really upset (which isn't often) and I need to calm her down, I can start singing "Twinkle, Twinkle" and she will stop crying and listen. 

 

We really love this age with Lucy.  The girls LOVE playing peek-a-boo with her and making her laugh, and Lucy loves trying to keep up with her big sisters.  So much so that she took a step last night while I was at mutual.  She also climbed halfway up the stairs.  Today I was on the phone with my mom and Lucy crawled over to me, used my arm to stand up and then let go.  She stood on her own for 15 seconds!!!  I don't think we're ready for this!

Don't Pity the Fool

I literally peed for the first time today at 5:45 pm.  From the minute I woke up at 7:15 it was go, go, go. Conference calls from 8-12, catching up on all my work I didn't do while on the calls, changing diapers, getting juice and snacks, nursing, entertaining, working, working, working, making lunch, working...it's just non-stop ALL.  DAY.  LONG.  And it's Wednesday which means as soon as 5 pm hits my phone starts blowing up with, "What are we doing tonight?", "Can I have a ride?", etc.  Great.  Now my plans of going to the store before mutual are out the window because I'm picking up three young women.  

I made it to mutual 10 minutes late.  I pulled out my cold pizza I had thrown on a plate.  It's the first thing i've eaten since the handful of dry cereal I ate this morning while on my call.  I was already in a bad mood.  I was tired and now I had to go to the store after church.  I have 5,000 other things I need to be doing.  When one of the YW sarcastically asked if my pizza was the reason I was late I almost lost it.

Our activity tonight was karaoke.  The Mia Maids were in charge.  We decided to break into groups and "battle", which meant choosing a song and performing, complete with choreography.  Our group took foooooorrrrrreeeeevvvveeeeerrrrr to choose a song.  There was lots of complaining about how dumb or goofy they would look.  We kept trying to tell them the more into it they got the more fun it would be, but still, they complained.  They wasted so much time complaining that our group really had nothing planned when it was time to perform.  That made me angrier than I already was.

The music came on and everyone kind of stood there.  We did a few turns that we had planned, but that was about it.  Then the chorus started and I just gave in and jumped in front and acted my goofiest.  I made a complete fool of myself and it felt great.  The girls laughed and I felt like that made up for all the craziness of the day.  Well, not all, but some.  I hope it taught the girls not to take things so seriously.

Somewhere out there, there's a video of me shaking my booty to "Call Me Maybe".  It better not get posted to Facebook.

Chocolatey

I recently heard someone say, "I hope those words were written with chocolate so they'll taste better when you have to eat them."  Well, my words weren't written in chocolate, but I did speak too soon.  I just got a call from the nurse saying my EEG came back abnormal and that the doctor wanted to double my dosage of seizure medicine.  She had almost hung up when I said, "Oh, um, wait...um...what does that mean?  I mean, is he concerned?"  She said it could be because of the migraines, or it could mean I am at an increased risk for seizures, but that he would go over everything with me at my next appointment (which is in two months).

That really isn't sufficient for me.  I really need to know the doctor's opinion and that everything is ok.  So I called and left a message asking for him to call back.  PLUS, I need to make sure the new dosage is safe while breast feeding.  If not, that means I will be weaning Lucy about a month earlier than planned.  As it is, she isn't nursing all that much anymore, and is really eating more table foods, so I don't think it will be too rough of a transition.  (I hope.)  Anyway, just another chapter in the saga...