December fun!

This post is just a bunch of random, but important, events that happened in December:

Right after returning from our Thanksgiving trip, I had my first doctor's appointment for this pregnancy. I had contact with my doctor about the nausea but this was the first time I actually had an appointment. I was not supposed to have an ultrasound as I was only 10 weeks, but he had trouble finding the heartbeat on the Doppler. He felt that everything was fine, my placenta was just making it hard to hear the tiny heartbeat. To ease my worries, he did an ultrasound and it was such a joy to see our sweet baby moving around and that precious beating heart! My due date is July 1, but due to hospital policy, I will have to have a repeat c-section this time around. They usually schedule it 7 to 10 days before the due date, so we should have a June baby. I am not thrilled about having another c-section but am not willing to travel out of town to attempt a VBAC because I would have to travel very far to achieve that:(

By this point, the nausea was starting to get a little better. I had finally stopped losing weight and was down to taking only 1 to 2 Zofran per day.

When it rains, it pours sometimes! The day before Madeline was scheduled to have her tonsils removed, we had a call from her school nurse informing us that she had failed her vision test. We had to wait until she was fully recovered, but then took her to our eye doctor, who found that she is nearsighted in both eyes, just like her Daddy. We took her to Walmart to pick out some frames. She was excited but a little nervous about getting used to wearing them. I think she looks so cute and studious! She has been so excited about how much better she can see now. I don't think she realized just how bad her vision was until she got her glasses, bless her heart!
We live in a small town that has a wonderful Arts Center. In November, we were informed that they had decided to bring in the Shreveport Ballet Company to perform the Nutcracker with our amazing South Arkansas Symphony in December. The Ballet invited all young dancers in our area to audition for several parts. Madeline was so excited! She tried out to be a mouse and was accepted! They had a few rehearsals and the performance was amazing. The girls did such a great job and the Symphony's music was just beautiful. Unfortunately, we were not allowed to take pictures during the performance, but here is a snapshot of the little mice just before. Madeline was so cute! She was the smallest and youngest mouse, so she was easy to pick out on the stage:)
I am so glad that she has now had this exposure to the Arts and am thankful that our community feels it is important to find opportunities for our children to experience in this area!
Right before Christmas, our tradition is to take both children to chose an angel from our local Angel Tree. They both chose a child their same age and gender and had such a good time choosing just the perfect gifts for them! I love that they have such giving hearts and get so excited to help other children. Here is Will helping me deliver everything to the Salvation Army. He was such a big help!

Next on the big catch up. . . Christmas!

Thanksgiving

Right after all of the craziness with a newborn foster baby, Madeline's surgery, and my pregnancy nausea, we took a road trip down to see my grandparents in Georgetown, TX. My mom and dad also flew in from Spokane, so the kids had the added bonus of seeing their grandparents and great grandparents!
We stayed for 3 days and had the best time being with everyone. I even felt less nauseous and was able to eat all of my Grandma Taylor's good cooking! Here we are getting ready to eat our wonderful Thanksgiving dinner. Grandma, Nana, and Nathan outdid themselves preparing such amazing food.

The weather was just beautiful and we took advantage of it by taking lots of family pictures, playing in the backyard, and taking the kids to a fun local park.


Aren't my grandparent amazing? They are 87 and 86 but don't act a day older than 60:) They are such amazing role models to Nathan and I in their long marriage and living a simple lifestyle! We aspire to be just like them!


4 generations of ladies in our family!




We felt so blessed to be able to spend this time with our family. I think it was just what we needed after such a hectic and tough fall for our family! We have so much to be thankful for!

Some special visitors and visits

Here is the first of many updates in an attempt to catch up my blog. . .

The day after Halloween, we found out we were finally opened for foster care again. That same day we got a call for a newborn baby boy. He stayed for 3 weeks and then went to be with some members of his family. He was such a sweet baby and Madeline and Will liked having a new baby around. Unfortunately, this happened right when the terrible pregnancy nausea hit really hard. I was so sick I had to take Zofran 4 times a days just to be able to eat and drink anything! Nathan was amazing about helping with the baby during this time. I am so blessed to be his wife!
Not long after, Madeline had her first visit from the tooth fairy! She was so excited as most of her friends had lost many teeth and this was her first at the age of 7:)

Now, in many old posts, there are mentions of Madeline being sick off and on. It turns out she was having reoccurring strep that was not a common version so it was not showing up on the throat cultures in the doctor's office. They finally decided (after having it 6 times in 6 months) that she needed to visit the hospital to remove her tonsils. Here she is waiting to go back. She handled everything so well and the surgery went very well for her!

The recovery was a little harder as she got tired of eating ice cream and Popsicles after the first day:) Who would have thought that would ever happen! It was helped by the many care packages she received from family and friends:) Here she is with the pink poodle from Nana. She had to stay inactive for 10 days which was hard on this girl. I did the best I could to keep her occupied, take care of a newborn, and deal with feeling so sick myself:( So far, she has not been sick again! Praise God!

It's funny how this time in my life is such a blur. I would never wish such bad "morning sickness" on anyone. It was very hard not to be able to take care of everyone in the way I wanted too, but God got us through the hard times as He always does:)
After this foster baby left, Nathan and I had to sit down and discuss our options. We finally decided that foster parenting is just not right for us right now, with the impending arrival of another baby this summer. We will miss it, but feel confident that this is the best decision for our family at this time.

Get ready for a lot of catching up!

I think this may be the longest I have gone since updating this blog. I hope you all who read haven't completely given up on me:)

Not long before my last post, we had a nice surprise! It was followed by a very difficult and sick 1st trimester where I honestly was not myself at all. I was basically on bed rest and fighting to stay hydrated enough to keep the baby and I healthy:(



We are so thrilled to be expecting a new baby and feel very blessed by this unexpected gift from God.

I did manage to take some pictures during that time and hope to get this blog caught up soon and hope to get back to weekly posting. I love recording the events in our lives for my family and children and still love looking back, so it is very important for me to keep up:)
So get ready! Many more posts to come:)

Last Week and Halloween!

Last week, Madeline had her first Honor Roll Awards ceremony. Her school waits to start this until 1st grade. Here she is on the stage after getting her Principal's List ribbon for making all A's in the first quarter. Of course she is talking with a friend:)
Oh, and the kids at our school are not always so color-coordinated, it was Red Ribbon Week and they were supposed to wear red on this day.
Then, they announced all of the 1st graders who had earned 5 or more Accelerated Reader points. Once again, Madeline is visiting with a friend:)
They then announced that Madeline had the most in the whole grade!!! She had 12 more points than the next child. We are so proud of her hard work and glad that she is already such an avid reader.

We also had our church's Trunk or Treat last Wednesday. Nathan and I had to work a booth, so we did not get any pictures on my camera. If I can ever figure out how to download my i-phone pictures to my computer, I could post a few:)
Last night, I did some cookie decorating for Will's preschool Halloween party. I decided to go with spider webs and candy corn. I thought they looked really cute!

Here are the snacks the moms set up. Everything was a big hit and I was especially grateful to Larry's Pizza who had an employee come in early to make sure our pizza was ready to pick up by 10:15! They were so nice about it!

Tonight, I tried a new picture taking technique. . . I let them do funny poses first in the hopes that they would be willing to take a nice picture afterward.

Will has been making this face all day! He says it's his "monster face." This was the first year we let him pick out his own costume. It was hard for this planning mommy, and it is not the costume I wanted, but it was worth it. He was so proud to wear this "Mater" costume:)
This is Madeline's standard funny face:) We used mostly items she already had to make a cute witch costume. She enjoyed it! It is a lot harder to find an appropriate girl's costume now that she is getting older:(
Guess what? The funny face pictures worked!!! The final picture turned out to be so cute! They have grown up so much in the last year:)

2010

2011

I hope everyone had a great Halloween! We had a good time trick-or-treating with some friends and the kids are already planning their costumes for next year:)

The Pumpkin Patch

This past week, I was able to go with Will's preschool class to a Pumpkin Patch at a local church. They were supposed to go on Tuesday, but all of the rain that moved through caused it to be canceled and rescheduled for the next day. So, on Wednesday, we headed out into the cold weather! First, they went and had their faces painted. Will choose a ghost. He did pretty well even though he is very ticklish on his face:)

Then, they went on a hayride through the forest behind the church. Will really enjoyed riding with his friends!

Next, it was time to pick out his pumpkin! He and his good friend, Ashlyn, looked around for awhile to find the perfect one.
Here he is making his choice!

They had a little station set up with stickers to decorate the pumpkins. Here is Will with his friends Macy and Cooper. He did such a good job following directions and really enjoyed decorating his pumpkin.
Here is the finished product! You can see that he is still not really into having his picture taken:) What a cute boy and a cute pumpkin!
They also had a jumping castle and a really fun inflatable maze. That was Will's favorite part, but I couldn't catch a good picture because he was moving way too fast! I can't wait to go back again next year!

Homecoming Parade (and some other random stuff)

This past week was Homecoming week in our town. It is fun to live in a smaller town with only one high school because things like Homecoming get so much attention.

Before I get into Homecoming, I wanted to show my latest project. Now that I am a SAHM, I have gotten mildly addicted to Pinterest! I wanted to make an inexpensive wreath for our door and saw some cute ideas. So, here is the finished product. I reused an old wreath and repainted the H from another wreath as well. I only bought the leaves and flowers at Walmart and together, the whole project cost me about $8! I like how it looks on our door, but took a picture of it on our dark couch because the details showed up much better.

This week, Madeline went to a local pumpkin patch with her class. Due to some scheduling issues, I was not able to go:( So there are no pictures. Will's class goes on Tuesday morning and I will be able to go with them!

On Friday, Will and I met up with Nathan at his office to watch the Homecoming Parade! Madeline was able to be on her school's float this year, thanks to Nathan volunteering to help build it:)
Here are the ROTC kids starting off the parade. Nathan works at our District's central office, so we were watching with our superintendent and got lots of waves and shout-outs because of him:)

Here is Madeline's school float. The theme had something to do with Hollywood. I was told yesterday that our float tied with another for first place! We were at the end of the parade route, so the kids had been on the float for a long time and it was really hot! It is hard to get in the football spirit when it is 94 degrees! I had to laugh at how tired Madeline looks here.
All of the high school classes had their own floats. The junior float was my favorite. They had a lot of spirit and I like their t-shirts the best too:) It is so fun to hear all of Nathan's former students yell out to him.

And, you can't end a parade without the usual horses! Will liked this part best because there were also police cars behind them. Considering how sound sensitive he is, he did well. Some of the larger floats were pulled by semi-trucks and their honks were really loud. He just covered his ears but did not get upset or ask to leave:) I was proud of him!
It is a little sad that we have lived here for 5 years and had not gone to the parade before. I think we will always go from now on!
The rest of our weekend has been nice and relaxing. Madeline went to a big sleepover on Friday night. She had a blast but has been tired and grouchy since:) Hopefully she will recover before school on Monday!