Wednesday, March 23, 2011

It's a GOOOOD Day!

So, mom and dad are in Houston today and we got the news yesterday that mom's tumors are shrinking! Praise God!! What an awesome answered prayer! Still a ways to go, but at least we are on the right track! She will have a treatment tomorrow and then one more in 3 weeks and then she will go back to Houston for another scan and there the Dr will decide which way to go. She can only be on this current treatment for 8 rounds and after these next 2 that will bring her to 6. So he will look at the new scans and figure out the best way to go. So please be praying for this that the tumors will continue to shrink and that God will give the doctors knowledge about where to go next! Thanks for all your prayers. We are so excited and slept a little better last night! :) God is Good! (this picture is from a girls weekend mom had last week and this is her cousin aka sister, Teresa)
Also on that note, I need to report, some of our best friends, Candace and Bryan and their family had a great week last week too! Bryan gave one of his kidney's to Candace's mom on Thursday. The surgery went just as planned and everything is working perfectly! Continue to pray that it will continue to work well and both Bryan and Sandra will have a good and quick recovery! :) We're so excited for them! (this picture is 3 days after the transplant...isn't that amazing!)
So, now on to more of life...
David was gone last weekend with a few of his guy friends to the beach. They went to help fix up the beach house and enjoy some food and fishing! I think they accomplished it all. Meanwhile, back at the house, me and the boys were busy crafting! :)
Barbara and I decided to do a craft sale that her preschool was putting on. So we started a few weeks back and my house has been a disaster ever since. My kitchen table has totally been taken over. It's a mess. But I did seem to get most of it together. The sale was yesterday and today, and hopefully we will get some stuff sold. We also decided to start an etsy shop and just see where this goes. She mostly does painting and do I sewing and making little baby items. So together we thought it worked well. We came up with the name, Scraps & Doodles. So that is our etsy name and email address. Let me know if you are interested in anything. Once we get everything up and running I'll put up the link so you can see some of our stuff. But here are a few pictures that we took and some of the stuff set up at the sale. :)



Really I didn't craft all weekend, I had a lot of it done, but I had a few items to finish up. :) We had gorgeous weather, so we actually got to spend a lot of time outside and even went on a walk with Sarah! It felt great! Ty and I watered the plants and of course he thought he needed to play in the hose and mud for a good 45 minutes. So I let him! :) Tucker was taking a nap so we played and played on the playground, played baseball, and just enjoyed being together. He even told me "You're the best mommy Ever" Seriously he did. It totally melted my heart! Then the night came and they played in the bath forever. It's getting so fun to watch them because they are really starting to play together and it's so fun! Tucker adores Ty and wants to do everything he is doing, but also, it's the other way around sometimes too! I really think they are going to be best friends and that makes me so happy!
This picture just makes me think "The battle of the Wills" and you can just guess who won...


And I got a shot of "the tooth"! Finally. I have been trying but he won't ever show me when I have the camera out! He almost has 2 now. One is coming in right beside that one. He's been working on it for a while, but it's almost through. We had his 9 month check up and he passed with flying colors. He was 24 lbs (92%), 29" (74%), and his head of course was more than 99%. Dr. Bell was impressed with his ability to stand up by using the wall and thought everything was right on schedule. Thank goodness we didn't have to have any shots, but his one year appointment will change that. We all got a little cold after that, so we just now trying to get over it. So hopefully soon, we will all feel better!
So, that's about all the news I have for now. Life is good and we are thanking Him for all our wonderful blessings!
The only bad thing right now is that one of my teeth broke on Monday, so I had to go to the dentist yesterday and it has to be pulled and I have to go today to an endodontist to check about a root canal on another tooth and then on Friday I have to go get my teeth cleaned and find out how many fillings I need... Oh my, I am NOT happy about this! But this too shall pass...

Thursday, March 3, 2011

The past 9 months...

I'm going to try to do a recap, mostly with pictures of the last 9 months. It's just killing me to not put them up there. I hope that I will go back and fill in a few more details later on, but we'll see. I do have a few post in the "holding" area that I wrote right after I had Tucker, so those details wouldn't be lost, so we'll see when they come out... As for now, here's to catching up...

MAY:
*We set off on our last family of 3 vacation on May 23rd. We drove to Auburn and stayed with my friend, Katie, Daniel and there precious son Maddox. The next morning we headed to Destin, FL for a couple days of rest and relaxation.
*We went to Milton on Wednesday (26th) for all the festivities for Brittany's wedding. We had a blast and loved every minute about being there. The wedding was absolutely perfect and Brittany looked amazing!! Ty was the ring bearer and did awesome!

*On Sunday after the wedding, we headed to Charleston, SC to meet some friends of ours the Chunn's at their beach house on Seabrook Island. They recently moved to TX so it was so fun to be with them. We were planning on only spending the night and heading back to Winston Monday morning, but we were having so much fun we decided to stay till Wednesday! It was the best decision ever! :)
JUNE:
*So we got back home Wednesday night and I was in super nesting mode. Cleaned and put away everything I possibly could. Little did I know Friday night/ Saturday morning I would go into labor! Went to the hospital pretty early Saturday morning and our little man was born on Saturday at 2:07 p.m. Mom missed it by an hour (b/c the airport lost her luggage!) Boo.
*Mom got to stay a whole month since it was the summer! Next baby will hopefully be born in the summer too, because that was simply awesome! We had lots of fun. We went to the pool everyday, relaxed, took naps, ate on the back porch, and shopped. Couldn't have been better! The only thing was about a week after Tucker was born our air quit working and it was unbearable, so we headed to a hotel for the night. It actually was a great set up (thanks Bennett!) and it worked out pretty well. Thanks to George for fixing it! :)
The day before mom had to leave Brenda and Mike came, they were here when she left which made it easier. :) So they stayed a week and we really enjoyed them being here, went to the movies Toy Story 3 (3d) Ty LOVED it but only wore the glass about 50 % of the time.
*Also about a week after Tucker was born David was at church fixing the sign out front and nailed a nail right through his thumb (I think that is what happened), so that was pretty traumatic!
JULY:
*For July 4th we had a cook out at the Branch Ranch and then headed to Kville to watch the fireworks... They were not good, but we had fun getting to spend the day with people we love. (there's that striped shirt for the 4th year in a row!)
*David went to Costa Rica on a mission trip. He was gone for about a week. So while he was gone my BFF from Alabama came! Ashley and Jake came and stayed the week with me! I loved her being here. We were referees most of the time, but I loved it anyway! We did go to the Children's Museum and the park and they loved both of those. It was such a fun treat to have them here with us! I can't wait till next time!!
*Towards the end of the month, my whole family came to visit! I was so super excited about this! Brittany came 3 or 4 days early and then Mom, Dad stayed for about 4 days and then Mandy, Austin, and Madi, stayed the rest of the week. It was so fun having everyone under one roof again, just wish I had a bigger house to store everyone. :) Tyler adores his cousins!














AUGUST:
*We really didn't have a whole lot of going in August. Seemed that everyone was going back to school or getting ready to so we basically just took it easy and I enjoyed being home.
*One night we took the boys out on the Ashley's boat. I loved it. Tucker enjoyed it too, but Tyler wasn't so sure. I'm hoping this summer there will be more opportunities to go and Ty will start loving it! :)
*Also the last week before I had to go back to work, we took a little trip to Ohio. The weather was awesome and I enjoyed sitting on the front porch every morning feeding Tuck and then just doing domestic things like snapping peas and canning tomatoes (ok Brenda actually did that, but it sounded good). :)
SEPTEMBER:
*I went back to work... BOO! I did pretty good though because I knew that Darla loved them and would see that their every need was met and of course she did! She's the best.. btw...
*On the 11th, Tyler turned 2. It happened to be on a Saturday so it worked out great for his party. We were going to have it a church since we just got a new playground, but it rained so we had it inside, which actually turned out better since there were probably more crawlers there than walkers. :) We had a Toy Story party. It was so fun complete with a Buzz pinata. I just can't believe my little boy is 2! Time goes by way too fast!

OCTOBER:
*On October 7th, our new neice, Laney was born! She's adorable and we're so excited to have another girl in the family!
*David won a prize on the radio to pick an activity he wanted to do and he went bear hunting with some guys. Some of the guys ahead of him actually shot the bear, but he saw it. I don't think he was too impressed with the whole thing. Hopefully that will be a first and last kind of thing!
*David's mom made this blanket for Tucker. It is adorable and I'm so thankful she's so talented! :)
*Halloween was fun. Brad, Bekah, and Laney came down for the weekend, so they were here for the festivities. We went with the Worthams around their neighborhood. We had a great time, Ty and Caroline had so much fun getting out and getting the candy and Tuck and Laney were troopers. It really was a fun night. We went to the Parrish's afterwards for chili and snacks.
*Sadly, my sweet sweet mom was diagnoised with Stage 4 breast cancer. It really came out of no where and shocked us all. This is her 3rd round with this nasty disease and it hit us all so hard. She is a trooper and has so much to fight for, so that's exactly what she's doing. She has had so much love and support shown to her it's amazing! Keep those prayers coming. Here she is with her new do. She looks so super cute and young! Yes, I said that's my mom, not my sister! :) Also, one Sunday night right after the news her church surprised her with all wearing some kind of pink for her. They have been truely amazing! I love them all!
NOVEMBER:
*It was a crazy month after that horrible news my mom received, so it was basically trying to get everything done for her and anxious about appointments etc.
*We went to Florida for Thanksgiving. We had the best time! Mom hadn't started treatments yet, so she felt pretty good. We had a professional photographer take some pics for us and we LOVED how they turned out! It really was a relaxing trip that we all needed. It was just so nice to all be together even if we weren't really doing anything. I just enjoyed being home and being together.














DECEMBER:
*Mandy and John started dating and have been together ever since. :) They are so happy together and we are so happy for them!!
*Snow snow snow! We had alot of snow and it actually snowed 6" in Winston-Salem while we were in Ohio with only about 1"-2". Crazy how that works! Ty enjoyed playing in it and David taught him how to eat it... the white kind of course. :)
*We took the boys to see Santa at Reynolda Village this year, because they have a Santa set up in a room and there was no wait and it was pretty much awesome... except that my little 2 yr old decided right when we walked in that he was scared of him and wouldn't even look at him... It was crazy. So every picture we have, Ty has swollen eyes from crying so much. It was really a tramatic experience for him! :)
*I just love Christmas time... I love getting ready, putting decorations up, the smells, the lights.. Pretty much everything about it! Here are the boys just hanging out at the house.
*One of Tyler's many "dates" with Caroline! They really are the best of friends and play so great together!
* We went to Ohio for Christmas. We had a great time and loved being able to be there. We were back and forth between Marysville and Kenton, but for the most part it was very relaxing and we spent many nights in the basement getting presents ready. :) It was a lot of fun. The boys loved being there and all the attention they get. They are spoiled rotten! :) We still need to get professional pics done with this side of the family... Maybe this summer... But we took a few just here and there.
*I just think this pic of the cousins is hilarious, Laney is not happy and Ty is trying to console her and Tuck has his mouth wide open, like... look what bubba did, this is bad!!!
*Santa came... Although the boys didn't see what he brought till about 10:30 because they are late sleepers. :) Ty was excited and Tucker just wanted to chew on whatever he could get his hands on. :)
*We left there the Monday after Christmas and headed to Papa Todd's house for the night. I love being able to go see him and Jack, Gail, and Jon. I wish we could have stayed longer, but this was a short trip for us. It was so good to be there, let them meet Tucker, and play a few good games of cards! Love them so very much!


JANUARY:
*My Auburn Tigers won the BCS National Championship!! WAR EAGLE! We went to the Wortham's to watch the game and drove back in the snow! :)
*Tyler has gotten into tatoos. Candace bought him is first one when we went out to dinner one night and it just happened to be Sponge Bob, we don't watch that show, but he knows who it is so he was thrilled. I think we currently have a tiger on his arm. :)
*I officially turned 29 and will be holding there for a while! I actually flew with both boys to Florida the day before my birthday so I got to spend it with my family, but for some reason I have NO pictures from the whole week I was there. I mostly took video. I'm so bad.

FEBRUARY:
*I had bunko at my house. I had a lot of fun preparing fun treats and getting ready for it... David said, he missed me those couple of days... I made homeade strawberry and homeade peppermint ice cream, made the little chocolate holders and melted candy canes and strawberry canes into hearts for the top! :)
*We had a good Valentine's day! This is what I found on the kitchen table when I woke up.. He's precious.
*Darla was out of town so my wonderful Mother-in-Law came down for a few days to keep the boys for us. The surprise was that Mike, Bekah, and Laney came the next day too! So fun!
*We took the youth the Winterfest in Gatlinburg and we left the kiddos with RaRa. She of course did awesome, and surprisingly I did to. It was their first time to be without Mommy and Daddy and they didn't even miss us! :) That made me happy though.
*The boys are loving bath time and it's great now because I can set them both in there and they play good together. Makes things so much easier!
So, how's that for an update?? I really hope to be much better and now that I'm semi caught up, I think I can do this!! Thanks for still checking on me even though I have been MIA for a LONG time!!