Baby Progress!

  

I have not been able to get pictures each week with Brittany like I did with Erica the first two times and Erica has been so sick that she has forbid me to take any pictures of her.  I did finally get them together at Savannah's birthday party.  Erica is feeling so much better.  She still has to deal with this stint until she has the baby and gets tired really easy but she also has two toddlers and keeps a house and has a husband so....she gets tired!!  Bless her heart..I try to help her all I can and so does her sister, Megan.  Anyway, I took these photos of Brittany and Erica last Saturday when they were 24 weeks (Brittany) and 14 weeks (Erica).

Brittany is so funny!  She says she is getting bigger in her backside than her front side!!  Her little girl is growing leaps and bounds though....and jumping like a gymnast too!

Erica is only 10 weeks behind Brittany and is almost as big.  She is such a pretty pregnant lady!  Glad she is starting to feel better though.

Sweet cousins!  their babies will grow up together like they did and hopefully be great friends too!  I can't wait to get my hands on these two little babies!  Now I will be a Mimi and a Great Aunt!!  Rest home here I come!

Great Day for a Birthday!

Today my sweet Savannah turns 2 years old.  How in the world can that be???  She was just born about 8 minutes ago.  I know I say all the time that the time just flies by....but it does.  She has grown up so much this year.  Savannah you are so funny!  You can talk a mile a minute.  You sing all the time too.  You adore your big sister and are just so loving to everyone.  You always run and greet the people you love with a big hug.  You are starting to get to be a little picky with eating but you still manage to get something in each day!  You love your "bankie and bunny" when you nap or go to bed at night.  You have beautiful blue eyes and light brown hair right now.  It is starting to get lighter all the time and by the end of the summer I bet you will be blond.  You are just so sweet and so cute I can't stand it.  Yesterday we had your birthday party and you had a great time.  I love you butterbean!!

Savannah enjoyed her "Very Hungry Caterpillar" cupcakes!!

The water was cold but the sun was so warm!

Savannnah likes to play in the shallow part of their waterslide.

Watching Piper climb to the top to slide down!

Look out Savannah!!  Here I come down!

Wow Piper!!  But I think I will stick to the ground!

These two sisters love each other so much!!!

Birthday kisses from my daddy!!

Piper gets a hug from her pretty mommy.  Glad she is feeling a little better!

Happy Birthday Savannah.....your Mimi loves you so much!!

Winding down

School is almost over.  moment of silence............................  I am so glad I cannot stand it.  By this time of the year the kids are bonkers, the teachers are tired and grouchy and the rest of us that work in schools are a nice little combo of all three.  I am a grouchy, tired crazy woman.  This is one summer I am looking forward to in a big hurry.  A few months ago I made the (silly) comment that this summer I had no wedding to plan, no baby to wait on and a big nothing on my plate but rest and some home projects.  Ka-pow!  Reality check!  Now I have two babies to plan for...Brittany's in September and Erica's in November.  With Erica having to deal with this kidney issue I will be helping her all I can.  She is so cute by the way.  Her little tummy is growing!!!  Brittany's is too!  I will take some pictures tomorrow and post them asap.  I do have a long awaited vacation planned for this summer though.  My girls and grandgirls and I are all going to the beach for a week and I cannot wait!  It is going to be a restful and relaxing time that I plan on doing a big fat nothing but soaking up sand and sun!  I am redecorating Megan's old room and making it a guest room and redecorating the current play/baby room at my house into just a playroom for the grandbabies.  I am also going to redo my master bath and formal dining room.  I have several home projects that I plan on doing....let's see how many I get done!  The last few days have been super busy too.  I opened my pool and can we say brrrrr....that water is SO cold.  I can't wait until it warms up because right now you can almost skate on it!  But first things first...tomorrow is Savannah's second birthday party.  I simply cannot believe that little ragamuffin is two years old on Sunday.  Sob!!! Where is the time going???  She cannot be two already. She just can't!  It makes me so sad that the girls are just growing up so fast.  I plan on spending a ton of time with them this summer.  Making memories and just spending time with them.  Teaching them about creeks, frogs, gardens, lightning bugs, night swimming and all kinds of stuff.  I love summer.  I am so thankful for all the seasons but the one I love the most is the hazy, lazy summer days.  Thank you Lord for them!

Light at the end of the tunnel

Since Mother's Day I have watched poor Erica get worse each day.  On Friday she had back to back appointments with her ob/gyn and the urologist.  Her baby doctor assured her the baby was fine.  This has been her first concern during all this kidney stone episode.  But she wanted to have an MRI done to see where the stone(s) were and to see about having this stint removed so Erica could possibly pass the stone.  Next stop...urologist.  Once there, the doctor said no to a MRI.  So then they proceeded to have a phone conference between the two Dr. offices.  Having a MRI would not show the kidney stones like a CT scan would and the stint needed to stay there to hold any stone in place and on and on and on and on.  At the end of the day all the doctors were on the same page and my poor baby will have this stint changed every 2 months until she delivers and then they will do a CT scan and decide what to do about the kidney stones....if they are even any to do anything with!!!!  Needless to say Erica cried all Friday afternoon.  They gave her some different nausea medicine and some other medicine that helped her with some severe constipation issues.  Not to be graphic but a week and a half with no bathroom visits is enough to make you sick too.  So on Sunday afternoon she started to feel a bit better.  Today is her first day that her mommy has not been there.  I think she did just fine too.  I am sure that her house is not the neatest one on the block like usual but at least she feels a little better.  I know she was going to take a nap and I am glad.  This is going to be a very long pregnancy with at least two minor surgeries coming up but she said, "I will just take one day at a time."  That is all we can do anyway.  I am just trusting the Lord to work all this out.  Do I worry???  I would be a liar if I said "no".  But I am just trusting Jesus to take care of her and my grand baby girl/boy and with my own girl.  He loves them both far more than I ever could anyway.  Erica did say that she has a strong feeling that this baby is a boy.  I asked her if she thinks that because of all the trouble she has had so far.  She said no...she just feels it in her heart that this is a son.  It makes no difference to me.  I only want her and the baby to be okay.  During all this I have spoiled two other little girls rotten.  Sorry.  Us Mimi's walk a fine line with grand babies!!  My friend Kelley has also come over and played with them to help Erica out and I am sure she helped to spoil them too.  But there is light at the end of this tunnel.  Hopefully we will pass through it around Thanksgiving and we will have so many more wonderful things to be thankful for.

Mother's Day

This year was a Mother's Day I would just as soon forget!  Poor Erica had such a horrible weekend!  Megan and I pitched in to help her all we could and her sweet husband took care of her!  Megan cooked us all a Mother's Day lunch of some great tacos and a fruit salad that was so good.  I love tacos!  And I love fruit!  Then I took the little girls home with me and we played and napped and played some more.  Erica, Blake, Megan and Thad all came over for supper and we just grilled hot dogs.  Erica did sit a t the table for a bit but then went to lay on the couch while we cleaned up.  I bathed the girls and they all went home to go to bed.  Blake took today off to be a housewife and I think he is as worn out as Erica!  A housewife has the hardest job in the world.  I don't care what anyone says....it is never-ending and oh so thankless!!  Praise the Lord for a good housewife!  Erica said there was no way I was going to get a picture of her so I took some of the little girls for Mother's Day.  and on a rare (very) note I snuck in one or two!!

I love both of their dresses!!  Navy and white is one of my favorite combinations.

Such sweet girls and such sweet faces!!

Uh!  We are done posing Mimi.  Done! We say!!

C'mon little ladies...how 'bout one with Mimi??

Savannah was only willing if I let her have her paci.  She loves that paci!!

I did manage to help my niece set up her nursery and sneak a few photos of her.  She is 22 weeks along and is really starting to show!

She is so happy!  She cannot wait for her baby!

When she gets the nursery all done I will share some of those photos as well.  Isn't she just the cutest?

Since I had the girls most of the weekend we played in some rain puddles and just got good and dirty.  I love playing outside.



I love jumping in muddy puddles!

But I don't want to get my skirt too wet!

She is so funny!

Mimi, I have mud on my hands!  Can you "watch" it off???

Thanks Mimi.  I just love this baby to pieces!!

Speaking of babies...she just loves babies too.  I think Erica is going to have a "big" helper!!

24

Fake out!!  I am not going to ramble on about my uber-crush on Jack Bauer of 24.  Though I would love to meet him.  Jack Bauer not Keiffer Sutherland.  I am talking about my own personal past 24 hours.  I literally lived each hour.  When I got home from work on Thursday I had an appointment in downtown that I so wanted to skip but it was one of those "you gotta do it" things.  When I got done with that I flew home and changed my clothes and went over to Megan's for supper.  She is turning into a really great cook too by the way.  We ate and then we went looking for her cat, Gypsy, new kittens.  Megan had not seen her in a week and she was frantic to find them.  They have this old garage beside their house and I asked her if she had looked in there.  She said she had peeked in so I suggested we actually go in and nose around.  Megan walked in and bam...up pops Gypsy's head.  Yay!!  We found her and Megan went on back there over old tools and junk and sure as can be there were five little, bitty fuzzy kittens.  So cute and so sweet.  They thought a neighbors black and white cat was the daddy but nope.  Megan's big ole male cat...Rambler...is the official baby daddy.  He sat back all proud and grinning.  She has three that look like him.  Tabby cats.  And one that is a pale orange and a calico.  So cute.  Megan and I fed her animals and then sat on her front porch and talked about flower beds and stuff.  I went home and took a bath.  Took off my make-up.  This play by play is seat clenching isn't it??  Are you biting your lips in anticipation?? I just put on my granny gown when my phone rang.  At the late hour of 9:41 too!  It was my poor little Erica.  She was crying and said, "Mom, I think I have a kidney stone."  On my way I said.  Blake was on third shift so he would have to meet us in the ER and Megan came over to Erica's to stay with the girls.  We got to the hospital at about 10:15.  The triage nurse said, "We got a girl doing the ole kidney stone shuffle."  A while later they took her back.  Done a couple of tests and put in an IV and by then my baby was in some serious pain.  She was vomiting just from pain alone.  So I had to whip out my "angry eyes" and get little Nurse Mary on some kind of drug run.  They gave her 1 mm of the equivalent of half a Bayer children's aspirin.  Since Erica is only 12 weeks pregnant she really could not have much.  So bless her heart she had to suffer.  And suffer she did.  By 2 in the morning she was sobbing from pain and exhaustion.  Blake was very upset so I had to get all Aurora Greenway from "Terms of Endearment" on them and start yelling, "Give my daughter the shot!!!!!"  I, of course, ended it with a sincere . "Thank you, Ma'am" afterwards.  It only helped her for about 15 minutes and then she was back to writhing and vomiting.  They ended up doing a transvaginal scan because she could not have a CT scan and they were hoping to maybe see the stones from that.  No such luck.  they did see that her right kidney was swollen and that her urethra tube was twisted so they elected to put in a stint at 4 in the morning.  I went to Erica's house and stayed with the girls so Megan could go home and I got up a couple of hour later to take them to my house.  Erica got to come home at lunch time and slept fairly well for the afternoon.  the girls and I played with play-dough, the baby pool, the sandbox, riding toys, chalk and managed to squeeze in 3 episodes of Peppa Pig.  Which if you have never watched...I highly recommend it because it is so cute and so funny.  I took them home and picked them up a pasta/pizza box from our local Pizza Hut and then I headed to Winston-Salem to help Brittany and Aaron pick up their nursery furniture.  My bog old honking SUV will haul about anything.  We loaded their furniture up in 3 cars and then zipped to High Point to set up her nursery for her sweet little one coming!!  I love baby stuff.  I stopped back by Erica's to check on her and now I am about to wash my face and put on my granny gown and go to bed.  My 24 is just about up!  I can't wait to get up tomorrow though...I am going to take the girls strawberry picking...pictures will follow!

Life is good....Jack is BACK!

I was a "24" disser for years.  I was SO WRONG!  I watched only the last season of 24 and I could kick my own hind-end for not watching the previous years.  Jack Bauer is the coolest guy I will never meet.  I was so wired up after watching 24 last night that I could hardly sit still to watch the "Blacklist".  That is the only other show I watch on tv besides The Voice.  Everything I watch comes on Monday night!!!  Anyway, I am so looking forward to getting engrossed in the next 22 hours of Jack  Bauer's life.  Jack is back!!

Little Mommies

I have not been so good at posting photos of my niece's pregnancy as I was with Erica's first two babies.  I don't see her as often but I do see her about once or twice a week.  Saturday we went shopping for the day for her some baby furniture and just to look around.  I got her and Erica out in the yard to do some baby bump shots of these two sister/cousins!



These two girls are just 17 months apart and their babies will be just 10 weeks apart.

Erica is only 11 weeks and Brittany is 21 weeks.  You sure do show quicker with baby number three!!

Brittany just glows and is so excited to become a mommy to a sweet baby girl!

Erica is glowing too.  Even though she has had some pretty yucky days this time she is still such a pretty pregnant girl!!  I am just a little biased!

behaviors

I am a people-watcher.  I am constantly surveying the crowd, watching body language, seeing facial expressions when people think know one is really looking.  I am looking.  I am often a ring leader in group conversations.  I love talking and I love participating in discussions about ...well just about anything.  But sometimes i just like to listen and to watch.  I am in two book clubs and i love watching people react to what others are saying.  Sometime people really connect through differing points and other times you know exactly who thinks who is full of hot air.  At school I like to observe the kids and see their different behaviors.  So many of the kids are really good kids.  They laugh and cut up and may even get a little rowdy but basically they are pretty good kids.  But there are some....well some of them are just in need of an old fashioned spanking.  I mean it.  On any given day I see children who are just screaming through their behavior that they need some discipline.  A good old spanking is what should be in store for them when they get home....and at school.  I am all for corporate punishment in the right realm.  People love to say that it needs to not be in schools but those are the very people who never step in a school.  The students are just allowed to run wild.  I see them being so disrespectful, breaking all the rules...if there are any rules and just being downright ugly. The kids are wise to the way things are run nowadays.  And they are loving it.  But what are we raising??  Disrespectful, ungrateful, whiny, instantly gratified, spoiled children.  In our current school system we are to use "Positive Reinforcement" as a behavior modification rule.  that may sound all fabulous but what it does is constantly reward bad behavior.  Instead of stopping children from the basic school no-nos' that include;  no running inside, quiet inside voices, no gum chewing, no shoving etc...  they are rewarded for picking up trash that they threw across the room, for not screaming too loud they were not first in line.  The list could go on and on.  Didn't do your homework???  Well that's five minutes of silent lunch.  Didn't do your classwork??  well you can walk a lap at P.E.  Calling other classmates names??  Well, try not to do that...ok?  We are raising children with no consequences for any of their actions.  There is no accountability whatsoever.  Do you know whose fault this is??  Not the kids....their parents.  We have dropped the ball when it comes to raising our children.  We give them what they want...immediately.  They cry, pitch a fit or whatever, mommy caves.  I see Mamas and daddies with their faces in their phones all the time and their kids are scrambling for their attention.  They will do anything for it.  Anything.  I see so many parents, mams and daddies, so wrapped up in the boy/girl friend of the week that their child doesn't even know where he is going to sleep for the weekend.  To make our kids behavior straighten up maybe it is us parents who need the spanking?  But a good old-fashioned switch would go a long way with the kids these days.  I don't advocate abuse at all.  Those people belong in prison as far as I am concerned.  But real discipline would solve so many issues.  God corrects His children sternly but with love.  He loves us too much to allow us to thrive in our sins.  Correction comes with a steep price.  If we refuse to obey God will leave us to our own devices and we know how that ends.  With the child of God in a deep miry pit.  We, in turn, are leaving our own children in the pit of disobedience and rebellion.  They are so young that this just may become their normal way of life and they will never know the true joy of living in obedience and the freedoms that brings.