God's here...

During the gravside burial for my Nana this past Monday, my 23-month-old son, Jace, said the most amazing thing. It was toward the conclusion of the service and one of my family members was saying the prayer. We were standing at the edge of the tent the funeral home sets up at the burial site. Jace is my loud child and says everything in Jace volume. But, he looked up at me and whispered, "God is here" and he pointed to the top of the tent where the four corners come to a point! Wow! I was jealous that my eyes didn't see, but my heart was full of faith.

Nana

Well, I've been distracted lately due to the sudden illness and death of my grandmother, whom I call Nana. She has been battling ovarian cancer over the past year, but the chemo was stopped a few months back and she was told her "levels" were low enough that she no longer needed the chemotherapy. In May at a regular check-up she was told that there might be a mass on her kidney. She was scheduled for a procedure to put in stints to clear a blockage that might have been causing her to have kindey infections. Two days before the procedure was scheduled she ended up in the hospital. She threw up all night long the previous night and ran a temperature of up to 105 degrees. My Pop had to carry her to the car to get her to the hospital because she had become so lethargic and weak. They said she had pneumonia and she was admitted. They transferred her to Baptist so that she would be there if they decided to go ahead with the kidney procedure.

They did put the stints in her kidneys. But, then her stomach began swelling up like it would look if a person was pregnant. They ran some scans (which they didn't read for two days!) and she was scheduled for an abdominal surgery so that they could find the blockage. They took out a good portion of her intestines and said that there were spots of cancer in her abdomen (which we later found out was extremely bad, they said it would have taken them two weeks to cut out all the cancer they saw). After the abdominal surgery she never felt any better. She was diagnosed with congestive heart failure because of the fluids building up on her heart and lungs. She was transferred to the PC ICU (which is Pulmonary Care ICU) I believe on a Sunday or Monday. I was out of town that weekend and went in on Tuesday evening, which was my first chance to get to the hospital.

I visited with my Pop in the waiting room and ate dinner with him while were were waiting on visiting hours to begin. A doctor came and found him in the waiting room and told him that he wanted to look him in they eyes and say that her condition is very serious and that she is very sick. He said that there was a strong possibility that she would not make it through this. Ten minutes later I was able to go back and visit my Nana. A family friend was also there to play her instrument for her. My nana had requested that she bring it on her next visit so that she could play it for her. So, she went back to visit my Nana as well. My pop went back out to the waiting room because there are only supposed to be two visitors at a time and my aunt and uncle had showed up in the waiting room right when visitation had started, he was going to visit with them.

Our friend quitely and sweetly played her dulcimer while I gently held and rubbed my Nana's hand. She was on an oxygen mask and every now and then would get agitated with the fit or begin breathing heavy. She did this several times while I was in there. She was "in and out of it" probably due to her medication and weak state. She began another episode of breathing heavy but this time it came on rapidly and progressed further. She looked panicky, her body stiffened, she started pulling her mask out and struggling. All of the monitors began beeping and blinking. Nurses began running in yelling to get her doctor on the line. They rushed us out and asked us to wait in the waiting room.

My friend and I had to go to the waiting room and tell my Pop that something happened. He took it in and then stood up and said he was going to go back to try to get some information. He and my aunt, who is a nurse, walked back to the unit. Soon after we heard the "code blue" for her unit. When my aunt returned she was crying and said that Nana had coded and that we should begin calling everyone and tell them that they should probably come right away. We were given a small room them soon after moved to a larger family waiting room. Family began trickling in. We were not updated much on her condition except that they shocked her and got her back and that they were working on stabilizing her. They allowed visitors after what seemed like forever, but she was sedated and was intubated. This was a Tuesday night.

Over the next couple of days she made some improvements, her oxygen levels went up enough that they were forced to turn off the ventilator and extubate her. She was never the same person. They had her on very small amounts of morphine at times, but she was not strong enough to stay awake for more than a minute or less at a time and she could not speak. She was acknowledging us speaking to her and would smile or grimace depending on the conversation and the question asked. But, her body was dying. We were waiting on my uncle to get there so that all six of her children could be by her side. After his 27 hour drive (straight through from Canada) he arrived 12 hours before she passed. He and his family got to see her and talk to her for a few hours before the night arrived. They all either slept at the hospital or in a hotel across the street. Around 4:30 am the nurses called my family and told them that she was not going to make it much longer. My Pop and her six children gathered by her side and were with her when she died peacefully and without pain. Her breathing slowed to a stop.

My Nana has always been my role model in Christianity, motherhood, marriage, and many other things. She and my Pop had an extremely close relationship. They laid side by side every night and prayed, and woke the next morning to get dressed, drink coffee, then hold hands and begin their day by praying again. She knew how to love, always put others first, and saw the positive in EVERYBODY. She never dwelt on the negative in people no matter their situation. My goal is to be more like her. She influenced many people through being "the coach's wife". She was a team mom to the Ouachita Baptist University basketball team most of her life and would have been married to my Pop for 60 years this Christmas Eve.

I love you Nana

Rock-a-bye Baby

So this weekend Jack and Jace have been sleeping in the same room as Cody and I while we have been away from home. They had a blow-up mattress close to our bed and did really well sleeping on it. Our alarm clock at home is typically set for around 6:00 am so that Cody can get up and begin getting ready for work. Cody prefers the beeping noise over the radio. But, this weekend, we got to wake up to music! Jace.....laying in bed.....on his pillow.....singing "Rock-a-bye Baby"! Except his song comes out more like, "rock...baby...treetop...rock...baby...treetop". Either way it was a welcome change to the 6:00 am beeping!!! Just one of those things I wanted to share and never forget!

Gift Idea

As I am typing we are pulling into the great town of Lubbock, TX!! Cody's grandmother is turning 80 years old and the family is having a surprise party for her! I just had to share our cool gift that we made/bought for her.

On a list of things Cody's aunt said she needed or would like was a bird bath. I thought it would be neat to get one and have the kids put their footprints on it and turn them into little birdies! I got crafty and did it, I'm pretty proud of myself! Gotta show a pic of course! I haven't added the wings yet because I wanted it to dry a little first. Then, I will also have to spray it with a sealer. But, here it is!! Sorry they are sideways, don't know how that happened??

Hawaii 09

Obviously I can't load the hundreds of pics we took while in Hawaii, and loading five took long enough, so here are a few pics of us on our vacation. We went in early May with our friends, Justin and Jennifer. We rented a jeep for the week and never put the top on! We drove the famous "North Shore", went to the Dole Plantation, went snorkeling at Hanauma Bay, spent much time on the beach reading a book (mine was Twilight), and ate a lot of good food!

Photo 1: Our first steps on Hawaiian sand
2: A cool tree we found on the beach
3: Standing amoungst the red pineapples at the Dole Plantation! I was on my way to get pineapple ice cream with pineapple tidbits, yummy!
4: Live parrots in my hand, freaked out!!
5: At Moose McGillicuddy's having a great meal

I'm alive!!

Wow, it's been a while! Thanks Allyson for encouraging me/us to keep up our blogs! I feel really bad for my blog, like it knew I was giving preferential treatment to Facebook or something?

So, just to catch you up: Jack is now 3 years old, we had an AWESOME Monster Truck Birthday party for him and I will have to post on that later with pics. He is incredibly loving and smart. He plays well with others, takes good care of the little ones (including his little bro), and is an all-around joy to be around. Jace, will be two in September. He is speaking full sentences, pee-peeing in the potty, and loves to Jump. Kinda random, but when thinking about him, I think Jump. But, he does pronounce it "gump". Only makes it cuter to me!

Cody and I visited the island of Oahu in early May. Hawaii was wonderful, but think I will go to Maui next time to get out of the big city and see more 'Hawaii'. I also took a trip to Destin with a friend. So, two adults, one five year old, one three year old, and one one-year old! One car, 11 hour drive, lots of movies! It was wonderful though! The boys and my friends daughter laughed and giggled the whole way! (Lexie, the five year old handed Jack a pretzel to put on his finger. She said, "With this ring I thee wed." Jack said, "With this ring, I be wetter." Hilarious!!)

Hopefully I'll get my pic of the boys changed to an updated one! It's a year old!

Zoo Day!

Today was a free day at the Zoo kicking off this season. You know what free means, anyone and everyone is gonna come! And Little Rock didn't let me down! We got up this morning and hurriedly got ready so that we could be there as close to 9:00 am (opening time) as possible. We pulled up at about 8:52 and there was a long line to get in so Cody dropped off Jace and I to get in line and he and Jack went to park. As soon as Cody walked up to us in line they had opened the gates and we were close to the front. It went quickly!

We saw all the animals, got a snack, played at the playground, rode the train, saw some more animals, and then had to get out of there before we got hurt!!! By 11:00 am the crowds had turned and it was everyone for themselves! Somehow, we got out the gates but then realized it was going to be just as hard to get out of the parking lot! And, if we hadn't punished ourselves enough already, we decided to eat at Chick-fil-A down the road so that the boys could have some lunch before they fell asleep in the car. We had to park in front of the dumpster!

Oh, what we will do for our kids...........

Random

Ok, so my fifth post of the night. Just catching up on some of the pics I wanted to post. The first two below are of the boys playing Ring Around the Rosie and just goofing off together. The third is Jace sitting on the potty. He starts pointing at his diaper and trying to pull off his clothes anytime the other little boys sit on the potty, so I've been letting him sit on it to get used to the potty, how cute! The fourth pic is of Jace going for a ride on daddy's back.

Valentine's Day

The boys had a Valentine's Day party at their Mother's Day Out the week of Valentine's Day. I put pics below showing them the morning of their party. The last one is with them sitting at their table with their Valentine's for their friends as well as their candy bars for their teachers! I have so much fun with that stuff!

Happy Birthday Holly!

My best friend from High School, Holly, had her 29th birthday the weekend of Valentine's Day. We graduated from Alma High, go Airedales!! Anyways, a group went to eat at Doe's in Fort Smith. Talk about a real steak, can't beat it! The pic below is: Holly, Belinda, Me, and April

Jack opening one of his Potty Presents

Potty Celebration!

Well, Jack is officially potty-trained! We started about a month ago and Jack got the concept of pee-peeing in the potty on the first day. Of course, he had some accidents (sorry about your floor Ashley), but he really did great. Poo-poo on the other hand took a while. But, after we caught him in the act one day and got him to do it on the potty, one week later and only 2 accidents later (both in the first two days) we think he's got it down!

We went to Chuck-E-Cheese last night to celebrate because he had opened all of his potty presents! Hooray for no more diapers! He's wearing big boy underwear all of the time. We are still putting a pull-up on him at night time and nap time, but he is waking up dry at both times.


Mommy and Jack celebrating at Chuck-E-Cheese!





Jack riding his favorite ride, the horse one of course!




Daddy and Jace enjoying the festivities as well!




Jack and his friend Lucas showing off what they got with their tickets.

HOORAY!!!!

So, Jack just hit a milestone tonight, and if you don't want to hear about his first poopoo in the potty you should just stop reading now because the proud mom in me is going to tell all about it! Well, we can always tell when he's 'going' because he hides in the playroom (formally known as the dining room, who needs a family table anyways?). Well, I should say, we can always tell when he has JUST GONE. We always seem to catch him on the tail end of that act! Tonight we could tell he was about to go and we kept a close eye. He went to hide in the playroom, we caught him and took him straight to the potty, he sat there for about 5 minutes, couldn't go, got down and then the process repeated about three times! Finally I kept his pull-up off and just told him that he WILL tell mommy when he needs to go potty. You know I was watching him like a hawk then! So, sure enough I caught 'the look' and took him straight to the potty for the fourth time and he went right away!!! We had a celebration of opening a present (one out of his four poopoo presents that have been wrapped and waiting on him to go potty, getting two potty treats, and many many praises from mom and dad! He opened up a set of four play-dough tubs. He wanted to play with it right away and made a lobster out of his 'cookie cutters'. We talked all about how lobsters have claws and will pinch you. Then I could tell he was half afraid to touch the lobster again so I had to explain that it was a pretend lobster and that the real lobsters in the water are the ones that pinch! How cute! Thanks for indulging and reading this far, you are a true friend!

Have you thought of your future daughter-in-law??

Thought that title would catch your attention! Most of my close friends know that I'm a proponent of the book, Preparing Him for the Other Woman by Sheri Rose Sheperd. Don't know why I thought of it today necessarily, but for some reason it was on my mind tonight during my blogging time. I am passionate about raising my boys in a way that will teach them to love God, love others, and effectively love their wives!

This book walks you through how to raise boys to be Godly men, husbands, and fathers. She gives you practical tips, by age, in each chapter. She also has a chapter about praying for your future daughter-in-law. The author began writing letters to her future daughter-in-law when her son was very young. She also began collecting things from his boyhood and saved them all in a hope chest that she presented to her on her wedding day. What an awesome way to start a good relationship!

For anyone interested here's a link to her website, www.hisprincess.com

Guns 'N Things

Anyone with young boys in their home knows that little boys like to fight, kill, and defeat! An issue in our home right now (with a 2 yr old and a 1 yr old, both boys) is guns (I am speaking of play guns in this post). I don't know what the right way to handle the inevitable fact that boys like to pretend to shoot anything and everything. People have said, "Don't have guns in the house". This comment must have originated from mothers of little girls, because you don't have to have guns in the house for any little boy to shoot things. They use their hands, blocks, cars, or anything else for that matter. They have an imagination and the imagine they have a gun.

My boys have water guns in the bath tub to play with during their baths. Jack has been running around the house lately pointing it at me and saying, "Momma I'm shooting you". One reaction I have is to tell him that we do not shoot people, but that he can pretend to shoot his toys. Another reaction I have had is to tell him not to shoot mommy and ask him to find the monster and shoot it so that he can save mommy. I really don't know the answer to this one, morally or for safety purposes!

Any ideas are welcome!

At The Well - Motives

Today on At The Well (www.titus2atthewell.com) we were asked to examine our motives for doing the things we do, even the good things. At first glance I thought that this was not necessarily something I struggled with. What I was thinking at the time was that I do the things I do (speaking of the good things here, not the bad) because I really do want to, not because I want to be noticed, praised, or glorified. But, even that is a selfish motive. I SHOULD be doing things for God to be noticed, praised, and glorified. I SHOULD be doing things out of the conviction of my heart which is put there by God. I have to say that I do have pure motives some of the time, but there are certainly plenty of times when I need to stop and refocus.

I would include the link, but cannot figure it out this time! I'll get it! You can find the link on the right hand side of my blog page.

At The Well

I've started a new internet group called At The Well. It is a program that links women together for the purpose of being a Titus 2 woman. They post devotions 3-5 times per week with each day of the week having certain topics. Mondays are discussion days in which they have a topic and ask questions. Each subscriber posts on their blog for that day about it. I believe that Tuesdays are home-making days (some days are not devotions per say, some just have tips or whatever), Wednesdays are for raising kids, Thursdays are for marriage relationships, and Fridays I believe are for reflection and getting through the weekend (can't exactly remember). I have a link at the right of my blog if you want to check it out. It just started this Monday, so we're getting in on it in the beginning! I dare you to do it!

"Likewise, teach the older women to be reverent in the way they live, not to be slanderers or addicted to much wine, but to teach what is good. Then they can train the younger women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind, and to be subject to their husbands, so that no one will malign the word of God." Titus 2:3-5

Valentine's Day gift for teachers/moms or whomever

Many of you might have seen this in Parent's Magazine, but I am going to post this anyways. I saw an inexpensive way to give a gift to the mother of a child you keep, teacher/worker at your child's school (preschool or mother's day out as well). Anyways, you buy a regular or oversized chocolate bar and take the wrapper off. You can cut a new wrapper using printed valentine's paper or use a plain color. Before you glue it on, let your child personalize it by drawing or writing on it. Ex: "Jack is nuts over Mrs. Melanie" or something like that.

Also, I'm making rice krispie treats using the pink marshmallows and shaping them in hearts to give to the kids in Jack's MDO class. I bought red sprinkles to put on top. The Rice Krispies at Wal-Mart right now have a coupon on top for $1.00 off of any package of marshmallows which means they are about $0.30 for the entire bag! Can you see how thrifty I'm becoming???

Now Go

Ok, I know I've been posting a lot of things that my boys say/do lately, but this one is just too precious to leave out. Side note, I am truly blessed to have a husband that bathes the boys, brushes their teeth, and puts them to bed! I use that time to pick up the house, get out pj's, make lunches for MDO the next day, etc. Anyways, Cody said that lately when he has been putting Jack in bed and saying his prayers with him that he has been asking daddy to stay with him. Cody says that he says he will stay for a minute but asks Jack to close his eyes. Jack closes his eyes and either right away, or sometimes he waits a little bit and says, "Now go." (with his eyes closed the entire time). What more could I ask for in life?

Big Boy Potty

So, I started potty-training with Jack on Friday morning. I quickly realized that the potty needed to be in the living room so that I wasn't camping out in the bathroom all day long. Also, it helps Jack not to dread going to the potty and sitting there a while if he knows he's not going to miss out on anything. So, by noon He was telling Me when he needed to potty and doing it! We had a pretty good weekend with it. He's only had 2 accidents since we started and neither of them were at home, so I think he got distracted or excited and just forgot.

On the other hand, if anyone has ANY advice on getting him to actually go #2 in the potty I would definitely appreciate it! Today I went to Wal-Mart and bought four prizes for him. I brought them home and wrapped them and put them where he sees them all day. I told him that they were his prizes for when he poopoo's in the potty. So far he's pretty excited about it, but we haven't had a chance to test the theory yet. Yesterday I asked him every 15 minutes if he needed to poopoo. Every time he said no. Not two minutes after me asking him he told me that I needed to change him and he had gone in his pull-up (can't remember why I had a pull-up on him, he's been wearing his big boy underwear which is too cute).