Tim and Marci's Family

Shelby walking!!!!

2008-07-01T16:46:00.001-04:00

some videos of the family

2008-07-01T15:55:00.002-04:00

Some video of the kids and Daddy having a tickle fight on Abi

2008-03-03T22:51:00.001-05:00

This is so very heartbreaking to watch, but for those who can, pay special attention just after the five minute mark, there you'll see our Shelby sharing her story to bring attention to the dire need for funding in brain tumor and cancer research. There is so little money going into this, it's up to us everyday people to save our kids! Please feel free to pass this along to any you know who might be interested, along with her personal website.

http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/shelbyjefferson

2008-02-19T17:40:00.005-05:00

I'm not exactly sure why, but my husband decided to shave his two weeks of hair growth while on leave from his surgery into a mow hawk this weekend! I guess he's re-living his youth as he approaches his mid-30's. I keep reminding him that he's really not that old, but I guess this past year has aged us both quite a bit. Anyway, enjoy the pictures, laugh amongst yourselves, have a great time. He loved having it, but thankfully, it's gone now!!

It's tapered 'cause I cut it crooked when I helped him trim it down. I was at a bad angle with kids underneath and slipped. I promise it wasn't that I was trying to mess it up on purpose so he wouldn't do it....that would be so mean for a wife to do.....

He did have the sides shaved down to the skin, but that was really hard to do and would have been nearly impossible to keep up, so therefore the stubble on top.

Hey Mom, notice your favorite ghost flashlight in the background? He finally ran out of juice and can't scare anyone at 3 in the morning anymore!!!!

Shelby's Glasses and Ankle brace

2008-02-19T16:10:00.011-05:00

Isn't she just too cute? Our little baby girl got her new glasses today.....we'll see how long they last before they're thrown across the room!! It is very difficult to find frames small enough for her, so our selection was pretty limited. Our insurance doesn't cover glasses, but because Shelby was approved for Medicade, we got one pair for free with the wrap around ear pieces and plastic lenses and then we were able to purchase this pair for her without the wrap around ear piece and the polycarbonate (shatterproof) lenses for only $57, instead of over $200. It's going to take a month or more to get the medicade glasses because they have to be shipped out to be made, but these were ready in an hour. She's down for her nap right now, so we'll get a better test of how long they'll stay on when she gets up. In a couple shots they really look crooked, but I think most of that is just the muscle weakness on her right side, the whole eye and eyebrow droop so it makes the left eye look much higher. We have also started weaning her down from her decadron (steroids), and were able to go down another 2 ML's today, so she's now down to 6 ML's a day instead of 10!!! So far, so good, she's been tolerating it well. We go to the hem/onc clinic on Thursday and they'll check her out on their own there, but so far, so good!
How smart does she look? -- we're working on telling her over and over how pretty they are so that she, hopefully, WANTS to wear them. They really look crooked here because she's cocking her eyebrow.
Sitting pretty in her St. Pats day outfit, made by Mommy of course! Those are her cute little green high top boots to help support her ankle when she's not in the brace (which we think she's doing better without anyway, but that's down further in the page!).
Now, anyone who knows Shelby personally will immediately recognize this pose.... it's a Shelby fit, we just ignore them and walk around her!
This is Shelby's new ankle brace. It is articulated at the ankle so that she can still bend it, but right now, Tim and I both think that she's actually walking better WITHOUT the brace than with it, so we're letting her go on her own for now. As soon as we can get the insurance to figure out what they are doing, she'll be back in PT (she's been out for a week now because of them!), and we'll get a second opinion from her therapist, but she's going like gang busters and not swinging her leg out much at all any more. It is a cute little brace though with the little butterflies on it!

You can certainly tell that she crawls quite a bit. Her poor knees are so red and raw from it, even with me putting lotion on them 3 times a day.

She had gotten her jeans really messy earlier, that's why her outfit is not quite matching!

More Eye Info, MRI update and walking

2008-02-11T10:05:00.000-05:00

Shelby officially now has no more corneal abrasion!!! She was seen on Tuesday, and all that's left are a few spots which are nothing more than a severe case of dry eye, but that can be from the steroids. She gets the erythromyacin in her eye 4 times a day now, and she's really good about letting me know if her eye hurts so that I can put more in for her. She grabs the ointment, or points to her eye and says 'eye'. She is going back in next Tuesday for Dr. Goie to check things out, and then will get her permanent stitch in on Thursday (Feb 7th). This is supposed to be just in the corner of her eye and will help her blink fully. She's getting her eye much more closed, but it's still not quite far enough to prevent the dryness, so this stitch will help her out in that department. We're going to wait until that exam before getting her glasses since there's been so much improvement. Her eye is really clear now, so clear you can actually see her eye ball which you couldn't even two weeks ago. We're hoping that means she can see more now, but Dr. Goie will be able to tell us more about how she's seeing after her exam Thursday. UPDATE--- After her visit with Dr. Goie it was decided that she's doing so well that the stitch is not needed after all, unless she does something to damage her eye, so we're on a wait and see with that, but she's doing REALLY well with it.
Now, for the really GREAT news!! She had her first post radiation MRI yesterday (on the 31rst), and while we don't have the 'official' results yet, Dr. McDonough was able to tell us today that there is NO NEW CANCER RE-GROWTH!!!!! There are a few abrasions from the resection surgeries, but that's typical four months post-op, so they are not worried about that at all. The swelling also appears to be going down, but we can't start weaning her off of the steroids until it's read further and closer. So, some time after Wednesday next week, we can call in for an update on the read to find out how much we can go down on the 'roids! She will get a scan every three months this first year, and then fewer each year after that. Our next appointment is on the 21rst, so we'll have even more information then.
Out little Miss Shelby had PT this morning (she goes twice a week) and did really well. She's working on going up and down stairs, using both hands at the same time, walking holding on with only one hand and her balance (this is off mostly because of her eye). She did really well this morning, but the most exciting thing was after we left PT and went to Mommy's PT appointment. She usually gets down on the floor and plays with a ball while we're there, but today when I got her out of the stroller, she was asking for the ball which was about 5 feet away and I told her to go get it if she wanted it (she hears this a lot - no babying her, she's got to work to get things), and she just took off WALKING to the ball. She went the whole 5 feet, all by herself, holding on to NOTHING!!! She's taken a few halting steps before, but only 1 or 2 at a time, so this is a big improvement. She was fitted for her AFO (ankle brace) yesterday, so we'll be getting that on the 13th. This will keep her much more stable and keep her knee from hyper extending, which will make her want to walk even more!!
Last but not least, her lip is getting better. You can see in her new welcome photo (the one with the 'Warning' T-shirt), she's got a pacifier in her mouth. We really don't like them, especially in kids as old as her, but it has kept her from chewing on her lip. She keeps it tucked in to the side of her mouth and chews away on that, instead of her lip. The sore is less than 1/2 way across her bottom lip now and not nearly as red. Hopefully by next week, it will be completely gone. We talked to her doctors about it yesterday and they were OK with it and couldn't think of anything else to do to keep her away from herself. At least we're moving out of her body with her chewing and picking. She started out chewing the inside of her mouth, then went on to picking at her eye, then to her lip....so in the big picture, a paci is NOTHING!! Apparently this is a common thing with these kids, they have a compulsion to pick, chew or just basically mess with something, anything. It might go away with the steroids, or maybe not. It's just another wait and see.

Shelby's CaringBridge web site

2008-02-11T10:04:00.000-05:00

I've created a CaringBridge web site for Shelby which I will be updating much more regularly than I've been doing here or through emails. I think if I have one place to update and everyone has that link, then I know you'll all find the new information on your own...at least that's my hope! Anyway, here's the link
http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/shelbyjefferson

Shelby's Story - written in November 2007

2008-02-11T09:55:00.000-05:00

Shelby started getting sick in the middle of September, pretty much at the same time we went home to see Grandma, and was not getting better when we came back. She did have a big fall while we were back, she fell about 2 feet out of a camper onto a cement slab straight on her head. We rushed her to the ER at Offutt and were sent home without a CT scan since her eyes looked fine. I had been taking her to the doctor off and on for two weeks, she was even admitted the last weekend of September at the army hospital, but they just couldn't figure out what was wrong with her and kept sending her home. She was throwing up nearly every day for three weeks, was slowly becoming more and more lethargic, so lethargic that she actually stopped walking about a week before we found out what was wrong. We got home on a Wednesday, that Friday I was told she had an upper respiratory problem and it should go away within 10 days. It was not getting better by that next Wednesday so I took her back in to the ER and was told after chest X rays and an entire bag of IV fluids that she had a stomach bug and was given a suppository anti nausea medication for her. That Friday, she had stopped walking and was throwing up everything she ate so I took her back in...this time they admitted her and kept her on fluids for three days, took more chest X rays and abdominal X rays, thinking that she had an intestinal blockage. They went back and forth on whether or not to give her a CT scan (I'd told EVERY doctor AND nurse that I saw that she had fallen on her head back home HARD), but ultimately they decided not to. We were sent home Sunday evening with the doctors having no clue what was wrong with her, but she hadn't thrown up while she was there. We were told to bring her back if she got worse again. I really think that they thought I was suffering from Münchhausen by proxy because they could find nothing wrong with her after three days of looking. On Tuesday (October 2), she was throwing up almost constantly, the only time she didn't was when she was sleeping, so I took her back in to the ER after dinner (when she threw up 5 times). We got there around 8:30 pm, sat FOREVER (it's an Army hospital) and were finally seen around 11pm. We were sent down for more X-rays, both chest and abdominal and came back to the ER (in this hospital you walk over to the clinic to get it done, then back to the ER -- even when you're 35 weeks pregnant and carrying an 18 month old). By the time I got her settled back on to the table, they sent us back because one of the X-rays got messed up. So, off we went again. When we got back, we had a different doctor because of shift change, so I had to tell the whole story again to him. This time, when I mentioned the fall on her head and the fact that she had stopped walking, he took note and wanted to see her try to walk. Immediately after, he sent us BACK to X-ray, but this time for a CT scan of her head. We sat in the room for another hour or so until the doc came back in around 1 AM and told me that my daughter had a large fluid build up on her brain (hydrocephalus) and what looked like a mass forming at the back of her skull. Just like that, all by myself, he drops that bomb on me. He said that they were going to send her down to MCG (the large medical college hospital with a great children's center) right away. By 2 AM we were on our way downtown by ambulance, which meant that we had to leave our van at the hospital, leaving Tim with no way to come down to us since our only other vehicle is his bike. He waited until 5 and woke a buddy up to take him and Emilia in on post to get the van. Meanwhile Shelby and I sat in the ER until about 5:30 while the docs looked over her CT scan. They came in and told me that they were going to have to drill a hole in her skull and insert a tube to drain all the fluid off. I held her while they put her to sleep and put the breathing tube down her neck. That was the last time she took a breath on her own for nearly two weeks. They made me leave the room while they put the tube in her brain, and while I was out waiting, Tim and Emilia came in. We went back into Shelby's room and saw her hooked up to a breathing machine, multiple IV's and with a tube coming out of her head to drain all of the fluid out. An MRI was performed later that day and that's when we found out that she had a posterior fossa ependymoma, which means that she had a large tumor at the back of her skull. The nuerosurgeon showed us the MRI and explained exactly what he was going to have to do to get it all out of her. Her surgery was the next day, and her doctor was able to get 95% of it, so she had another surgery the following Monday to get the rest of it out. This is the best news we could get, this type of tumor is known for being hard to get out 100%, so that combined with her young age are working in her favor greatly. The tube in her head draining the fluid started to leak, so there was no way to test to see if her brain was able to drain the fluid on it's own now that the tumor was gone, so a shunt had to be placed to pull the fluid off. She will have this the rest of her life, but she should have no long term problems because of it. It sits just under the skin behind her right ear and snakes around over her breast plate and rib cage to drain directly into her stomach. After that surgery, the docs tried to remove the breathing tube, but she was just too weak to breathe on her own, so the tube had to go back in after only three hours. We waited until Sunday (the 13th) and they tried again, and this time it worked! Around this time, it was discovered that Shelby had a staph infection in her spinal fluid, so a strong course of antibiotics was started to make sure that it all went away. We stayed in the PICU until the 18th when we were moved up to a "regular" floor. Since we've been there, she's had a central line started (an IV that goes under the clavicle bone and directly into a major vessel into her heart), because the poor girl inherited my bad veins and had to have new IV's put in every other day or so. She also had to have a G- tube put in, which is a feeding tube that is inserted directly into her stomach. Because of the multiple brain surgeries, Shelby was mute (but does still know her sign language), and can no longer swallow on her own, she is re-learning how to sit up right now and after that we can start working on her crawling and walking. She works with a physical therapist, occupational therapist, speech therapist (to help her re-learn how to swallow), and I'm sure that more will be added in time. She can say Momma and Dadda now which impressed her surgeon immensely!! She will come back to us, it's just going to take some time. She is in radiation now (this is a Mon - Fri thing for 35 sessions) and that will go on until just before Christmas. The tumor came back as a level three out of four, so we wanted to start zapping it ASAP so that she would have the best chance possible. Doing the radiation, she has a 70% - 75% chance of this never coming back....much better than the 0% - 50% chance she would have had if we did nothing. She is doing so much better now, and should be home on Wednesday when she's done with her antibiotic for the staph infection. She'll come home with the feeding tube, but we've done that before, with Emilia. It's in a different place, but we can do it so that she can come home to us. Now, the reason I'm back home and not still at the hospital with her (Tim and I have been staying there with her, me since day one, and Tim since his parents came down to help take care of Emilia on October 4th), is that we had our baby boy Josef Hoyt on Halloween!! He weighed 8 pounds even and was 18 1/4 inches long. We came home last night (the 3rd), which was unfortunately, the same day that we lost my Grandma to cancer. It's been a rough month, but Shelby is back on her way to health, our baby boy is here, and while Grandma will be so sorely missed, she is no longer in pain. She did fulfill her promise to me, she told me that she would not leave until she saw my little boy, and one of the last things she did before slipping into the final coma, was to listen to his cry on the phone and see the picture that was emailed to her. She wasn't able to speak by then, but I was told that she got a huge grin on her face when she heard him cry, and was smiling for a while after seeing him.

This was written just before Shelby Came home from the hospital, but it serves as a good update for those who may not know the whole story since I haven't updated this blog since then.

Emilia's 5th Birthday!!!

2007-09-06T23:15:00.000-04:00

Yesterday was Emilia's 5th Birthday (yes, it's hard to believe that she's THAT old), and she has been waiting for this one because she knew what her big present was....her very own motorcycle helmet. She's now officially old enough to ride on Daddy's bike on the streets, but she had to have a helmet first. Mommy took in cupcakes and popsicles to school so that she could share with her new friends. She helped me make the little bitty cupcakes (just the right size for 4-5 year olds) the night before, but was surprised at the popsicles as an added treat! We stayed for a Karate demonstration where she got to kick the big bag and yell "KIA" (I was thinking, hey, that's what I drive!!), and then we came on home. She was in her jeans before Daddy even got home from work (he was only about 10 minutes behind us), just waiting to go for her first ride. Daddy insisted on another safety lesson even though she's had it many times over, just to make sure that all the rules are still up front in her brain! She was so happy and told me many times how much better it was to ride on the street than in the back yard. She did think that the helmet was pretty heavy and her little neck was having a hard time holding it up, so Daddy told her that she'd have to get a ride every day until Biker Sunday, just to make sure she's strong enough to go on the ride with him (since baby AND Mommy won't fit on the back with Daddy). Check out the pics below...

Can I put it on? Can I put it on?????

Check out that HUGE smile!!!

Getting yet another lesson on what NOT to touch on the bike and exactly how to get on....safety first, you can never have too many lessons on that.

Going down the street

Going up the street

Coming back from her very first ride on the streets....doesn't she look like a HAPPY girl?

After they got back, we had to hurry up and head out for practice at church, Tim would have normally skipped it, but since this Sunday is Biker Sunday, he really needed to be there since it's a big music day. We took her out to Applebee's for her birthday dinner after practice, and she had fun eating her corn dog and fries. When we got home she was able to open up (well, I may be a little loose with my words there, they weren't actually WRAPPED, hence the closed eyes!!), her presents from NaNa. We haven't been out shopping yet for her presents using her money from Grandpa and Grandma and Shray NaNa yet, but we will soon. She got a cool chalk stamp set and a Princess ballerina kit/toy/camping thing. She spent last night in her tent camping on the floor of her room in her sleeping bag...she thought that was pretty cool too.

waiting with eyes patiently closed

oooh...a sidewalk chalk, stamp thingy

HI
YEAH!! A Princess/Ballerina tent, sleeping bag, blow up chair and STUFF!!!

Checking out the loot

This is what is in the princess/ballerina pack

Princess crown AND a Birthday crown

Itty Bitty cupcakes

Emilia's (umm humm) do-it-yourself Haircut

2007-09-06T23:00:00.001-04:00

When Emilia was supposed to be taking her nap last Thursday, she instead decided to have a little "Fun". She found an end piece of crayon and drew all over Abi's comforter, then she found a pen, and wrote all over the sheet. She also went to the bathroom (which is allowed, even during nap time), but instead of just going, she put on Mommy's deodorant ON TOP of her shirt!! The big one though, you know, the one that brought Mommy to tears, was that she decided to CUT HER OWN HAIR!!! Her hair was in braids, so she decided to snip the ends of her braids off, which made her hair pretty darn choppy in the back, but then she decided to cut off a huge chunk of her bangs.....now that one can't be fixed!!

She was not very pleased with herself once it was done, can you tell?

Here's a close up of the bang damage

The back of her hair, it WAS all as long as the longest piece there, clear down her back!

Another shot of the back

So, for her punishment, she had to call both of her grandma's to tell them what she'd done (humiliation works very well on this age, better than a time out or spanking!), and she also had to go to school with her hair different heights. There's not much that could be done about the bangs, but luckily, she accidentally left a big enough piece, that I can part her hair to cover most of the missing piece. The back really just needed to be straightened out, but we decided that since she'd done this because she wanted to have short hair (she's been asking since LAST school year), it was probably best to get it cut shorter like she'd wanted it. On Friday, after school, I took her to get her hair cut and here she is....MUCH happier, with her new cut!

it actually turned out much cuter than I thought it would

model pose of the new cut
Isn't she cute??

First day of School 2007

2007-09-06T22:36:00.000-04:00

On August 13th, Emilia started her first day of Pre-K!! She is four days too young to get into kindergarten down here (don't get Tim started on THAT one!), but she needs to be around other kids, so she's going to a different pre-school this year. She's very excited to be going to school again, but this year she goes ALL day and ALL week, so it's quite a change for all of us. She needs to be there between 8 and 8:30 in the morning and I can pick her up between 3 and 3:30 in the afternoon. Her teacher's name is Miss Katrina, and the helper is Miss Diane. She's loving it so far, but has had to miss about a week already because of her tonsillectomy/adnoidectomy at the end of August. She's going to miss another week in the middle of September when we go back home, but it's definitely a necessary trip! This school is a big change for us since she was able to go to a Christian pre school last year, but we are in the south, so the kids are still allowed to say a "blessing" before they eat lunch if they want. She's having loads of fun in her new class!

Here she is posing by Mr. Tree. She still needs to tell him good morning every morning, and she says hello to him again when we get home!

The girls in the van, waiting to go!!

For sure now, It's a boy!!

2007-09-06T22:07:00.001-04:00

We had another ultrasound today on the big machine, and the baby now weighs nearly 5 pounds!!! He did turn this weekend (I can tell you for sure it was on Saturday because I was bawling on the bed because it hurt so badly!), so he's officially head down now and VERY low. I shouldn't be surprised though, the girls were low early also, there's just not a whole lot of room inside Mom to allow for dropping room. He's a bit too scrunched up to measure his length, but all the measurements they could take were right on track with the two other ultrasounds they've done downstairs.

Here's a cute picture of his little foot kicking the tar out of Mommy!

THIS is the shot Tim was waiting for, the for sure, no doubt about it, this is a BOY picture!!

Sea World

2007-09-01T21:59:00.001-04:00

*** DISCLAIMER***
I realized after loading a couple of pictures that these are going to be completely backwards, so if you want to see them in order, start at the bottom.....sorry

So, we were able to go to Sea World this summer and of course, I hadn't put the pictures up yet, so here they are. Bush Gardens is nice enough to offer military members and up to three dependents FREE admission into one of their parks once a year, so we took them up on it this year and ALL of us got in for FREE (Shelby was too little to cost anyway)!!!! We also were able to find a GREAT deal on a hotel that had TWO rooms, TWO bathrooms, AND a kitchen for only $50 a night!!! That was so nice, the girls were in one room and each girl even got their own bed since there were two beds in the room and we took the pack n' play for Shelby. Mommy and Daddy had their own room too!! How nice. We drove down on a Tuesday, went to Sea World on Wednesday, and drove back on Thursday....not a long trip, but we had loads of fun and only used 4 leave days (Tim had Monday off too, but had to be back on Friday or we'd get charged leave for Saturday and Sunday too, and we want to have some left over for when the baby comes!). Anyway, enjoy the pics.....

Poor, tired girl, it was a LOOOOONG drive

Scrunchy Chipmunk cheeks

This is what greets you on Daytona Beach when a storm blows up.

Isn't it a pretty storm?

Ooooh, how dark!!

It was just like Baywatch when the storm popped up, the trucks drove up the beach and the lifeguards blew whistles getting everyone out of the water so that they wouldn't get hit by all the lightening. It was pretty though out over the water.

On comming storm.

Miss Emilia didn't want to get out so soon.

There's Daddy trying to herd the monkeys out of the water.

Abi photo montage..... This is when she fell, skinned her knee and found a sand dollar.

Trying to get up,

Up and running....

She's good, with just a slight boo-boo on her knee.

Daddy holding the littlest water baby, she LOVES water of any and every type!!!

Emilia picking up sea shells.

Daddy took Shelby FAR out!

And he got hit with a wave, Shelby loved it though.

Abi and Emilia picking up shells.

Shelby's first taste of the ocean. She practically ran all the way from the van down here, it kind of reminded me of my first trip back to the ocean right after my high school graduation, I just wanted to get to the water...it gets in your blood.

All four girls (plus a little boy inside Mommy) on the beach.

The "Believe" Shamu show

This was so great to watch...we left with not just one, but TWO girls that are more than ready to become Marine Biologists so they can swim with the big whales too.

Riding on a whale.

FUN!!

Abi's a bird chick, so I took a picture of this one for her, but just as I was snapping it, Tim yelled out, watch out, it's going to get you....

And the bird flew away from the HUGE whale!!

Aren't they sweet?

waving

waving with his tail

whale kisses

Good Job!

Whale surfing

underwater surfing

more whale kisses

Good whales

waiting for treats

Isn't it amazing how high those huge animals can jump?

MORE whale kisses...

Fresh fish, what a treat!!

Aren't the manatees beautiful? I know, they're kind of an acquired taste, but I did so much research on them in high school, back when I wanted to be a marine biologist that I just had to see some up close and personal. For being the closest relative to an elephant, they are so graceful under the water.

Beautiful sea cows, did you know that these animals were the start of the legend of mermaids? I think those sailors had to be out to sea for a LONG time to picture these as beautiful women swimming towards them!!

Abi and Emilia looking at dolphins under water.

Abi is in LOVE with dolphins, so this was her absolute favorite part of the day, everything dealing with the dolphins.

more dolphins

The dolphin tank

Emilia tight rope walking on the curb by the dolphin tank.

All three girls trying to touch a sting ray...yes, Daddy is holding on to Shelby, she's not hanging over the ledge by herself.

Daddy and Emilia checking out the sting rays.

Abi and Shelby with the rays.

Abi and Emilia at the entrance to the park by the pink flamingos. Did you know that they are pink because they eat shrimp?

OK, this one is totally out of place, but the big girls climbed into bed with Shelby one morning to wake her up, and the pictures were just too cute. I personally don't remember being small enough to fit three people in a crib, but it works for the skinny girls!

This one was taken by the Sea World people, but how cool that they got one of Abi feeding a dolphin....she was SOO excited about that!!

This is all of us feeding the dolphins, I was amazed that they were able to get all of us into one shot. We don't know who the chick behind us is, but she kind of reminded me of Courtney.

IT'S A BOY!!!!!

2007-08-31T11:58:00.000-04:00

Well, after 10 weeks of guessing and two separate ultrasounds, we FINALLY found out on Wednesday, that our newest little bundle of joy is a boy. Daddy is SOOO very happy, after three girls, he was ready for his little Hoyt. We are now in a scramble looking for boy clothes which I'm sure will work out just fine, we always seem to have a need and then end up with too much. If nothing else, a bottle of blue Rit dye will turn our pink onesies blue, or at least a dark purple!! I am going to try to update here with some pictures from this summer since I was so bad about getting any up while all the kids were home full time. We just wanted to get this good news out: Josef Hoyt Jefferson is on his way, most likely at the end of October!!!

His little face and heartbeat

2007-05-24T19:32:00.000-04:00

As I was putting up that last post, I realized that I didn't ever get back on here to put up Easter pictures. So, just a month and a half late, here are some pictures of our Easter girls.....

Aren't they cute? At least for the half a second it takes to snap a picture!!
Emilia reaching up high for that egg. Please note the lovely Valentine's decorations that she made (the chain) that we are still not allowed to take down (at the end of May)!
Happy girl Shelby!!
The back of Shelby's dress. Do you belive looking at those legs that she's underweight??
The front of Miss Emilia's dress. This was the $150 dress that I got 1/2 off of the clearance price for only $30!!
How sweet! Who know's what's up with Emilia's smile. All I can say is, she's four! Shelby just wants her to let go of her hand!

Our day trip to the mountains and Grandma's presents

2007-05-24T19:01:00.001-04:00

Hello all!
Daddy had a funeral about 2 1/2 - 3 hours away up in the Blue Ridge Mountains of South Carolina on Wednesday, and since he'd had funerals all weekend too and the girls missed their Daddy, we decided to make a day trip out of it, and all drive up. Emilia has been wanting to "climb" a mountain for a while because of Daddy talking about the mountains here and all the mountains he climbed in Korea. We went up another time with him, but picked a funeral that lasted about 3 hours and just didn't have enough time to get up there before dark and BOY was she MAD!! She did not want to leave after we got there and thinks that we should go back to the big blue mountains soon.
Grandma sent the girls coloring books and some money to go buy an animal for their garden this week also. So, we took a trip to Joann's since they were all half off in search of the "perfect" animal. Emilia had decided that she wanted a kitty and that was all, no other animal would do and since Shelby can't talk yet, there wasn't too much sharing of the animal going on, it was Emilia's way, ALL the way! Of course the only kitties to be found in the entire store were climbing on a boot and cost $30, so we tried to seek out an alternative. Emilia said NO to pretty much every thing in the store (even the cute frog riding on the red tractor -- Mom would have pitched in the extra money for that one LOL) until she came upon this....
There is a face like this (except it doesn't glow in the dark like ours) going out the back way at church that Emilia thinks is just the coolest thing ever. She has been wanting one for a while and I honestly didn't know where to find one (although I must admit I didn't exactly look too hard!). She calls him "Mr. Tree" and talks to him every day now. I'm not sure what Shelby thinks of him, but I assume she'll grow to love him as much as Emilia. He will be traveling with us, I'm sure, when we move again in a year or so.

They also were able to get a really big flower pin wheel that Shelby thinks is cool, IF she can touch it and a smaller metal flower that has a bell in it.
Shelby really didn't want to sit for the picture.
She wanted to CRAWL. We call her "Hard Knees Shelby", I know that they make little pads you can put on kids' knees so they don't get hurt, but I'm so hoping that maybe one day it'll sink in to her that it hurts to crawl over EVERYTHING, and I do mean EVERYTHING, and she'll decide to walk instead. I'm still hoping that happens before Mommy gets too big with #3.

Here's a view of the mountains, it was hazy that day, so you can't see too far.
This is how high we were!
Emilia sitting on one of the boulders.
That fence on the outcrop is where Emilia is standing in the next picture.
BIG MOUNTAINS, little girl.....you'll notice Shelby isn't in any of these pictures and there's a very good reason. She was being held VERY tightly because quite frankly, she's a wonderer and doesn't listen too well yet, at 1. She loves to just crawl off on her own and explore (NO fear!), and that wasn't going to happen that high up!!
Just a couple more shots to show how dirty two little girls can get when they play outside in the dirt. Who needs boys to get dirty? Except Daddy got pretty dirty too as you can see on his hands and knees!

Emilia not only got dirty, but she got wet too when Daddy squirted her. If only we had real grass instead of this crazy Georgia sand/clay combo that doesn't grow much of anything!!

More to come later, we're 16 weeks along on baby #3 and will get an ultrasound at 21 weeks, so hopefully they'll be able to see something hanging down, or not!!

Pollen, pollen EVERYWHERE!!

2007-04-02T14:08:00.000-04:00

Well it's Masters week again here in Augusta, so 1/2 the town has left and the other 1/2 is doing what they can to make money off of the golf freaks that invade town every year. The traffic on our one busy street is bumper to bumper and getting downtown is quite an ordeal. I for one though, am happy to see it all unfold because last year at this time, I was watching everything from my little bitty hospital room TV on the 5th floor ICU. Another good thing is that a lot of the band is gone (this is one of the weeks you're allowed to take block leave since it can be so hard just to get in to work if you live anywhere near the National golf course), so Tim will be able to take tomorrow morning off (after a prayer breakfast) to watch the girls while I go in for my 3 hour glucose test. That makes me so happy to not have to entertain them both in that little waiting room for 3 - 3 1/2 hours!!

I'm also hoping that the "Masters curse" keeps going so that we'll get some rain, it's usually very nice during the practice rounds (Mon - Wed) and then rains during the actual tournament. The pollen here is so terrible right now. Both of the girls are constantly wiping their noses and they have both developed a cough from the nasal drainage. Emilia's tonsils were a bit swollen again today at the doctors, but he said that it is just the allergies and prescribed her an antihistamine that will hopefully help out some.

I'm putting in some pictures of how thick this stuff is right now, and also some of how it looked during our little sprinkling that we got Sunday night. I think all that did was stir it up more though, rather than washing it all away like we wanted.

Our front steps, they aren't normally yellow like this!!
Nope, that's not dust on the trash can lid, it's ALL pollen
During the rain, it just gathered and clumped together in the drain...YUCK!!
Here it is pooling on our front steps (that's Emilia's bug house sitting there, she had a caterpillar in there for a while which was good since she's learning all about metamorphosis!)
This is the end of our driveway. I sure hope it rains later on this week!!!!

I can't figure out what these flowers are, can you help?

2007-04-02T13:56:00.000-04:00

This is the big bush under our triple living room windows. It just started blooming last week, but it wasn't blooming last year when we moved in in June, so it must bloom only in the early spring. It's got these three colors (white, pink, and red) all mixed together. I can't smell, so I don't know what they smell like, but they sure are pretty, aren't they?

Shelby is 1!!!!

2007-04-02T13:23:00.000-04:00

I can't believe it, but my littlest baby girl is now a whole 1 year old! It actually happened on Friday, but we all know how slow I am actually getting the pictures up on the computer. Friday was a busy day for us, so we went in at snack time at Emilia's school and took cookies to all the kids in her class. Ms Alison found a candle and they all sang to Shelby (Emilia actually blew the candle out though). Miss Shelby ate her chocolate chip cookie that we brought as well as the other frosted cookie that was their regular snack for the day!! She had lots of fun, she always loves crawling all over that huge gym floor, and immediately fell asleep when we got home. That night was also a fund raiser to get new playground equipment for Emilia's pre-school, so we had a taco dinner there right after Tim got home from work. They also did a dessert auction during the taco bar dinner, and this was my contribution, it's a Care Bear but Emilia told everyone that it was Big Bird since that was the first cake that I'd done. I know now that I'm supposed to do the outlining FIRST, so hopefully my next cake will look a whole lot better!! This is only my second cake like this so I know that I have lots of room for improvement, but hey, it made them $20! Tim had to leave the dinner early to get to church for Cantata practice, so the girls and I stayed 'till the end, and by then it was pretty much bed time. A very busy day for a brand new one year old!

Today (4-2) was her official one year check up as well as Emilia's 6 month weight check. Shelby is 27 3/4" tall and weighed nearly 16 pounds. She's just over the 10th percentile for her height but not on the chart for her weight. The doctor is not worried about her weight at all though since she's eating really well. Now that she can start on milk (she had her first drink of it at lunch and drank about 2 ounces, not bad for her first time!), she'll gain some extra from all the extra fat she'll be getting from the cow. Breast milk doesn't contain a whole lot of extra stuff like cows milk and formula, so breastfed babies are not expected to gain as much weight as quickly as formula fed babies, so that's why he's not worried about her weight. Emilia had stopped growing completely which was why there was some much of a fuss about her weight. Shelby also is going and going like a little energizer baby, so she's working off everything she eats. Her new favorite foods are strawberries, mandarin oranges, tiny pieces of apple, yogurt (that's been a favorite since she was able to start eating it at 9 months!), and of course any kind of carbohydrate you can give her (she's so my daughter!!!). She also got three shots, including her first MMR shot, but she seemed to be doing well with them when I put her down to sleep about 2 hours after she got them, so hopefully there won't be a big reaction. My OB wants me to have her completely weaned by the time I'm 20 weeks (I'm about 9 weeks now), so I'm leaving out her noon feeding this week while she gets used to the milk. She really seemed to like it at lunch, so I'm hoping that she'll not fight me too hard on this.

Miss Emilia was 41" tall (Mommy's only 56"!) and weighed 31 pounds 6 ounces. She is on the chart again YEAH!!! She's at the 50th percentile for her height and between the 5th and 10th for her weight. The doc said that she's looking more and more like a kid her age should and that we can possibly stop monitoring her every 6 months after her 5 year check up if she's still gaining. That makes me so happy, to have two healthy, happy kids YEAH!!!

Shelby getting ready to blow out her candle.
Playing in the gym after her cookies.
Sitting up like a big kid at her party!! The little boy in red is Emilia's "boyfriend" Devin.

Check out my Slide Show!

2007-03-29T15:46:00.001-04:00

Tim's Wreck

2007-03-23T17:28:00.000-04:00

Well, the inevitable happened and Tim was in an accident yesterday. It was not his fault, he wasn't hurt, and the bike has only minor damage. He had just turned off of our road onto the main road when an older lady in a Cadillac pulled out in front of him. She said that she didn't see him and did not slow down at all. He was able to swerve and lift his leg at the same time, so she only bent up his brake pedal and floorboard on the right side. It's also possible that the air cleaner might be loose, but we won't know that for sure until we can get an estimate done on it. He kept the bike upright the whole time, so there aren't even any scratches on the paint! The cop, when he got there, was impressed that it was standing up and said that he doesn't come across many bike wrecks where the bike is still standing. Her insurance company is being an insurance company and have said that the claim will not be opened until probably Monday or Tuesday (the accident happened on Thursday morning). So we can POSSIBLY get a rental, but only after they talk to all the parties involved, including the witness that stayed back to talk to the police, if the lady says that she does not want to be held liable. We were very lucky that this gentleman offered to stay and wait with Tim to say that it was not his fault and that he did everything he could to avoid the accident. So, on the report it says that she was at fault so we're just hoping that on Monday, after they talk to her, the situation will change and it will all be taken care of quickly.
We know that he was being watched over that morning, this could have been so much worse. The way she was going, he could have tumbled over her hood, or been just a split second later on his swerve and had his leg crushed. As it is he's upset and a bit shaken, but 100% better than he could have been.

This was the extent of the damage. Just these few bent parts.

BIG News!!!!

2007-03-07T18:08:00.000-05:00

Well, we all knew it was coming soon, and here it is....We're going to have a new addition (most likely also the last addition) to our family right before Halloween this year! We won't know if it's a boy or girl until June or July, but I know many are hoping for a boy!! I had my visit with the OB nurse today and there was some good news, because of the problems that I had with Shelby (pre-eclampsia, post partum pre-eclampsia, the staph infection and e. coli) I will be going up to the OB doctor's this time instead of seeing a general practitioner because they consider me high-risk now. Don't start worrying about anything though, we were told that there is only a 25% chance of the pre-eclampsia coming back and the other problems were related to the C-section because Shelby was breech, and hopefully we won't have to have another one of those! We now have our own blood pressure monitor and will take a reading twice a day and keep a log, just to make sure that it doesn't start creeping up and they will most likely test my protein with every visit as a second check. There really isn't too much to tell now, just that with each baby you grow out of your clothes even earlier than the last....Tim will be pulling out the box of maternity clothes when he gets home from practice tonight, or I'll just be wearing pajama pants everywhere I go! We love you all!!
Tim, Marci, Emilia, Shelby and baby #3

Shelby and her walker, plus Tim on the news???

2007-02-15T12:48:00.000-05:00

Shelby and Mommy don't have much alone time, but Tuesday, Thursday and Friday for about 4 hours, 1 - 2 of those with her sleeping is "our" time (at least until the middle of May), and she's been working very hard on her walking, so we thought that we'd show off some pictures of her doing just that! She was supposed to get this walker for her Birthday, but apparently, her plan on when she was going to start walking was just not the same as Mommy's so she ended up getting it early. This is a hippo that "eats" her peek-a-blocks as she pushes it along and once she's walking, it turns into a ride on toy, cool huh?
Notice the way cool, hot pink, high top Chuck Taylors, she's always stylin', plus high tops are about the only type of shoe that wills stay on her foot for longer than 2 seconds! I know that she needs to be walking in bare feet, and usually she does, but her little toes are always so cold because without the shoes, the socks are off even quicker and the toes are in her mouth, getting wet and cold, it's a vicious cycle. It's a cold day (well, at least for here) at 45 with a wind chill of 35 - 40, so she's bundled up today! Looking at her, it's hard to believe she's only a little over 15 pounds. She ate a whole cereal bar this morning, the same as Emilia!!! We definitely don't have the same eating problems with her that we did with Emilia.They are kind of hard to see, but if you look VERY closely, you can see teeny tiny ponytails on the top of her head. She doesn't have much hair in the front, it mostly in the back, so they are kind of far back on her head, but too cute!!
She loves her toys and play area, but loves being out of her play area and chasing after anything and everything she's not supposed to have even more (have I told you all about her obsession with dog food????)!

This is completely off subject, but if anyone gets this before the national news this evening (Feb 15th), try to watch for the coverage of representative Charlie Norwood's funeral. I'm not sure how much national coverage it'll get, but the secret service is here, and Tim has been sequestered at the church since about 10:30 this morning for a 2 pm service, and they have news people down at the airport waiting for a jet from Andrews AF base. Anyway, the band is playing the memorial service and Tim is usually the 3rd or 4th trumpet in on the left hand side, third row back (should be the last row).

How kids learn by watching the dog...

2007-02-06T18:11:00.000-05:00

It's hard to see it now, but there's a mad, mad kid in this picture..
Here she comes now, she's going to get OUT! She's not sure where she's going (except towards the dog food), but she sure does know that she's not happy about being fenced in.

She's getting there, but she's still MAD!!!

Almost out....

See, she's happy now!

When we're in the room, we move the gate over to give Shelby almost all of the living room to roam in. We just try to keep her away from her sister's desk and, for obvious reasons, the kitchen. The dog has figured out that he can either jump over the end table, or just crawl UNDER it. Shelby figured out that she can't jump, but if there's anything she's good at (besides eating), it's crawling, so that's how she got out on this day. We now move the gate over more, but it won't be long before she figures that out too. The way she's going, she'll be walking before she hits 1 anyway (AHHHHH). I just love having kids, they make the day SO interesting!

Our outside Christmas decorations

2007-02-06T17:57:00.000-05:00

We actually have a yard, a BIG yard, so we were able to put up some cool decorations this year. I didn't get to many pictures, and got none of the lights, but here's a few for you.
This is our big snow globe with the rotating, swinging peguins.

The candy canes were Santa's lighted parking spot The bikers, hanging out with "Chopper Clause"
Abi and Daddy. She's wearing Daddy's vest and her new skull cap that she got for Christmas. She wants a vest of her own now!!

Some other random pictures

2007-02-06T17:02:00.000-05:00

Here are just some random pictures of the girls from when Abi was here....enjoy!!!!
Daddy helping Miss Emilia with her first game of bowling. She did better when she did it on her own, just don't tell him.
I did it myself!!
Daddy, the bowler
Shelby Sue ---- (yes, I know it's really Anne, Sue just flows better when you sing to her "Hello, Shelby Sue, Goodbye heart) crawling off to a new adventure!
Aren't they cute girls?? Do you believe Abi is 11 now? Don't I feel old, she had just turned 3 when I met her, that was back when she was shorter than me!
Shelby really likes spaghetti,
Can you tell?
It gets all over her tummy when it should get INSIDE her.
This is why people with kids get dogs.....
they make excellent food cleaners, plus the kids LOVE it!!!
Oops, she's waking up now. The cats got in just to see what's going on.
Another sleeping shot. Daddy went in to check on her during nap time and found this.
Our angel baby, sleeping on the floor with her purses all laid out in a row. No, I don't know why. My only excuse is that she's 4.

Mom on Tim's Bike!!!!!! No, I'm NOT Kidding

2007-02-06T16:22:00.000-05:00

Tim's Mom and Dad came to see us at the beginning of January (can't tell by the clothes we're wearing though!!) and we were finally able to get Mom on the bike. I think she had much more fun than she wants to admit. She was giggling and squealing the WHOLE time, and she DIDN'T fall off and was able to get on just fine (See Mom, you CAN do it!!)Emilia going up to give Grandpa a BIG hug!!
Gotta get the helmet on
Grandpa's last instructionsSaddling up
Off they go!
Look at that smile!
She hasn't fallen off yet....
Don't we have some HUGE pine trees here?

Driving down the streetHere we go
Here she is, ready to ride!!
Riding off into the sunset

I forgot some....sorry

2007-02-06T16:06:00.000-05:00

While I was looking over the last two posts, I realized that I forgot some pictures that are really cute, so here they are.
Emilia, opening up her Barbie with lots of different outfits.

Yeah, she's so excited!!!! Do you like our lovely decorations?
And our Abi with her absolutely FAVORITE gift. Her Fly pen. She pretty much stopped opening after that. Silly girl, the software comes AFTER the big gift.....

CHRISTMAS PART 2!!!

2007-02-06T15:03:00.000-05:00

Here's the rest of the Christmas pictures for you all to enjoy!!
Here's Shelby, doing what she loved most at Christmas, chasing after paper!
Abi with another book
Emilia and Abi looking at the Darth Tator and Spud Trooper Mr. Potato heads that all the girls got. Guess which Santa picked that one out?
Daddy and part of our tree, the gate was around it to keep the animals out of the presents. Now, it keeps Shelby out of the kitchen and dog food!!
Emilia again
Blurry kids.....they were moving FAST that morning!
Oh, she looks happy, like she knows what's in that package...
Emilia opening NaNa's present, the solar system thingy
Abi and her cool socks
Abi's pop bottle science, yeah, she can blow things up!!
Blurry Emilia again, there's her Larryboy T-shirt NaNa
Oh, another Barbie!!! The pink case is her new camera case. There are some Shelby toys in the background. By this time Shelby was too tired to keep opening, so she was taking a nap and opened the rest of her presents later.
Emilia with her workout CD and elastic bands. shelby's trying to pull her hair (another favorite pastime).
A very HAPPY Emilia sitting on her new Barbie house. Thank you Shray NaNa!!
Shelby at her activity table. This was her big present from Shray NaNa so if someone could print this out to show her, I'd appreciate it, I was telling her about it on the phone. Shelby stands at this and plays quite a bit. The toy in the background is the baby toy that we got with Grandma's gift money when she was born, she still plays with that one all the time too.

I hope you enjoyed the pics, sorry it took so long. We love you all!! Merry Christmas

CHRISTMAS!!!!!!!

2007-02-06T12:48:00.000-05:00

This one is kind of backwards, so it might make more sense to read it from the bottom up (sorry, I'm not too bright some times!!). But anyway here's some pics of the girls on Christmas.....Emilia also got a Barbie love Elmo doll!

Emilia got a Cinderella Barbie, Thank you Shray NaNa Abi's so quick looking through her "Grossology and You" book Emilia thought she needed help opening it Shelby's first present Emilia got SOCKS!!! She is in love with long, knee socks. The big girls and their first presents. Abi is in her new Veggie Tales PJ's and Emilia & Shelby got matching stripped PJ's. They each get a new pair to open on Christmas Eve so that they start out Christmas morning fresh and new. Daddy's doing....something, I have no idea what though Shelby got a keyring in her stocking The big girls each got a pop balloon, but Abi's didn't last too much past this picture, the cat's got ahold of it! A Soduko book -- YEAH Abi opening her stocking. She's holding up a frog bracelet that matches her frog ring that she got his summer. Emilia moving stuff so that there was more room to open PRESENTS!!! That's Santa's milk glass and cookie plate there on the table.

OK, I have to go pick up Emilia at school now, more pics to follow when we get back.....

Biker Christmas Party

2007-02-06T12:21:00.000-05:00

I won't bore you with too much on these because, quite frankly, I honestly don't know everyone's names, but it was a fun time. We had a buffet of good, southern food, a sing-a-long of Christmas carols and a white elephant gift exchange. Emilia was in another room watching a movie, so that's why she's not in the pictures, but Shelby got passed around a bit, and I even nursed her while people were opening gifts. I just love this group, they don't judge and quite a few of them were there the day we dedicated Shelby and stood up with us, in place of our out-of-town family. What a great group!!

For some reason, the guys all thought that it would be cool to put the ribbons on their heads, doesn't he look pretty?
MD with his ribbon, that's Joy beside him (Normal Wayne's wife).
My lovely white elephant prize, OCC floor mats, and NO they didn't get stolen, they are in our van right now. It might have helped that Tim tried to hide them so they couldn't be stolen!!

There's T Wayne (bald guy) and his wife Connie beside him. "Pops" is the guy with the big busy ponytail. Alan and Janice are on the couch with their grandson Josh and Janice's daughter Erica. Allison is beside her, her husband Matt was over on the other side of the room, holding Shelby. Normal Wayne is on the floor and Joy is sitting behind him.
Wayne and his bow
Daddy actually got to hold Shelby for a while
Another one, just because they are so cute!!

Christmas Programs

2007-02-06T11:46:00.000-05:00

OK, OK I do know what day it is, but I did get a new camera for Christmas (well, actually a bit before, Santa wanted me to have some good pictures of the festivities) and it took me a while to figure everything out. So, be prepared for a LOT of pictures and not a whole lot of description, just so I can get them all up.

Here we are waiting in the hallway before the church Christmas program. Both of the girls were angels, but Mommy had to go up with Shelby because she was having a Mommy day and wouldn't go with any of the teen girls that were there to help carry babies. Anyway, aren't they cute, or cheesy in Emilia's case?
This one got a bit out of order, but Shelby is trying to throw herself backwards (one of her favorite pastimes), but forgot she's facing the wrong way. We were out in the hall (again) after getting the angels out of thier costumes.
Here is our Shelby angel looking very worried about something!!
Emilia, doing her best to look innocent and sweet (which she is, at least 50% of the time HA HA)
This is about 1/2 of the group. The babies and toddlers all go up on stage for "A NOT So Silent Night". Melanie (Pastor Mike's wife -- he's the music worship leader and she plays piano) reads the nativity story and the kids all come up in order - angels, donkey, Joseph and Mary, the rest of the animals- and that's pretty much about all, it's just very load with all of those kids and very cute. Basically, it's an opportunity for parents and grandparents to take pictures of the babies. Next year Emilia will be old enough to go to Children's Church instead of Kinderchurch, so she'll be in the big kids Christmas production which gets a WHOLE service!! Anyone want to by plane tickets now???
After Emilia's Christmas program at school, Santa came by for the kids to see. Shelby's not too sure about him, and Emilia is "making" herself smile. She thinks that she makes a prettier smile that way (or at least thinks so some times, usually when I want her to smile for a picture). When we saw the mall Santa, Shelby actually pulled on his beard, but of course, I didn't get a picture of that one!
Emilia singing at her concert. She next to her "boyfriend" Devin and her friend Zanna
Here's 5 of the 9 kids in her class (One is Michael and one is Kavin, but I'm not sure who's who). I know she doesn't look too interested in the whole thing, but she was VERY excited!!

Some more pics of the girls

2006-12-14T15:17:00.000-05:00

Well, My Mom was here last week, and everyone who knows her knows that LOTS of pictures are involved in every visit! So, I thought I'd share some with you all, because I have some cute kids and feel the need to share (not that I'm biased or anything!)

This was taken of all of us after Tim's big Army band concert on the 7th. It's at the biggest Baptist church in town and they have one of the local TV news guys, Richard Rogers, MC it. The last song is "The Night Before Christmas" and he gets down on the floor with all the kids to read the story while the band plays. Emilia went right up this year, she was the first kid there, and tried to help Mr Rogers by holding the book for him. So he tells her, "That's OK, it's my book". When Tim came down and I told him that was Emilia, he had to go around and let the whole band know, "That was my kid trying to take his book!"

Here are the girls fighting over who was going to give Daddy kisses next. Emilia had just given him one.

Here is Miss Shelby doing what she does best, sticking her tongue out! That's her way of showing you how much she likes you!

Another one of Emilia, she looks VERY happy here !

I'm not sure what kind of face this was, but all THREE girls make the same face from time to time, it comes from Tim, obviously!

Shelby thinks that she's quite the big girl now that she's crawling everywhere. She's started standing with help and pulling up on furniture, but I think she's still a few months away from walking yet.

Here's me and my girls at the Christmas Concert. Their dresses were a big hit, and guess what? Only $2 each at Toys R' Us (I LOVE Clearance racks!!)

Another shot of Miss Emilia

Our sleepy Shelby, but not too tired to laugh just one more time!

Emilia told NaNa that this was her "sad" face.

And finally, here's Shelby giving Daddy kisses. They've evolved from the full open mouth with tongue kisses she used to give. They're still open mouth, but not so much tongue anymore, so they aren't nearly so messy!

Some other recent pictures just for fun

2006-11-23T14:43:00.000-05:00

Emilia rolling around on the floor with her puppy dog while Shelby sucks on an ice cube in her babysafe feeder. Our fashion plate girl is wearing a zebra print skirt over top of black footless tights with her pumpkin T-shirt and blue flip flops!! Shelby is just hanging out in her super cute baby jeans. They were hanging out in the kitchen with me while the handy man was putting in our new screen door on the back door that leads on to our porch, that's why the baby gate is up, to keep the cats and dog from bothering him too much.

In case you missed the email update, Daddy finally convinced me to let Emilia get her ears pierced (he's been working on her to get her to ask me EVERY DAY). So on Monday night we went to the mall to get it done. She was kind of scared after we got there, so she sat on Daddy's lap and Mommy held her head straight. The girls that did the piercing were very good (she had one on each side so she wouldn't have just one ear done), but our little girl was a bit smarter than they thought...She knew that they were trying to hide something behind her head, so she figured out pretty quickly that they were going to poke her. As soon as it was done (and she let out about 5 huge OOW, OOW, OOW's) and she saw herself, she couldn't quit giggling all the way out of the mall, and we had to stop and tell pretty much every person that we saw that she now had her ears pierced! She got the pretty sparkly ones and has to keep them in for 6 weeks before she can change them out.

Let me start this story with, we live in the south, no matter what you do or how clean your house is, you are going to get Palmetto bugs (2 inch long roaches in my opinion) and big brown crickets (especially in the shower) in your house all year long, but especially in the fall. So, Davidson (the little boy kitty) is our best bug hunter, all you have to do is yell out "BUG!" and he's right there to catch it and eat it (yes I know, that's gross, that is why we call him bug eater, oh, and he's not allowed to lick faces anymore). Emilia found one and called Davidson over, but he didn't eat the whole bug, so Daddy doubled up some toilet paper for her to pick up the rest to throw out (this story just gets grosser and grosser!). She does this all the time and usually thinks it's fun because that's one less bug to come into her house, but for some reason, the paper came unfolded and she started to see bug juice. As many of you know, Emilia is a GIRLY GIRL all the way and because of this doesn't like gross things (at times, other times she'll watch the cats eat a mouse, but that's for another story time hour), so she promptly sat down and started screaming 1) because the was bug juice that she could see and 2) because the dead bug and toilet paper had fallen right into her lap and she couldn't move, or she'd touch SOMETHING! Now, being the mean parents that we are, we told her she needed to pick it up and please stop scream-crying. It took about 5 minutes (and lots of pictures to show her what she looked like), but she did finally get up and throw the bug away. She was very proud of herself then and since it was all over, wanted to share the pictures with everyone. Tim says that his Grandma's would probably swat him for doing that to his little girl, but I figured it was worth the risk...at the worst we'd have a visitor and at the best, just make everyone laugh! So, here are two of the pictures of little Emilia and her teeny tiny bug in toilet paper.....

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!!!

2006-11-23T11:48:00.000-05:00

Hello everyone! The girls, Tim and I wanted to say a big Happy Thanksgiving to all of you. Our neighbor Jerry offered to fry our turkey for us, and did just that yesterday, so we had turkey last night, and we'll have it today too! I thought I'd share some pictures of the girls eating up last night....

Our model baby, Emilia was cutting up her cheese with the spoon, very smart for a girl who's too little to use a real knife yet! Yes, she did dress herself yesterday.
Well, there are a few more of Shelby, because let's face it, 7 1/2 month olds are a bit more fun to watch eat, they tend to drop and spread more! This was towards the end of her meal, when she finally quit focusing on the turkey and realized that the mashed potatoes were pretty good too! She then started eating by the fist full!
Those are chunks of turkey, and no, she still doesn't have any teeth. This girl can munch down on pretty much anything you put in her mouth. She ate ALL of that turkey, and she was half way through when I took this picture.
She's actually a pretty neat eater when mushy foods aren't involved. She did really well with her first turkey.

Have a great day everyone, and we hope to hear from you all soon!! WE LOVE YOU!!!!

Halloween Party!

2006-11-02T09:56:00.000-05:00

Emilia's pre-school had a Halloween party on Tuesday so I thought I'd share some pictures!

Here she is in her classroom with four of the other kids. There are 9 kids total in her class, 5 boys and 4 girls! By this time most of them had their costumes off, but not our princess!!!

Daddy got to stop by too, and here he is holding our baby Shelby calf. Doesn't she look SOO excited to be in that?

Our Princess sitting at the lunch table. She ate the WHOLE cupcake, as well as her pumpkin shaped sandwich, celery, cheetoes and bananas!! When she's hungry, she'll eat.

2006-10-07T15:53:00.000-04:00

OUR SLEEPING BEAUTIES

Why is it that kids who never want to sleep in their own beds, will fall asleep on their own pretty much anywhere else??

Emilia sleeping on our "new -- read as from freecycle" living room chair.
Look at those legs! Man, I hope she makes a ton of money modeling, or reaching high things for people!!
Shelby at her favorite place, her high chair, but without food!
Poor sleeping baby, no bed for her!!

2006-10-07T15:46:00.000-04:00

Some Random Pictures of Emilia

I don't know why, but for some reason, Emilia likes to come up with a new "look" every week or so, and this was her look a couple of weeks ago, she really wanted me to get a picture of it so everyone could see, so.....here it is!
She also really likes to dress herself and come up with, shall we say "interesting" outfits. This tank top is knotted in the back (yup, just like they were in the 80's) and is layered over a white T-shirt. The shorts are normal shorts just pulled REALLY high up (can you say wedgie?), but she paired them with polka dotted tights that don't have any feet, so since there aren't any feet in the tights, she had to wear socks so that she could wear the BRIGHT pink cowboy boots that she thinks go with EVERY outfit she has!!

Maybe she'll make tons of money designing clothes....right??? Do they have a what not to wear show for the pre-school age?

2006-10-07T15:26:00.000-04:00

UPDATE ON SHELBY ANNE

Well, since Shelby just had her 6 month check up on Tuesday, I thought I'd add in an update all bout her!! She was 13 pounds 11 ounces (that's right, she's almost exactly 1/2 of Emilia's weight!!) and they said 25 1/4", but they said she was 26" at 4 months, so someone is off somewhere. She is eating, eating, eating like crazy (as you can see from the pictures). She eats cereal (and sometimes veggies) twice a day now, and at times eats seconds and has been know to eat THIRDS!! She hasn't had too many veggies yet, since you need to wait about a week between new foods just to make sure there are no allergies, and after Emilia, we're watching Shelby like crazy so we can catch it early if it happens with her too. So far she HATES green beans, tolerates carrots and LOVES squash. She will eat a bowl of cereal at lunch, and another bowl (usually two) for dinner as well as 2 ounces of squash, plus she's still nursing about 5 or 6 times a day too. She has decided that the kittens are hers and grabs for them any time they come close, which is quite often, and for some reason tries to eat them. I don't think that she really wants to eat them, but she sure puts whatever body part she can into her mouth - I'm glad that a little dirt never killed a kid! They do know that she's a baby though because they've never so much as meowed at her (and they let Emilia know VERY loudly when she's pushed them too far), and they keep coming back for more! She's not crawling....yet, but she does wiggle like a snake across the room, and she's a very quick roller, she can move across the living room lightening fast! Because she's so tall, she's already been in 6 month size clothes for a little over a month when she needs pants or a one piece outfit. She's already starting to outgrow some of her 6-9 mth PJ's, I told Tim that we night just need to go buy out Old Navy of their PJ's (they have the two piece style). She will probably never get to wear a one piece swimsuit if this continues, she definitely takes after grandpa (as Emilia calls him, my really TALL grandpa!), and NOT Mommy!! The hair is no longer red and curly, and she's lost quite a bit of what she had. What is coming in, is straighter and more blond. I think she may keep a tinge of red (maybe a strawberry blonde), but who knows?? It can change any time.

I think that she's trying to figure out if the strap is food too!!
A face full of cereal
Emilia is actually pretty good at feeding her, not too pushy.

2006-10-07T13:40:00.000-04:00

OUR NEW PETS!!

This is our new puppy Zuki, yes Tim did name him after his bike! We got him from the pound last weekend (September 30th) after two weeks of Emilia waking up almost every night sad about her puppy being gone. We just couldn't handle it any more, and the kittens just weren't cutting it for her, although she does love them too (until she gets scratched). So, we went around to all the pet stores around us looking at the animals the various rescue organizations had up, but ended up going to the pound where they were having a fundraising event. We walked through all the dogs and picked out three that we might like. The first was too big!! He was an extremely HUGE black lab, but I think he night have had a bit of great Dane in him because his head was just massive. The second was too old, we didn't want to go through another Walker so quickly again and he was about 7 or 8 and also pretty big. The third was JUST RIGHT (sound like a fairy tale to anyone else?) a little cocker mix that's about 9 months old. He's a cute furry little black ball with just a bit of white on his chest. He was fixed just three days before we got him, so we don't have to worry about that, and he is potty trained (another BIG plus), but he didn't really have any obedience training, so we are working on that, but he's a smart puppy and I think he'll catch on quick. His biggest problem right now is stealing all our dirty clothes and laying on them. He understands "Zuki, Drop", and he does, but we're still working on the follow up, where he doesn't pick it up right away again, but it's only been a week!Here are the kittens! Yes, I know that it's actually been two months, but it seems that every time I try to put up a blog on them, something goes wrong and the whole thing deletes just as I'm finishing up (which is why you're getting a few smaller ones today, not one big update). So here they are, Harley (the little girl with the solid black face) and Davidson (the little boy with a white nose and chin) . They are now three months old and still VERY active running all over the place with each other, and Zuki (well, Davidson plays with him, Harley still just spits when she sees the dog)! They have been to the vet three times now, so they have all of their shots, de-worming, and microchipping done, we now just are waiting for them to get big enough to get fixed (Davidson is almost there, he's scheduled to be done on the 25th -- we don't want any more baby animals around here!) They have grown so much just in the two months we've had them. Davidson was the runt, and he weighed 13 ounces when we got him, and Harley was 1 pound 2 ounces, they both now weigh 2 1/2 pounds! These babies were born at our friends house, he was a vet tech on post and when a pregnant cat was brought in, they were going to abort the babies, but he asked to take her home to let the babies be born, and so we were able to adopt them for only $60 which included all of their first year shots, microchipping (which is only about $17 even off-post so I think that every animal should have it done, I had no idea it was that cheap!!), de-worming, flea and tick meds AND spay/neuter since they weren't boarded at the vet clinic. The Mom decided that she was done nursing the babies, and started attacking them all (there were 5 total) at 4 weeks, so we got them pretty early. It's been fun to watch them go from sleeping ALL the time, to only sleeping MOST of the time!!!! In the picture, they are sleeping on a pillow that they have decided is theirs in the den/sewing/eBay/computer/laundry room. It's going to be interesting to see how big they get since they were so tiny when we got them. Davidson has already grown so much from the tiny ball of fluff he was when we got them.

2006-09-28T10:27:00.000-04:00

Emilia's First Day of School!!!

Emilia started pre-school on Tuesday the 26th!!! She was such an excited girl that she was up at 7 instead of her usual 8 or 8:30. She is going to the Marvin United Methodist church preschool on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday from 9:30 to 1:30. She was barely able to make it back to the van on Tuesday she was so tired from all of that playing, and she told me that "We shouldn't go to school ALL day like that". On Tuesdays, they get to walk over to the church (it's right next door to the gym/school) and have a bible story with the whole school (from 2 to 4 years) which they work on that all week. They also learn one letter a week and work on telling time, colors, numbers and lots of other great stuff. On Thursdays they have show and tell where they bring in something that starts with the letter they are on that week. This week is "F" (which means we started her about 5 weeks late), so she brought in a stuffed baby horse (a foal or a filly, depending on if she wants it to be a boy or a girl). This was a hard letter, Tim wanted her to bring in a fishing pole, but all I could see were the law suits from someone getting an eye poked out, so we searched the dictionary for another word that wouldn't hurt (obviously fork was out!). On Friday's they get to bring in a book from home to share with the whole class. The four year old class also gets to go on field trips, so she'll get to go visit a farm and have a picnic there either at the end of this month or the beginning of next (can't remember right now). She's so excited about that, that she keeps telling me that it's "tomorrow"! They also have different groups come in from time to time like firefighters, dental hygenists and other cool people that kids will like. She will also have a Christmas program in early December (they have the last part of Dec off of school), so if anyone wants to time a trip for them..... hint, hint. The kids are outside playing every day at the same exact time that Tim drives by on his way home for lunch (the school is only about a mile and a half from our house), so he gets to honk at her and wave. She, of course, missed it on Tuesday (we'll see if she watches today or not), but a little boy in her class came up to me and told me all about seeing her Daddy drive by on a BIKE!! It was so cool!! So, I guess that earned her some cool points with the other kids. Mommy did OK, I didn't cry, but I did sit outside the school waiting for a phone call for about 10 minutes. No one called though, and even when I walked in to pick her up that afternoon, it took quite a while for her to even notice me, she was just too busy playing!

Here she is in the van, ready to get going! The day we went to look at the school (last Thursday), she went out to the van all by herself and sat there for about 10 minutes, just waiting for me to get Shelby all ready and fed so that we could go see the school!!

Here she is standing outside our house smiling HUGE, waiting to go. She takes a backpack with a change of clothes (in case she gets dirty) and also gets to take her lunch. She picked out the pink camouflage lunch box, mostly because it had it's own water bottle, and we all know how much she loves water!! She picked her motorcycle shirt to wear, but didn't want to wear the pants, "Just regular jeans Mommy". My baby is growing up so fast!!!

2006-09-16T18:33:00.000-04:00

Walker in the back seat of the little Kia on his way to his new home in Maryland (Before Emilia and the gray hair!).

Our baby boy Walker had to go to a new home today. Yesterday, Emilia accidentally put her foot on his back, and he growled (which he has every right to do), but then he jumped up and bared his teeth at her, which he had never, ever done before. It was then that Tim and I both looked at each other and we knew it was time. He will be 10 next month, and has been hurting for quite a while. We had an appointment at 10:30 this morning to put him down, but about an hour before then, the vet called us and asked if it would be alright to contact the local greyhound adoption group to see if they could find a home without kids to take him. Of course we agreed, we didn't want to put him down, but the girls do need to come first. So, we took him to a meet and greet over in North Augusta so that the adoption coordinator could look him over to see if it was possible to adopt him out or not. They agreed that he is probably too old to adopt out, but one of the ladies there has 4 or 5 greyhounds of her own and said that she would take him into her home if they couldn't find another one. They did agree that the kids do need to come first and that he can't stay here, he just hurts too much to put up with two active youngsters (especially with Shelby ready to crawl at any moment, Walker was Emilia's favorite object to crawl over). So, it was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do, but we had to drive off without our big "poor old man" baby. He just kept looking at us and trying to follow, he didn't understand why we were leaving him. I'm still trying to decide if this is really best or not. He is hurting so bad with his hips and back (he did race 4 1/2 years before we got him), but I'm sure that after they've done all of their X-rays and tests they'll know for sure (because they didn't really want to believe us that he's hurting as bad as we said) and decide from there if he's just going to live out the rest of his life in an "Old Greyhounds" home, or if they think that he's just too hurt to go on. We were told that they will keep us updated and that we can call any time to see how he is doing. We miss him so much already and Emilia keeps saying that she wants him to come home and not live with those other dogs, it's so hard for a four year old to understand. So, for everyone who loved and still loves our boy, I'm putting in lots of pictures of him, including those with his favorite people, his girls.

This is Tim and Walker standing out in the biggest snowstorm Maryland had seen in a long time, in February of 2003. Poor Walker just wanted to come inside, or at least find a place to pee that didn't have snow up to his pee-pee!

This was the moment I knew that Walker had decided Emilia was his. It was about 3 in the morning, and I had laid her on the couch while I got a bottle ready (this was before she learned to nurse, she was only about a month old). Walker climbed up on the couch (which he knew he wasn't supposed to do), and laid down with his head on her lap. He also seemed to know that I don't have a sense of smell too because when Emilia would get a poopy diaper he would go over to her, smell her bottom and look at me. He would keep doing this until I picked her up to change her, but his patrol didn't stop there. He would follow me back to her room EVERY TIME I went back there with her, I'm sure just to make sure I was doing everything alright.

Now THIS is how everyone remembers Walker. What a spoiled dog he was! He had not only his bed, but also his very own head pillow too. What a rough life!!

Here's Walker when we moved down here to Georgia last summer (2005) with Abi and Emilia. When the rest of us were sleeping on air mattresses and sitting in camp chairs, Walker still had HIS bed to lay on. Even with his bed though, he still choose to lay in the hallway right out side the door of his girls, it's where he still slept as of last night, guarding them.

Here he is with his newest baby. I had laid Shelby down on the floor for some "tummy time" and I guess he thought that she looked kind of lonely, so he moved to lay down beside her. Then he decided he wasn't close enough so he moved his head over by her head, just so she'd know he was there. When we brought her home from the hospital he did the same exact thing to her that he did to Emilia when we brought her home. He started at her belly and smelled up to her head and then licked her from her forehead to the back of her head. I think it was his "blessing" to them saying that they were OK to be in his family. He never would lick an adult, but he did lick pretty much every kid he saw (that would let him, he was a big dog with BIG teeth after all!).

I took this picture yesterday after telling Emilia that we were going to have to take her doggie to the "pet doctor" (she for some reason can't say vet) and that the doctor was going to give him some medicine so that he would go to sleep and stay that way, so he could go live with Jesus. She really didn't like that idea, she just wanted him to go to sleep, and then come home. She still doesn't understand, but she liked it better that he was going to go to a new house with lots of other dogs, instead of going to sleep. We will miss our baby boy, but we do both agree that we did what we had to do, and we trust that he's going to have a comfy bed and lots of love in his final days, we wish that those days could be spent with us, but this is the next best thing. We love you Walker!!!

2006-09-13T19:27:00.000-04:00

OK, I just had to put this one up too. This is a warning to all 5 1/2 month olds out there........Just because YOU think you're too old for a nap, doesn't mean that you ARE!! Sometimes, you just play so hard that the only thing left to do is pass out, standing up in your exersaucer.

2006-09-13T10:50:00.000-04:00

Emilia made crowns this morning for her craft. She made one for herself the "Princess" and one for Shelby too. Emilia wanted to tell everyone, "We love you!" and "Please come see me, I want to show you my new house with NO stairs." Emilia's decided that pretty girls wear dresses, and wears a dress almost every day now. I didn't realize until she started doing that just HOW tall she's getting. At her check up last week, she was 28 pounds (5th %tile) and 39 1/2" (50th %tile)!! How'd she get that big???? We have to get her 4's (not 4T's) and 5's now, just to get dresses that don't show off her undies too! Shelby has her 6 month check up in three weeks, so we'll see how much taller she gets too, at her 4 month, she was already 13 pounds (50th %tile) and 26" tall (75th %tile). Well, that's all for now, until more cute pictures come up ---

Biker Sunday and Emilia's Birthday

2006-09-12T14:27:00.000-04:00

Hello everyone!

Well, Emilia is now officially 4 years old, as of September 5th. She was a very excited girl! She got her very own Princess CD player with "kid phones" that fit her ears just right. Now Daddy doesn't have to listen to the Princess, Veggie Tales, Dora, ect.. CD's in the van. She was also able to use some of her birthday money to buy speakers for the player so that she can listen to CD's in her room too. She also was able to get three more CD's (of course, another Princess one, a Dora one and a worship jams CD), a CD case and a Princess canopy to go over her bed. Do you feel the theme? She's REALLY into Princesses right now!

Last Sunday (the 10th) was also biker Sunday at our church. There were 316 bikes in our parking lot, and we fed 500 at the lunch. The ride after lunch was great too. We were able to find someone to watch the girls for us so I was able to go on the ride also with Tim. I took lots of pictures as we drove through the beautiful South Carolina countryside, and then some more as we sat in the beautiful South Carolina countryside while our police escort decided if it was safe for 300+ bikes to drive over the tracks with the flashing red lights. To thier credit though, this was the intersection where a year ago January there was a huge train wreck that spilled chlorine gas all over the little town of Granitville and a handfull of people died and many more were admitted for poisoning. So, after about 10 minutes, the figured we were safe, and they let us pass. All in all, it was about an hour ride when we got back to church. They then did the door prizes, and it was all over by about 4 o'clock.

The girls were quite a hit with their

biker outfits too. People kept asking all day if they could please take a picture of them. Shelby's little headband was actually thier favorite part, although the vest came in pretty close!

2006-04-27T13:47:00.000-04:00

Our Family, including our newest member on Easter. Emilia is 3 1/2 and Shelby was 17 days old. I'm just getting this site up for now, but soon, I will update everyone on what's been going on here and all the fun news about when Shelby was born!