Drawing

I had to share this with you ...........this sweet lady in Canada wrote me last week and said her husband was a portrait artist and would like to draw a picture of Harper. And today we got the mail and this was in our mail..................this amazing drawing of Harper. I just love it!
A sweet 16 year old girl name Katelyn drew this for us a few months ago and sent it to us and we are so proud of it also!
We are hanging in there! I slept all day yesterday and have been in bed most of today. I feel SO much better today! I had 102.5 fever yesterday and it finally broke and now I feel like a new woman. Scott is doing so great taking care of Harper! I think he has learned that my job is not as easy as he might have thought! ha! I prayed several times last night for single moms. I want you to know if you are a single mom - you are in my prayers. It would be so hard to do this alone. Please pray for those single moms (or single dads) during these long winter months!

Happy Halloween! I hope everyone has a safe and fun holiday. I wish we could be taking our little piggy out for trick or treating tonight but we have MANY more years to do that!

Love those Hogs!

Well

I have the swine flu.

UGH!

I started feeling bad late afternoon yesterday and this morning I still was so I went to the doctor first thing this morning and sure enough. So I'm in bed and I have to stay away from people for a week. Good times. My sweet husband is home taking care of Harper and washing clothes and playing Mr. Mom. I'm so thankful for him. I want to hold Harper so bad but I don't want to make her sick. Another blessing that she weaned on Sunday. (and she is still doing GREAT!)
I'm praying, praying, praying for all my friends and all the kids who were at my house yesterday that I don't pass it to them. I would never have had them over if I knew I would be sick.

SO I may be M.I.A. for a few days. And it looks like Halloween is cancelled at our house. Luckily Harper is not old enough to know. We'll still dress her up and take her picture once I'm better.
And Sunday is our six year wedding anniversary - romantic! ha!

I'm just thankful it's this week so I can be well when we go to El Salvador in 10 days! Praying Scott doesn't catch it!

P.S. I saw a P.A. who was so sweet and I was sitting wearing the mask when she walked in and she said "Are you Kelly from Kelly's Korner?" ha ha! And she was a Ouachita grad too! Such a small world! :-) I just had to laugh!

Wash your hands and stay healthy!!!!!

Show us How Your Live - Halloween Costumes

This week we are showing off Halloween costumes. Show us what you have planned for this year or what you have worn in the past - you, your kids, your pets:

We have always dressed Dawson up for Halloween - these are from the past few years:

Dawson the bat

Dawson the horse - see the cowboy riding him?

Maybe my favorite - Dawson the Hawaiian tourist

I can't wait to see your costumes and maybe get some ideas for the future!

Trick or Treat!

Today it was my turn to host our Sunday School play group so I had a Halloween theme! This was the candy table and when we were done the big kids got to fill up sacks with candy to take home!
I'm making this bucket for Harper to carry on Halloween. I still have to paint her name but I thought it made a great place to put the spoons!
These Halloween petit fours just make me happy. And NO I did not make these. If I could do that I would open a bakery.

This is Lindsey and Ben.

We had 10 moms and 11 kids here today (I think).

Harper and sweet Brody. When they started playing together his mom Rachel said "oh good - play, fall in love!" ha! We are always working on arranged marriages.

Jessica and Braxton. Braxton is getting a little sister in February! I can't wait to see her!

Mary Avery and John Michael. She is having a baby in just a few weeks and I can't wait to find out what it is!

Berkli, Lindsey and Amanda doing what we do best - talking!

Rachel (who is having a #3 in Feb) and Robin and Caleb

Vonda and Brandon

The littlest babies and their moms playing on the floor

Neely and Harper were FAR outnumbered today. There were only 2 girls and 9 boys! They had a good time together. I kept Neely after for a while while her mom had an appointment. She was so good. She just kept saying "Harper". ha! I hope they will be good friends!

They are obviously easily entertained - playing with tupperware instead of toys. ha!

The big boys wrestling - I love that all of these kids spend so much time together at church that they are growing up to be friends!

The hostesses! I don't know if Harper was sure about having so many kids in her house!

(she had been crying right before we took this)

We dressed up the four littlest babies in their costumes and tried to take pictures which you know is not easy. Here is Ben, Brandon and Harper.
Caleb was NOT loving being a panda but this picture cracks me up! Just so typical of trying to take pictures of more than one baby. Content little Ben the dinosaur, Brandon the curious giraffe, Harper the content pig and Caleb the mad panda. SO CUTE!

I wanted to thank you for praying for Laurie - she is going to be fine. She went to the doctor and they sent her home and said the antibiotic was working and she would be okay! THANK YOU! There are SOOOOOOOO many to pray for and so much sickness ALREADY! I hate that it's October and I'm already so worried about sickness. I feel like we need to live in a bubble this winter. I'm praying for all of you out there dealing with anything from a cold to the flu to cancer.

Guess Who?

I thought I would pop in with a quick post to let you know I'm still alive. It will probably be Thursday afternoon before I get back on here. It's just one of those crazy weeks.

I have to apologize once again because I am MONTHS behind on my e-mail so if you have written me recently I'm sorry. (When I say recently - I mean since June or July- ha!) I will try to get them all answered sometime soon).

First of all - thank you for your prayers. Laurie is doing about the same. She wrote on her blog here. I know there are so many of you out there dealing with horrible health issues for you and your family and it can be so scary. Please feel free to put them on the prayer blog so we can lift you up!

A lady in our church who I adore and admire asked to go with me after Bible Study this morning to visit Laurie. We prayed over her and then she and I went to lunch and I just had the BEST time! I had to run errands this afternoon and then I had a baby shower to go to tonight.

This is my friend Mary Avery and her mom. I'm sorry there is a horrible flash in the picture - they were standing in front of windows. Mary Avery is having her second child and isn't finding out what she is having. She has one precious little boy. In our Sunday School Class - we do second (or 3rd or more) showers at restaurants. It's a great no stress kind of shower and the mother-to-be gets lots of presents and we all enjoy a girls night out.

Here we are right before the gifts were opened. I didn't get many pictures unfortunately.

She gave out these cute cookies as favors! Love them!

I'm not good with neutral gifts. I'm sure you will be SHOCKED to hear this but I like to give monogrammed things for gifts. So I get a little stressed over not knowing the sex. I found some really cute little gowns that were yellow duckies so I made a basket with bath things and the gowns and some duckies plus the ever essential diapers!

How many of you did NOT find out what you were having? I am WAY too Type A and too much of a planner to ever do that but I do think it would be so neat!

P.S. Speaking of BABY showers..........have you read Angie's blog today???? :-)

Treasures

I'm a little emotional tonight. Part of it is what I'm about to write about and part of it is because for about two hours this afternoon - I was scared to death my best friend was going to die (read post below this and please keep praying for her).

So I'm writing this post for a remembrance for myself and for Harper. I would ask that if you don't agree with what I'm writing about - please don't let me know. :-)

I had always planned to breastfeed my entire life. And I have always dreaded it. It just sounded dreadful. But I knew it was something I felt I should at least try. And when we wound up in the NICU and I couldn't nurse those first few weeks - I almost talked myself out of it. Especially when the first time we tried - Harper got so mad she had to go back on oxygen. Talk about scaring a new mom out of trying again.
But a sweet LC named Tina stuck with us and helped me when I was ready to quit (and she still stays in touch - hi Tina!) And I'm so glad she did because it's been a great experience. It's been very bonding and so much easier than I ever dreamed it could be.
So when we got asked to go on the Compassion trip - I decided I would just wean Harper before the trip. And then when we got down to just a few weeks before the trip - I panicked! I don't work well under pressure and I decided to just pump bottles and that I would pump on the trip and wean when we got home.
Harper has never really taken a bottle and I tried once before to give her a formula bottle and she threw a HUGE temper tantrum.
Yesterday afternoon, I thought I would just try to give her a bottle and see what happened. And she GULPED it down. So last night I thought I would try again with her bedtime bottle - just sure she would be mad. She gulped that one too. And went to sleep drinking it and slept all night. So I've given her bottles today with the same results so it looks like she is weaned. And I think it's time. She is obviously ready. She wasn't nursing much anymore anyway. And I think the timing will work out great. I'm proud that I nursed her for 9.5 months.
I was reading Amanda's blog last week because she just went through the same thing and she talked about wanting to treasure that last time of nursing knowing it was the end. And I realized I didn't treasure that last time because I didn't know it would be the last time. And that makes me a little sad. I will always think about all those long nights in our living room when I would nurse and watch TV at 2 a.m. I'm sad to see a little era end.

But you know what? I held her tonight while she took her bottle and she is a wiggle worm who won't normally sit in my lap. She laid there and I could kiss her little head and hold her little hand (two things that are hard to do when you are nursing) and it was a different kind of sweet. And one I loved.

If I have learned anything from reading blogs and from life experiences these last few years it's that we aren't promised tomorrow and we also aren't promised that life will be easy. We were only promised that God would never leave us or forsake us. With all that has gone on for me today - I hope I'm learning to treasure every last minute.

You never know when it might be the "last". Last time you see your friend or family member, last time you kiss your husband good night, last time you nurse your baby, last time your little toddler wears a diaper, last time your child lets you reads to them at night, last time your teenager lets you drop them off somewhere.............Treasure each moment!

Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take - but by the moments that take our breath away!

PLEASE PRAY

Update:
Just talked to Laurie - they did x-rays and it's not in her bones. They put her on another NEW antibiotic and she is going back Thursday for surgery if it's not better by then. I feel so much better about it but it's still very serious and scary. Please keep praying it goes away.
THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU!

If ya'll have read this blog at all - you know this is my best friend Laurie. She and I are more like sisters than friends.
Laurie has had a staph infection in her finger for the last few days and has been on several antibiotics and it just kept getting worse. She saw a doctor this morning who scheduled her for surgery this afternoon.
I just talked to her husband, Steve. He didn't know a lot of details except the surgeon wouldn't do the surgery because it looked so bad and he thought it might possibly be in her bones?
PLEASE, PLEASE - I'm begging you to pray for my sweet friend. I'm scared to death right now and I know she is too. PLEASE PRAY!

Weekend Wrap Up

For weeks we have had this fun weekend plan where we were going to go to Tulsa with Laurie, Steve and the girls and go to the zoo and spend the night and eat out and shop. Well then the stomach flu struck their house in a terrible way and Scott had work projects come up so the trip got cancelled all together. I was a little bummed but we have had a good weekend at home.

Yesterday morning I went to a thing at my church for women called "Mugs and Muffins". It's always so fun - we eat yummy muffins and then have a speaker. I didn't take any pictures sadly.

I came home in time to watch a terrible ball game that I will not discuss because it's too sad.

After the game and Harper's afternoon nap - we loaded up and went to the mall. Scott wanted to shop for a ball cap and some new tennis shoes. This is me being bored in "Lids" while Scott tried to decide on a cap. Are these glasses me or what?

Scott trying to pick out just the right cap!

Harper wondering where all the pretty bows and dresses were in this store?

In the shoe store - they had these cute Southern Belle shirts with funny sayings - I loved this one!
After we shopped - we headed to Mimi's for dinner. Harper was really good - as long as you keep a constant stream of food coming her way.

Our after dinner pose

After we got Harper to bed I decided it was finally time to tackle the one thing that has been hanging over my head for months - OUR CLOSET. I'm obviously not a proud person because I'm about to show you the before picture: (this is just my side)

Isn't that AWFUL? I'm very intent on keeping our house neat and clean but our closet has just become a pit of doom and destruction and I couldn't ever find time to make it better. Well seven trash bags later (clothes to donate) - I finally got MY side cleaned out.

Better. Now I have to tackle Scott's side. I decided to get rid of things I have hung on to years in case they fit one day or come back in style. I felt the need to purge.

This morning we woke up feeling kind of yucky. Scott got up with Harper and let me sleep a few extra hours. (She is sleeping through the night pretty well now but she gets up at 5:30. Oh my!) So we missed church which I hate but we have had some quiet worship time at home today. I hope your weekend was great!

If you are happy and you know it clap your hands!

Tonight I was feeding Harper an Orange Themed Dinner. Not really on purpose - I just kept pulling out foods and they all happened to be orange: sweet potatos, cheese, and mandarin oranges. (don't worry - we had green at lunch). Then I pulled out a jar of spaghetti and meat baby food. I have never fed her this before and I figured she would hate it.

Well She didn't.

She loved it.

So much she just started clapping her hands!

For the first time!

I got so excited I had to film her. Please ignore my crazed commentating. I get so excited over the smallest things with her but I just can't help it.

SEVEN YEARS

Nine months ago Harper came along and she stole our hearts and she became #1 in our home.
But we haven't forgotten this little white ball of fun who loves us unconditionally.

And tomorrow he turns 7!

Seven years of doggie kisses, walks, cuddles, love in his eyes, excited greetings at the door and begging for food.

He taught us how to take care of something besides ourselves and to be "parents"

Everyone told us when Harper came along - it wouldn't be the same. That he wouldn't be our baby anymore. We didn't believe them. He was our CHILD.
Sad to say - everyone was right. We love him dearly and he still sleeps with us and gets lots of love and treats and we try to do special things for him.........but he has taken a BIG back seat to his little sister. But he's handled it very well.
Happy Birthday Dawson Wagner Stamps! We love you so much! We can't believe you are already middle aged (49 in dog years!)