Sunday, February 28, 2010

These feet were made for walking

Thanks to the Great Stomach Bug of 2010 our weekend has been pretty quiet. We mostly just stayed close around the house. Last night Harper and I went over to eat dinner with Laurie and Steve and our friends Amanda & Brad. Scott really wanted to go but we were afraid he was still contagious.
Most of Harper's friends at church are all boys so I'm so thankful to have these 3 little girls for Harper to play with. They are a little older but I hope they will all be friends.

Such sweet little girls
My chubby monkey
After dinner the girls do what they do best - dressed up in princess outfits, tutus and crowns and had a dance party. This is what all good Baptist girls do on Saturday nights in case you didn't know. ha!
Harper didn't dress up or dance but she spent the whole night walking around Laurie's house and playing. Overnight - just this week - she is now a full time walker. She has spent the last few days walking all over the place and not crawling much anymore. Oh how fast time passes. I had to run out today for a little bit and Scott took this picture. I just love that little face!

I took a video of her walking today. I thought you might like to see what a "big girl" we have on our hands. She also started kissing me on the mouth this week. One afternoon I was sitting on the floor and for about 30 solid minutes she would walk over, lean over and kiss me, giggle hysterically and walk off and then come right back and do it again. Maybe the best 30 minutes of my life.
No - it pretty much WAS the best 30 minutes of my life!



P.S. I've been following this story and I often tweet about things like this so often because I don't blog as often as I use twitter so I forget to maybe mention on my blog........but if you haven't read about http://laylagrace.org/
Please pray for their family. They have a 2 year old who has stage 4 cancer and is basically at home in her last days. They are having to watch her die and I can't imagine how horrific that is. I keep imagining Harper and us in that position and it's beyond words. Pray for peace and comfort. Please.

Saturday, February 27, 2010

What are YOU Doing tonight????

Help Haiti Live - Feb 27
You should totally go to http://helphaitilive.com and watch this amazing concert LIVE for FREE at 7:30 central! The money made from this concert is going to help the people of Haiti who still so desperately need our help.
and it's going to be an AWESOME concert!!!!!!
Thanks to Compassion for putting this on and helping the people of Haiti.

Friday, February 26, 2010

What will my Little Girl Be?

I've always been a very girly girl! I don't like to get dirty or mess up my hair. I'm not outdoorsy AT ALL. I have always preferred dresses. I loved playing with dolls. I couldn't wait to wear make-up. My poor parents tried to get me to play sports and both basketball and softball were disasters. I used to get stomaches just thinking about P.E. because I knew we'd have to play volleyball or dodgeball AGAIN. I'm just not athletic and I always imagined if I had a little girl she would be just like me.

Or will she?

I found at Gymboree this week that Harper loves balls. I never thought to buy her one. So I got her a $1 PINK ball at Wal-Mart last night and she has had so much fun with it today.
It makes me wonder if she'll actually want to play sports?
Or if she will prefer dolls and dance?
Or maybe both?

Harper can be a tomboy or an ultra girl girl, she can love sports or be like me and think laying on the beach is "outdoorsy". I will love her no matter what she does or who she becomes because I'm her mother and she is my precious gift.

Were you a girly girl or a more sportsy/athletic/outdoorsy? And if you have a daughter - are they like you or different?

Thursday, February 25, 2010

Show Us Your Life - Collections

So today on Show Us Your Life Friday - it's all about collections. What do you collect???

I don't collect a thing..................unless you count Sonic cups. ha!

But I look forward to seeing what you collect. Put what it is in the subject so it will be easy for us to find!

Not My plans

I'm a planner by nature. At any given point of time - I have at least three lists running all at once. One on our refrigerator (usually the Wal-Mart list), one on my desk of to dos and one in my planner. And usually one in my head. I carry lists with me everywhere. I like to open up my calendar every week and know what lies ahead for me.
I often think God knows my nature and laughs and then changes my plans. He is teaching me and has been teaching me for years to rely on HIM and not on myself. I had my life so neatly planned out when I graduated high school. I just knew that in 5 years I would be married and a few years later a mother. Ha! Not exactly the plans.
This week I was so excited because I had so many fun things planned. I had a little overnight visit to my parents house planned. Today I had a fun outing with a group of friends for lunch and shopping at the mall. Tonight is bunco with the women of my church. But all of those things got cancelled when the Stomach Flu of 2010 hit our house. It would be easy to get bummed and down because everything wasn't playing out the way I had wanted. But maybe I needed to slow down and get rest and spend time at home.
It's easy to get disappointed when our "plans" don't go our way - whether big or small. But I think sometimes we just don't have the full picture. I'd love to get out tomorrow and do a few fun things - it's been a LONG week in this house - but we are supposed to get snow again tomorrow. But I'm going to just try and enjoy another day at home. Soon we will be busy again and I might be longing for a quiet, snowy day!
Speaking of plans not going our way.......when I was having a particularly hard day when Harper was in the hospital - this pretty girl Megan came by to visit me. She brought me the BEST cupcakes and was just so sweet to come and encourage me. I was so excited to find out recently that she is pregnant! But her plans for her sweet Cohen (they are having a boy!) have not gone exactly like they would have dreamed. They recently found out he has several heart defects. Each one separately would not be bad but all four together are very rare. I am praying for complete healing for Cohen. I can't imagine what Megan is going through and I'd love for you to pray for her. You can keep up with her on her blog here. (click the button)
(Sorry that picture is so small - our computer is out of commission and I had to nab that one off facebook).


Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Sickies

Well the stomach flu has hit our house in a major way. I was up all night sicker than I've ever been. I was just so thankful it was at night when Harper was sleeping. And yes thank goodness she is finally sleeping through the night.
What I left out yesteday is that Scott has been out of town during all of this. I've been thinking about all of you single moms. You have the hardest job!! Thank goodness for my sweet mom who I told not to help me but she called this morning and said "I'm on my way"! I couldn't have survived today without her!
Anyway just a note to say no real blogging today and certainly no pictures! I hope you all stay healthy and have a great night!



Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Snail Mail

We are much better today. It looks like the Stomach bug has flown out of our house! Thank goodness - that was NOT fun!
Thankfully Harper slept pretty much all night (better than most nights) and she is feeling good today! We are sticking to the BRAT diet today and tomorrow just to be sure. (Bananas, Rice, Applesauce and toast - a good diet for anyone that may have issues on "either end".) (Sorry - but I knew you might ask about the BRAT diet. ha!)
So we've just been hanging around the house in our pj's today and taking it easy. I've been doing a LOT of laundry.
Does this look like a girl who feels better? ha!

I was thinking this afternoon about snail mail. I just LOVE getting anything in my mail that isn't bills or junk. Don't you? Back.....WAY BACK........in my college days before we had e-mail, twitter, facebook, blogs........I used to be the QUEEN of mail. You could ask my best college friend/roommate Kandi (if she wasn't in India on a mission trip - so proud of you Kandi). I probably would have had straight A's if I didn't spend so much time writing little cards and letters to my friends. (sorry mom and dad - but I still graduated!)
I decided I'm going to challenge myself to send at least one card or letter to a friend a week. I may even make up a long list of everyone I'd like to write and make an excel spreadsheet (I miss using excel on a daily basis for work sometimes! I'm such a nerd!)
What about you? Don't you think it would be fun to make each other's day with a cute little handwritten note? Maybe even some stickers or a recipe ripped out of a magazine or anything that reminded you of them?

And just after thinking about that and even writing about it on twitter .......I went to check my mail. And look what I found? Precious shoes Angie S. bought for Harper and a VERY unexpected sweet note from a college aged girl named Hannah! They both MADE my day and all the stomach flu yuckiness of yesterday just flew out the window.

Let's be that little "Pick-me-up" for others......what do you think? Is there someone who you could make their day by mixing a "thinking of you" in between the cable bill and the electric bill?

Someone in the comments reminded me of this - I saw this at Thanksgiving on the Today show. It made me cry. Just a wonderful example of what a letter could mean. This man is my hero!

Monday, February 22, 2010

Mother/Daughter Day of Fun

First things first - I never mentioned but I guess you noticed that I got another blog makeover! I loved Harper's birthday blog but I'm loving the red and blue! What do you think? Thanks to the Design Girl for the cute new look!!!

Harper and I had a fun little day of outings today. After her morning nap - we headed to Gymboree for a little play and learn class! We had a free class coupon and I wanted to see if she would like it or not!

She had the BEST time and it was so much fun watching her!
Her friend Brayden was there also - I think they were realizing they knew each other about now.
Playing and playing
Bless her heart - I think her favorite moment was playing with these big balls. She was squealing she was so excited. I told everyone we didn't own any balls and maybe we should.
I love this picture. They pushed this big thing across the room and Harper did really good!
Gymbo is the little mascot and when the teacher asked if anyone wanted to see him - Harper made a bee line and grabbed him and started hugging him and saying "Oh Oh". We are always playing "love your baby" these days so she thought it was natural to love the clown too!
I think her other favorite thing was the bubbles. She kept reaching and grabbing for them!
After our big hour of play - we went and had lunch - just the two of us at Panera. We are always going out to eat with friends but it was nice to be just the two of us and have some girl talk. ha!
Our last stop was Target. I was looking for some blush. Long story but I went to a different hair dresser this weekend because of a schedule conflict and I ended up with WAY too blond hair. And I'm hanging with it for a few weeks but I realized that I'm one of the few women who don't wear blush and I needed some color. ha! This is us when we got home.

But our fun day turned a little ugly around 5 when suddenly Harper came down with a stomach bug. I feel like a real mom now after all the "throw up" I have cleaned up tonight. She has been asleep for a while so I'm praying she is on the mend. It's been a rough night. It's hard to watch your baby be sick. I can't imagine how all those moms out there with babies with cancer or other illnesses feel. Pray for those moms tonight. Such a reminder to me.

Random Integer Generator

Here are your random numbers:

1078 

Timestamp: 2010-02-23 03:37:52 UTC

One last thing - drumroll please - the winner of the precious yellow spring dress is Kathryn Davis. I'll be e-mailing you and make sure you get your dress soon!!!


If you didn't win - you can always shop here anyway:



The Latest Dresses from Shabby Apple


Disclosure: compensated affiliate links used.

Dress

Thank you for entering the dress giveaway! I'm so absent minded that I totally forgot I needed to put it on my giveaway blog and not my regular blog.
We already had over 1200 entries so I'm going to stop the giveaway early and I will draw a winner and announce it sometime tonight.
Sorry for any inconvenience.

Friday, February 19, 2010

I was pregnant with her for almost 41 weeks.
I delivered her after 14 hours of labor, she weighed 10 pounds and no C-section! ha!
I nursed her.
I got up with her every 2 hours every night for 9 months.
I still get up with her every night.
I am with her every minute of every day.
I love her more than anything in the entire world.

And THIS is what she thinks of me:



She doesn't say "momma". That is LITERALLY what she does everytime anyone asks her to say momma. I have no idea where she learned that but I just hope when she is in 3rd grade she isn't still saying that.

But I know she knows I love her. Because she knows how to love HER baby!

Thursday, February 18, 2010

Show Us Your Life - Show Us Your Ministry

(Note: I know today was supposed to be things you collect but we moved it out one week because I just felt led to do this instead. I talked about it in a couple of posts .....but we will do that next week).

Today is a day for you to link up if you have a blog dedicated to ministering to people. If you have something that can help encourage others through something you have been through. It may be infertility, adoption, singleness, the loss of a child, the loss of a spouse, financial issues, abuse, addictions ..........so many other things.
You don't just need a website dedicated to this......if you want to just share your testimony in some kind of area and offer encouragement - I would love for you to do that.

And if you are struggling in any area of your life - I hope that you will find a link that speaks to you and find hope and know you are NOT alone!

The only thing I ask is that in the title when you enter your link - PLEASE put what topic you are dealing with. That will help direct readers!

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. 2 Corinthians 1:3-4

Our Day

This is Harper's new favorite face to make
About 4 years ago - some girls from my Sunday School class who had all had new babies got together and formed a play group that met every other Thursday. There were about 5 or 6 of them. And since then our class has multiplied rapidly and we now have about 20 mothers and over 30 kids in the play group. It had just gotten OOC (out of control). So we decided starting this week to split up into rotating smaller groups. I hosted one of the groups today!
I made poppyseed chicken, rice, salad, The Pioneer Woman's rosemary rolls (see her cookbook in the background - love her!) and brownies.
Brayden was first to arrive and wasn't thrilled. Harper was looking at him like "what's wrong with you." ha!
Sweet sisters - Lena and Sarah Grace
This is Julie and Shepherd. This was their first play group to attend. Shepherd just turned 2 months.
Harper took a great nap this afternoon and then we were off to Copelands to meet some friends for dinner. A sweet couple from Scott's hometown just moved here recently so we met up with them. Their little boy Jack is about 6 weeks older than Harper. They were checking each other out here.

It's been a fun filled and busy day! We are glad tomorrow is Friday!

Don't forget about "Show Us your MINISTRY" tomorrow. I'm excited to see all the different topics you may cover and my wish is that anyone out there who is hurting or would like to connect with others going through or who have gone through something similar will find encouragement!!! I'll have the post up sometime mid day tomorrow! So please come back this weekend!

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

13 months

We had a really fun day planned for today. We were spending the night in Tulsa last night and then today we were going to go to the Aquarium and to these great Mexican restaurant for lunch before heading home. We were so excited about this little mini vacation while Scott was off this week. But as I've learned over the last year............you can never really make too many plans when kids are involved. ha! We all went to bed at 9 last night since we were in one room and at 10 Harper was up screaming. At 2 a.m. - she was still wailing so we packed up the car and left the hotel and headed home. I had taken just two dressy outfits with me so I left the hotel in my pj's and cowboy boots. I think Scott was "chawed" but we were driving home and I was exhausted. It was a LONG night! It may be a while before I can talk Scott into an over night trip again.

Anyway - I'm a day late but I thought I would post this anyway for our personal memories!


Harper - you are THIRTEEN months old!!!

What are you up to?

You weigh around 24-25 lbs. You are a "healthy" girl.
I am starting to put you in 18 months clothes. I was wanting to buy a few summer things recently and started stressing because I have no idea how big you will be this summer. ha!

You LOVE to eat. You will eat just about anything. It's fun now to be able to go to restaurants and order off the menu for you. It makes it easy to travel and be out and about.

You can walk pretty good but you prefer to crawl. You walk a little more every day. You get around our house so fast I can barely keep up. I will look away for 2 minutes and you are in a different room.

You and Dawson have finally settled in as friends. He loves you because you always feed him. He has learned to run from you when you crawl towards him and you love to point at him. You always say a word when you see him. It's not quite Dawson but I think you mean it to be.

You are SO social. Almost so much that it embarrasses me and daddy. When we are at restaurants or anywhere in public - you will do anything you can to get someones attention and then flash your cheesy smile at them. You love to have people talk to you. You really are so happy 95% of the day. You just smile and smile and smile! I love that you are outgoing!

You do great in the nursery now and it has made it easy for me to leave you. The only time you cry is when I pick you up. It always makes me a little sad that you cry when you see me but I'm pretty sure it's because you are suddenly remembering that I left you. ha!
I think I've decided you will never be a good sleeper. You still get up several times a night. I think we have both gotten so used to it that I rarely think about it. You just have too much going on to want to sleep. ha!

You love baby dolls and you hold stuff animals and dolls and love them. You like to ride your play horses and play with your different toys - the mailbox, the blender, the purse, the teapot, the talking turtle. You are playing pretty independently now which is nice.
You love to play "where's Harper" (a.k.a. peek-a-boo), patty cake and giving us high fives.

You talk all day long. ALL DAY LONG. LOUDLY!

I can't believe how fast you are growing. You are the light of my life!

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Oklahoma where the wind comes sweeping through the plains

Today we headed over for a little trip to Tulsa. Our first stop was the Ronald McDonald House where we dropped all the donations we collected for Harper's birthday. They were so thankful for what we brought them and we were so blessed to take it! It was emotional to visit where we spent a very hard but also wonderful three weeks.

Scott, Harper and Ronald
We ate lunch at Jason's Deli and then headed over to a cupcake place to get treats for the nurses we were going to visit. Can we say HELLO LOVELIES????
Since we were in the NICU - they moved from a old cave like room they had been in for like 30 years to the brand new Children's Hospital and it is SOOOO nice. I have no desire to ever be in the NICU again - but if we did - we would want to be there! This is Tina - she was one of our favorite nurses and helped us so much. We have kept in touch with her. I like this picture because she and Harper are smiling at each other.
I love how big Harper is smiling in this picture. She was SO happy all day. She just had the best time. She is SUCH a people person. Scott and I are both shy so we don't know how we got such an outgoing child but I'm so glad we did. Hope she stays that way!
"Nurse Carrie" was another one of our favorites. And she is having her own baby soon! You can tell I've been crying in this picture. We just saw a baby on ECMO and our doctor told us he was so glad Harper was able to avoid that and I was just a little overcome. I've been praying for that baby tonight.
We didn't expect to see Harper's doctor but we were thrilled we did. He will always be our hero. He was so nice to give us a tour of the new NICU.
This afternoon we did a little shopping and then ate dinner at the cheesecake factory. Could my salad be any bigger? We topped off our night with red velvet cheesecake. There are no words for how good that was. You know I'm a red velvet freak.

What a great day this has been for our family.

Also - thanks for praying for my dad. He had his heart cath today and had a stint put in and is feeling good. I wish I could have been there with him. We had already planned this trip and my mom told me not to come. But I was there in spirit and we will be going to visit them soon!