New Bracelet

I love making beaded jewelry and key chains. I haven't done much with my beads since we moved, though. I decided to break them out tonight (with a little help from Ellie) and make a bracelet for my neighbor. She's been so sweet to us and is just turning out to be a great friend. Her girls' names are Hope and Faith, so that's what I put on the bracelet, although it's hard to read in the pictures. Just thought I'd share.

Pedicure

Being the pregnant one, you would think I would be the one getting pedicures. Not in our house. Ellie got some new polish from Nannie today and decided her Dad needed his toenails done. We also got our new recliner today!!

So Grown Up

I just think Ellie is looking and acting so grown up lately. She's so funny! She got a new bikini that she's showing off (one-pieces don't seem to fit her as well because she's pretty tall and thin) and Jeff brought her a new shirt after he came back from camp. She's really in to dressing herself right now, but she usually does a pretty good job of matching everything. She picked out her shoes, pants, and hairbow to match her shirt.

My aunt has hit some bumps in the road, so keep praying that she can have her transplant. The big issues right now are that her kidneys are only functioning at about 24% and they are considering doing her transplant in Arkansas, rather than Nashville. I'll keep you posted.

Please Pray

My aunt, Tishie, is in Nashville today starting her transplant process. She's having tests run, getting chemo, and meeting with the transplant team of doctors to find out more about what is in store for her. They are now saying that there is a 40% chance that she will be cured for life, if all goes well...which is a huge change because before they said life span was about 3-5 years. Please pray that things go well, that she is able to handle the chemo well, and that she remains mentally strong. I'll keep you posted.

New Pictures of Our House

We still have nothing on the walls, lots of unpacking to do, and we need to finish Ellie and Ava's bathroom, Ava's room, and the office, but here are some pictures of our house with our own furniture. We love it!! Our couch just came today and Jeff has been gone all week, so he's not even seen it yet. The next 2 are Ellie's bedroom (thanks to Landy for letting us use her bed and bedding that she used in college - it works perfect for a ladybug room) (I still need to work on decorating Ellie's shelf, too), then our bedroom, out back (thanks to my parents and my in-laws for an early birthday present - money for the patio furniture), 2 of the kitchen, and the dining room (we found our table at a yard sale).

Fun Times!

We have had some great times lately! We've had company several times, gone on a mini-vacation with my parents (where Ellie caught her first fish), and have just enjoyed the summer. That's my niece Elizabeth on the trampoline, and Isabelle reading with Ellie, my best friend Carla, and Ellie is pinching Cade's cheeks (Lista's baby).

Jesus Loves Me

Ellie has created her own lyrics to this song. It goes like this...

Jesus loves me this I know
For the Bible tells me so
Little ones...
want me to sing all day!

Paradise

I think Ellie (and we are too) is in paradise! She loves our new house and all the fun stuff we've been doing. These are pictures of her enjoying our time in our new house. We're trying to get settled and get our boxes unpacked. We love it here so far!! More to come.

Our First Home...FINALLY!

We got a call last night from the previous owners of our new home and they moved out yesterday. 2 days earlier than they expected, which meant 2 days earlier that we could move ing. Of course, I'm not finished packing and none of our stuff is there, but we went this morning just to walk around and see OUR house!!! We'll be doing little projects throughout the house this week, then moving the bulk of our stuff on Saturday.

We finally decided on a fridge - it has french doors and a freezer on the bottom. Thanks for all the words of wisdom everyone gave! We tried to listen to everyone and weigh our options before we bought one. We got a great deal from Lowe's and it is being delivered Thursday morning.

Our couch is our big hang-up right now. They have a back-order on the fabric we want, so they want us to change it. We have to go back to the store today to see what the difference is...I'm going to be really frustrated if it's not what we thought we bought. It is supposed to be delivered Saturday, but maybe not.

Ellie is so excited! She wants to jump on her "tram-a-tine ALL day"!

She told me in Wal-Mart the other day to "be patient, mom". I'm trying!

She also said this morning that she was "tee-pen-ding"...translation = pretending.

She's learning some big words and appropriate times to use them and it's so fun to watch her learn! I'll post new pictures soon.

Advice

Okay. So we need some advice. We're having a hard time deciding on a refrigerator for our new house. I mean, when we went to pick out a couch, it was so much fun because we looked around, decided on what we liked and didn't like and as soon as we found the one we bought, we knew it was "THE ONE". We've enjoyed so much of our time looking for stuff for our house...but the fridge is a different story. Everyone tells us something different and it's not like we can try one out and see whether we like it or not. Here are our top choices...let us know if you have any advice.

~French doors with the freezer on the bottom
~one door with the freezer on the bottom
~a "side by side" with ice and water in the door

What's Kickin'?

I am a picture jukie. I'm not as bad as I was when Ellie was younger, but I still take a ton of pictures. They are all so cute that I can't help but share them. I'm horrible about printing copies of them, though...I need to work on that. Here are some random ones.

~me (and Ava) at 25 weeks (yes, I still have 15 weeks left, but not much room left for her to grow?!?

~washing Dad's dirty feet

~labeling the packed boxes

~Ellie wanted to make sure we didn't forget her, so she climbed in a box!!

~pure joy while swinging

~painting - her new favorite thing to do

~I love to watch my baby sleep - she's such a doll

~making our own pizzas (like Caillou)

It's Potty Time!

Ellie is finally potty trained! She started going in the potty when she was like 16 months old, so we thought it would be a breeze...but I think she started too early. She would go if we took her, but she wouldn't tell us, so we've used pull-ups for quite a while. Anyway, today is day 5 of staying dry, wearing panties all day, and telling us (or even going on her own) when she needs go - no more asking if she needs to go! She's even doing #2 in the potty now. What a relief!

A very good day.

We had another great day today! We took our time getting out of bed today and getting ready, then headed to the Library. We hadn't taken her in a long time, so she thought she was in heaven. I had a meeting with my supervisor for my new job and it went really well. It got me really excited about my new job, which should be starting withing the next week or two. We went to more furniture stores and think we might have found a bunk bed for Ellie. She loved it! We're still debating, though. At 5:30, we got to go to our new house and meet with the current owners. They showed us around and explained how they keep the pool, the fence, the deck, the driveway...all in good shape and we were able to measure some spaces that we'd like to put some of our furniture, just to make sure it will fit. Ellie discovered the trampoline! It took me forever to get her to get on it with me and even then, Ihad to hold her and jump (not easy when you're 6 months pregnant?!?). Once she did, she was hooked. She learned how to get in and out of the net on her own and was running and jumping by herself in no time. She told Jeff, "I want to do this all day!" She was talking to his parents, "Nana and D", and she told them, "When Jenny moves to her new house, we get to put our stuff in and live in our new house!" It was precious. We are all SO excited!!!

What a great week!

We have had such a good week. We're all feeling much better and we've spent some time as a family just enjoying each other's company. We went furniture shopping Monday and bought a couch, then had friends over Monday night. Ellie and I played Tuesday and went for a walk, then we had one of her favorite students come stay with her and Jeff and I went to the movies. We closed on our house yesterday and Ellie went home with my mom, so she's having a blast and I've been working on the final steps of me getting my new job. I'll be working about 10 hours a week and should start any time. These pictures are from Monday and Tuesday. Ellie wrote an E in the second one. She adds a few extra lines, but she does a great job. She liked the sparklers, but it drove her crazy that she couldn't touch them. We planted the flowers that Jaci's mom sent me when Lista died into bigger pots and Ellie loved using the watering can! It was pretty cute.

My aunt got some really good news from her doctor and her other treatments and the transplant process should start soon. I'll keep you posted on her progress.

One more thing you can pray for...my grand-daddy has to start his chemo again Tuesday. He has colon cancer, but his treatments were put on hold because he came down with pneumonia. Now that he's getting over that, they are going to try chemo again.

Thanks for being such great friends! Hope you're having a great week, too!

Catching up

Just catching up with everyone and letting you know what's been going on in our world the last two weeks. It's been a little rough, but there seems to be some light at the end of the tunnel. After we got home from New York, Ellie was sick for a couple of days, then I got sick...but we tried to go on and stick with our plans. Elizabeth, my 10-year-old niece, graduated from 5th grade, so Ellie and I went to celebrate with her for the day. Then, we took Ellie to Murray to stay with Jeff's parents and he surprised me and took me to a resort at Lake Barkley for the night. It was our anniversary - 7 years! It was great to get away and have no responsibilities!!! We relaxed, went for a swim, went out to eat...but I had a fever, so I also slept a lot. Jeff and Ellie played with a frog and she was finally brave enough to touch it. She's pretty timid when it comes to touching animals. We got a call telling us that Lista didn't wake up and as hard as it was to believe that she was gone, I was so glad to know that she was not suffering anymore. I hate funerals...but I've never lived through anything like her funeral. I know Cy is going to take great care of Cade and that little boy will always know how much his Mommy loved him. Cy takes him for a golf cart ride every day! I had a fever through the whole thing, which didn't help how I was feeling. I also ended up having a reaction to the medicine I was taking and was horribly sick at my stomach for days. My uncle got married last night and the wedding went well. My family was all together again and it was a little odd without Lista, but I think everyone agrees that she is much better off now - we hated to see her suffer like she did. I'm actually still running a fever and coughing like crazy, but I am feeling so much better. Ellie has not been sleeping well at night and she's been really whiny lately, but we've had quite a bit going on so maybe we can get back to some normalcy this week.

I felt like if I wrote all of this, I could vent a little and maybe get it out of my system and start to move on. Overall, I am thankful for the way things have worked out lately. I've realized several things about me lately - some good and some bad, but I'm working on the bad things and trying to take better care of myself, so that I can also take better care of Jeff, Ellie, and Ava.

NYC

Here are a few of my favorite shots from our trip to New York. They are out of order and some are not turned the right way, but you get the idea.

Lista

Lista lost her battle with cancer yesterday. She just didn't wake up. Thanks for all of your prayers - please continue to pray for her husband, her baby boy, her mom, sister, and dad, and the rest of our family.

We're back

We are back safe and sound after a week in NYC. We had such a good time! We were all tired, but Ellie was an amazing little traveler and she loved hanging out with the college students. I'll post pictures soon and I have so many cute stories to tell, so I'll post them a few at a time.

First, an update on Lista. I don't even think they are going to try the treatment now because she is sick. I'm a little numb to the situation right now and am angry to an extent. They won't even schedule her to come to the hospital because they know she won't survive the treatment since she is so sick. However, she's not just going to get better on her own, so she's not going to survive the cancer. My big question right now is, why not go on and just try the treatment...if it is too strong for her body and she doesn't survive the injection, she doesn't have to suffer any more, right? Otherwise, she is just wasting away sitting at home not able to do anything, suffering, not feeling well, not able to care for her baby, not able to talk to anyone, not even able to stand on her own. It just upsets me that with all of modern medicine, there is nothing they can do for her. We had so much hope, but from what I understand there is no hope. Thankfully, she is a Christian and she will soon be in a better place where she doesn't have to suffer any more. I don't understand why this is happening to her and I guess I never will. Please pray for her that she isn't in pain, for her baby boy that he grows up know his mommy loved him so much, for Lista's husband, sister, mom, and dad that they can all find some peace and comfort somehow, and for all of our family as we try to deal with the situation.

I am so thankful for my healthy little girl, my marriage (of 7 years, as of this weekend), and my new baby girl growing inside me. As for material things, I am thankful for a great car and for our new house that we'll move in to next month. I'll never understand why such good things happen to bad people and such bad things happen to good people, but I know that I am blessed and that I have absolutely nothing to complain about.

Busy

We are going to be BUSY over the next few weeks. We're leaving for New York next week with some of the college students, my niece graduates from 5th grade later the next week, our 7th anniversary is May 20, we close on our house May 31, we're taking Ellie to Disney and to visit some family in early June, and can move in June 21. I'll try to keep pictures and updates on here, but if I'm not on much, it's because we have so much going on.

Please be praying for my cousin, Lista. She's really not doing well at all, but we're still hopeful.

I'm it...

I was tagged by my friend, Miriam, for this "random meme."

Here are the rules: Each player starts with 7 random facts/habits about themselves. People who are tagged need to write on their own blog about their seven things, as well as these rules. You need to choose 7 people to get tagged and list their names. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them that they have been tagged and to read your blog!

1. My dog was in our wedding.

2. I love checking other peoples' blogs.

3. I love to clog.

4. I like doing crafty things.

5. I was laughing during labor and delivery.

6. My second toe is longer than my big one (it's 2 inches long).

7. We just bought a house - our first house. We've been married 7 years this month and this will be the 6th time we've moved.

Maybe these girls will play... Sheri, Deva, Emily, and Lynsi. (I would list more people, but I don't know that many people who blog. Maybe the next person can list 7 friends.