Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

Oh, my. Where do I start? We've had an interesting few weeks at work. Valentine's Day was pretty horrible, not because we were so overloaded with work but quite the opposite. It was the worst V-Day that I've ever seen, and I've worked in the flower business for about seven years now. Aside from that, we've had some people leave the shop, mainly for health reasons; they needed health insurance and my boss can't really provide insurance that's reasonably priced--it's a small business! However, the people that left included the lead designer for the shop, who has had 25+ years experience in floral design. She is phenomenal in what she can create and do. The other person that left has been our other full-time designer since October. I have been designing some off and on for the past few months, but not in any major capacity. I only work three days a week.

Sooo....guess who's the new lead designer? Yep, you guessed it...ME! This is both exciting and scary at the same time. Today I went in thinking I would only work from 9:00 to 2:00, but ended up having to stay til 5:30 because we had a lot of funeral work orders come in. But, I made two $75 dollar standing easels and several other things and everything looked pretty good! Not 25+ years-experience top-notch, but certainly not bad.

This means I am going to have to try to go back to work full time. This is going to be hard because I don't really have anyone to take care of my kids. So, please pray for me in this new position and also that I might find a good place for my kids to go on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays (they go to "school" on Wed. and Fri.). Scott is also trying to finish up his comprehensive exams, which is really 4 papers, in the next couple of weeks for his Masters of Arts in Biblical Interpretation from LCU. So, AHHH! This is a crazy time for all this to be happening. I am just asking for prayers as we try to accommodate all these new changes.

Oh yeah, and Claire has been sick with RSV for the past week--bad timing! She seems to be at the tail-end of it, though :) To close, I leave you with a couple of random pictures...because what's a blog post without pictures??

My sweet hubby surprised me with roses on Wednesday! Beautiful!!

At long last...Scott's diploma from ACU came in a couple of weeks ago!

Sweet little red shoes on Claire for Valentine's Day (from Nana).

And finally...

A sign of the future?? Will decided he needed to take a nap outside in this cardboard box the other day. (He stayed in there for about three minutes) :)

Aww, Nuts!

With Fall comes harvest. We've had a bit of a harvest of our own lately. We are the proud owners of three pecan trees, two in the front yard and one in the back. While our dogs regularly snack on the backyard pecans, our front yard is brimming full of ripe, ready to shell and eat nuts. And boy, are they tasty this year! We've spent a bit of time collecting them and have shelled quite a few.

I'm sorry I've been so lacsidasical in posting lately...I know I always say this, but we've really been quite busy. I was sick a couple of weeks ago and on top of that was my shop's open house and a meal the youth hosted for the senior adults all on the same weekend. Whew...I'm tired just writing that. Then of course, Scott promptly turned up sick, too. Thanksgiving was the next week and we enjoyed seeing my family and Scott's brother's family. We spent a little time relaxing and my mom and I went shopping on Black Friday. It was a good time. We returned on Sunday night and I have been trying to get my home decorated and in order in time for our families to arrive for Scott's graduation next week (whoot woo!).

Of course things aren't complete around here without a few glitches. Scott began itching all over his body severely last night and began to notice hives. He took some Benadryl and went to bed, but when he woke up this morning they were still there and now his upper lip is all swollen. Oh, and did I mention we're supposed to have our Christmas card pictures made on Saturday morning? I just have to laugh, you know?

I am just so excited that Christmas is almost here. I guess I am really in the Christmas spirit this year because I know my kids, especially Will, will really enjoy it this year. He is already amazed by every Christmas light display he sees, no matter how pitiful or extravagant, he yells, "LOOK!" It's quite cute. So, merry Christmas, even though it's still early! I will leave you with a few pictures of the Christmas decorations I have done and some others.

If y'all remember from last year, I'm a bit of a Christmas tree-aholic. I have them in almost every room. This year, however, I am lightening up a bit. Instead of a big tree in both my "formal" living room and the den/family room, I am just doing one in the formal living room. So, I have combined my ornaments for both those trees this year. I did this for the simple reason that I can sort-of cordon off this room from little hands. Claire is very interested in the tree and wants to pull all the ornaments off of it. And she's not that gentle about it. I did hang all my breakable ones up high, so I can at least rest a little knowing that she can't really break any of them :)

A mini tree on top of the desk in the family room. I put all my really "folk-sy" ones on it.

Just Will :)

Claire having fun with a piece of cardboard that came with a mixer I got.

Recently

Well, Scott is home and we are back to normal. Kind of. I mentioned in one of my birthday posts that Will has been sick yet again. He started running fever a few days after Scott returned home and it got up to 103.3. He was just miserable and he was having trouble turning his head (sore lymph nodes in his neck), as he has been the last several times he's been sick. We took him to the doctor and reminded her that this is the fourth time he's been in with a sore throat since May (our regular pediatrician moved this summer, so we've seen two or three different people since May). She agreed that it was tonsillitis again (his left tonsil was swollen past the midpoint of his throat) and said it was time to see an ENT.

I was able to get an appointment early the next week with an ENT in Midland. This doctor comes highly regarded and recommended. It was so nice to have him listen to us and take our concerns to heart. He examined Will's throat and asked us about his sicknesses this past year and concluded that it is time for Will to have a tonsillectomy. As I said, this doctor is highly regarded and a Christian, so I feel very comfortable putting my son in his hands for surgery.

Will's surgery takes place on August 13th (my little brother's 21st birthday!) in Midland. Please keep him in your prayers. It will probably be a tough recovery, but I am just looking forward to having my son healthy and happy after it is all over and done with. These past few months have been very difficult with him being sick every two or three weeks. Hopefully that will be put to an end!

Other news...I have changed my work schedule again. I am going to be spending Mondays and Tuesdays at home with Claire (and maybe Will--we have to iron out some things first) and she will go to Children's Day Out on Wednesdays and Fridays and stay home with Scott on his day off on Thursdays. We are hoping this will reduce my stress level and increase the level of cleanliness at our house! Also, Claire has gotten to an age where she wants to be playing, crawling (not walking yet!), etc. all the time and she just can't do that at my workplace without getting into everything and making messes of herself and lots of other things! Not that my boss wanted her to go...she is actually quite sad Claire will be leaving the office, but it will just make me a more effective employee. I'll probably be able to do as much or more in three days than I was able to do in five with Claire around.

In a couple of weeks, we are going with our youth group kiddos to Arlington for a Six Flags trip. Bonus! We also get to see the Malletts, our dear friends who left us out here in West Texas a year ago. I am excited to get to see our pals. We haven't told Will yet, but I know he will be super excited to see Ryland and Raylee too.

I'll leave you with a few cute pics from the last couple of weeks:

Claire loved playing the piano! She was even singing along as she hit the keys.

Will, wearing Claire's hat. He wanted to wear it because it was green and so were his shirt and pants. Matchy, matchy!

And finally, while I was in Katy I used my birthday money (plus a little extra) to purchase a new bedding set for our bedroom. I surprised Scott with it when he came home. I really love the colors and the curtains make our room REALLY dark which we LOVE!

Still there?

Are you still there?? I am still here! I know...it's been almost a month since I've posted anything and you probably have every right to NOT check my blog anymore, but hey, give me a break. I've been pretty busy and therefore wiped out whenever I do have time.

So...what's been going on, you might ask? About the minute we got back from our Florida trip, Will became sick again (he had just finished a round of antibiotics). We got him well and then a few days later he was sick again. I'm beginning to think this kid may need to get his tonsils removed.

Then, last week, Claire started running fever...a pretty hot one too...about 100 to 102 degrees. She was really irritable and not eating well. She was super-restless at night. I chalked it up to teething, but by the fourth day of the fever, I was thinking maybe it was something else. Especially since I hadn't seen anything tooth-like in her mouth. I took her to the doc on Monday and he said her throat was red and prescribed Amoxicillin. Tueday, she woke up with a rash. I immediately thought, she's allergic to penicillin, because both my parents and I are. I took her back to the doctor and he said that he was pretty sure the rash would have come even if she hadn't taken the Amoxicillin because of her other symptoms. He said she had the "three-day measles" or Roseola. He did change her meds (probably just to set my mind at ease). He rash is pretty much gone now and she is eating and sleeping better. However, I have been giving her Benedryl to help with the itchiness of the rash! :)

In the meantime, Scott was busy getting ready for three back-to-back events starting on June 28th. He left last Saturday for Wilderness Trek in Colorado and will be returning on the 5th, only to turn around the VERY NEXT DAY and drive back to Wyoming for a mission trip. He will return from that on July 13th and our local VBS begins at 9:00 AM on the 14th and lasts three days. Thankfully, for the first two trips he doesn't have just a ton of responsibilities once he's there, but it is physically taxing. However, for VBS he is in charge and that comes at the very end of two physically exhausting trips. Please keep him in your prayers.

So, when not caring for sick kids and helping busy husband, I've been at work. Work has been a little nutty lately as it is full-swing wedding season and we only have one designer (we used to have three!). Since she's the only one, we've all been trying to pick up some of the slack.

Since Scott will be gone for two consecutive weeks, the kids and I have made the trip down to old H-town to stay with my parents. My mom flew in to Midland on the 1st and we drove here yesterday. On the way, we were able to visit my brother, Kendall, at his workplace, Callahan's General Store, in Austin, where he is a hat blocker. Then we ate dinner with him and his girlfriend, Stephanie. It was good to see them; it had been April when we saw them last.

The kids and I will be here until the 9th, when my dad will drive us back home. That means we will be here to celebrate Claire's first birthday! Tomorrow, we are going to my aunt's lakehouse for the Fourth and will have a little party for her there. So, I will definitely be posting again in the next few days to document that!

Well!

Yea, we are well again! Hopefully for a long time, too. That was the sickest I had been in quite some time. Now that we are well, we have the wonderful tasks of finding our house again under all the clutter and then taking down Christmas decorations. That's always such a bummer. I enjoy having them up so much! Oh well, we got to enjoy them a little longer this year since we were sick :) We also have to get used to "normal" life again...going to work, school for Will, church, etc. Last night we all went to church and it was so nice just to get out of the house!

Other fun updates: as Claire approaches her 6 month birthday, she can successfully roll over and is very close to being able to sit on her own. She can sit on her own for several seconds, but she still falls over a little too much to "leave" her. I'm looking forward to her sitting up really well by herself so I can bathe the kids together, etc. Also, she is eating food really well and isn't nearly as messy as she once was :) I can actually leave her clothes on her while she eats now.

Will is just doing great, making us laugh all the time. He is enjoying his Christmas gifts...especially his cars, boots, tent, and Little Einsteins DVD. We have watched that DVD countless times. At least it's educational!

I suppose I'd better get busy on the housework now. Thanks for all the well wishes and prayers sent our way! We appreciate them!

Ringing in the New Year...

...from my bed :( Scott and I have both been sick for a week now. Mine started on Christmas evening with a tickle in the back of my throat. By Thursday morning it was a full-blown throat infection. I also have an ear infection. I went to the doctor on Thursday (not my normal one, because of course, she is out of town!), got anti-biotics, ear drops, and a shot. He told me I would be feeling a little better by that afternoon and to call him on Friday. I called on Friday and said, "I feel worse! And now my husband is sick, too." So we both went in on Friday. Scott got anti-biotics and I got another shot. (Oh by the way, Scott has a viral and bacterial infection in his eye. He went to the eye doctor on Thursday for that). By Friday evening, Scott was in bed like me with fever and chills. So, now we both feel like utter muck and have two children to care for. We called a mother of one of our youth group members and asked if she could take Will for the evening. As the night wore on, we knew we were in no condition to keep up with him. Our friends offered to keep him for the night and we gratefully accepted. Saturday morning came and we had no improvement. Will ended up staying with our friends until MONDAY morning. They are so wonderful and we are very very grateful. Neither Scott nor I feel 100% better yet. In fact, we both still feel pretty crummy. But we are hopefully on the upswing. And our regular doc will be back in the office tomorrow :) I am so ready to get out of the prison of my house and wear clothes other than pajamas!! Happy New Year, everyone!

News and Such

Yea, the gas meter debacle is over! It only took a week for our neighbor to get his hot water back. It ended up being quite an ordeal with all the plumbing...I won't go into the details, but let me just say I am SOOO glad we have auto insurance.

Scott has been sick now for about a week. As long as he's taking Tylenol, he feels okay, but when he doesn't he's running about a 100 degree fever. We were suspicious of mono for a while, but he was tested on Friday and it came back negative. Hopefully he's just got an ultra-tough virus who will be moving on soon (hopefully not to me or my kids!).

In spite of sickness, we travelled to Lubbock on Friday night for a wedding in which Scott officiated. It was his first and he did great! The bride was in our youth group when we first moved to Big Spring for all of about four months (she was a senior that year), and the groom was a freshman at LCU when we were seniors. So, we actually knew some of the wedding party and guests as we went to school with them. We stayed with Scott's best friend, Jake, and his wife Cheri and two girls. I had not seen them in two years, though Scott had. It was fun catching up and seeing how their girls had grown. Unfortunately, because of the wedding schedule and children being children, we couldn't see any of our other Lubbock friends. But we thought of you and love you all!

Our kids are doing well...Will is just so cute. He says the most wonderful things like, "I love you so much, Mommy," and "I love Claire so much!" He also likes to ask us "How's it going?" He's at a fun age.

Claire is just growing and growing. She thinks she is so big and wants to sit up already. She tries, but she's just not quite capable yet! She also loves to smile and chatter and the other night, Daddy made her have her first belly laugh. It was great!

For those who have asked how to make your own playlist...just click on mine where it says "Create a playlist" and it should take you to that website (which is, I think, www.playlist.com?) and it will be pretty self-explanatory. When you're done making the list, it should give you an option to embed the html into your myspace, blog, etc. Copy the html and go to your layout page for blogger and choose where you want to embed the html. If you have any questions, you can always ask!

Happy fall...yea, a cold front is coming tomorrow and it's supposed to be in the 60's!!

Still Pregnant!

Yes, I'm still pregnant! We've made it to 37 weeks ;) I went to my regular doctor yesterday morning and he said that since I was to be 37 weeks today, I didn't have to be on bed rest or take Terbutaline anymore after last night. He even said I could go to work. So, I came home from the doctor's office, reported what he told me to Scott and went to work yesterday! So, technically, I only missed about 30 minutes worth of work between Friday and Monday. One of the ladies at work is convinced that I am going to have Claire on Saturday and her birthday will be 07- 07 -07. Honestly, I think that would be pretty cool, but I'm not holding my breath.

A small update on my grandma: her surgery went well yesterday; it lasted about 12 hours. The doctor said the tumor was about as large as his fist. It ended up being wrapped around her brain stem, so it is very good that they did the surgery to remove it. He said it was a life-threatening tumor. We are thankful that the surgery went well. Of course, she is still in ICU and I haven't heard anything today, but that is what I know as of last night when the surgery was finally over. Thanks to everyone who has been praying for her.

Well, I'm off to try and take a nap. It's getting harder and harder to sleep at night, so maybe I can catch a few winks this afternoon!

Sickness, Seniors & Storms

Sorry it's been so long, my friends! It's been an interesting week. Our family was stricken with some type of bronchial/sinus infection and all three of us are on anti-biotics. Mine started way back when I was in Houston and kept coming and going, but my body finally decided this weekend that it had gotten the best of me and put me down for a while. I was feeling quite miserable. On top of that, I had some massive back pain on Friday that was just compounded every time I coughed. It hurt so bad all day without letting up that it got me scared enough to call Labor and Delivery and see if I needed to come in and be monitored. They "said" (not really) to go ahead and come in so they could check it out. So, we spent about 2 hours in the hospital on Friday night and everything was completely normal. They chalked it up to round ligament pain. I was still hurting on Saturday, but I could actually get up and walk around, so it was better. (Sorry, Mom, if you're reading this now and freaking out, but we didn't want to call you on Friday night and scare you and I was feeling so bad the few days afterwards that I never got around to calling. You can scold me later.) Anyway, Will ended up spending the night with his surrogate grandparents on Friday night and we picked him up at around 11:00 on Saturday morning. I'm sure he would have stayed there and played all day (they live a few miles out of town in a more "rural"-type housing division, so there's lots of room to run around, and of course, they have fun things like "tractors," four-wheelers, and golf-carts to play on), but we made him come home and take a nap :)


On Sunday, our congregation honored the graduating seniors by giving them a Bible and having a potluck in their honor. I barely made it through that and got home in time to crash. Thankfully, it was also a 5th Sunday, so we didn't go back for evening services (on 5th Sundays, they have worship, lunch, and worship again right after). On Monday, I was still feeling much too ill to go into work. In fact, I still felt pretty horrible on Tuesday, but went ahead and went because I felt bad for being gone two days already. Thankfully, there was a huge stack of statements to stuff, seal and stamp, so I basically got to sit and do that the whole time. I had a doctor's appointment yesterday afternoon and had to drink the oh-so-yummy orange-flavored glucose drink. I was sort of thankful I was so congested because I couldn't really taste it! I had my regular nurse this time so I asked her if we could take another little peek at the baby to reassure me that it's a girl and not a boy. I felt bad that Scott wasn't there with me to see her (it's pretty much definitely a girl, by the way!!), but we took such a quick little look that he didn't miss too much. We basically just wanted to check those specific parts and that was it. She did get a little face shot (not great) that I'll post. I won't embarrass my daughter by putting her woo-hoo on the Internet for all to see, but believe me, I'm not worried anymore that she'll come out a boy :)

Her face is on the left, eyes looking at the "camera," her tummy is on the right.

While at the doctor, I asked him what else I could take to clear my head and he suggested gaufinisen (sp?) which is the real name for Mucinex, and between drinking the orange stuff and getting my blood drawn, I went and picked some up. It has helped tremendously! I felt so much better last night and today that I actually got my house picked up and laundry done! My house doesn't look as much like a disaster area as it did--yea!


Today, we had a big storm come through town. It looked really nasty outside. There were reports that we might get some bad hail, but it never really hailed here except for a bit of pea-sized stuff. Odessa got slammed pretty badly, though. Thankfully, we were just doused. Unfortunately, however, that meant that for the second week in a row, I missed out on Girls' Lunch Out with Harmony and Abby. I was disappointed, because I feel like I haven't seen either of them in a long time. Harmony has been super-busy with tax season and Abby has been to Lubbock a lot. So, I need to see my girls sometime soon (hint, hint!).


This weekend is Harmony's baby shower and next week my in-laws are coming to town because Will is turning TWO!!! I cannot believe that my baby will be two years old in almost seven days! Where does the time go? Enough rambling for tonight. I'm sure I will have something much more interesting next week :) Have a good one!