Mom's Colonscopy

Thank you so much for your prayers. They were heard and answered. Mom's colonoscopy showed that everything is still perfect inside her colon. No polyps and everything looks to be healing well!

Mom's 3rd Colonoscopy

Please pray for Mom as she is having another colonoscopy on Monday at 8:15am. She had one around this time last year after she had begun healing from the two surgeries and other treatments to remove the colo-rectal cancer. We thank the Lord that it was completely perfect. Her gastrointestinal doctor wanted to do another one now just to be sure everything is still the same inside. We pray believing this one on Monday will be perfect as well, but it's always a little scary having to be put to sleep for a procedure not to mention the prep stuff which goes along with a colonoscopy. If this test is clear, she'll not need another for two years. I'll post again on Monday afternoon with the results.

Our Weekend In Wilson

Recently, we traveled to visit Matthew's brother's family. It was a short trip but very full on memories and great quality time. It served a dual purpose: celebrating with Hannah as she turned 3 a few days before and helping them get a little more settled as they just moved into their new home a few weeks prior. It was especially memorable for Ruth Ann (Matthew's mom) as it was the first time she was with all FOUR of her grandbabies at the same time. I came across this slide show design on www.slide.com and couldn't pass it up. Just hit the mute button on your keyboard if the song is too distracting. Enjoy!!

It's only been a few weeks and we already miss out sweet nieces! I am so grateful to the Lord for blessing our families with these four beautiful children.

They Grow So Fast!

One of my favorite parts of having children is watching them learn new things and reach different milestones. Philip is at a wonderful age. He comes up with the funniest stories and says just the silliest things everyday. His recent phrase is "That's so funny! Ha Ha!" He says it at random times, not always when anything funny actually happened, and he doesn't laugh at the end but actually just says ha ha. I've got to get it on video! While visiting Jonathan and Lori last weekend, Lori and I compared stories and she said Hannah has make believe tea parties. I look forward to hearing who Braewyn invites to her parties, but in the meantime, I hear almost daily about which game Philip is off to play and then if his team won or not. He'll say, "I'm going to play ball with the boys." (He's not aspiring to be just like his Daddy or anything!) The funny part is that half the time, he'll come back and say his team lost. I guess I should be glad he understands how the world really works. But I was concerned when earlier this week he told me, "I was playing soccer ball (he can't just say soccer), and the other guy kicked me in the face." Oh, I hope that's not a sign of inner turmoil or something.

Anyway, a few of the new things Philip is learning these days is how to cook and what school will be like. He is always asking what we're doing when preparing dinner so Matthew and I try to let him help out a little whenever possible. Tonight, he mixed the Italian dressing and spice pack together for our Pasta Salad. Overall, he does quite well.

I just don't feel like God is leading me to home-school my children, but after seeing the workbooks Hannah is working in these days, I was excited to buy one for Philip. As smart as he is, I may as well teach him all I can so he's ahead of the game when it's time to really go to school. We've had "school" twice this week and we've both had such a great time. I bring out his workbook (Preschool Scholar with a farm theme which he picked out himself at Walmart), and he picks a crayon from his crayon cup (it's actually a Moe's kid cup but he loves it because you can put the crayons away through the straw hole!). We sit down together at the coffee table and do as many pages in the workbook as he wants (each time we've done 3 pages). Here he is after "school" today. This page shows a lesson in size comparison. He had to circle the largest object from each line. The extra lesson at the bottom of the page instructed us to find a pair of shoes from each person in our home and put them in largest to smallest order. Philip was really excited when I told him we were going on a "shoe hunt"! It was a lot of fun.

I cannot thank the Lord enough for this wonderful little person He has blessed my life with!

Braewyn is my beautiful, sweet, baby girl. I say that because I get so mad at myself for not being as excited over her accomplishments as I was with Philip as an infant. I know that sleep deprivation has a lot to do with it as well as the frustration that occurs when I'm trying to feed her rice cereal and Philip is running around, singing, throwing things in the air and it is all REALLY interesting to Braewyn who could really not seem to care less about the spoon in front of her. This photo was from the first time she had rice cereal. If only she were always that excited.

Now having a FULLY VERBAL toddler, it's just that much harder to have a baby who can't tell you exactly what's going on and why she's crying. I wouldn't trade my life for anything, but I hope there are other moms reading this and agreeing from the same experiences.

The Continuing Tales of Prince Philip and Princess Braewyn

We're honestly raising Philip and Braewyn to be normal kids who love God and treat others with kindness, but there's just so much going on that it seemed like a good title. Anyway... Things have been going well with a few bumps along the way. About a month ago, we drove up to spend the day with my brother Mike and his "with child" wife Andrea. It is so exciting counting the days down until "Baby Cousin" is born. Andrea is due November 8 and we know it's a boy, but don't know his name and can't wait to see what he looks like. Mom helped Mike paint a mural in the nursery while Matthew, Andrea, Philip and I drove through the campus of Winthrop University. It holds lots of memories as Mike, Andrea, Matthew and I all graduated from Winthrop and where each of us met our spouses. It was neat seeing all the improvements made to the campus and especially fun to watch Philip run around the sidewalks and grass lawns I had once occupied before he was even a thought in my mind!

A few weekends after that, Matthew, Ruth Ann, Philip, Braewyn and I went to Niven's Apple Farm for our second annual visit. We went last year to buy a pumpkin but Philip was just a tad bit small to really enjoy it. This year... he really, really enjoyed it! There is a tube to crawl through, giant inner tubes to jump on, a huge teepee to walk around inside, wood stand-ups to put your face through (see pics), animals to see, a huge tractor to see on and pumpkins to buy. We got there just as it was time for Braewyn to eat so I told Matthew and Ruth Ann to go ahead and take Philip on down to the farm. About 35 minutes later I finally come rolling along with Braewyn's little cheeks just jiggling from all the gravel the stroller was bumping over. She had nursed great but as is happening a lot recently, when she was almost done, she had a blow-out! A blow-out is when the poop erupts from her bottom spilling out over the top of her diaper and all clothes must be removed and a new outfit put on. And yes, I had to handle all in the back seat of the Trailblazer! Yuck!

Here are some pics of my beautiful baby girl. She really is growing up quite fast but there are days I still don't know what to do with her. The hardest thing we're facing is how to get her to sleep through the night. However, I should have posted this a few days ago because the last two nights she has slept from 9:00pm until 5:00am. PRAISE JESUS!! I was talking with Lori about it on Friday when I was still very much exhausted from being up most of Wednesday night and something she said clicked in my head. Lori asked if Braewyn was still taking an evening nap. Simple question enough but it made me realize I have totally been slack in keeping her on a schedule (I was almost militant about it with Philip!). Poor girl, she's just sort of floating through life so it's no wonder she's not sure when to sleep or wake up. Well, as I said she's slept until 5:00am the last two nights and last night she was not even swaddled! I have been better to bathe her by 7:30pm, take her to the office where I lotion, dress and nurse her. She is then put in the bassinet (decided to go back to that to allow Philip better nights' rest while we get her figured out) awake and I leave the room. I'm feeling much better today. The only struggles now are working with her over the next few weeks to move that 5:00am wake up time forward to at least 6:00am (when she wakes at 5:00am, I nurse and change her, put her back in the bassinet and go back to bed myself before we both officially start the day at 7:00am; if I could get myself in bed earlier at night, I could use that time for Bible study or something else productive). Also, we started Braewyn on rice cereal this week (pictures to come) so I'm having difficulting in getting her nursed and fed in a relative amount of time so it's not like nurse at 7:00am, cereal at 7:40am, finish nursing by 7:55am and then she's not really hungry when her next nursing time at 10:00am comes around. Well, if you're still reading I know this will all be behind me in a few months and I'll wonder why it was so stressful. Here are the pictures of my little "princess" Braewyn.

I'm still alive...

Just a quick post to tell blog world that I'm still alive but feeling very run over by parenting and housekeeping responsibilities. Braewyn is again not sleeping very well at night due to teething and that leads to a very tired and slow-going mommy during the day. Gotta go now and sleep as they are both sleeping now and I never know how long that window will last. I do have lots of pictures to post so check back in a few days!