Thursday, December 30, 2010

Snow!

We woke up Sunday morning to snow!  I always enjoy a little snow...if it's going to be cold there might as well be some snow to play in!  Not only was there snow on the ground but it was STILL snowing and that's just my favorite.  I think there's something so beautiful and exciting about snow falling. 
They had been calling for snow on Sunday for about a week but the last report I'd heard said we would probably just get a dusting overnight...so I was pretty sure that meant we would get NOTHING...so I was quite shocked when I walked through the kitchen on my way to get Emmie up, looked out the window and saw the snow.  I ran back to our room and made Paul get up and come see the snow.  I yanked Emmie out of bed, stuffed some food in her mouth, and then stuffed her in some warm clothes to go outside!

All bundled up!

Our backyard.



Look's like Santa came back on Saturday night...we had reindeer prints on our roof!

front of our house

Franklin had a great time in the snow!  Until his ears got wet and then he turned into a spaz.

Our neighbor is stationed at Fort Jackson and they had a very awesome Army snowman!

Monday, December 27, 2010

1 Year Old!

*Just fyi everything on here is what she's done through Dec. 17th...her actual birthday...with the exception of her party...Christmas will be on next month's blog.*

I am 1 year old!

  • I weigh 22lb 3oz which is the 70th percentile and I'm 30in which is the 80th percentile! 
  • At one year my Mommy was 19lb 2oz and 30.5in.
  • At one year my Daddy was 19lb and 29 1/4in.
  • I sleep about 12-13 hrs at night.  My bedtime is 7:30.
  • I take 1 nap after lunch and sleep for 1 1/2-2hrs
  • I got my lower left lateral incisor this month so I now have 7 teeth.
  • I eat 3 meals a day and sometimes I eat a snack. 
  • I drink whole milk with my meals and my snack and in between I drink water.  It took me a few days to get used to the milk but now I love it!
  • I've started taking some steps.  I will usually take 3-5 steps at a time before falling down.  I DON'T like to walk with shoes on...I'm a barefoot kind of girl!
  • I can communicate pretty well between words and sign language. 
  • If you ask me what noise a daddy makes I growl...it's pretty funny!
  • When I say "hi" I put my hand up to my ear like I'm talking on a phone.
  • If asked I will show you my head, my tummy, and my nose.  I can also find your nose!
  • This month I had professional pictures done at Ernest Rawlins in Greenville.
  • This month I celebrated Thanksgiving in Greenville with Mommy's side of the family and in NC with Daddy's side of the family.
  • I had lots of fun playing with Emma, Mary Jane, and Laura Ann at Thanksgiving.  They're good friends to have!

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  • Franklin and I spent 2 nights in Charleston with GG and Papa Coach while Mommy and Daddy went to Savannah.  We had soo much fun!
  • I love to give hugs.  I hug people and my stuffed animals.  I haven't gotten to hug Franklin yet.  Mommy says he probably wouldn't appreciate me giving him a hug...I think I can win him over though!
  • If you're sitting on the ground I'll often come over and pat your back.
  • This month I danced with my Giant (aka Uncle Ben). 
  • I'm generally very good natured but I do have my "terrible two" moments.

  • I went to the Christmas Lights at Riverbanks Zoo.  That was all fun and games until they made me sit on Santa's lap.

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  • I fell in love with my Christmas tree!
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  • I'm very good at crawling on/in things.  I'm quite the little monkey.
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  • I have very good fine motor skills and I'm content to sit and figure out how a toy works.  I like to work on puzzles too.
  • I LOVE LOVE LOVE books!


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  • This month I had my birthday party.  It was so much fun and I got to eat a cupcake...it was delish!
  • I still love going to My Gym.  We go once a week for class and usually once a week for free play. 

Sunday, December 26, 2010

Sunday Style Section

Christmas pajamas!

Who wouldn't love a big pink bow?

Boots!  They're super adorable.

Heading out to play in the snow...in her new boots and jacket...more snow pictures to come!

I think she looks so grown up in her jeans and sweater.

*Just as a little teaser....Emmie got lots of new clothes for Christmas so we should have a good Sunday Style Section next week!*

Friday, December 24, 2010

Christmas

"Mary Did You Know"

Mary, did you know
that your Baby Boy would one day walk on water?
Mary, did you know
that your Baby Boy would save our sons and daughters?
Did you know
that your Baby Boy has come to make you new?
This Child that you delivered will soon deliver you.
Mary, did you know
that your Baby Boy will give sight to a blind man?
Mary, did you know
that your Baby Boy will calm the storm with His hand?
Did you know
that your Baby Boy has walked where angels trod?
When you kiss your little Baby you kissed the face of God?
Mary did you know..
The blind will see.
The deaf will hear.
The dead will live again.
The lame will leap.
The dumb will speak
The praises of The Lamb.
Mary, did you know
that your Baby Boy is Lord of all creation?
Mary, did you know
that your Baby Boy would one day rule the nations?
Did you know
that your Baby Boy is heaven's perfect Lamb?
The sleeping Child you're holding is the Great, I Am.


This is one of my all time favorite Christmas songs, especially since becoming a mother.  I'm constantly in awe of Emmie and the miracle each and every baby is but can you imagine the awe you would feel knowing that your baby was the Son of God?  Just thinking about it blows me away.
  Since becoming a mother I look at the Christmas story in a whole new way...I think much more about Mary's story.  I think about how scared Mary must have been...here she was a teenager, in a town with no family except her husband (and let's be honest ladies...we really just want them to hold our hand and not pass out during childbirth...how confident would you be if that was the ONLY person around to deliver your baby?), AND she was in a barn.  But yet I also see, like like Dr. Ferguson preached on last year, this amazing faith that Mary had in God from day 1!  I know that I would have been questioning God's judgement...especially when I was giving birth in a barn!  It makes me very thankful for everything God has provided for me...especially at this time of year when He provided us with the ULTIMATE gift...His Son!

As we (and by me I mean Paul) were putting together Emmie's "Santa" present, I started thinking about how much has changed since last Christmas.  We don't have a teeny baby anymore...we have a 1 year old...look at the difference!





From our family to yours....MERRY CHRISTMAS!



Monday, December 20, 2010

Sunday Style Section

We had Emmie's birthday party yesterday so by the time the dust settled I decided to go to bed instead of doing this post!

This was Emmie's party dress that I made her and Christa monogrammed.

I love these tights...they look like little shoes!

Santa...not so stylish.

Some pants that I made her.

Saturday, December 18, 2010

Santa!

Wednesday I delighted in torturing a small child.  That's right...we went to visit Santa!  HaHa!  Kerrie and I met up at Sandhills so that Ivy and Emmie could sit on Santa's lap.  Ivy enjoyed it...Emmie not so much.  I thought maybe she'd be ok because we got there early so she watched lots of other children sit on Santa's lap...clearly she didn't trust their judgement.


Checking out Santa.

Friday, December 17, 2010

A Year Ago Today

Well, I can't believe that today Emmie is ONE YEAR OLD!  How did she get so big so fast!  It's hard to believe that a year ago today we were just diving into the world of parenthood! 
As I've been thinking about how things were a year ago I keep thinking about the days around her birth.  I worked on Monday, December 14 and when I got to work I had Brittney check my blood pressure.  My blood pressure had been going up the past few weeks (although it had been a little high the whole time) and I had instructions from the doctor to call if it was over 160/90.  So anyway, I had started feeling bad Sunday and wasn't feeling great on Monday morning.  So Brittney checked it and it was like 150s/80s...like high 150s I think.  I probably should have called the doctor then (insert note here that Stacy is a bad patient...but not as bad as Christa...haha) but we were having a super slow day and Shannon, my orientee was with me and she was super self-sufficient, and I had a doctor's appt the next day anyway.  I figured I'd prop my feet up on a chair, chill out all day, and go to the doctor in the morning.  Of course, as things often do on a  Monday morning at the hosptial, it got CRAZY that afternoon and I ended up not leaving work until 9:30 at night...did I mention my doctor's appt the next morning was early...like at 8:30 or something crazy like that.  So I went to the doctor the next morning where they took my blood pressure...165/103...or something like that...way too high...and I got fussed at by my doctor (Dr. Goode who's my normal doctor saw me that day and she knows how I roll) for not calling the day before and then she told me there was no reason for me to wait any longer to have Emmie and I could pick a day that week to have our baby!  Talk about pressure!  I decided on Thursday...I still had quite a few things to do before I was ready to go to the hosptial (at which point I was told that I was supposed to be taking it easy.  So Wednesday night, after I had maybe, possibly run around a good bit of the day getting things done, Paul's brother, Blake, got to our house to keep Franklin and Paul and I headed to the hospital.  Paul was so nervous in the car on the way there...I was fine until we got to the hospital...at which point I wondered if maybe I could wait another month or two to have the baby!  Paul and I decided the doctor would probably frown on that so we headed on in!  I got my bloodwork done and my IV put in and hooked up to the monitors and then we sat around and waited until they came in to do the cervidil.  After that we settled in for the night and ate some California dreaming.  The next morning they took the cervidil out about 6:30 and I was 2 cm dilated...a big improvement from nothing!  They started the induction at about 8:30 and all was good until it started to hurt...really bad.  My nurse had told me that most of "her girls" get their epidurals around lunchtime and here it was just after 9 and I was in pain!  However, I was NOT going to be wimpy patient they talk about at the nurses station (next time however, I will have NO problem being the wimpy patient...I might be the wimpy patient before there's anything to be wimpy about).  Luckily, Joan, my super nurse, came in a few minutes later and looked at me and asked if I was ready for the epidural...YES YES YES!  I had to wait for the anesthesiologist to come in because he was doing a c-section block but they gave me some nubain to tide me over and then my dear friend the anesthesiologist came in.  He.was.da.bomb.  I had the BEST epidural ever and I didn't even feel anything after the lidocaine.  I told Paul he should carry around a tip jar...Paul was glad he didn't...we might have been broke after I got done tipping him!  They made Paul leave the room while they put the epidural in and he was gone so long I was worried he'd wimped out and run for the hills!  Apparently someone in the hall told him it would take 45 min so that's why he was gone so long. 

Anyway, Dr. Risinger came in around 11:45 and I was 4cm dilated...she changed her estimate of the baby's arrival from 8pm to 3pm.  After she left we called our families to tell them to go ahead and head to Columbia!  Around 12:15 I started having a lot of pain and despite hitting my epidural button like a mad woman it wasn't getting any better.  My nurse came in and said it was probably just Emmie moving down but she decided to go ahead and check me (luckily!) and I was 9 cm!  What a shock that was!  All of a sudden, as everyone was running around the room, Paul and I got really nervous...this was it!  I pushed for about 10 minutes and Emmie was born at 1:03!  We were sooo excited!  Once she got here all the nervousness went away.  The only family that had made it in time was Blake so he got to be the first one to meet Emmie.  Over the next few hours everyone trickled in and I got moved to my new room.  It's so hard to describe the feelings I felt as I held our new baby but it was simply amazing and nothing I had ever felt before. 



So...that's the story of Emmie's birth and now here we are a year later with this little person who has changed sooo much in a year...I can't wait to see what next year brings!

Before I finish I want to mention this one last thing.  A few weeks before Emmie was born Dr. Ferguson preached a sermon about Mary.  He spoke about the faith that this young teenager had...so much more faith than we have as adults!  It was a beautiful sermon and at the end of the sermon he said wouldn't it be a wonderful thing if your daughter had the faith that Mary had.  That meant so much to me as I prepared to welcome a little girl into the world and everyday I have prayed that as Emmie grows up she will have the faith that Mary had.


PS. I'll do Emmie's 1 year post with all her accomplishments for this month on Dec. 27th when she has her doctor's appointment.

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Update

Wow!  It feels like it's been a while since I've actually written about anything!  So here goes an update in our lives...
1)  Last Tuesday while I was at work Emmie started taking steps on her on!  My mom was quite excited to get to be the first one to see it and I think even more excited that Emmie did it for Paul again that evening (proof that it really did happen).  Paul was excited to have seen it before I did...usually I tell him about all the great things she does and then it's a few weeks before she'll do them for Paul!  Kind of like when I was pregnant and I'd say "oh, the baby's moving!" and he'd put his hand on my belly and she'd stop moving.  Anyway, I was sure that Emmie would NOT walk for me on Wednesday morning (I only work 2 days a week and she picked a day I was working to start walking...the little rat) but she did!  She doesn't walk a ton and she's still very unsteady but she gets sooo excited when she does it!  At first she would only walk to a person but today when she was playing she was standing up and wanted to get to a toy so she took 3 or 4 steps over to the toy...yay...and then she did that a couple more times today.  She's much steadier when she's walking to a toy...she just gets so excited when she's walking to a person that she almost runs!  I can't wait for her to be a real walker!  People told me I wouldn't like it when she started crawling because she'd be harder to keep up with and into more stuff but I LOVED when she started crawling.  She was so much happier because she could get to where she wanted to go by herself.  Before she started crawling she wanted you sitting beside her all the time...just in case she needed somehing...once she became a crawler she became much less codependent.  Plus, she could follow me around the house while I was doing chores!

2)  Paul and I went to Savannah this past Thursday - Saturday to celebrate our 3rd anniversary!  It's so hard to believe we've been married 3 years!  Oh, how our lives have changed!  We met Paul's parents on 95 Thursday morning and gave them Emmie and Franklin and then we were off!  It was sooo hard to leave my babies...I cried for a few minutes after we left but once I got past the initial drop off I did much better!  We had such a nice time in Savannah.  Thursday we checked into our hotel and then slept most of the afternoon (you're going to notice a common theme to the trip).  It was so nice to be able to sleep without having to listen for a baby or watch out for the dog when I rolled over in bed (and we had a king sized bed so I didn't even have to watch out for Paul when I rolled over!).  Thursday evening we went to Chart House for our anniversary dinner.  The atmosphere was wonderful and the food was delicious!  We ate until we were absolutely stuffed!  Friday we walked around the river front in the morning...after sleeping in until about 10:30 of course...and found a yummy place to eat lunch and then headed back to the hotel for another nap...well I napped, Paul watched TV.  Friday evening we had Paul's company christmas party which was fun and we got to hang out with friends all evening!  Saturday morning we got up and headed back to Walterboro (our meeting point with the Edwards) and got the babies back!  I was sooo excited to see Emmie and Franklin.  I'm pretty sure, however, that they didn't miss me as much as I missed them.  They were too busy being spoiled by their grandparents!  All in all, it was a great trip and I'm so glad we were able to get away for a few days...the first time we'd gone anywhere just the two of us since Emmie was born!

3)  My mom was recently diagnosed with Stage 2 Hodgkin's Lymphoma.  When Emmie was going through her collarbone pinching stage my mom was rubbing her collarbone after keeping Emmie (and being pinched all day) and found a lump which is what sent her to the doctor.  At the time I could see no reason whatsoever for Emmie to be pinching people...especially since I was still breastfeeding which meant I got pinched a lot...but now I see she had the best reason in the world...helping her Gran!  From everything I've read and everything the doctors have said this is a very treatable AND curable cancer so for that I'm very greatful.  My mom started chemo this past Monday and she did great, plus her nurse was a 13 year Hodgkin's survivor...what a great encouragement that was for all of us!  If you'd like to keep up with my mom's journey her caringbridge site is http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/janerainey .  We really appreciate all your prayers...they definitely make a difference!


Anyway...that's what's been going on in our lives lately...oh and Emmie is turning 1 on Friday!  So needless to say it's been a busy few weeks at our house!

Sunday, December 12, 2010

Sunday Style Section

Her Sunday dress today.  Look at her showing off those teeth!

She was super coordinated in pink and navy!

Funny story...the other day I was sitting at my computer and I turned around and she had crawled into the box (still not sure how she managed that one!) and was pulling everything off the shelves!  It's quite stylish to sit in big boxes!

Wednesday, December 8, 2010

A Couple of Things

First of all...HAPPY ANNIVERSARY to my wonderful husband!  We have been married 3 years today :)
It's amazing to me how much our lives have changed in those three years...but they have definitely changed for the better!  Our wedding was absolutely amazing!  It was everything I had dreamed of from the time I was a little girl and the I know I will always remember the way I felt that day.
Enjoy some pictures!
Our first dance.

Vows


The cake...yummy and beautiful!

The wedding party.



On to some current events!  Last week we took Emmie to see the Christmas lights at the zoo.  It was a bit chilly but she really enjoyed them and it was a nice family outing!  The only part she didn't like?   SANTA!

Catching snow flakes with daddy...she was quite mesmerized!