yep... again...

My world seems to revolve around these little plastic things. The pharmacist asks, do you need one of these?... Yes… yes I do. I’m adding to our collection. Plus, who can resist the pretty shimmery 'Wal-Mart'? Maybe we'll have take better care of this one...

Seriously, the amount of money, energy, and spilled or ruined medicine is nothing more than ridiculous. But I’m blessed with that fact that Lauren generally takes her medicine on demand with no quarrels. Generally.

We spent Sunday night, screaming and crying… more screaming and crying… and I’m not just talking about me. Lauren had another ear infection. But at the time, I didn’t know it. I took her in to my dr. office first thing Monday morning and he took one look in her ear and said “weeeellll”. So we may be looking at the possibility of getting tubes in her ears.

See how pretty she looks (and tired) late at night?

I swear it seems like it never ends. It’s always something with us. And I HATE it. I just want to be normal. Feel good. Have healthy children. Not see a dr. every month. Will that ever happen?

I guess everyone has their own kinds of life turmoil’s. Mine is chronic illnesses! Well, not illnesses, but you get the idea.

So as promised, here are some pictures on the princess on her Farm…

“Down on Lauren’s farm, there was a mean ‘ol billy goat!”

And a very hungry nanny...

A curious mule...

And cute baby 'boats' to kiss...

Tall grass to play in...

A mommy that kisses and hugs on her...

I dream of putting a house here one day...

Other than that, all is well. I am busy with my Sunday school class right now. I am painting the room tonight at 7. Then organizing and all that good stuff. My new year’s resolution was to get more involved with my kids at church and bring up our attendance numbers. i once had my mind made up on a Noah's ark mural, but then I found this one:

And on the same note, I won my new Bible on Ebay. It's the NKJV Nelsons Study Bible. I am so excited!!! It's an almost $70 bible, and I got it for $36 + $4 s&h. So I saved about thirty dollars! It comes with a cd rom too. One of the ladies in the dr. office uses it, and she loves it.

Well, I'll wrap it up for now... hope everyone is having a great week!

Feels good to be back...

Oh my, where to even begin... the last month has been crazy-crazy-busy!!! But I am glad to be back and able to update everyone:

I am enjoying working, when I actually get to work. Lauren has been sick a lot lately. We spent Christmas Eve in the ER. The following Monday in the hospital getting some test run. And last night once again, in the ER. Here’s the very short version:

• She started profuse vomiting on Christmas night. We were on our way to visit my family in East Texas. We made it to Wichita Falls when she started, so I finally made the decision to turn around and go back home. Half way there we stopped at an ER to get something to stop her from being sick.

• Then we continued to vomit the whole weekend and ran fever off and on. The dr. sent us to the hospital to have some blood work drawn, a chest x-ray, and even an EKG.

I wasn’t pleased after all of that, and got a second opinion. It was a sinus infection and after a round of antibiotics she is doing so much better.

Now we are just suffering through getting our two year molars and a gash to the head she acquired at daycare Wednesday night. She was a trooper and handled it quite well. Also, we learned from the ER doctor how to help her quit walking on her tip-toes so maybe she won't fall as much.

Other than all of that, I suppose you could say all is well. I'll share some highlights from the past couple of weeks:

Christmas in the Park:

Nana's early Christmas:

Sunday before Christmas:

First daycare party:

The little boy is a friend of mine's son. he's just a month or two older than Lauren. They were dancing so cute together!


Christmas Eve:

Christmas Day:

Yes, she is eating Santa's leftover cookies!!! It was so cute when she suddenly realized there were cookies left on the end table.

Lauren got 5 baby dolls!!! Santa went a little overboard, he just couldn't stop himself with the dolls. She also got a stroller to pus them around in, and a wal-mart shopping cart... clothes, bottles, and more stuff to take care of her babies... a radio flyer tri-cycle... and a horse lamp, among many other things.

Hunter hit the mother load with a new stereo/cd player, tons of cds... a new dvd player and dvds... and lots of other goodies! Christmas was great for the kids. They both were extremely happy with what mommy and daddy bought. And of course Santa was good to them too.



My new job was a good realization of how bad my chronic cough and allergies were. My best girl-friend, Dana, used to harp on me to go see a specialist. I wished I had listened sooner. The nurse at my new job got tired of hearing me cough every morning and sent me to the Oklahoma Allergy and Asthma clinic. They did a lot of testing. One was the pin-prick with the different allergens, and this is what we got:

Sorry for the bad cell-phone picture, but you get the idea... Those are huge welts from the pin-pricks. Finally the nurse said she would quit because I was so highly allergic there was no sense in carrying on. Along with that, the results from my chest x-ray showed infection in my lungs, and my cat scan on my sinus cavities showed infection as well. So we are working on clearing it up so I can begin allergy shots. And to think, I have been this way all that I can remember in life. I am so excited to one day soon, feel so much better!

For those of you wondering why you didn’t receive Christmas cards. They’ll be coming soon. We can just call them Happy new year’s cards. I just didn’t have it together this year.

I thought that I would try and get everything in this update, but it's just not possible. So I'll wrap it up for now, but be sure to come back, I have several updates that are already scheduled to post later this week. The next one is "Down on Lauren's Farm"... be ready for cuteness!

Wish me luck!!!

So let me update everyone...

First, my newest 'family member' is:

Malyssa Jade




She's such a cutie!!! and so sweet and quiet. I can't wait to watch her grow and for her and Lauren to play together.

This will be a short post, I have so much to do before I go to bed tonight... and I need to get in bed, I have to be up by 5:30 in the morning. I have several pictures to update to my photography blog tomorrow. The Christmas Bazaar was great! I had 9 come through... that's good for one day. I met more people and enjoyed visiting.

Lastly, just a picture I took of her this evening before dark...




I'll try and have more tomorrow... Have a great night everyone! Wish me luck for tomorrow!

Big changes

So big changes are coming my way... and Lauren's way.

I GOT A JOB!!!!

And yes, I'm super excited about it! It's a great job, and it comes at the perfect time. Our finances are starting to feel a crunch. Now, the bad part is that for now it's only temporary. A Dr. in the town south of us is retiring in July. His secretary is leaving him after 10 years (that says a lot to me) to come to my town and work. He needs someone at least until August, but there is a chance that a new Dr. will buy his practice and a chance that if this happens I will be asked to stay on... so for now it's a short term blessing.

As for Lauren? She will be attending daycare! When I had my last minute interview a lady here in town kept Lauren. She runs an in home daycare, but she wasn't taking anymore kids. So I went and toured a daycare in the town south of us. I wasn't very impressed. When I came home to pick up Lauren I talked to 'Nanna' about putting us on her list for her next opening. She then explained that Lauren was great to watch, and that she had been considering adding one more kid, and decided that Lauren will work! It was a double blessing day!!! I completely feel comfortable and trust her. She only has 6 kids, and so many are Lauren's age. I'm so excited!!!!

I have missed working and cannot wait to go back. Don't get me wrong, I have enjoyed my days at home with my baby during her most precious stages. But I admit that I am not the most diligent mom when it comes to teaching her, and I know Lauren will benefit greatly from being around other kids on a daily basis.

I'm truly one of those people who have to work. It defines me.

So with that news out of the way, I have my last Christmas Bazaar tomorrow and I am so nervous. It will be some good Christmas money though.

Well here are some cute pictures that my cousin Valerie took of me and Lauren in Aunt Norma's front yard. Thanks Valerie!!!





And then here are some that I took of the princess!



I forgot how beautiful East Texas is in the fall! I would love to move back one day, but then I look around me, and I see some of the most beautiful sunsets that they don't see down there. And here I know which way is North, South, East, and West. I get all sorts of turned around down there. Lauren loved the leaves!


She was so interested in what the other kids were doing.



Then she got a few minutes to play... there's that cute rear end again!




Be on the look out tomorrow for a very special post about my newest 'family member'.

For now, I'm off to try and get a few things done around our house to get prepared for next week.

Thanksgiving update...

I got an opportunity to go 'home' for Thanksgiving, so I went. Lauren and I left Wednesday evening after my photo shoot, and drove 7 hours. We got to my aunt Norma's about 12:30 am. We visited for an hour and off to bed we went.

I felt like the most awful mother when I woke up at 6:30 am to find my daughter not in her playpen but toddling behind my aunt Norma down the hall. Apparently aunt Norma couldn't wait to play and sneaked Lauren out of my room about an hour before that. I was THAT tired!

We first took a surprise trip to my dads house, talking to him on the cell phone the whole way... I made him think we were leaving deer camp heading back to town. The closer to his house I got, I made him put the phone on speaker and said I had a very important question to ask:

Me: "so, my question is, is it rude to show up to a Thanksgiving dinner, without a food prepared?"

Them: "no... not at all, especially if you... blah... blah..."

Me: Honks the horn on my car...

Them: "WHAT was that?"

Me: Honks the horn more...

Them: "Where are you? What's going on?"

Finally my brother realizes what's going on, and he yells "Sissy's here!!!!"

They could hear the horn on their speaker phone, but also in their front yard... It took them a second to figure it out, and when they did, they were very surprised!

We drove back to aunt Norma's to be with the rest of the family. And then took a second trip back out to my dad's. He had to be on his rig the next morning.





My new friend, "Pretty Boy"... Funny story about this bird; he landed on dad's head one day in their front yard. So they took him in the house. Put out the word about a missing bird, but no one ever claimed him. He's such a sweet bird!




Lauren loves moma Karen... a lot. Here she was wanting mom to put her glasses on Lauren's baby doll...




Dad took Lauren for a ride on the four wheeler. She loved it until he put it in reverse and the shifting scared her.



My uncle Robert seeing her for the first time...



This was a the first time my Grandma Pepper has seen Lauren. She fell in love immediately. My grandma just had knee surgery (part of why we decided to go home) so she wasn't at her 'best'.



Some cuddle time earlier that morning



This is Valerie, my cousin Jayson's wife, whom I just love! She's so nice!



My cousin Jayson, or better known as 'Biggin'...




Me and Valerie and the princess! We took an early morning visit to JC Penney's to get some boots I eyed in the ads...



And last but most certainly not least...



Aunt Norma, thank you so much for having us! I can't wait to come back again at Christmas!

Other than that, I spent three days in the car, and I'm glad to finally be at rest at home. We took Hunter home on Sunday, and Levi and I did a little Christmas shopping. I have tons of things to do, so I'm off of here to go do them.

Make sure you check back... I have some cute pictures of Lauren to post playing in the East Texas leaves. I also have some good news to share... No, I'm not pregnant, but it does require some toasting, to me.

Email, call, or write us, we love you all!