Prayers for Stellan!

MckMama and her family could use your prayers for Stellan. He took a turn for the worse and could use all the prayers and support, we can offer up.

Visit her blog to read about Stellan

My first born---Wednesday's Walk

If you would like to join other bloggers on this Wednesday walk, visit Lynnette's site for all the details.


Since my son is going to be 9 on Monday I thought it would be fitting to have him be my Wednesday's Walk.

Christian Joel was born July 27, 2000 but wasn't supposed to be born for another 2 1/2 months. He was born a full 10 weeks early!

My husband was in the Navy at the time and we were stationed in Gulfport, Mississippi. One day I just woke up not feeling my best at all.. My back hurt, I felt like puking all day and I was just real worn out and pale. My husband came home on lunch because he knew I was feeling terrible. Went back to work and came home around 3. I sent him out to get a heating pad because my back was killing me. I still didn't think it was labor. I mean who would when you have 10 more weeks to go! He decided to drive to the super Walmart 20 minutes away versus the little Walmart 5 mins up the road. He was thinking of me and thought maybe he'd get me a blizzard from the DQ. Needless to say by the time he got back in an hour, I was in so much pain. He picked me up and off we went to the Keesler AFB.

We got to the hospital, which by the way, he made me WALK to the 3rd floor while I was 10 cms dialated....yes you read that right....he made me WALK! I was in the delivery room and still had my street clothes on. I had a huge NICU staff waiting in the room, a huge nursing staff, and so many doctors. I had people putting needles in me, yanking my clothes off, telling me to push and the whole time, I still didn't have a clue what I was doing...lol.

When he was born, he weighed 3 pounds 9 ounces which is actually big for as early as he was. And he cried. We were so scared. Neither one of us were really that old, it was our first time from home and we lived 20 hours from friends and family. He spent 25 days in the NICU. We had moments where they thought he may have a brain bleed (common in preemies). They thought his digestive track wasn't working properly. But it was. A 25 day stay is excellent considering they told us it would be 10 weeks before he could come home. We brought home this little guy, who wasn't even 5 pounds yet.

Since he was born early, he was a little bit developmentally delayed. Which we caught him up with therapy. And he is behind speech wise. That is something we are still working on. But we were so blessed with a perfect baby.

Here he is with his daddy in the NICU--the first time we could hold him:



Just looking cute



First Birthday


Spaghetti Face:

And this year:

Another pound down this week!

I weighed in this morning and was down another pound. Woohoo...go me! I don't have much to say other than that. I'm just surprised cause I thought for sure I'd gain a pound. But I'm most definitely happy with a pound loss.

Let's hope this a streak of pounds leaving!

Have a good week everyone!

Wednesday's Walk

If you would like to join other bloggers on this Wednesday walk, visit Lynnette's site for all the details.

Well this is my first Wednesday's Walk, but I've been reading everyone else's for quite some time!

My memory doesn't have to do with my own children but with my nephew. I was there the day the little man was born. Oh it was such an exciting day! I was SO excited to be an aunt and just couldn't wait for that moment when I could spoil that munchkin and send him right home to his mama! Evil I know, but those were my plans :-D
Here he is the day he was born:




My little man is going to be 9 months old in August. And he has undergone so much in his little life. You see, my little nephew is a victim of Shaken Baby Syndrome. Not from his mama but we believe her boyfriend(she was at work at the time). And while I don't have pics of him in the hospital, it is a memory that will never leave me. But that isn't the memory I want to leave with all of you.
I want to leave you with this one to show you how good God is:

This is the little man today. This is the boy that I thought was going to die that day we drove to Children's hospital when he was life flighted. This is the little boy that SHOULD have died. This is Blake. And up until about a month ago after his accident, he was supposed to have been blind. They never thought he would see again. And he can. Yes, he still has issues. He has to build those neck muscles up to hold his head up again. His little leg is healed from being broken. And the arm that had the blood clots in still doesn't move as easily as the others. But he has such great progress every day. He is a fighter and over came so pretty good odds that were stacked against him!
God is most certainly good. He does amazing things. And that is a memory that will never leave us. That God gave Blakey's doctors the gift to save him. And that God does listen to prayers!

I know this isn't a particularly happy walk. But it is one we walked and one that is a true blessing to us. It reminded us of how good God is.

Summer time fun

I think I may start using my blog for just every day things too not just losing weight or that particular struggle.

I love summer. I don't love the heat but I love summer. I get to spend time with the kids all day, everyday. Granted there are those days that I need a break and my parents take them for a night. But I love that our most stressful choice of the day is whether we should leave the house or maybe go to the park or go to grandma's and go swimming. We don't have the mad dash in the morning to eat breakfast, pick out clothes and then the mad dash in the evening to get homework done, eat supper, play and if it is scouts night to rush out and do that in the evening. I like just not having plans!

But this week is vacation bible school week. So every night is filled with plans. By the end of the week, I'm so tired of running them to and from the church. But I love how they learn at bible school. They get to see their friends from school and they learn SO much. I think sometimes it is also that it is a different teacher from Sunday school. I think they need that break to listen to someone new teach.

Ok--I gotta go and do my wife and mommy stuff--get lunch ready and do the never ending laundry...lol
Have a good day

Whew--finally getting on track again

I've been in a funk lately. We have a bunch of personal things going on in our family concerning my nephew and it has me stressed and depressed that I may have to hurt someone's chances of getting their child back. I'm having issues with my mom and that is VERY stressful and hurtful. All of those are normally things that would send me on an eating binge but I'm trying hard to change my attitude and the way I handle stress.

I'm going to take my munchkins out for a long walk in the woods in a bit and see if that helps get me out of this funk.

Good news is that my weight is back down where it should be and I'm in a hurry to drop a few more pounds. OK not in a big hurry that I will do crazy things but just in a hurry to see results. Especially that I lost those few pounds from the holidays and parties we had going on!

EDITED to add:
I took the kids out walking and we walked 1.5 miles before someone stopped and told us the bears were out and about now because the blackberry patches are ready. and of course, that made my 6 year old ready to turn around....LOL
And I played catch with the football with my 8 year old. I gotta tell you that reaching and jumping actually has muscles a bit sore in my arms that I never use! And it had my kids moving as well as me!

Have a FANTASTIC day :-)

Lazy days

OK I have to admit that I have failed the past few weeks. I think I gained two pounds. I haven't watched what I've been eating and I had a few drinks over the holidays.

Yesterday I was going to walk my 4 miles and each time I started I had to turn around. The first time my inlaws called and said they were back so I had to pick the kids up. The second time we were on our way and we got to chatting with our neighbor guy. I didn't mind because we probably made his day listening to him chat about his poor kitty that had died. He's a widow and his cat was 16 years old. I had such good intentions but I truly felt that putting him before me was the right thing to do.

But this week it looks like no rain so I'll be able to get my walking in. Last week and the week before it rained EVERY day until Friday!

Sigh...I so wanted good news to report but I'm all about keeping this blog real so I will report the bad too. I don't think it is possible to go on this journey without having bad. I wish there was more good though.