One Year Ago Today...

This time last year I was in terrible, horrible pain. I was in the hospital. I did not know at the time that I would be there for a total of 5 1/2 days. The year that has passed since that day has gone by so quickly! I can't believe it has been a whole year since that amazing day. That's right, amazing.(Only that day, not the following 4 1/2 days!) As painful as it was, it was good because THIS is why I was in the hospital...






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My little Gabriella Joy was born one year ago today, January 16th, 2008, at 5:40 pm. She weighed 7lbs 12oz, and was 19 3/4" long. She had a LOT of curly black hair. I can't believe how much a little person can change in the first year. Just one year ago this was all she could do...




Now she has been walking for 2 months, and if she is awake, she is MOVING and getting into things!!! There is a little trail all over the house. It is easy to see where she has been and what she has been doing. I am excited to see her personality continue to develop. Each day she does new cute things. She is always trying to copy her big sister. She spins in circles, tries to jump, and now she tries to turn somersaults!! She puts her forehead to the floor and takes off scooting it across the floor until somebody helps her flip over! It's so cute, but I'm afraid that she will get a carpet burn on her face!

As I reflect today on the past year, I can't help but be a little sad. Like I said, I am excited to see how she changes and grows in the next year, but I do so miss the little baby days! There is nothing better than a tiny, sweet-smelling, cuddly, baby and all the little grunts and sounds they make! (Although not having to get up every 2 hours during the night IS pretty good!)
I found out that I was pregnant with Gabbie just a couple of days before Natalie's first birthday, so it made that day a little easier for me. It was easier for me to let her be big, because I had another baby. That is not the case this time.

Now I just have two little girls who think they are so big! It's like I am standing on the sidelines, watching the hands on a clock just spinning and spinning. I am powerless to slow it down, so all I can do is just try to memorize every moment because I know that it will be gone all too soon! Now I know that one year is not that much in the big picture of their childhood, but it is just the beginning of the years that I know will be flying by!

So Happy Birthday my Gabbie! You keep me so busy, but I can't imagine this past year without you! We are so thankful for a happy and healthy first year.

Late Happy New Year

Happy New Year to everybody out there that happens to read this. I
know I am late in saying this, but I have been busy!! I have had family here for 11 days. It is great to have everyone here, but it makes it hard for me to do my regular stuff. Now I am trying to get caught up on all those things that I need to do, and get the house cleaned as well. Having extra people in the house makes it hard to stay on top of the housework.

We had a wonderful Christmas. We celebrated with my family on the day after Christmas after Kaleena and Clint got here. Our family (Me,Tony and the Girls) had our Christmas, and of course Santa came on Christmas Day. Both girls loved tearing into the packages. Natalie still asks to open Christmas presents every now and then! The new toys have been great at giving them something new and exciting to do.

Kaleena and Clint got married on Jan 3rd! Since they live in Houston all the last minute planning and getting decorations ready came from here. It still looks a little like a craft store here!! It was beautiful and everything went very smoothly. Natalie was the flower girl, and she did great!!! I was surprised and amazed at how well she did. She dropped the petals like she was supposed to and stood on the stage with me for a little while. She got tired of standing, so she just quietly walked down the steps and went and sat with Mimi and Pawpaw. We didn't practice that part, but she did it so perfectly. Hopefully I can put a couple of pictures up here soon. They are on a different computer, so I will go ahead and post this first.
We are glad to officially have Clint in the family. Natalie has really taken to him. She absolutely loves him. Every little girls needs an Uncle that they love. The girls have another Uncle, but Natalie has only met him once, and Gabbie has never met him.

So between Christmas and the wedding and two little girls I have been busy! Things have settled down now, so if I can just get caught up on all the house work, I will be good. My parents are still here but they have their "house" that they are staying in so we are able to get back to our routine for the most part.

The next big event for our house is Gabbie's birthday! I cannot believe that she will be one in just 10 days!!! My baby has grown so fast! She has been walking for about 3 weeks or so, and now she is working on running! She is getting pretty good at that too. The other day I heard quick footsteps come up behind me and I thought it was Natalie. I turned and was surprised to see Gabbie! She can dance and spin in circles too. She has suddenly turned into a toddler. Her personality and actions have changed so much. She and Natalie love to play together! They run through the house just being silly and laughing so hard at each other!

Natalie continues to learn new things every day. Tony and I are constantly amazed. We are always looking at each other and saying, "Has she done that before? I didn't know she knew that!" We are going to sign her up for a gymnastics class at AC this semester. She loves to jump and turn somersaults. I think she will really love the class. It starts in a couple of weeks I think, so we will see how it goes.

We look forward to what 2009 holds for our family. We are trying to figure out what God has planned for us and follow His path. Please pray for us as we prepare for the adventure that lies ahead. We know it won't always be easy, but if we hold on to Him and stay strong as a family it will totally be worth it. We'll keep you posted!

COLD!!!!

Right now it is 26 degrees, the wind is 30mph, and it's trying to snow. By trying I mean a few tiny flakes are flying around in the air, and if you look really hard in the low places of the ground you can see a little white. It's pretty miserable out there. Yesterday was in the 70's! It is not unusual for there to be a big difference in the temperature from day to day here, but I don't remember an almost 50 degree difference!! That's crazy. For those of you that don't live where the weather is crazy like this, I'm sure you can imagine! It is a bit of a shock. At least the cold is making it feel a little more like Christmas time. It was hard to get in the spirit with the 60 degree weather we had been having. My parents and sister live where it is still in the 70's and 80's, so they are really having a hard time!!

Thanksgiving was a great time. Most of the food turned out pretty good! In an attempt to fit all that we needed to in the oven at once, and trying to get it to all cook a little faster, a couple of the casseroles got a little dry, and the jello salad froze in the extra fridge that we were storing it in. Surprisingly the Jello turned out fine when it thawed! We ate it all anyway, and had a great time! My first time cooking Thanksgiving was not a disaster, and I learned some things for next time. I plan to redo some of the dishes that didn't turn out so great when everybody is here for Christmas.

Gabbie took her first steps a day or so after Thanksgiving!! She now walks about 50% of the time. She gets so excited when she does, and she always tries walking first, before she crawls. She can walk for a long way before she falls, and when she does fall, she can stand back up all by herself. She can walk while carrying a toy as well! I think she will be walking 100% by Christmas. I can't believe she started walking at 10 months. I can hardly remember her being a tiny baby. I don't know if it is because I had such a hard time recovering after she was born and I didn't get to enjoy it like I wanted to, or because she has grown up so fast! I told Tony that I can still call her a baby until her birthday, even though she is "toddling"!

Natalie is really getting into being a big sister, sometimes a little too much. Gabbie was messing with the DVD player the other day and Natalie tried to put her in time out and talk to her about what she did, like we do with her! I had to tell her that only Mommy and Daddy can get onto Gabbie. Natalie does pretty good at trying to keep Gabbie out of stuff too. Gabbie was getting into the cabinet with the pots and pans, and Natalie went over to her and said "No,no Gabbie. Can't touch it." Then she put them all back in the cabinet and came and told me what Gabbie was doing! Like I said, I think sometimes she may be a little TOO helpful!
The other day Natalie was talking to herself. I wasn't really listening, until I heard her count to 7...in Spanish!!! I guess Dora gets most of the credit for that one, we really haven't been working on that yet!
Natalie loves to do things by herself, especially getting dressed. She can even button her own shirt. Cooking is one of her new favorite things too. I was hoping that if she cooked the food, she would want to eat more of it. I was wrong. The last two days she has wanted to cook something, so we did, then I asked her if she wanted to eat some of it and she said "No!" and ran away! So much for that plan! She has slowed down eating again, after she was doing do good and gained some weight. I am hoping that she doesn't lose all that she has gained now! I guess we will see.

I have almost all of my Christmas shopping done! I have 3 more to buy for some family members, and a few stocking stuffers for the girls and that is it! I do have a couple of homemade gifts that I need to finish, but I don't have to do any shopping for those. I really want to wrap some and put them under the tree, but I don't think that would be a very good idea. I don't think they would last very long!! I guess I will just have to wrap them and put them back in the closet for now. I even have Christmas cards ready to go in the mail tomorrow. I don't think I have ever really done cards before, so I feel like I am really on top of it this year!!
For now anyway! I know better than to be too proud of myself. I managed to get the girls' Christmas pictures done the other day. That was no small feat let me tell you!! That was all I got done that day and I was not in a very good mood by the time I got finished! I didn't really get any good ones of the two of them together. I decided that it is pretty much impossible to get the two of them still at the same time! I did get some that are pretty good of them separately so I guess those will have to do.

I can't believe that Christmas is just two weeks away!!! Wow! It sure is coming fast. I need to get organized and plan what Christmas cooking I am going to do. Things are going to be crazy this year as Kaleena is getting married on Jan 3rd. We will have family in town for over a week, from Christmas until then, so I probably won't do too much fun stuff since I will be feeding a bunch of extra people.

I need to get back to the house work. I have had projects going on all week and I haven't gotten the normal daily stuff done, so I am a bit behind.

Correction

I stand corrected, Tony just told me that gas is $1.61 at Sam's. Even bigger thanks.

Getting Ready for Thanksgiving

I want to start out saying THANK YOU to you who have left comments. I LOVE reading them. It helps me to know if anybody is actually reading my blog also. So if you happen to read my blog, and haven't left a comment, please sign up as a follower and/or leave a comment so I can know about you. I will try to write more often so there is something more interesting to read.

I am getting ready for Thanksgiving here. This is the first year that I am hosting and cooking the majority of the food! Yipes! I am looking forward to it though. My sister and her fiance` are coming from Houston, and my grandparents from Oklahoma are coming. Of course my sister that lives here will be here, but that is all. My parents are of course working out of town and can't get enough time off to come, so that is how it fell on me. We won't have many people here, but there will be enough to fill a table and eat some turkey so it will be fun.
I have almost all of the grocery shopping done, just lacking those last minute things that won't stay fresh long enough to buy them ahead of time.

The girls and I put up the Christmas tree last night. I know it's early, I don't usually put it up this early, but I kinda wanted it up when everybody is here for Thanksgiving, and I decided I didn't want to try to do it while they were all here so....I had a good evening to do it, so that is what I did.
Natalie LOVES it. She just looks at it and says "Wow, pretty colors! Pretty lights." She probably hung 90% of the ornaments on it, she thought it was so fun! She keeps saying "Mommy, nother one!" (wanting to hang another ornament on) She doesn't really mess with it at all now, aside from admiring it. I think her helping to put it up helps with that. Surprisingly, Gabbie hasn't messed with it yet today, so maybe I won't have any trouble with her either.
We have also brought out the Christmas music and Veggie Tales. Natalie loves the Christmas Veggie Tales! She watches them over and over and over and....You get the point. She and Gabbie both really loved a Trans Siberian Orchestra song that I had playing the other day.
I am really excited for Christmas this year. Natalie is old enough to really get into it, and Gabbie will almost be 1, so she will have lots of fun as well, even though she doesn't understand as well. I am starting it early, but I figure it makes up for last year. Between moving a few days before Thanksgiving, and being 9 months pregnant at Christmas I didn't really get to enjoy the holidays as much as I like to. So this year I am going all in! One of my very favorite things is having all the lights off except for the glow of the Christmas tree. It is so pretty and peaceful.

I am pretty much done with all of my Christmas shopping too. I have been buying things a little at a time for over a month now, so it didn't all hit us in one month. Pretty much all I have left is the little stocking stuffer stuff. I won't be able to put anything under the tree until right before though. I know I won't be able to keep the girls out of that!
Tony and I have already done our gift for each other as well. We got a Wii several weeks ago, so we have already been enjoying our Christmas!

Natalie's medicine seems to be working, she is eating a lot more, and I even had to let the waist of her adjustable jeans out a little bit! Yay! She goes to the Dr on Tuesday so we will see what she says.
She can count to 15 now! She has known all her shapes, colors and the alphabet for several months now. She is getting so big!

Gabbie has 3 teeth now, and the 4th is coming through any day now. She can stand alone for a long time, and the other night she took 2 steps all by herself! We were excited. I think she still has a little while before she does much walking on her own, but she sure is trying hard. I think she may have it down by Christmas. She loves music as much as Natalie does. She waves her arms around to the beat of the music anytime she hears it. She was up in the middle of the night the other night and Tony started singing to her. She stopped crying and started waving her arms all around dancing to his song!

Gabbie is up from her nap now so it is time for me to run. I probably won't get around to posting again before Thanksgiving so, Happy Thanksgiving! Remember what the day is all about what you have to be thankful for. I am thankful that gas is $1.73!!!!(aside from the obvious things, my family and health and all those kind of things,of course ) That is making a BIG difference for us.

Backtracking

Not much new is happening, so I thought I would post some pictures that have been taken over the past month or so today. I have been meaning to post them for quite awhile now, but just haven't made myself do it.
I am now on my 5th straight day of not leaving the house. I am cleaning the floors today and well...doing this! I am starting to feel a little shut in, and I'm sure Tony is tired of me calling him and saying, "Oh, can you stop by Target and get some diapers?" "Oops, we are TOTALLY out of toilet paper." "Ummm, Natalie needs more milk". Three different items, three different days! I am having trouble collecting myself. :) Natalie has a birthday party to go to tomorrow, so I will finally have the car and I can get out for a little while. Sometimes having only one car can be a little tough. I need a few things at the grocery store, but they will have to wait until Monday, when Tony gets paid. Tomorrow is SUPPOSED to be payday. but since the owner's wife is the one that writes the checks, and she doesn't like to work on Saturday...Payday is pushed back 2 more days! That really gets to me. If your bills are due on the first, you don't get to wait 2 more days just because it is Saturday! The bad thing is his other payday for Nov is on Saturday also, so we will be waiting AGAIN! Anyway...I had to get that off my chest.
Natalie seems to be eating a bit better now that she is on the appetite stimulant. We still have days here and there where she doesn't eat too much, but they are not as often as before so I am happy. Maybe between the medicine and bribing her with stickers we can get a little bit of weight on her.
That's mostly it for now, so here are the pictures that I told you about... The Beautiful flowers my wonderful husband brought me for no reason!
Natalie playing in the shop with Pawpaw and his saw dust.


Natalie trying so hard to get the wagon out the gate.

I'm not really sure what that face is all about!

Natalie being such a good big sister and pulling Gabbie in the wagon.
I think Gabbie may be a little worried! Molly chewing on a stick that is bigger than she is.
Going for a pretend ride in Mimi's car
Mimi is so funny!
Story time with Mimi.

Story time with Auntie Neena.


Natalie wearing great-Papaw's boots that she put on all by herself.
Gabbie pushing the car/walker toy. It is her favorite thing to do now. She is getting so big!

Fun sister time in the tub!

Big smile!


There's a Natalie in the ducks!

Sleepy Morning

Today is another cold, sleepy morning. The girls woke up EARLY! (8:00am!) Anybody who knows much about my girls knows that anytime before 9:30 is early for them! I guess they decided that it was pretty early too, because Gabbie fell asleep around 9:00 or so while she was having her bottle and I was in the shower. Natalie fell asleep around 10:30 during Veggie Tales! She never falls asleep during those! They are both awake now, and since Natalie only slept about 30 min, it shouldn't mess up her nap.
It is only in the 50's today, and pretty windy for the second day in a row. Yesterday the wind was about 30mph, so it felt really cold! I don't think it is quite as windy today, but still not really a day for being outside.
Last night was our church's fall festival. It is called Lord of the Harvest. This is the first year we have gone, since the girls weren't really big enough to enjoy it. Gabbie is still a little small, but Natalie had a blast. There were a bunch of those big inflatable things to jump and slide on, along with some little games and of course lots of candy! Natalie didn't want to leave, but she was so tired at bed time!
The girls have had runny noses and coughs for a week or more now. Tony and I have been a little sick too for a few days. I guess the weather changing has gotten to all of us. Gabbie had her 9 month check up on Tuesday. I can't believe it has been that long already! She has been here for as long as I was pregnant with her. Boy is goes by a lot faster after they are here!! Her checkup went well, she weighs just over 18 lbs. She got a flu shot, and has to go back in a month for another one. She thinks she is big stuff, playing with all of Natalie's toys, and crawling everywhere. She pulls up and can walk while holding on to something. She still thinks Natalie is the funniest person ever. She finally cut her first tooth on the 12th! It is taking it awhile to come all the way in though, it is still just barely poking through the gum. Her nose is really running bad since she is teething on top of being sick. Poor baby!
Natalie went to the Dr on Tuesday as well, but only to have her weight checked. She has been small for awhile now, so the Dr is keeping an eye on her. She has gained a few ounces since the last visit 3 months ago, but since she is still growing in length she is still dropping on the growth chart. She is now in the bottom 3% for her weight. She weighs 23 lbs. The Dr has put her on an appetite stimulant to try to get her to eat more. She hasn't eaten very much at all in the last 3 days or so. She is not really picky, she just doesn't want anything to eat at all, even of her favorite foods. She usually always wants chicken nuggets and french fries (I know, I'm a GREAT mother), but she won't even eat that lately. We will start the appetite med tonight probably, so we will let you know how that goes. We go back to the Dr in a month for another flu shot for her as well, and to check her weight again. I am constantly trying to get her to eat a bite of something, and the more calories the better. I never thought I would be trying to get my child to eat high calorie foods, or not care if what she eats is healthy or not, as long as she is eating. It is very hard for me! I am also trying hard to not let it become a habit, so that when we are back where she need to be, we won't have unhealthy habits. She still loves being a big sister, and the older Gabbie gets the more fun they have. She calles her "Sister Gabbie" sometimes. They have their own little language too. They jabber all the time and I have no clue what they are talking about, but they seem to understand each other fine. The other day Gabbie was fussing and when I asked her what was wrong Natalie said "Her teeth hurt". I hadn't thought of that at the time, and Natalie was exactly right! Just a little bit ago Gabbie was in her highchair having a snack and Natalie leaned over to talk to her. She said "You want toys Gabbie? Ok!" and then she ran and got her some toys to play with.
Natalie loves to help with the laundry, vaccuming, cooking, and pretty much any housework I am doing. It slowes me down a bit, but I let her help so she can learn. She is crazy about Play-Dough. She playes with it every day.
Now that I have had some caffiene, I think I can get to that never ending housework. Natalie ran down to their room saying "Come on Gabbie, Come on." Gabbie followed her and now they are playing in their room. This is my opportunity since they are occupied.