Pictures 2010

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So Embarassed!

I am so embarrassed that I haven't put up a new post all year! And it is already March 1st!! The year has literally flown by! I keep making lists in my head of all the things I want to blog about - and then I never actually get around to posting them!

So to recap our year a little bit for you...

The biggest experience of this year has been with Justin's job change. He was laid off from Cameron around Thanksgiving of last year. We were so stressed when we first found out, but little by little God continued to provide. we ended up with a great severance package that neither of us expected and that helped fill in the gaps from job to job. Justin worked hard from his first day without a job to his last. He filled out application after application and dropped off resume after resume. He quickly got hired at the casino for valet and worked 4 nights a week from about 6pm to 3am. Justin stuck it out with this rough schedule for most of December and January before he was hired on at Henry Production, a small oilfield company out here. Its a temporary position for now but we are praying it leads to something more permanent. Although we lost the benefits from his old job (medical, dental and 401(k)) this transition has actually been blessing. Hourly Justin is making less than he was, but overall he is working about twice as many hours as the guys who stayed on at Cameron. Its so sad how many families are struggling right now due to the economy and we feel very fortunate that things fell into place relatively quickly for us. The situation really was a blessing in so many ways - you never really know how much you love someone until you face opposition together. I think Justin and I have come out of this trial stronger than we have ever been. His working at night during his weeks at valet were hard on us all but it helped me bond with our children in ways that i had not before. Although we are still not sure what the future holds for us (but really, who does?) we have so much to look back on as proof of God's faithfulness.

to be continued....

Bath Time

Just had to post these of my sweet little girl in the bath tub :) She is loving life so much now, it seems like everything I do with her she just loves. She has been eating oatmeal and doing great with it, she is so easy during the day when she lays on her play mat and talks to her toys. She goes to bed amazingly and sleeps through the night and she absolutely loves her bath time!

Happy Birthday Jesus!

We had a somewhat unconventional Christmas this year. Justin was laid of at his job shortly after Thanksgiving and has been working valet at the casino at night. There have been several downfalls to this job one of them being that he had to work on Christmas Eve, so we decided to start a day early this year. We made our cookies for Santa and left them out on Christmas Eve Eve :) and opened our gifts Christmas eve morning. Jack was really excited this year which made it extra fun for the rest us. In the course of taking pictures and looking back at them, I realized I am becoming that mom. You know the one who makes her kids where coordinating outfits for family photos and forces them to take ridiculously cheesy pictures in front of the tree... yep that's me.

Christmas Oops...

This happened on a different day during "nap time".

Sweet tooth? Chocolate Chips, 2 Kool Aid packets, marshmallows, fudge, a candy cane, 2 jars of sprinkles and powdered sugar.

Every present under the tree was opened a week before Christmas!

All I have to say is next year there will be no presents under the tree until Christmas. Also I will not leave Jack home while Justin is napping - even if he is supposed to be napping too.

Harper's Surgery

Harper's most recent post-op belly button shot :)


Little Miss Smiley right before her surgery. That tiny hospital gown broke my heart!

This was her what her belly button looked like two days after surgery, the first time we took the bandage off.

The golf ball sized belly button before surgery :(

Well, its already been three weeks, but I thought I would post a re-cap and update about Miss Harper's "Belly Button Surgery".

On Dec. 7 of this year Harper had a surgical procedure done to fix an umbilical hernia her developed shortly after birth. These types of hernias are not uncommon and generally don't effect the overall health of a baby. Typically they heal on their own by the time they are 2 or 3, however Harper's had grown to the size of a golf ball and I believe it was causing her some pain. Her doctor, surgeon and I all agreed it was unlikely that the hernia would heal on its own, and even if it did, in the mean time she would be stuck with her intestine protruding out from her little belly.

The day of the surgery (along with a few prior to it) I was a wreck. I knew in my heart everything would be fine, but it is such a terrifying feeling for me to have to put Harper through this. I honestly wasn't worried about the surgery itself, I knew it was pretty basic and I trusted her surgeon, but the scariest part for me was that she would be under a general anesthesia. I anticipated the hardest parts would be letting her go and be put under, and seeing her afterward - I was prepared for a pale lethargic baby, with Iv's and tubes all over the place. I was right in thinking that letting her go would be awful, however our anesthesiologist was great, (the same one who did my c-sec in September) he made us feel as comfortable as we could given the circumstance, and even Harper was giving him big smiles as he talked us through what would happen during and after surgery.

From the time we handed her to Chris, the anesthesiologist, and walked into the waiting room with our little pager, to the time the Dr. McCray came out to tell us she was all done a full hour hadn't even passed yet. He took Justin and I back to the recovery room to see her and I could barely keep myself from running to her. Before they even opened the doors I could hear her screaming, it was such a wonderful sound since I was prepared to walk in on a drowsy drugged up baby. Aside from the fact that she managed to pull out her IV and there was blood soaked gauze wrapped around her arm, she looked amazing! She wasn't lethargic in the slighted and she looked so strong as she tried to fight off the nurse who was bandaging her up! It turned out that they didn't need to give her any drugs to wake her up from the anesthetic which is uncommon and through the entire process her vitals stayed absolutely healthy. Both the doctor and the anesthesiologist said she couldn't have done better.

We were able to take her home that same day only about 4 hours after we arrived at the hospital. She was pretty jumpy and disoriented that afternoon and spent a lot of time screaming and crying. I expected this to go on or at least the next couple days, but the following morning she woke up in the greatest mood and has been perfect everyday since then. Prior to her surgery she was very gassy and fussy and would cry almost every time she pooped. I was hardly ever able to put her down at home and she was waking up several times at night. Since the day after her surgery she sleeps 8 to 12 hours at night waking up only once to eat and go right back to sleep. She doesn't nap much but I don't mind because she is content now to play on the floor or in her swing, I only have to hold her when I feed her and when I just want to snuggle :)

We were SO blessed to have our prayers answered and exceeded! God has been so faithful in

keeping this little girl healthy, even when when I had only been pregnant with her for 6 weeks and the doctor told us we lost her when I had a cyst rupture in my uterus. Thank you Lord for our wonderful little miracle! And thank you to all of you who kept us in your thoughts and prayers as we went through this!