Hope everyone had a great Turkey Day!

We had a wonderful thanksgiving, but since I forgot my camera and I've recently been scolded for no pictures in my posts, I'll just say we ate too much, Brynna still refuses to sleep away from home, the cowboys lost (but just barely!) and we enjoyed 4 days in angelo with my family.
Today, we have all of our Christmas stuff spread out on the front porch to air out, and as soon as the girls take a nap (Brynna began sleeping perfectly as soon as we got home)I'll get some of the decor up. When Cameron gets home, we'll get the tree up! I'm so excited! And I'll have pictures in the next post (Cadye!)

My aunt did send me this pic of the girls. It's not great, but it shows their absolutely precious turkey dresses. Thanks, Nana!

Prayer request

Many of you remember our cousins, the Grigsby's. In October of '08, they had precious twin boys, Landon and Eli. The boys were born early, with a mild case of TTTS, but after a few weeks in the NICU they were sent home and have been healthy and happy ever since. Seriously, I've never seen two boys with more energy than those two!
Dustin and Amy are now expecting their third child, a little girl. Yesterday an ultrasound revealed a congenital heart defect. I'll let you read Amy's post for more details, I'm sure I'd get something wrong.
Please pray for this sweet family. They have an amazing faith and strength in the Lord. I have no doubt that God chose Dustin and Amy to be the parents of this baby girl, knowing that they, and their families, would not only be able care for her, but be an example of how God expects us to live, through blessed times and troublesome times. They showed that with Eli and Landon, and will continue to do so with "sister baby." (what the boys have been calling her, isn't it cute?) And we know prayer works. They have two smart, sweet, rowdy little towheaded boys running around proving it!

I won!!!!

I absolutely love the Pioneer Woman.
I enter all of her giveaways, and yesterday I actually won! I couldn't believe it, I never win anything! Ever!
The giveaway was for these lovely ladies

To enter her giveaways, you have to answer a question, and the question was "who would you give these boots to?" I don't wear boots like this. My calves have always been too big, even when they were all muscle. And I don't like the skinny jeans tucked into boots on me. On other girls, it's adorable, I love it. But I just don't think I have the body type. So the answer was pretty easy for me, I'd give them to my sister. However, when I won, I thought, do I really want to give them to Cadye? They are awfully nice boots, maybe I would wear them myself. In reality, though, I knew that they would be wasted on me. In the rare event that I did wear them, they'd be under bootcut jeans, so you'd see about 4 inches of the boot. And I have some nice pairs of cowboy boots that I wear 99% of the time, anyway. It would be pointless for $300 boots to sit in my closet and rot.
So, my sister gets a pretty awesome Christmas gift. Or birthday, since that's in a couple weeks, it depends on when the boots actually come in.

This really IS news!

Brynna Belle just walked!! All the way across the living room! I walked into the room and she was walking away from the coach, towards her sippy of milk across the room. I've been keeping the video camera handy because I knew it was any day now, so I grabbed it and got a few steps, but then she kinda quit. She'd take a couple steps, fall and then crawl. I thought, man I wish Cameron were home to see this! But I thought, I'll just record it on my phone and send it to him! As soon as I pushed record, she went all the way across the room again! Don't you just love when kids perform when and how they're supposed to?! Mine rarely do.
Cameron was bummed he missed it, but glad he got to see the video of it.
I tried getting her walking more on the actual video camera, but she wouldn't take more than a few steps before she remembered that crawling is much faster than that wobbly walking.
I'm so glad she's finally getting around on her own. The last few days she has been pretty cranky unless I was holding her hands walking with her. My back is killing me! Plus, I don't have hours to spend walking in circles. I'm just worried now about D'Laney running through and knocking her down before she really gets her sea legs.
So my baby is walking. However glad I am, it makes me more than a little sad.

My poor, poor D'Laney

*Bloody pictures at the end of this post! Just letting you know!*
We had a rough day yesterday.
Around 10 yesterday morning, I heard D'Laney scream from the kitchen. I ran in there and found her sitting under the table holding her head. I figured she had stood up underneath and hit her head, which happens to all kids. When I picked her up, she held up her hand and it was covered with blood. I thought she had cut her hand somewhere, so I ran it under some water and looked for the cut, but I couldn't find anything. It dawned on me that she had been holding her head so I sat her on the counter and took a peek, and sure enough, blood was running down her hair. She wouldn't let me touch her head, but I was able to catch a glimpse of what I though was just a scratch. Although it was bleeding quite a bit, I know that head wounds bleed more than other parts of the body, so something less severe would still bleed a lot.
I wiped what she would let me with a paper town and let her calm down before I looked any further. It took some persuading, but she finally let me pull her hair back and get a good look, and it was no scratch we were dealing with. I pulled a strand back and that gash just laid open. It was about half an inch long, a quarter inch wide, and a quarter inch deep, maybe deeper.
I called our little clinic here in town and asked if they did stitches or if we needed to go to an ER in town, and they said that the doc did do them, but couldn't until 2, which was perfectly within the time frame allowed. So I called Cameron and he finished what he could at work and headed home, and I called a friend from church and asked if she could come watch Brynna so that Cameron and I could both go.
D'Laney did really, really well at the doctor. She sat on Cameron's lap and I held her hair out of the way. Of course she cried, but she sat really still.
She got three stitches, and will keep them until monday. The doc didn't have to cut any hair, which I was so glad for. Afterwards, we had to go to the drugstore to get some hydrogen peroxide, and our little drugstore has a soda shoppe counter with the best ice cream. So D'Laney got some, which I finished for her. Win all the way around! When I was five, I busted my chin open and had to get stitches, and I remember my parents letting my lay on the couch and eat ice cream afterwards. When I was around a year, I hit my head on some bricks at the babysitters, and I have a pretty puffy scar on my scalp, in the exact same spot that D'Laney will have one now.
I'm still not sure what she hit her head on. There are some screws under the table, but they're fat and blunt and don't stick out very far. I guess she could have hit the edge just right, but she must have hit it really hard for it to have done that kind of damage.
None of this has slowed D'Laney down any. She was fine about 10 minutes after it happened. And was fine about 2 minutes after the stitches were in. That kid is tough as a boot.

This first picture was just a few minutes afterwards. Totally fine!


The gaping wound:




Three little stitches, all in a row.


Poor baby, she didn't get a nap all day, and this is how we found her at 8 last night.

Prayer request

A sweet family from church camp lost their 28 year old daughter last night. From what I understand, Tracey was crossing a street in Longview when she was hit by a car, which then fled. She died shortly thereafter. Please pray for this family. It's such a sad, tragic loss, and, because the driver fled, it's now considered a homicide, which could drag out for months. Tracey leaves behind a beautiful little girl, Rylie, who is 7 or 8.

This just in...

You know I'm a sucker for all things Nicolas Sparks. I just came across some pictures of Zac Efron staring in "The Lucky One!" It's not that I'm a huge Zac Efron fan, in fact, I don't know that I've ever seen him in anything, but he was looking pretty good in those pictures! But, I am a huge Sparks fan, and The Lucky One was one of my favorite books of his. I've been pretty pleased with the movie adaptations, with the exceptions of Dear John and Nights in Rodanthe. I wish they'd make all of his books into movies. I've never been one to say, I hate the movie, the book was so much better. I enjoy them separately. I don't know a release date or who else is in the movie, but I'm excited!

BABY STEPS!

Just for documentation sake, I needed to post that Brynna just took two steps! She has taken one step here and there, like from the coffee table to the couch, or from Cameron to me, but never two in a row!
D'Laney walked 3 days before she hit 11 months, so Brynna has about 10 days to walk faster. I don't know if she'll make it, she's still pretty wobbly, but you never know! D'Laney kinda stumbled around for just a couple days, and then took off like she'd been walking for years. Brynna has done absolutely everything earlier than D'Laney, but we would help D'Laney walk a lot, and poor Brynna just doesn't get that kind of attention. There is only so much attention to go around!
I guess I need to get the video camera out and just wait for it to happen! I missed the first time D'Laney walked, but I ran and got the camera and she did it again almost immediately.
And, for the record, I'm not happy about this. It means that I no longer have a baby, and won't ever again. It makes me more than a little sad.

Halloween

Let me start off by saying that I despise halloween. I have always hated halloween. My husband, on the other hand, gets all giddy and googly eyed about it. How does this marriage work, I ask you!
Anyway, halloween has become a bit more bearable with the addition of the girls. This year was the first year that D'Laney was really aware of any of it, and a lot of it really scared her. I'm hoping next year she'll understand it's all pretend. We're still having to assure her that there are no ghost in her room or monsters in the bathroom when the light is off.
When I asked D'Laney what she wanted to dress up as, she answered princess without hesitation. And she wanted to wear the dress and tiara from her birthday party. For Brynna, I decided to recycle D'Laney's first costume, a chili pepper. D'Laney was just a few weeks old, and wore it for about 2 minutes while I took pictures and that was it. So we managed to not spend a dime on costumes. We more than made up for it in candy and favors for the church party. Each family was assigned a booth, and I had the ring toss. I ordered a large balloon spider and twisted and taped pipecleaners to make sturdy legs to toss the rings onto. I also decided to bring 3 little light up pumpkins for the really little kids, and it's a good thing I did. About 5 seconds after I had everything set up and took a picture, my balloon spider popped. Thank goodness for those little pumpkins!


The party was a lot of fun. Cameron and the other men made a haunted house out of the classroom wing of the building, and I don't know if the kids had fun going through it, but I know that all the men had a blast putting it on. Mom, Cadye, and her boyfriend Wade came up for the weekend and got to see the girls all dressed up.
So overall, it was a good weekend, but I'm soooooo glad it's over now.



Poor Brynna, the things we make our kids go through to get a cute picture!


Princess D'Laney


This is the first picture we've taken of the 4 of us since Brynna was just a few days old! (that's almost 11 months, if you're counting.)