The Weather plus the sinus crud=not so good

It snowed yesterday, not a lot but we take what we can get here, but we were unable to go outside to enjoy it because we all have the sinus crud. I took the kids to the doctor Tues. because they were running low grade temps and had snotty noses. I know this doesn't sound like much but Joseph has been snottin' for 2 wks and Morgan had a low grade temp 1 1/2 wks ago and now it's back. The over the counter medicine has not done anything for it, so here we go. I guess we have been blessed so far that we haven't been sick since Oct. Anyway I hope that we are on the mend.

For you scrappers, I have found a new book series. It is by Rebeca Seitz and it is called "Sisters, Ink". I am on the first in the series and I really like it. I have just finished a book she wrote before she started the series, "Prints Charming", and it was great. I just loved the ending and I laughed so much that some nights my sides would hurt. They are both based on scrapbooking and what a great job she has done.

Happy Birthday, Morgan!!!

From this to

this in five years.

Well my oldest is five today and it is breaking my heart every year that she has a birthday, but I know that she has to grow up. She is a miracle from God. The story starts more than five years ago, when Michael and I got married and knew that we both wanted a family. It took 7 1/2 years for the dream of being parents to come true. After much prayer and finally laying everything at God's feet He blessed us with a pregnancy. We didn't care what sex the baby would be, all we cared was that we were going to be parents! We found out it was a girl and everything was going great until the 34th week of pregnancy. That is when I couldn't feel her move as much and I found out that my blood pressure was up. The doctors wanted to me to be on bed rest and come back the next day to check everything out. The next day my mom took me to doctor and they stated that I had Preeclampsia and wanted to take her right then, so here we go to the hospital. Once they induced my labor and the contractions started we hit another bump in the road; her heart rate started dropping every time I would have a contraction so the need for an emergency C-section came into play. She came out breathing on her own, needing no oxygen at all, and weighing all of 3 lbs. and 14 oz. She was perfect in every way. She needed to stay in the NICU for only one week, so that she could learn how to suck, everything else was going great. After bringing her home we had to account for every little bit that she ate and make sure that her body temp. stayed where it was supposed to. Now look at my baby (she will always be my baby no matter how big or old she gets), growing up and getting older. It's hard to believe that she is 5 today when it doesn't seem like it has been that long since we brought her home. I am so glad that God answered my prayers and made me a parent not once but twice. Thank you God for your wonderful miracles every day and thank you for giving me the opportunity to see them for myself.

1 Samuel 2:27-28 "I prayed for this child, and the Lord has granted me what I asked of him. So now I give him to the Lord. For his whole life he will be given over to the Lord."

Catchin' Up

Sorry everyone for being so long on posting with the holidays plus our anniversary, it's hard to keep up in December. So here we go playing catch up. First we went with my husband's stepmom and dad to see the ICE exhibit which featured the Grinch. We all had a great time but the kids just loved it! Halfway through Joseph's hands got cold and he was ready to go. We had a big time in Nashville! They also did the Build-a-Bear thing. Joseph got a dinosaur so he was in his glory and Morgan got the bunny. They had so much fun.

Then the next weekend we had Michael's graduation. YEAH!!!! I am so proud of him, he now has a BS in Business Management. He has worked so hard for this. I had planned a surprise meal for him afterward and had the whole family over and some friends.

Then the next weekend happened to be our anniversary and we went to Gatlinburg. The first picture was the view from our condo the morning after we arrived. It was snowing as I took this picture. Beautiful wasn't it? Brian and Karen went with us and we had a great time together, but was such a long ride. Brian and Michael decided on the way out that they wanted to do the indoor skydiving. They had a great time and I think both of them loved it! Karen and I watched from the observation deck.

These are the gifts that I made for Morgan and Joseph's class at Preschool. They are Christmas tags that I made that the children could color and put on presents. I got the images from my clip art on the computer, printed different images and then cut, perforated the top and punched holes then tied ribbon to the top. I thought they turned out really nice.

The next thing is gifts that I made for various family members. The first picture is the money envelope that I made for my stepmother-in-law and father-in-law for their Christmas present. The next picture is gift card holders that I made for several members of our family. This was my first time trying either one of these and I think they turned out quite nice. I had some compliments on some of them and that always makes you feel so good about making them.

Now this is what I am most proud of this Christmas. I made this clipboard for my aunt who is a teacher, lives in Knoxville and went to school at UT and still is a big UT fan. Instead of using paper on this, I painted the clipboard then stamped it with Crayon Kids alphabet from

Stampin' Up, after that my husband took it outside and put the sealer on it, then I tied the ribbon on the top. I thought this turned out very Volish and I hope that she really likes it.

We didn't know what to do for our wonderful neighbor who is like part of the family, Ms. Cook. So Morgan came up with the idea to make her a shirt and put angels on it like they did in Preschool. So this is the shirt that we made for her. Take into consideration that it has been a long time since I made a shirt, but I think that she liked it. The angels are actually their handprints and the wings are their fingers.

Now, we celebrated Morgan's birthday Sat. since all the grandparents could be here. She had a Wall-E and Eve plus a Tinkerbell birthday party. The reason for both is that we could not find everything in Wall-E. So we had a Wall-E birthday cake and a Tinkerbell pinata. She didn't seem to mind the difference. All of her grandparents were in attendance except for Ging-Ging which we will have to celebrate with him later, plus a few of her friends. They had a blast and we had fun watching and listening to them; they are so funny.