Has it really been that long.....

since I last posted pictures? Wow, way to stay on top of things! My last real post was in July right after Lilly's Minnie Mouse party. A lot has happened since then!! Leila started Kindergarten and absolutely loves her teacher Mrs. Maloy. Leila turned 6 in September. Cole started preschool and is so in love with one of his classmates Sylvia. She also is in Cole's class at church. Cole turned 5 in November. Lilly misses Leila and Cole while they are at school but is such a big helper with Laurel. They love to play babies together. To help keep the kids occupied and to help out some friends, I started watching little baby Carolyn (I think she was 3 months when I started watching her) everyday from 7:30-5:30 Monday through Friday starting in September. I also started watching one of Lilly's friends Will (age 2) on Mondays and Wednesdays for about 5 hours each day. I got a little too stressed and stopped watching Carolyn in early December.

Christmas was wonderful this year!! We started off by going to our friends (from church) house. We ate lots of yummy food, decorated cookies for Santa, acted out the Nativity, and sang Christmas songs. We had a wonderful time!! When we got home we sprinkled our Reindeer food on the lawn and sent the kids to bed. They were extremely easy to get to bed!! They knew Santa would not come if they didn't go to sleep. Roy and I were asleep by 11pm!! I was so excited!

Laurel woke us up Christmas day at about 8 am. (I was really excited we got to sleep in!) Lilly woke up shortly after and we had to wake Cole and Leila up. We continued on my family's tradition of lining up youngest to oldest and singing Christmas songs until we get to the Christmas tree. The kids weren't really big on the singing they just wanted to get to the tree! We let the kids open their stockings and then we ate breakfast. I made cinnamon rolls with icing and pecan sticky buns. They were delicious and brought back so many memories of working at TJ Cinnamons. (My mom and dad owned a cinnamon roll bakery.) After breakfast the kids tore into their presents. Before we knew it there was paper all over the place! We lounged around all day, played games, and watched movies. I made ham, sweet potato casserole, Brussel sprouts, hash brown casserole, and homemade rolls. I got the kids little plastic wine glasses to drink the sparkling grape juice. That was a big hit!! This will be our new tradition! We later drove and looked at Christmas lights. It was so wonderful to not have any plans and to just stay home as a family.

On the 27th at about 12:30am, Roy woke me up having a seizure. I have seen him having a seizure a couple times before but this one seem to really scare me even more! I think because he can usually tell when they are coming on and has about 10 seconds of the "aura". (He gets a ringing in his ear) This time he was asleep and didn't feel it coming on so I couldn't prepare myself. I am having a hard time with it still and continually wake him up at night asking if he is ok. Every snore he makes (or even doesn't make), and every weird noise he makes in his sleep I freak out and can't sleep because I just know he will have another seizure. I am totally traumatized by it! Really a tough thing to go through! The doctor told him to take more of the meds he is already on. Hopefully this will fix the problem and we won't have to worry about this anymore!!

Anyway, here are some pictures of Christmas.....well I take that back! The pictures were taking too long to upload. I will post some later in another post.

Cracking up laughing...

Cole saw a commercial on tv for Proactive. He says, "Mom we need to get that for me." I asked him why. He says because I have bumps. (He has REALLY bad eczema.) Leila laughed at him and said "nice try Cole!"

I love my kids so much! They continually keep me laughing!

Just a couple of funny things...

I know I always say this but Cole comes up with some of the craziest things. I bought a turkey baster the other day. He finds it, holds it up to his nose, and says this is the hugest snot sucker!!

On the way to Target tonight, I was trying to get the kids to behave and I said that Santa Claus was not going to bring them any toys for Christmas. Instead he would bring them reindeer poop. Cole immediately says, rainbow poop!? Wow, sounds colorful!

Funny things from my children's mouths...

So tonight I was making dinner and Cole said, "Dinner smells Delicious. It is off the hoozle." I laughed so hard!!!

I made cookies after dinner and the kids were sitting at the table. Cole moves his chair to sit by Leila. I asked him if Leila was his best friend. He said, "Yes, I love Leila." Leila said, "No Cole is not my best friend, he is my cousin."

Anytime we ask Lilly a question she so innocently says, "I dunno."

I love my kids so much!!!

Kids say the darndest things...

Roy had to work 2pm-12am tonight on his birthday. We surprised him at work and each kid gave him a balloon that they picked out with a bag of his favorite candy. We were going to eat with him at Subway for his birthday dinner (which is in the HEB shopping center not because we are cheap) but he got really busy and wasn't able to meet us. I told the kids that daddy wasn't going to be able to eat dinner with us because he got tied up at work. Leila and Cole almost started crying. Not because they weren't going to get to eat with daddy but because they thought he literally got tied up at work. They asked me if there was a friend at work that could untie him and asked why anyone would tie daddy up. Then Cole said I bet they used the balloons we gave him to tie him up. I laughed so hard I almost peed my pants!

Lilly's Minnie Mouse Party

Lilly's Birthday party pictures-

Minnie Mouse ears

Her new Elmo she got with birthday money.

Some of the decorations.

Minnie Mouse cupcakes

Lilly doesn't really watch tv yet but she knows 2 characters really well. She knows who Elmo is and Minnie Mouse. I decided to do a little Minnie Mouse party for her 2nd bday. I only invited a few kids her age because I didn't want it to get too chaotic. She had a great time! We had the pool set up, bubbles, sidewalk chalk, swing set, sprinkler, playhouse, Minnie Mouse ears made out of balloons, and balls for the kids to play with. I made pigs in a blanket, rotel and chips, watermelon, cantaloupe, cherries, Minnie Mouse cupcakes, and ice cream. For the party favors they got a fish shaped cup with a crazy straw, bubbles, candy, and a water gun. We only had 2 kids show up because alot of the families were going out of town and some of the kids were sick but I think the kids had a great time!

After the party we went to Galveston to meet Aidan and her family. We had a great time playing on the beach!! We were going to watch a fireworks show with them but they canceled the show at the last minute due to the weather. Of course I didn't get any pictures of it!

June 2010

We didn't really do much in June. It really went by pretty quick! We stayed home, swam, played, and had a garage sale. Lilly turned 2 on the 26th. I can't believe she is already 2! At about 21 months she started asking to go to the potty. So I started taking her and she does pretty good everyday! She could be totally potty trained if I would make the effort to potty train her. She usually has 1 accident a day and I don't ask her to go to the potty she does it all by herself! She wants to be a big girl so bad! She is such a great helper! She loves to get diapers, wipes, pacifiers, or any other thing we may need for Laurel. She loves her baby sister so much! She is really funny with her. She will walk up to Laurel and make funny faces and baby babbles to make Laurel laugh. Laurel just thinks she is so funny!! We gave Lilly her big present a couple weeks before her birthday. We got her a Dora trike. She loves riding it! We had a birthday party for her on July 3rd. More on that in another post.

Lilly and Laurel

Cole, Lilly, Leila

Lilly's new ride

Cole and Leila's lemonade stand at the garage sale! They wanted to help me with the garage sale and this was the only way I could get them to stay out of the way and not play with the stuff we were selling.

May 2010

Roy continued to have meetings in Houston until the middle of May so we were there with him until about the 15th. At the end of May my family had a mini family reunion. My parents, Adrienne and family, Brianne and family, Aidan and family, my family, and Nolan all met up in Slidell. Aidan had her new baby Joey blessed at church that Sunday. That Monday we went to New Orleans to the Aquarium. Tuesday we went back to New Orleans and ate lunch at the Riverwalk then got beignets at Cafe Du Monde. Yumm!! We also got our fix of snoballs!! If you have never had a snoball before I highly recommend getting one. Snoballs are different from snocones in that they have smooth ice and lots of flavoring! They are pure heaven!! Beaumont only has one that I have found and it is horrible! They charge like $2.75 for a small and it is chopped ice instead of shaved. They also barely put any syrup in there. Anyway..enough about snoballs!! We left Slidell on Wednesday morning and headed up to Northeast Mississippi to see my brother Sean and his family. I really love going back to Corinth! Not only to see my family but I just love that small hometown feel! We had a really great time with all of our family!! I can't wait until the next time we can all get together again. I hardly ever took my camera out but here are some of the pictures that I took.


Leila and Cole at the Aquarium

Laurel standing all by herself

Laurel sporting her swimwear

Leila, Cole, Lilly, and my niece Shelby at the aquarium

Cole, Leila, my niece Claire, and Lilly riding the Algiers ferry boat in New Orleans.

April 2010

I am so behind on my blog that I am going to update my posts by month starting with April. April was a pretty busy month for us! Roy had training meetings in Houston on the weekdays. HEB paid for a hotel for us so that we could stay with him and not have to drive back and forth to Beaumont. It was pretty fun. We got to swim in the pool and do lots of other fun things! Roy's parents and Sister also visited. They only stayed their usual amount of time. They got here late on a Friday night and left Sunday around noon. Cole played soccer this year and Roy's parents got to go to one of his games. He did a great job! He really enjoyed playing and making new friends.

Papa, Leila, Lilly, and Madison (Roy's niece)

Laurel chilling in the hot tub!

Leila, Cole, Lilly and Madison's picnic

Cole's soccer team

Here is Cole in action! He is #7. haha!!

I guess that is really all we did. Doesn't seem like we did much but we kept busy!

Funny of the Day:

Cole-I want to get baptized.
Roy-Who do you want to baptize you?
Cole-Jesus
Roy-Well, I don't think Jesus will be able to baptize you.
Cole-Oh, I know! Don the Baptist!
Haha...That kid cracks me up!!

Easter and Such....

Wow I have got to do better at the whole blog thing! Since my last post I started a couple more projects. I made some tutus for the girls, ballerina teddy bear bow holders, and bows. I really enjoy craft projects all of a sudden! We also planted our garden. We planted tomatoes, bell peppers, green beans, squash, zucchini, okra, watermelon, grapes, and spinach. And so far everything is coming up and looking great! I am really looking forward for some yummy garden fresh veggies! They are the best!



Here are some pictures of the last couple of months:

The Easter Bunny left some surprises for the kids and Roy!

Cole was pouting about something. Just thought his outfit was so funny! He picked it out himself!

Lilly at the church Easter Egg Hunt.

Cole, Leila, and Lilly eating a cookie they decorated at the egg hunt.

Lilly and Laurel

My Laursel Morsel!!

Leila and Cole watching Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. They wanted to dress up so Leila is Snow White and Cole is one of the seven dwarfs. (It was the best costume I could come up with at the moment!)

While waiting for Roy to get out of a meeting, I took the kids to see Alvin and the Chipmunks.

One of the tutus I made. I also made one for one of Leila's friends for her birthday.

My little ballerina!

Well I was going to add a video but it was taking way to long to upload. It was of the kids Easter Egg Hunt at home. We had about 20 Easter egg hunts. We each took turns hiding and finding the eggs. They got lazy at the end and just dumped out the baskets in one big pile so they didn't have to walk very far to pick them up. They had such a great time!

For dinner on Easter Sunday I made a ham, hash brown casserole, mustard greens (which I thought were collard greens when I bought them), rolls, and potato salad. It was so yummy!! I was very proud of myself!

I am so thankful for my wonderful husband that works so hard to provide for our family! I am also greatful for my children! I am never without a dull moment with them!

Funny of the day...

We ordered pepperoni and black olive pizza today and Cole looks at the black olives and says, "I don't want those wheels on my pizza!" So funny!!!!

Time for an update!

Wow... I can't believe I have waited this long to update my blog! I feel like the last month and a half has been really busy but it really hasn't been. So here is what has been going on since my last blog:


Roy had another seizure. This time it was at work. I was on the phone with my mom and I had 3 missed calls from Roy. I kept blowing it off because I thought he was just calling me back. I was getting off the phone with my mom when the house phone rang. I answered it thinking it was going to be Roy and instead it was the pharmacist at HEB. He told me that Roy was having a seizure. The weird thing is that I had just talked to Roy because I just went to HEB to drop off the kids prescriptions (they all went to the doctor earlier that day and we found out they all had croup) and was telling him he needed to pick them up. I just walked in the door from the doctor when I got the call. So I loaded all the kids back in the car and headed back to HEB. Luckily we live like 2 miles away from HEB. I beat the ambulance there but of coarse we had to go to the ER. We already know he has Seizure Disorder and the hospital can't do anything for him so it is just a wasted 5 hours in the ER. Anyway he recovered from that but his boss took a little longer to recover. I think they must have been really freaked out because they gave Roy the week off. So we got to surprise Roy's family and my sister Brianne for Christmas. That was such a treat!!


Santa Clause came to Nana and Papa's house for the kids. They were so cute this year! This was a very fun age for Leila and Cole! They opened every present with such excitement and loved everything even down to the underwear that was in their stockings!


Laurel had her 6 week cardiology check up and he said that he is pretty sure her VSD (hole in her heart) has closed up by itself. We go back in June for an echo cardiogram just to make sure! VERY relieved to find that out! She is now 2 1/2 months now and weighs 12 lbs. She is getting so chunky now!! She is such a wonderful baby!!

We took Lilly for her Neurology appointment at the beginning of the year. We also got good news there too! The doctor said Lilly is a perfectly normal little girl! She didn't see anything wrong with her. She wants to see us back in about nine months just to recheck her. She wants to do this because of her family history. (Roy having seizure disorder and my dad and sister having MS.)


Cole got referred to an eating disorder clinic at Texas Children's Hospital because of his weight. He gained about 10lbs in 9 months. We totally changed our diets about a year ago. Changed simple things like switched to the light whole wheat bread, whole wheat pastas, and brown rice. Adding alot more veggies into our diets. That is what had me confused! He should have lost weight. Well we caught him sneaking food in the middle of the night. Like alot of food...whole loaves of bread and things like that. So we went to this clinic and they ran a bunch of tests. They checked for Protter Willy Syndrome, thyroid, diabetes, etc. We will get the results when we go back in February.


Roy's parents, sister Kristen, and niece Madison came this weekend. We had such a great time with them as usual! We can't wait to see family again soon! We are hoping to go to my sister Aidan's house Valentine's Day weekend! I can't wait!!!!


I also took on a couple sewing projects. I decided to teach myself how to make pillowcase dresses. I have made 5 dresses in the last week! I think they turned out really cute! My next project is to make curtains for the kitchen. I think I can do it!


Anyway...I think that is about all that has happened since my last post.

Laurel-2 1/2 months
Lilly and Leila in the dresses I made them. Cole wanted to be in the picture also!

Leila in the Horton Hears a Who hat from the game she got for Christmas.

I am going to try and do better at posting weekly and not all at one time! Hopefully this year will be alot less stressful than the last!

One Month... Already?!

I can't believe Laurel is already a month old. Time has surely flown by!! Laurel is very strong already! Her accomplishments for this month are: she can hold her head up without support, she rolled over from her back to her stomach (I think this might have been on accident but we are going to count it anyway), she focuses very well on objects, and she is starting to smile. Of course I can never catch a smile on camera!

Leila, Cole, and Lilly just love her! I constantly have to tell Lilly to leave Laurel alone. Lilly loves to get in her face to give her kisses or put her pacifier in her mouth. She is such a great big sister but is sometimes a little rough (not meaning to be). Lilly calls her LaLa. The other day I put Laurel on the couch and asked Cole to sit with her for a minute while I changed Lilly's diaper. When I came back in the room Laurel was no longer on the couch. She was in her bouncy seat in front of the tv. I freaked out and asked Cole why he moved her and he innocently said because she wanted to watch Rachael Ray. I couldn't be mad at him for too long because that was just too cute and Laurel obviously wasn't hurt.

Laurel 1 month old!

on her blessing day

pretty in pink

our Christmas card picture. we couldn't get Lilly to put down my phone!

she looks huge in this picture! well I guess all but her legs! she has the skinniest chicken legs!

I am so happy our little girl is doing much better now! When she was born she weighed 6lbs 10oz. Then one week later she weighed 6lbs. 12oz. At her two week check up a week later she weighed 8lbs 8oz. I just weighed her myself today and she weighed 10.5lbs. What a little chunker!! She is starting to sleep a little longer at night. She slept for 4 hrs straight last night. I got some much needed sleep!! I am so thankful for all of my children and I just love them so much!!

Trauma...Drama...and the ER

My mom and Laurel

Poor baby girl!

My first time being able to hold Laurel. 3 days old.

Laurel under the oxygen hood.

Home from the hospital!!!

Daddy with all of his babies!

Mommy and Laurel

Mommy with all her babies.

I have definitely had my fill of hospitals for awhile! This week has been extremely CRAZY!!! My sister Brianne and her daughter Claire came on Sunday from Slidell. At about 9pm Claire fell off the recliner and ended up having to go to the ER just about the same time that my mom got here at about 1am. They didn't get home from the hospital until 4am and Claire ended up having a mild concussion.

I had to be at the hospital at 6:30 that morning to be induced. They actually didn't start hooking me up to everything until about 8am. We figured we would have the baby by lunch time according to how my other deliveries went. The doctor came in and broke my water at about 9:30am and I was about 2cm. When they broke my water there was alot of blood that came out and they said that there shouldn't be blood like that yet. Everytime they checked me to see how far along I was they would get alot of blood on the glove and the baby's heart rate would go down. At around 11 am the nurses came in and saw that the baby's heart rate was still down and that she really wasn't moving at all. They talked to the doctor and decided to prep me for a c-section. The doctor came back around 12:15 or so because things just weren't progressing like he wanted them to. I was 8cm at that time and they decided to take me off of the pitocin and the epidural pump to see if the baby would start perking up again. A little while later I had about 12 nurses and the doctor in the room with me. The doctor told me that he was going to have to do the c-section. One of the nurses knew I didn't want to have a c-section and asked him if I could try pushing even though I was only at 8cm still. The doctor agreed and said I had to really start pushing good and was only going to give me 1 set of pushes because the baby was in distress and needed to come out now. I pushed really hard for about 10 minutes and at 1:40pm she finally came. Roy cut the cord and they wisked her away to take care of her. She was very blue and not crying. They took her to the NICU without us being able to hold her or take pictures of her. Roy and I were histarical! The doctor couldn't figure out where all the bleeding came from. He said the placenta looked in tact but he decided to send it off to the pathologist to make sure. At around 3:30pm the neonatalogist came in to speak to us. It just so happened that Roy and my mom left to get something to eat and I was in the room by myself. He told me that they syphoned alot of blood out of her stomach and needed to be put on some antibiotics and that they were going to run some tests to look for internal bleeding. I asked when she would be able to come back to the room and he said we would have to go see her in the NICU. I started balling crying I was so upset. My mom and Roy came in just then and asked what was wrong and I could barely tell them. We had a few visitors from church come that night and I felt alot better at that point!! I was discharged the next day but had to leave Laurel in the NICU. It was a very hard thing to do!! We talked to the Neonatalogist again and they found that she has a heart murmur. They did an echocardiogram on her and found that she also has Ventricular Septal Defect (VSD) which is causing the heart murmur. This is a hole in the heart that seperates the left and right ventricles. This can cause the lungs to get flooded with blood and liver problems. They told us to look for choking spells and fast breathing. They said it usually closes by itself by 12-18 months but if it doesn't they would have to do surgery on it to close up the hole. So now I am freaked out anytime she coughs or makes a funny noise.

Tuesday night my mom could barely walk across the room so we convinced her that she needed to go to the ER or urgent care. She finally gave in and Roy took her to an urgent care by our house at about 8:30pm. They got home around midnight that night and my mom found out that she has digenerative disk disease.

Now onto the gross part! If you have a queezy stomach you should skip this part!!! On Friday night I went to the bathroom and got really freaked out! I called my mom into the bathroom because I seriously thought my uterus was coming out. She called Brianne into the bathroom to see if it looked like a blood clot to her. Brianne said yes but my mom grabbed one of those red solo cups and said try and get it out and we will see how big it is. I got it out and it ended up being bigger than a softball. Brianne said it definitely didn't look like a blood clot and that I should go to the ER. So down to the ER we went for trip #3. My mom made me bring the cup to the hospital and I am kindof gladI did. They looked at it and knew it wasn't a blood clot and thought it was part of the placenta. They drew blood to see how much blood I had lost. They were also going to do an ultrasound. They talked to my doctor and said that he wasn't surprised that it was part of the placenta. Hello! You can hemmorage to death if they leave something in there!! Anyway they decided not to do the US and to send me home! Hope everything is out!

Everyone left on Sunday without getting to hold Laurel! They just got to look at her through the window of the NICU. We finally got to bring Laurel home yesterday (Monday). The kids just love her to death. I was very nervous that Lilly was going to be very jealous of Laurel. But she loves her so much and is constantly wanting to touch her and kiss her. I am so thankful that Laurel is home and we can finally start the rest of our lives together as one big happy family!!

Dinosaur Day

I forgot to post these in my last post. The Texas Energy Museum had Dinosaur Day this morning. The kids had fun making fossils, digging for dinosaurs, making dinosaur claws, and painting skeletons. They decorated the outside with lots of dinosaurs! They had a bunch of other activities but it was a little crowded and my patience ran thin very quick!

Well, hopefully my next post will be pictures of Laurel Jane!! I cannot believe she will be here no later than 2 weeks from now!

Family visit, Cole's bday, Halloween

I have been way behind on my blogging. Partly because I am lazy and because I couldn't find the cord to the camera. So now it is time to play catch up! My pictures are out of order but I didn't feel like fixing them so oh well!! The first group of pictures are of Leila and Cole dressed up for Halloween. Leila is Belle, Cole is Buzz Lightyear, and Lilly is Raggedy Ann. We went to our church's Trunk or Treat last night and our going to go Trick or Treating at HEB tonight. The kids have had so much fun wearing their costumes!!

The next set of pictures are of Cole's birthday party. We celebrated last weekend with all of his friends. The theme was Superhero/ Halloween. Cole wanted it to be Superheroes but he also wanted to dress up in his costume. So we decided to combine them. He got lots of new toys! The kids had fun eating ghost shaped PB&J sandwiches, mummy pigs in a blanket, pumpkin and cat shaped rice krispy treats, veggies, fruit, and of coarse cupcakes and ice cream. I think the kids enjoyed dressing up in their costumes! We also made ghost tootsie roll pops and decorated pumpkins. All in all I think the party was a big success!

The last section of pictures are of a couple of weeks ago when Roy's parents and sister came into town. We ended up going to Houston for a day. We had fun going to Storybook Park, riding the trolley, and riding the water taxi. The kids really enjoy when family come in to town! They really miss all of their cousins!!! We also celebrated Cole's birthday with them while they were here.

My sad attempt at decorating the cake!

Madison and Lilly playing

Riding the water taxi

Storybook park

Hopefully I can be better at posting pictures that way you don't get them all in one big long blog!