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!

Baby Laurel

Just an update on Laurel. I went to the doctor yesterday and the doctor said the head was way down. He didn't check me to see if I was dialated even though I told him I have been having some contractions off and on and according to my original due date I am 37 weeks. Oh and he will be out of town for the next week and a half. Weird! He felt her head by just feeling my stomach. I don't know how he knows what the heck he is feeling in there. He also said that when he measured my belly it was measuring 37 which goes right along with the original due date. I tried telling him I know my body and there is now way I am due November 23rd. Anyway he said if I haven't gone into labor by myself he would induce on the 16th. I am soooooo ready! I ask Lilly every now and then where is baby Laurel and she will lift up her shirt and point to her belly. She is so funny!