Sweet November

I wish I could write more blogs but with this life and these kids, I can really only get one in a month! So you get a glimpse of our life in monthly increments. Speaking of months, where did November go?? I just can't believe its over, it was a semi-busy month with trips to the pumpkin patch, Christmas Village, a long awaited movie came out, 3K Thanksgiving Feast, UA football trip, a special girl turned FOUR and another very special girl turned 10 months. Life is flying by and I'm trying to take in as many moments as I can.

Sittre Paige turned 4 this month. I still can't wrap my head around this. I mean I remember the day we brought her home. This is so bittersweet, I am so proud of the little girl she has become but at the same time I get sad that she is actually growing up.

We had her birthday party at Pump It Up, an inflatable jumping zone. This is a camera she got, I might upload some pics from her camera because it is soooo blog worthy! She has taken pictures of everything from our Christmas tree to the fans on our ceiling. It is very interesting and hilarious what a 4 year old considers picture-worthy.

Her party room.

Opening gifts.

Ready for the presents.

Sisters.

Her birthday cake.

Having jumping fun.

Her friends.

Stella at the party.

Thanksgiving Day after all the family had left, I should have taken more pictures of all the aunts, uncles and grandparents. opps.

my brother, jared, me, cory, and Kaitlin after an awesome thanksgiving meal.

Roll Tide. These are the girls in their game day attire. Jared's mom made their matching skirts.

The grandkids on Jareds side of the family.

My 10 month old. She is so sweet.

Daddy and daughter.

This was Sittre Paige's 3K Thanksgiving Feast.

Her friend Annie.

Daddy and Sittre Paige eating.

Her super cute shirt her class made.

The placemat they made.

This was a trip to the Pumpkin Patch at Camp Coleman with Sittre Paige's class. This would happen to be the only picture I would get that day because my camera ran out of battery!! I was upset but they had a great hayride, walked on the nature trail, got to pick out a pumpkin, roasted marshmellows and ate lunch together. It was a good trip and I got to hear funny stories about my daughter from other moms. Apparently my daughter has TWO boyfriends. Wish she would tell us.

Okay, here are the Twi-Moms. This is what they call moms who are obsessed with the "Twilight" series. We proudly accept this name. We are a group of women who have read every chapter in all 4 books. We got away from reality to watch "New Moon" and it was amazing. Every second of the movie was incredible, of course nothing compares to a book but it was everything I wanted it to be. We didn't make the midnight showing but you can bet when the 3rd movie "Eclipse" comes out in June of 2010 we will be there! Great girl time!

And last but certainly not least, my brother is moving to Hilton Head, South Carolina at the end of December. I just wanted to post a picture of him on the beautiful beach of where he will be living. I can't think about the thought of him being in another state, it brings tears. Although it breaks my heart and I will miss him dearly I am so very proud of the man he has become. He will attend the Professional Golfers Career College for 16 months and earn an associates degree. We are making the trip to Hilton Head for a few days on Jan 1st to help him move in his apartment and I am so excited to see the beach, watch my brother start his new life, and help with the "decorating" of the new bach-pad. Hopefully this will be a quick 16 months and he will start his career in Alabama because he has a sister and 2 nieces that really can't live without him.

Pollination

Well, Halloween has come and gone, really I was already over it by the time it got here. I am usually so excited about getting my girls dressed up but this year I was kinda just over it. I know, I know it is super fun seeing your kids in costumes and my camera hog a.k.a. Sittre Paige loves to dress up in anything so I guess it was entertaining. Anyway, I tried to "coordinate" the girls for Stella's 1st Halloween and couldn't really come up with anything just brilliant, so a bee and a flower it was which resulted in "pollination".......this is coordinating, right? Sittre Paige really didn't want to be a bumble bee at first, she prefered Hannah Montana but after some begging from me she agreed. Jared chose Stella's outfit because to us she is just such a sweetheart, reminded him of a flower plus we loved the big petals on her head!!

Okay, hope everyone had a great Halloween! If you're like me you have already consumed about half of your childs candy and gained some pounds in the process.

our bumble bee

our flower

my baby and I

the girls.....notice Stella's FOUR top teeth! Not to mention she has her bottom 2 as well, this child is chewing on everything including alot of our table food!

sweetness

camera hog

the sisters


Okay, bring on Thanksgiving! I am ready for some turkey and dressing and some good family time. Also my Sittre Paige turns 4 on November 28th! I can't believe I have a four year old! This is crazy! Hopefully she will have a birthday party......if her mom will start planning it!!

Stella had her 9 month check up this week, and basically she is right on track, pulling up on all our furniture, crawling, eating our food, and growing 19pds and 27 in long. The helmet is going good, it has basically become an accessory to her wardrobe. We have again been very blessed by the people we have met, stories we have heard and the humor when we hear kids say stuff about it. Even through our daily struggles, God continues to shine His light on our family.

We will be humble

Well, this is a blog I never wanted to post, actually never wanted to think about. But Jared and I have decided to be so incredibly thankful for this upcoming experience, and most importantly thankful that God chose our family to share this journey. We will humble ourselves before the Lord and commit in these next 90 days to share God's love with anyone who is curious about our Stella.
Trying to make a LONG story short, if you keep up with our family, or even our blog you know that precious Stella has been in Physical Therapy since she was 5 months to correct "torticollis". Basically this in greek means "twisted neck". She was diagnosed with this because as an infant she has only turned her head to the right. We noticed this at her 4 month check up and by that time she was bad enough to require therapy. I didn't go into the whole therapy thing on the blog because I thought it would be something easily treatable. Well during the therapy time her physical therapist noticed her head shape. She was becoming flat on the side she laid on the most and sort of "bulging" on the side that she never turned her head, so we took Stella back to her peditrician who then diagnosed Stella with "plagiocephaly". This in greek means "flat head". We were then referred to a specialist at Childrens Hospital. So thats where we were 3 weeks ago. We saw a wonderful doctor at Childrens who recommended we have Stella's head scanned to see if she was in the range that required a helmet. Soooooo, are you keeping up?? I feel scattered trying to type the whole story......anyway, Stella went for the scan and of course, she was HIGHLY recommended for a helmet. Thats where we are at.

You might be asking what has caused all this?? We don't know for sure, we blame ourselves alot of the time for not noticing alot of signs early on, and then we have been told this is also a side effect to premature births or "trauma" births, which Stella had both being born at 34 weeks due to my preeclampsia. We are literally tired of trying to figure out the cause and now are focused on the solution, which is giving Stella the most beautiful, roundest head out there!!

I have had my pity party for my baby. It's OVER. Stella has to wear this helmet for the next 3 months for 23 hours a day. I cried alot during the 2 weeks we waited for her custom helmet, and today was my first day out of the house with Stella and "the helmet". Alot of stares, alot of abnormal looks, and I even had a man come up and ask me actually why she had a helmet on. Not to mention he called my baby in a pink helmet a BOY!!! Seriously, I am laughing. I have a feeling this next 90 days are going to probably be very interesting. But look what God has given me??!! An opportunity. wow. Our God has given my family an opportunity to shine His light. I am so thankful. It brings tears to my eyes to think that baby Stella can be a conversation starter to share the good news. Jesus saves. We said in the "about me" section of our blog that we wanted our blog to be inspirational.....its time to LIVE it. So we will, we will step out of our little all too comfortable comfort zone and get the word out. God gave us this journey and we will humble ourselves, knowing that we are faithfully working for the King. I hope to share stories that we encounter on our blog. But in advance thank you to all who support our family. We are so beyond thankful for our loving friends and family, there is nothing greater on Earth!

Here we go, on a journey that won't last long but will prayerfully make a big impact in someone's life. To God be the Glory.

Stella- turns 9 months October 29th

Truly an angel.

Fall Fun

Fall is here! You can feel it in the air! I think I am going to say this is my favorite time of year......yeah it is. There is just something about wind blowing your hair, leaves falling off the trees, the smell of wood burning from fireplaces, wearing jackets, sitting outside with a blanket watching SP ride her bike and even turning my dial from air to heat in my car, I love it!!!! This past week Stella enjoyed a playdate with just her friends, Clara and Mattie, and then we went to Homestead Hollow in Springville. Which I guess is really just a outdoor craft festival with great food. We had great family time and got a much-needed pumpkin sign for our front yard. Fall decorations are up and we are spending as much time outside as possible!

At Homestead Hollow, just finishing up some good food.

Our pumpkin sign for our front yard, SP picked it out.

SP was dying to have a real pumpkin, the fake yard sign would not please her so her daddy bought the DIVA one.

my precious family. thank you Lord for allowing me to be a wife and mother. Truly I feel so unworthy to hold these positions.

Stella's friend, Clara came to visit this past week and the girls had some much fun together. They played so good together, just extremely pleasant babies.

Can anyone say......teething???

This is Stella's other friend, Mattie. The girls love to go walking around Trussville and the Trussville Antique Mall. Sittre Paige is in school when we go walking so this makes for an easy trip out.

All she wants to do is DANCE, DANCE

Will somebody please get this girl some MUSIC!!???! Its official, Sittre Paige started dance class a couple weeks ago and we haven't been able to get her to sit still since. She is shaking that hinny 24/7! We laugh so hard at her coordination, because well, lets just call her a "free spirit". I am nervous about her class though, she is in the 4-5 yr old class, and she doesn't actually turn 4 until November, so she could possibly look like she can't keep up? Jared thinks I'm a nerd and who cares? But I would rather her look awesome in the 3-4 yr class then look like a goob in the 4-5 yr class?? Am I making sense? Okay, I'm over worrying about that, here are some pics from her first night going to dance class. Jared took her and he said he was the only dad/male in the building, what a great dad!! (Although he complained, he said it was interesting listening to all the lady gossip going on.............and then said all women are freaks)

Showing off her dance bag, she is loving carrying this thing around.

Had to post a picture of my bald-baby Stella......still no hair but still more precious everyday. There is some fuzz, if you look really close! She turns 8 months on the 29th. We have had a major accomplishment, she is finally in her crib!! After 8 months in our bedroom, in a pack-and-play, I come home one night to find my husband has laid her to sleep in her own room. I did want to strangle him, but truly it was the only way she was going, he had to do it. This would not have worked if it had been left up to me. I missed her the first couple of nights and then realized the awesome sleep I was getting due to the fact that I am not being woke up at all hours of the night by her "talking". Nonetheless, the girl is stinkin amazing, wonderful baby.

Sittre Paige and Daddy

I thought I loved you then....

Okay, well, I said it was coming, atleast I warned you but I wanted to write about my man. He is so deserving of a good, sappy blog. Our anniversary is coming up on September 25th, and I have pretty much been excited about this day for the past couple of months, I don't really know why, but its our 5 years and I just feel that is sort of exciting?? 5 is just such a good number to me, its a stand-out number, anyway, I met Jared on October 26th, 1996...........yep, that long ago. We were in youth group together and we had never met until this night. We went to Judgement House at some church (I can't think of the name...Crestview?? I don't know) and we were all sitting in the pews waiting to go through and my friend Leah and I were being girls and decided we needed some gum, so we went around asking and Jared just happened to be who we bumped into. He was sitting with a couple other guys. Of course, Jared had some winterfresh gum, and pulled it out of his pocket and gave us pieces. Now, this next part could be laughable to some, but from the bottom of my heart the minute I laid eyes on Jared.......I knew. This is weird, I know, but seriously at the time, being so young, I felt so connected to him, again like I just knew this was someone who was going to be in my life. I can remember everything about that night, from what Jared was wearing, to how I immediately felt toward him and being on the bus going home thinking how weird I was for thinking this way. Am I sounding psycho yet?? Its okay, when I talk to Jared about that night, he thinks I'm weird too. Anyway, thats how we met and I haven't stopped thinking about him ever since. Of course we wouldn't start dating for about 3 years after that due to age, which is a whole other very long and complicated story. But I can remember a couple years later before we started dating, praying one night, saying to God how I knew there was something special about Jared and I just couldn't put it all together but I was asking Him to prepare us for each other if we were meant to be husband and wife.
Its funny now when I look back, because I will run into other girls I was in youth with back then who I haven't seen in forever and they can remember how I used to say I was going to marry Jared Jones, and that I actually did. Love is just so funny sometimes, you grow up thinking you have to date all these guys to find the right one, and some people do, and then there are others who meet one person and thats it for the rest of your life. God is so good in all situations.

Anyway, 5 years after we had dated we decided it was time, so we got married and the rest is history. Jared and I look back on our first year of marriage and remember how easy it was.....you know just us two. I don't think I could have gotten any happier our first year, life was just easy, I got a million butterflies in my stomach driving back from Tuscaloosa everyday just thinking how I get to spend the night with Jared, living in our very first house, washing Jared's clothes as a wife, cooking dinner together, all our first holidays, grocery shopping together, our emergency room trip when Jared damaged my foot during a game of "trust", sleeping in every Saturday and then waking up and going to eat breakfast, and finding out we were pregnant with our first baby girl. Jared and I never struggled with that "adjusting to living with another person" thing. We had a blast and were glued at the hip. I owe him the biggest hug for making all my dreams come true. When your a little girl, you picture a fairytale and I truly got mine. From the moment I met him, to our wedding day, our amazing honeymoon in NYC and even 5 years later I look at him and think......is he really MY husband?
I haved loved Jared for 13 years, and I thought I couldn't love him anymore than I did on our wedding day, but I do. Now, don't get me wrong here, we have had our times when we have wanted to put each other in a choke-hold but I can say that our marriage is at its finest right now because God has complete control over our marriage and our lives. He is center of attention and that makes this marriage so sweet. Praying with my husband at night is one of the things I look forward to the most during the day. We are so rich in blessings, and give all credit to our Maker.

To the sweetest man who walked the planet, who understands me and yet still loves me, who I have 2 precious daughters with, who makes me laugh so hard I cry, who goes to EVERY Dr. appt with me, who scratches my back, who has given me a reason to be excited about growing older.............Happy Anniversary, I love you Jared with all my heart, I truly always have.


okay, everybody can go barf now :)

School Day, School Day

Okay, I posted a blog back to back, but hey I actually had some down time so why not? Well, Sittre Paige started K3, I am okay with this, I teared up a couple times her first day, it was just a bittersweet feeling. She is now going to be in school for the next, 15 years. Of course, she can't get enough of it and asks me everyday if she can go to school. I don't see this happening alot as she gets older. she goes on tuesday and thursday from 9-2, which gives me great time to spend with the baby. I am excited about her learning, making new friends, and trying to stay on the green light. Yes, the discipline system is the red light- green light. Red of course means, she didn't have such a great day, and green means she is doing what she is suppose to. As of right now she has remained on the green, but my dad has informed me that when she does happen to get on the red light to not be too upset since, in his words, "I owned the red light". Again dad, I apologize for being a social child.

First Day of K3, she was ready to start posing for the camera. When she got in the car after her first day I asked what she did that day, and she responded ever so excitedly...."we played and went to the POTTY.....they have red, blue and purple POTTY MOM!" I am assuming these are the colors in the bathroom??? I don't know for sure but apparently she enjoyed her bathroom break.

With her backpack and lunchbox. we love pink.

another pose

This was her "Meet the Teacher Day" We went to meet her teacher Mrs. Ashley. She is so super sweet and Sittre Paige says she is beautiful! She got to meet some of her classmates this day and they made ladybug cookies and played with playdoh. Her class theme is "ladybugs". I signed up for Head Room Mom.....I know I am a dork, I can't help it.

On Labor Day, we went to visit our friends Lauren and John and have lunch, they got married in April and they now live in Prattville. We decided it would be a good day to visit the newlyweds. It was nice to talk with my best bud in person and not over the phone. I think we could talk for days!! She took these pictures of the girls in the collage. I personally think she is missing her calling and should totally be a photographer. She is an amazing picture taker. We had such a great time with them, I miss her so much and wait for the day she is back in Birmingham....fingers crossed.

On our way down to Prattville, we stopped by Peach Park and got some ice cream and enjoyed the outdoor swings. Stella also got her first taste of banana ice cream.....she almost took my hand off.

Swinging with my baby.

This is Stella in Sunday School, just thought I would post a picture of the princess in her sweet dress.